[Ecodharma] The Great Turning podcast, Episode one: Love and Loss

[Kokuu]

Episode one of Joanna Macy's podcast, The Great Turning.

Please feel free to listen and comment below on anything you found interesting.

https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/s1-ep1-we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Alina]

Thank you Kokuu for creating this space where we can share our thoughts and feelings about this moment in history we are all living in.

It was a very moving first episode, and the thing I can relate the most to was when Joanna explains how she realized that climate change was happening decades ago, how overwhelming that was for her.

I was born in 1980, so I grew up watching and listening to news about climate change, how it was "a disaster about to happen". But then everything seemed to continue "as always", so I guess I got used to it, to see it in the news and the movies, but that was it. I felt like it was something that would eventually happen, sometime, in the future.

Then in 2017 I moved to Texas with my family, and that summer we where under the cloud of Hurricane Harvey. I had never lived through a hurricane before, that was also something I had only seen in the news and movies. We were lucky to be far from the worst of it, safe all the time, but I had never seen so much rain, almost like a wall of water falling non stop for over 3 days. After that I started reading more about climate change, because the reporting about Harvey said it was a record breaking storm, the first to drop so much water. I started reading more and more about this until this article was published: The decade we almost stopped climate change
After reading it I've been simply scared, it made me realize it is happening now, not in the future. I'll live through it, and so will my children. Even writing that down feels chilling. The weather here has always been hot, but summers are getting hotter, the last 2 summers the temperatures reached 100F (37.8C) or more every day from June till August (usually only August would be that hot), it only really goes down around October-November. It's scary to think how it will be 10 years from now.

So the first episode felt like a relief in a way, at last there's something, the podcast, that addresses the feelings about all this directly. I really appreciated that they said that the podcast is not about hope, too many articles try to gloss it over as a way of ending the article, or are just all gloom, but there's not much addressing the fact that we'll need to face our pain about it, collectively, and do something about it if we are to do something about it at all.

Sorry to run long (and for all my gloom).

Gassho
Alina
stlah

[Doshin]

Thank you for this Kokuu.

This episode was very moving especially as they talk about impermanence, Joann’s mortality

Her sharing that she spent 15 months silenced by the future that may lay ahead but she didn’t want to share felt familiar. It reminded me of a quote I probably shared before…

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Aldo Leopold

I look forward to the next episode.

Doshin
Stlah

[Kokuu]

Yes, I was similarly moved by the talk of Joanna nearing the end of natural life, and also by her wish to remain in order to help people navigate what lies ahead. That feels like true bodhisattva aspiration, the wish to stay in the world to help all beings.

It turns out there is a bonus episode that I have not listened to yet: https://resources.soundstrue.com/pod...rning-podcast/

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Aldo Leopold

That is really true

[Kokuu]

So the first episode felt like a relief in a way, at last there's something, the podcast, that addresses the feelings about all this directly. I really appreciated that they said that the podcast is not about hope, too many articles try to gloss it over as a way of ending the article, or are just all gloom, but there's not much addressing the fact that we'll need to face our pain about it, collectively, and do something about it if we are to do something about it at all.

This very much feels like something Ecodharma is looking at, but you are right that many articles do gloss over it. We can all try to do something to prevent as much climatic and ecological damage as we are able, but there is no getting away from the fact that we are also going to have to face up to the damage already done and the consequences of that.

The Ecosattva course we are currently doing at One Earth Sangha talks about this journey being one we take with the Earth being like a sick relative (or at least the Earth's ecosystems). They may get better, they may not, but our role is to be with them through the process. Feeling our own grief, and fluctuations of hope and fear, is part of that journey.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jenny A]

The Ecosattva course we are currently doing at One Earth Sangha talks about this journey being one we take with the Earth being like a sick relative (or at least the Earth's ecosystems). They may get better, they may not, but our role is to be with them through the process. Feeling our own grief, and fluctuations of hope and fear, is part of that journey.

Yes. The only way I know to process my own grief and "the fluctuations of hope and fear" is to write about them:


Gone

the scream
of a red-tailed hawk
over the wood
where dozers wait—
my silent cry an echo

the giraffe
earns a place
on the Red List—
Gaia’s ghost
haunts my dreams

stacking stones
to build a cairn . . .
balancing
Earth’s bones,
I awaken to vertigo

fifty years
from discovery
to extinction—
a Pagan reed-warbler
sings in my heart

4% survived
the Permian extinction,
giving rise
to all that lives . . .
and to my flightless hope

~Ribbons 13:1, Winter 2017



jenny
stlah

[Doshin]

That is a nice poem Jenny.

Kokuu, you did an excellent summary of the Ecosattva course. Thank you.

My personal journey started over 50 years ago as a student of ecology. I thought at the first Earth Day my generation would solve the environmental crisis since in my country various legislation was passed that addressed environmental concerns. Universities were upping their ecological training to produce professionals that could fix things. And much has been improved but somethings (eg climate change and biodiversity loss) have worsened. My great optimism subsided over the many decades because of an understanding that greed and ignorance were strong forces. I learned that political might trumped biological right. When I went back to school mid career to work on a PhD I minored in political science because the biology part of my training was not then limiting factor in applying conservation. Here I stand in my mid 70s taking some solace in understanding that the world has been here before but recovered and renewed its biodiversity but over the span of millions of years. Just a blink in the long history of Earth. But my heart still aches bearing witness to the loss unfold and my thoughts of what the future will bring to all that follow. I much related to Joanna’s experiences she shared.

With that brief summary of my state of mind I still kindle hope. Things will get worse before hopefully reaching a slowing down of loss. Everyone born after me will come into a world not as biologically diverse as the one I grew up in. I use the word Hope purposely because that has helped sustain me in my half century of trying to protect and restore the land for the myriad of species. I have been told that hope is dualistic thinking and I should let go and not give up but resolve to be part of the change. I am but a beginner in Buddhist understanding and still trying to adjust my perspective to that advice.

Sorry for the length of telling my journey but the podcast and good thoughts above led me to sharing.

Doshin
Stlah

[Tairin]

I think this is going to be a tough listen. The very personal discussion between Joanna and Jessica about the future was very frank. I think it will make our collective peril very real.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Shigeru]

I hope I'm allowed to just jump in here! I thought it was a very powerful and moving episode. This served as my introduction to Joanna as I've not participated in Ecodharma before. I thought her perspective on nearing the end of her life was very beautiful, that her biggest grief was that she wouldn't be able to be here and help out when things get tougher, but she'll still in some capacity be able to help through the work that she has done and the love that she has put into it. I especially agree with the point that the situation and crisis we're facing isn't something you get cheered up from, and you should be sober about the facts, but we can still find strength in and help each other and our communities to face the challenges that are coming. Personally, I think a lot about the climate and what's coming. I've stopped hoping for changes not to come, and oriented myself more on how I may be of service when they do come. I'm looking forward to listening moving forward

Gassho
Satlah