4 Comments

Jessica, thanks for your newsletters. It's definitely true that information alone is not translating into sufficient action. At the same time, the anxiety for people who are well informed can be a heavy burden.

Accordingly, my focus for the past 2 years has been on skill building and communication among actively engaged people. My way to do that was to build a Toastmasters club that meets on two Saturdays each month on Zoom.

This was a good way to keep building connections during the pandemic while allowing participants to build skills in more mindful and self-aware communication. It's also simply a good way for people to have fun and to feel good about having fun, which is very healthy.

Please share information about Green/Vert Toastmasters if you can, and plan to visit. It would be great to have you speak about the work of an eco-theologian.

More info online at https://greenTMvert.ca, including the Zoom link

April 1st at 11 AM we will have a special guest speaker:

Jake Cole "How clean is the air that you breathe?"

Guests are always invited to take part in "Table Topics", an impromptu speaking exercise on a "surprise" topic. The goal is to speak for at least one minute but not more than two minutes.

Thanks for everything you are doing!

James M.

Expand full comment

Hi James, thank you for sharing. There are so many ways for us to channel our energy and anxiety into useful skill training.

I'd be happy to come speak. Send me an email to: jessica@jessicahetherington.ca, and we can find a time.

Expand full comment

Thanks for providing reflections on the IPCC report and a spiritual perspective. I have been looking out for guidance from spiritual leaders and groups like The Work That Reconnects about how to handle the ecological crisis and find support lacking. Thich Nhat Hanh talked briefly about a possible end of the world in less than 50 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAoQQFV0yiY

I attended a Climate Justice Organizing HUB grief circle last night with people who were alternately hopeful and then heartbroken and despairing, terrified and angry. I talked about my at-times unbearable grief and anger related to the almost 70% decline in animals in the world since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

I hope we can help ourselves find the courage to face our somatic, emotional and spiritual responses to the slowly unfolding apocalpse and "imagine the future we want to live in, and the future we want to pass on, and every day do something to reel the dream closer to reality" (as you quote from “Onward”).

Expand full comment

Thank you for sharing, Edelweiss. This really is work that we cannot do alone, because how could we bear the weight of our grief (and rage and fear) without others to help us bear it? Thank you also for the link to Thich Nhat Hanh's video.

Expand full comment