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“Young urban shepherd Lukas Janssens guides his flock among the graves in Schoonselhof, one of Belgium’s iconic cemeteries, knowing sheep are kinder to nature than lawnmowers.

“Limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to climate change, and promoting biodiversity are two key goals of De Antwerpse Stadsherder — The Antwerp City Shepherd — Janssens’ company of one human and 270 sheep.

“‘We won’t stave it off with a flock of sheep,’ Janssens said of global warming. ‘But it is another step to build an more ecological society.’ … Janssens is one of many who have taken on a very personal commitment to do something, along with those who refuse to fly, adapt their personal diet or stay off school to protest on Fridays.”

Don’t you just just love this! I read it in today’s paper. (“After UN climate report, individuals seek to do their part“; Raf Casert, Associated Press; published in Daytona Beach News-Journal Aug 17, 2021.)

And on Facebook yesterday, I “met” a guy in the UK who has a business called The Trim Reapers. For a modest hourly fee, Matthew and friends “provide scything services for meadows, orchards, verges, banks, scrubby areas, and the like. Without the use of fossil fuels and creating only gentle and pleasant sounds.”

Whether it’s creating a climate-aware business or changing a personal habit, we can all get in on the positive shift. We have to keep putting pressure on companies and political leaders, always. But personal actions add up and help create the favorable atmosphere for the change we seek at the corporate and political level.

Yesterday I replaced another few square feet of turfgrass in a client’s yard with tall native grasses and a flowering chive. It feels like slow going but every bit makes a visual difference in the neighborhood, by helping to shift the norm.

And I downloaded and shared, with several thousand people on social media, this beautiful concise PowerPoint presentation on the value of native landscapes. It’s by Florida native-gardening advocates Ginny Stibolt and Marjory Shropshire, and is one of many free downloads available on the resources page of Florida Native Plant Society’s website. (Though the publications are aimed at a Florida audience, the eco concepts and visual design principles are broadly applicable.)

Recently, a friend who lived in an HOA started drying her clothes on a clothesline. She had thought clotheslines were against the HOA rules, but when she read the fine print, it turned out they are allowed. She was thrilled.

When she asked me about ideas for next steps, I suggested she write a short article on her clothesline success and the benefits of sun-drying clothes, and submit it to her HOA newsletter and post it on NextDoor.

Onward … What are you working on? Got any successes you’d like to share?

Also please feel free to share your struggles. I struggle with plastic-packaged food; I find it almost impossible to avoid.

Gardens can be divided into objectives or purposes:

• Climate gardening (heat mitigation, stormwater absorption, drought-flood buffer, shade)

• Biodiversity gardening (habitat for pollinators and other wildlife)

• Food gardening (food, herbs, medicine for humans)

• Gardening for ornamental purposes only.

The last type of gardening — strictly ornamental — has gotten humanity into a lot of trouble.

Fortunately, any of the other types of garden can also provide beauty.

Another bit of good news is that the various types of garden can mix or overlap. For example, a food/medicinal garden for humans can also provide forage and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife. Native trees and shrubs can provide shade for tender annual vegetables. And, even in a native-plant garden designed strictly to support wildlife biodiversity, some of the plants are most likely edible to humans.

And, all of the above types of garden can serve to reduce heat, absorb stormwater, and mitigate drought-flood extremes.

All while giving sanctuary, education, and joy to the human visitors.

• “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.