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• “What Is Deep Adaptation? The Four R’s” (Deep Adaptation Forum). “Deep Adaptation offers four questions to help guide our inquiry into what kind of adaptation may be appropriate for our lives: Resilience: what do we most value that we want to keep, and how? Relinquishment: what do we need to let go of so as not to make matters worse? Restoration: what could we bring back to help us with these difficult times? Reconciliation: with what and whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our mutual mortality? With these ideas – and with the values of compassion, curiosity, and respect – we are embarking on a collaborative journey of understanding.”

• Deep Adaptation Facebook group. “A place for sharing information on our outer and inner deep adaptation to unfolding societal breakdown due to climate change. First, on emotional, psychological, and spiritual implications. Second, on our knowledge of practical means to support wellbeing during (and ahead of social breakdowns). … Collective action in a spirit of compassion is particularly welcomed, rather than defensive prepping for conflict.”

• Deep Adaptation Forum (deepadaptation.info website). “Embodying and enabling loving responses to our predicament. Connecting people, in all spheres of life, to foster mutual support and collaboration in the process of anticipating, observing, and experiencing societal disruption and collapse.”

• “The Love in Deep Adaptation” (JemBendell.com) “As we see more pain in the world, and sense that it will get worse, it is possible that we will shrink from it. It is easier to consider other people’s pain as less valid as one’s own pain or that of the people and pets we know. But there is another way. The suffering of others presents us with an opportunity to feel and express love and compassion. Not to save or to fix, but to be open to sensing the pain of all others and letting that transform how we live in the world. It does not need to lead to paralysis or depression, but to being fully present to life in every moment, however it manifests. This approach is the opposite of othering and arises from a loving mindset, where we experience universal compassion to all beings. It is the love that our climate predicament invites us to connect with. It is the love in deep adaptation.“

“Researcher Brene Brown told a story about a village where all the women washed clothes together down by the river. When they all got washing machines, there was a sudden outbreak of depression and no one could figure out why.”

“It wasn’t the washing machines in and of themselves. It was the absence of time spent doing things together. It was the absence of community.” (Basudha Modak, worldpulse.com)

In the comments section below that article, one person said she had washed clothes in the river when she was growing up. “We always looked forward to Saturday mornings to go wash our clothes.”

Along similar lines: In my first Permaculture Design Certificate course (back in 2005; taught by Scott Pittman), Scott told us about a village where the houses got running water so the people were “saved” from having to go fetch water from the village well. The problem with this improvement? It removed the main channel by which young people met and formed friendships; fell in love.

Also: I wonder if garage-door openers have led to a reduction in neighborly conversations? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Not to say that modern conveniences are bad in themselves; just to point out that such modernizations can have unintended consequences on personal and community wellbeing. Once we notice such consequences, we might be able to find ways to bring the community element back in.

In a society that often seems to have built itself around not feeling our feelings (and in fact gaslighting or otherwise invalidating those who do), a critical mass of people not seem to be becoming aware that not only are our feelings “valid and OK to have,” but furthermore, they are a precious resource.

Feelings are a moral compass; a bullshit detector; a portal to higher awareness.

The sharpest minds in the world might as well be dead chunks of manufactured hardware, if those people have not also been taught to listen to their feelings.

Today I’m starting a digest post of articles about the great value of various emotions that our consumerist-colonialist-“toxic-positive” society typically derides as “weak” or “negative.” Being able to identify one’s feelings and sit with them is a strength not a weakness.

How many forests and wetlands and would not have been flattened, how many of our fellow beings both human and nonhuman would not have been displaced or slaughtered, if more of us who were born into the consumer-colonialist culture, but know better, had been more insistent about owning our feelings and voicing them? Well, we can’t go back in time, but we can start now.

Further Exploration:

• “Reflecting on impermanence is not meant to make us miserable. But without that sorrow of knowing nothing will last, we will never get anywhere on our path. Sadness makes it possible for us to gain something that is much more precious than anything we could imagine. That is why we must contemplate impermanence. If there were nothing to gain, it would be foolish to think about these things—we would just be making ourselves miserable for no reason. But there’s a deep meaning to it all. When it dawns on us what the world is actually like, and we are consequently struck by overwhelming sadness, the next step comes naturally. We draw the logical conclusion that all things are impermanent and begin training in letting go.” (“The Secret Strength of Sadness“; Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche in tricycle.org .)

• Resources for Working With Climate Emotions (a collaboration between Gen Dread and the All We Can Save Project). “The IPCC Sixth Assessment report that was published on Monday has rocked a lot of souls, including many who weren’t previously all that shook about our warming planet. The process of realizing the dire track of climate catastrophe we are on understandably rouses painful and even despairing emotions. This is ultimately a good thing because we all need to feel about this crisis and not only think about it, if we are going to burst through our defenses that otherwise thwart action.” (Visit the page for list of resources.)

• Reading how other activists are reacting to the situation can be helpful. “6 Environmental Activists Respond to IPCC Climate Change Report” (Emma Lowe; mindbodygreencom)

• Emotional Support in Face of Climate Tragedy (JemBendell.com) “Many people feel very lonely in their experience of facing the reality of climate emergency and its unfolding impact on people and planet. Therefore, here are some links to resources that I have found helpful, as they enable you to get in touch with others.”

(Stay tuned for more links; I’ve come across some great ones lately and am digging them up for you! Also feel free to email me, for possible inclusion here, your favorite articles or other resources on the value of feelings, especially “difficult” ones such as anger, grief, and so on.)

In Part 1 of this post, I point out that everyday people have great power to shape our culture. How? Through aesthetics. We the people (and our wallets) define what’s considered cool and beautiful! And that’s a force stronger than any government policy can ever be.

But how can an everyday person (who doesn’t have tons of social-media followers etc.) possibly help to shape society’s definitions of what’s cool and beautiful?

How? Through conversation!

But how, though? Many of us eco-spirited folk have tried to persuade our fellow humans to make green choices. And not only have we failed to persuade them, but sometimes we’ve even ended up alienating friends and family members.

But, how often have we used aesthetics as a talking point? Myself, I have only recently stumbled on this gold-mine.

Here are some examples I thought of, how a green-minded person can casually drop a comment about aesthetics. Casually, matter-of-factly, as if we were voicing a respectable, solidified, usually-unquestioned mainstream cultural norm. (In realtime conversation, in letters, on social media, or whatever.)

• “Look at that beautiful yard! There’s so much shade and so many different plants!”

• “Disposable plastic cups and plates are really tacky and take away from the dining-out experience, don’t you think? Let’s go someplace that uses real glassware and dishes.”

• “A lot of the new clothes I see in stores are really cheap-looking. The vintage clothes I get from thrift stores are so much better made, and nicely tailored.”

• “I just don’t find that straight-edged, manicured kind of landscaping attractive at all. It feels uptight.”

• “That house looks naked with no trees around it.”

• “Those cases of plastic bottled water they sell at the store are so ugly. And what a pain to carry them home! And who wants to drink plastic-encased water? And then later the bottles end up as trash on the beach!”

• “I love my cute refillable water bottle.”

• “Noise and lights from electric appliances and electronic gadgets are jarring to me. I try to keep as few of those things in my house as possible, and I always unplug them when I go to bed at night.”

• “That lawn service sounds like a chainsaw massacre, and the fumes are terrible!”

• “Big cars look clunky to me. Give me a cute little tiny pod-car any day — or better yet, a bicycle!”

• “Driving to a place that’s just down the block is so uncool; everyone I know is getting into skateboarding or walking!”

• “When I moved to an outdoorsy place with a super humid climate, I started to feel strange about wearing makeup. It looked out of place, and felt uncomfortable in hot weather, so I stopped wearing makeup.”

• “Ugh, that bathroom!” <looking at a cavernous marbled monstrosity in a real-estate listing or home-reno show> “Could it be any more garish?”

• “I wouldn’t even want my whole house to be that big, let alone just the bathroom!”

• “Sun-dried sheets and pillowcases smell the best!”

• My arms are looking more toned since I started hanging my laundry up to dry. Who knew a clothesline could be fitness gear!”

• “I prefer the flavor of life without air-conditioning, for the same reason I prefer the flavor of a peach at natural temperature to a peach that’s been in the refrigerator.” (I actually did write this some years back, in a Yahoo email forum, in response to someone who asked, “Why would anyone want to live without air conditioning?”)

(Of course, negative words like “uncool” or “ugly” can end up making people feel shamed for their preferences, so it might be best to only use those kinds of words in likeminded company, as a way of socially reinforcing “green” subcultural norms within our in-groups. And when talking with more mainstream folks, focus only on positive attributes of things: “cute”; “stylish”; “classy”; etc.)

What other examples can you think of?

People tend to look to “the government” as the entity that has the power to create a sustainable culture, by enacting laws and policies.

In fact, however, it is we the everyday people who hold most of the power to shape our culture. How? Through aesthetics. We the people define what’s considered cool and beautiful! And that’s a force stronger than any government policy can ever be.

No, none of us can singlehandedly do this (unless maybe you’re a YouTube influencer with like a kajillion followers), but all of us participate in creating and reinforcing the aesthetic standards of the world around us.

One of my favorite permaculture design teachers and systems-thinkers, Mike Hoag of Transformative Adventures, made a great post today about the power of aesthetics.

Mike writes:

“Looking at the world today it is still aesthetic sensibility which most shapes society. Why do people drive gas-guzzling SUVs? An aesthetic sensibility. Why do we own cars in the first place instead of just using public transportation? Aesthetic sensibility. Why do we live in ever-growing sprawling houses made of cheap energy-intensive materials that contribute to climate change? Aesthetic sensibility. Why do we buy a never ending stream of made-for-the-landfill corporate junk we don’t need? Aesthetic sensibility. Pollute the oceans with 7 layers of packaging on everything we buy? No reason other than appearances.”

Go here to see the full text of Mike’s post, as well as the excellent graphic that accompanies it. Mike’s graphic is adapted from one of my favorite books, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by the late Donella Meadows (another of my alltime favorite systems-thinkers). Mike’s post reveals at a quick glance why so many of our social-change efforts fall short. And how we can be much, much more effective!

Further Reading:

• Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella Meadows; Chelsea Green Publishing.

• Donella Meadows website (donellameadows.org) — a vast wealth of information. It was Ms. Meadows’ writings that introduced me to the invaluable concept of “leverage points”: places to intervene in a system for maximum effectiveness.

Climate change report from IPCC a “code red for humanity,” United Nations chief warns (Michael Slezak & Penny Timms; abc.net.au)

“Key points:

• Global warming would likely increase to 1.5C by about 2030, the IPCC report says, based on our current trajectory

• The effects of rising temperatures include rising sea levels, longer fire seasons and worse droughts

• In 2015, as part of the Paris Agreement, all governments had agreed to try to stop warming at 1.5C”

And UN Report on Climate Change Gives Warning (Doyle Rice, USA Today; published in Daytona Beach News-Journal Aug 10, 2021):

“Calling it ‘code red for humanity,’ the landmark report was released in Geneva by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Many of the changes seen in the world’s climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years, and some of the changes already set in motion – such as a rise in sea levels – are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years, according to the report.

“Wild weather events, such as storms and heat waves, are expected to worsen and become more frequent. …

“‘If this IPCC report doesn’t shock you into action, it should,’ said Helen Mountford of the World Resources Institute, a research nonprofit organization. ‘The report paints a very sobering picture of the unforgiving, unimaginable world we have in store if our addiction to burning fossil fuels and destroying forests continues. One of the most striking takeaways is that we may reach 1.5°C of warming a decade earlier than the IPCC had previously found.'”

According to Doyle in the article I quoted above, the International Panel on Climate Change report is 3,000 pages long and was prepared by 234 scientists.

Here is the page on IPCC’s website where you can view summaries and download the full report.

Dr. Jenny (Jenny Lloyd Strovas of NatureMattersAcademy.com) had a very interesting guest and topic on her “Nature Wednesdays” podcast yesterday: Jason Kolaczkowski talked about “Letting Nature Teach Us To Take Calculated Risks.”

Jason’s advice focused on helping kids (specifically, “gifted and talented” kids) to develop resilience by taking them outdoors and supporting them in taking calculated risks.

On this topic, Jason (an outdoor instructor and the father of twin 6-year-olds) writes:

“Resilience has been well documented as a key contributor to physical and emotional development, self-actualization, and even more traditional notions of success. Yet, gifted and talented children are uniquely at risk for under-developing resilience. Gifted and talented children are far more prone to be perfectionists and perfectionists are far more prone to avoid failure. This can manifest as task avoidance and fall into destructive feedback loops due to the positive reinforcement gifted and talented children receive in other, less challenging spheres of activity. Through his own upbringing, Jason had seen various gifted and talented children have widely divergent experiences, with he and some of his peers excelling academically and socially while others floundered until much later in life (or are still floundering). Jason chalks up a primary cause of the difference in outcomes to those who sought challenges and came to terms with failure and those who did not.”

Reading Jason’s words struck a deep chord in me (as did the title of the event itself — which is why I signed up). Some of my thoughts:

• This so describes me. Not just as a kid, but as an adult. “Task-avoidance.” I never heard it put that way before, but I don’t think there’s a better description of my tendency to hang back from my goals of writing books, and making art, and planting plants, and organizing good stuff in my community. I really have to prod myself to do these and other “active” things. My natural inclination is to sit around reading novels all the time. Or finding a cabinet to de-clutter, or a floor to sweep. Or (the professional version) reading yet another article or attending yet another webinar related to climate change, stormwater management, urban revitalization, etc. Of course it’s good to keep up with developments in one’s occupational sphere. As a sustainability educator, I do need to, well, educate myself about sustainability! And that is a never-ending thing. But there’s a point where I can feel myself erring on the side of just consuming knowledge and then sort of sitting on it, rather than going out in the world and applying it to help solve the problems I want to help solve. After my Mom passed, one of the things I inherited was all of my old report cards. A teacher back when I was 8 or 9 wrote something along the lines of, “It’s great that Jennifer likes to read stories so much. I would like to see her write more.” (Over the years, fortunately, I have built up a sort of “energizer and motivational toolkit” for myself, thanks to many great thinkers and teachers, most definitely including Nature herself. So I have made progress in this regard. I think I never could have come so far if my parents had not gotten me (and my siblings) out in nature from the time we were very little.)

• While under-developed resilience, and task-avoidance, may be more characteristic of kids labeled “gifted and talented” than of kids not thus labeled, I think any child can fall prey to these dangers. And any adult! Particularly in our affluent, risk-averse society.

• In fact, I feel that “under-developed resilience” and “task-avoidance” are widespread in our society (mainstream, modern, industrial-colonialist-consumerist society). We have a risk-averse, and in many ways not-very-resilient society. I suspect that those attributes are strongly correlated with our disconnect from nature.

• Could obsessively neat lawns, pressure-washed driveways, and other excessive neatness be a manifestation of task-avoidance? As in, by engaging in a constant whirlwind of fussbudget busywork, we get to avoid the harder, failure-prone work that really needs to get done (such as putting our creative heads together to solve deep problems in our communities and the world)?

• Given the well-documented reality that our society suffers from disconnect from nature (I would even go so far as to say is characterized by disconnect from nature), the obvious “medicine” for people of all ages is to get out in nature more and let nature teach us to take calculated risks.

• Many of us adults need schooling, unschooling, re-schooling. I talk a lot about “Mother Earth’s Homeschool Planet.” We need to get out and let ourselves make small, low-risk actions out in nature, and learn from our mistakes (be they in a city park, a wilderness park, or in our own yard). It’ll make us more resilient to face and deal with the consequences of our (collective) very large mistakes. And will better equip us to nurture resilience in our kids (grandkids, surrogate kids, etc. etc.).

One of my main takeaways from Jason’s talk is the idea of pursuing activities with no determinant end point or point of “mastery.” And activities you don’t know for sure you’ll succeed at, but that it’s realistic to attempt.

A mini hike can ramp up to a longer hike. An overnight camping trip could be next, and a multi-night camping trip at some point after that. Although his mileu of choice is mountains and technical climbing, Jason emphasizes that we can find and create challenges anywhere.

He also talks about how parents can customize adventures for kids of differing temperaments. For example, if one of your kids likes to sit back and observe and know as much as possible in advance before trying something new, and the other kid likes to jump right into new things, no problem — let the second kid jump right in while the first kid watches.

You can check out the podcast and other related content at the links below. I hope you enjoy Jason Kolaczkowski’s chat with Dr. Jenny, and that it inspires you to take your kids (and yourself) on a mini adventure that stretches you.

One simple example for me would be taking the plunge and planting more fruit trees or native plants in my yard. While I hate it when something I plant dies (as happens!), at least the consequence of my “failure” at this point would not be actual starvation in my household or community. And the knowledge and experience I gain will boost my household and community’s resilience, as well as my own personal inner resilience.

Another example would be learning some more of my local wild edible plants. I know a few, but there’s always more to learn! (Note: “Calculated risk” in this case does NOT mean randomly tasting plants I don’t know!! I always consult local plant experts to learn about wild edibles.)

What about you? What are some calculated risks in nature that you might take to boost your resilience?

Update Aug 9 — additional thoughts:

• What if at least some of our collective addiction to “adventure” games and other electronic entertainment, might actually reflect a deficiency of meaningful calculated risk-taking and growth in our lives?

• Same with our addictive behavior with drugs, alcohol, junk food, and other substances. They provide an accessible and (seemingly) “safe” high, and don’t require as much effort as going out into the world and taking calculated risks.

• And could it be that we know on some level that the canned entertainment and “easy highs” are just a pale consolation prize for meaningful adventure?

Further Exploration:

• Jason’s family has a YouTube channel, Short Guys Beta Works, “where subscribers and the public get a weekly dose of outdoors experiences and education to help us all ‘get more out of that big outside!'” And the Short Guys Beta Works Facebook page is here.

• To follow Dr. Jenny’s podcasts and other content, join her Facebook group Help Your Smart & Gifted Kid Regulate & Learn STEM (in Nature) – w/Dr. Jenny. There, you can check out her past shows, including yesterday’s excellent interview with Jason Kolaczkowski.