Sampling of Conversation Topics

 

• Is deepening our relationship with the Earth and all wild life upon it one way to heal our habits of ecological destruction?   If so, how might we undertake that deepening? 
   

• What do we think are the psychological origins of our assault upon the Earth, with its stunning enormity and irrationality? 
   

• In what ways have we personally been impacted and perhaps changed by the climate disasters of the last several years? 
   

• What have been our experiences with wild animals, and what have they meant to us? 
   

• What of ourselves might we offer the Earth—which has everything—so it will murmur to itself, “Oh, here are the ones who know how to say thank you”? 
   

• ​Comment:  “The compassionate heart, on fire for the whole of creation, will come into its own when it fully embraces the ecological catastrophe we are inflicting on the world and begins to act not from guilt but from an unshakable and unlimited love.”​
   

• Do we believe the natural world speaks to us?   If we do, where do we go to listen, and what are we hearing?​
   

• To what extent has each of us been able to find places where our unique talents and characters are likely to help build the sustainable and bonded-with-the natural-world culture that we need?​​
   

• As white people, what practices do we have that help us reconcile with our history of destruction and displacement of indigenous peoples and their cultures?

   

• Comment:  “The leatherback sea turtle remained on the surface for several moments.  In those moments--her shell wetly silver in the moonlight--my universe was no longer mine alone.  It was ours.  With the turtle, I slipped beneath the smooth surface of the sea.”  
   

• Do all of the professions – medicine, law, education, government service, science, the arts - need to be realigned to reflect the primacy of the Earth?  If so, how might that realignment begin, and what would it look like?
   

• Does our mourning for the Earth's crisis perhaps require creating cultural forms that allow our grief to be communalized?  If so, what are some forms we might suggest for that process? 
   

• “If we hope to shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we have to create its moral equivalent” - William James.  Is the healing of our devastated planet that moral equivalent?
   

• Can we give voice to some stories that communicate our sense of loss about the destruction of life on Earth? 
   

• Increased awareness of the destruction of the natural world can take us into despair as well as into intense sorrow.  How can we cultivate whatever might be necessary to make room for our expanded identification with all of life? 
   

• Comment:  “Despair can touch us, but it can't hold us for long because we love, and therefore we hope.” 
   

• What can be the collective dream—something we're deeply invested in emotionally—that will enable us to navigate the future, and how shall we collectively nurture that dream? 
   

• Does our technology-saturated world exacerbate our need for psychic numbing about the Earth's crisis and simultaneously offer us that numbing in handy form?  If it does, what measures do we take to prevent that from occurring?

 

• As we become aware of apocalyptic possibilities, does it become more difficult for us to keep our minds open to good scenarios?  What can we do to facilitate hope?
   

• What's so important about us sitting here talking about our relationship to the Earth's climate emergency when we should be out there doing something to alleviate it?