So this will be a blog about living in relationship with Earth: politically, emotionally/socially, and also spiritually. But most importantly it will be about moving out of an old dominator, industrialized, capitalist, colonizer paradigm of "dominion over" the earth, into a new paradigm on being part of a living Earth system of which we are both dependent and integrated. It is about coming back into intimate and intentional relationship with, or as Robin Wall Kimmerer says, into reciprocality.
I want to share with you some of my own journey and acknowledge the folks that have heavily influenced it. I am a life long Quaker and also activist. Quakers have testimony's on non-violence, simplicity, equality, integrity, community and earth care. So all of these are values that have informed my journey. I have been an activist for social justice issues and so as such have not come to climate change work as an environmentalist as many of my peers have. It was not out of the love of nature, but rather the love of people that I came to fight for our planet's survival. But interestingly what has happened is it has brought me into a deeper and deeper love of nature, and for a born and raised city girl, back into relationship with the land. For hard core environmentalists some of what I will have to say will sound obvious or like nothing new. I suspect for other non-environmentalists it will make useful connections and new ways of thinking about the situation.
I met Joanna Macey when I was 22 and for those of you who don't know her she is a Buddhist, whole systems thinker, eco-feminist who has for decades invited us to see our grief for the world, move into it so we can open our hearts to our activism. Joanna's idea that we must start with gratitude, move into our grief for the world, see the world through new and ancient eyes, and move into action - you will see woven into my work. I also read Strategy for a Living Revolution (Out now as Towards a Living Revolution) by George Lakey, a Quaker non-violent activist when I was 20 and it has transformed forever how I think about social change. When I was 21 I was also trained by Elise Boulding, the founder of Peace Studies in America, to facilitate the Imaging a World Without War workshops - which I have for the last decade done as Imaging a Sustainable Planet workshops. This approach invites us to catch our image of a planet and society in health and to by going backwards from the image (rather than trying to push from our stuck present into the future) to see how such a future is created. This also empowered me from my youth to have vision for a better world. Finally now as I turn 60 I have been gift to both hear Robin Wall Kimmerer speak and to read her transformative book Braiding Sweetgrass. I have also been gifted to do climate work with a number of local Native American Climate Activists who have taught me much about seeing the Earth through non dominating eyes.
In looking for the right title to name this blog I wanted to talk about being in a whole system relationship with Earth - one that recognizes all we receive from nature and the planet itself, and thus our obligation to protect Earth. A title that would reflect the reciprocal relationship we are in together, the kinship we are in with all living things, without appropriating any of Robin's thinking. This name came to me and seemed perfect. Later I started hearing music in my head and googled and sort of laughed to see that "We're living on a living planet, circling a living Star" is actually a line from the song Living Planet from one of my favorite groups; Emma's Revolution. So my hats off to them as well.
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