- Move to where you can better protect your family;
- Help the people and ecosystem there;
- “Find some way to make joy no matter what.”
Today I enjoyed listening to the May 13, 2024 YouTube “Jem Bendell reflects on a year since the release of ‘Breaking Together’ by Good Works.” For me, the best part begins at 7:22 on the timeline where he notes, “Since March 2023 the world’s climate also has gone particularly bonkers [ . . . . ] It’s quite scary. You know, average ocean temperatures leaping up, and global average air temperatures jumping about half a degree celsius in about a year, in the last 12 months, and that’s something that took 500 years to occur before according to [ . . . ] reconstruction of ancient climates. So finally, the head of the relevant NASA Department on Climate, Gavin Schmidt, has admitted that none of this was predicted, at least not by them. But it’s too scary for many to look at this so some pretend still that technology will magically save us, and while others are now pretending it’s all a hoax by a bunch of global bogeymen.” The rest of his video is also powerfully relevant.
For example, he shows Hungary as a useful model. He said at 12:55, “In Hungary where I just came back [from] they have 20,000 people in their [Deep Adaptation] Facebook Group, and it’s always in the media. There are regular meetings, lots of initiatives being created, and [they are] developing a program for teaching children basic skills. They are looking to grow more food locally. There’s quite a lot happening. Perhaps it’s happening in other countries, and not branded DA, but in Hungary it’s branded DA. And I was saying, the mass media report on it fairly, and top professionals like rectors of universities are on their morning national radio programs talking about their beliefs that environmental change is now breaking modern societies, and we can’t stop it. We have to respond.”
Curious about Bendell’s move from University of Cumbria in the UK to sponsoring an organic farm school in Indonesia, I read his April 21, 2024 post “How do I sustain myself in these times?” In his section “Sacred ceremony” he wrote, “The ceremonies help reconnect me with the joy and wonder of being alive, with how I wish and choose to be, and what to let go of. That would be important even without my perspective on societal collapse, but feels vital to help me avoid panicked or aggressive responses to our predicament. I also benefit from regular retreats from my normal life. In particular, I visit a Buddhist temple for a few days of silent meditation, fully offline, at least a few times a year, which I’ll say more about below.”
As I noted in my October 2, 2023 post, “I ran Climate Conversations for professors and students two years at one of the colleges where I taught.” In one of my last meetings before I retired in June 2022, I asked, “How do you practice self-care?”
Nearly 2 years after retirement, I practice self-care by responding to the moment, when possible, meaning deep listening to people, nonhuman animals, trees, and other living things. I walk along rivers reminding me the flow of life is moving as it was before I was born, and will long after I move on. In the morning I ask the Universe, “What do You want me to learn today? What do You want me to share? Who do You want me to be? What am I not seeing/feeling/understanding at the conscious and unconscious levels that could put me more aligned with You and Your ways?”
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