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Hello again , how are you doing?
As I write, the UK is sweltering in an extreme heat wave, with temperatures of around 40 degrees. This has never happened here before, and if anyone still doubts the reality of climate change, surely this will give them pause.
When it's happening to somebody else, somewhere else, it's easy to think, it's not urgent. But now it's here, and it is.
So I'll continue with going through some of the approaches that seek to respond to this situation, and hope you will find something that speaks to you. Naturally this will be different for each person, but everyone can do something. Every little helps, as they say in the shops!
Reconciliation/Reconnection 4
We've been looking in turn at each of the 4Rs of Deep Adaptation which considers ways we might best live with what's coming, and today we are having another look at Reconciliation and Reconnection.
We've talked about several aspects of this during the year and today I am thinking about Beauty. This might seem a strange topic in this context but bear with! Not just the beauty that we perceive, in say a landscape, a flower, a sunset, the face of a child, but also the beauty that we create by our own actions.
This could be in music, painting, crafts, sculpture, writing and more. When we create beauty it is as if we are connected to something greater than ourselves, that transcends our individuality and that helps us see we really are part of 'something bigger'. An example for me is that recently I took up sewing again, and to get myself in practice I made a small
quilt. It's not perfect, you can see stitches where they should be hidden, but every time I look at it I feel satisfaction in the shapes and in the thought, that one day maybe it will cover a child who needs it.
I am thinking of joining a sewing group, and then I will have personal connection as well! What might it be for you, that you could take up again?
More on the Great Turning
We've been looking at aspects of the Great Turning, as identified by Joanna Macy; i.e. 'holding actions'; analysis and alternatives; a radical shift in consciousness.
A profound aspect of The Great Turning is what we might call a shift in consciousness. There are any number of more or less reliable, more or less esoteric ways of doing this, but I'm focussing on how Joanna Macy sees it. Fundamentally, it's about how
will we relate to our planetary home? Will we see it as a provider of resources that we can plunder as we wish, to fund our unsustainable lives? Or will we, as most societies have done throughout human history, live in harmony so that the Earth and all its inhabitants, human and non human, may thrive?
There is a growing consensus even among scientists that we are all profoundly connected, that the idea of the individual is deeply questionable, that the reductionist approach of doing science produces only dismemberment - you cannot take apart a living being to see what it is made of and hope to understand how it 'works'. Living is how it works! And we
can even see the Earth as a whole living system - this is the idea of Gaia.
It's one of my hundreds of Kindle books that I have started, and thinking about it now as I write, I am minded to really concentrate on it and finish it.
Hope you enjoy it too!
Well that's it for today, . If there’s something else you’re seriously interested in, let me know by replying to this email and
I’ll do my best to find out about it for you. Why not also keep in touch with me on my main list too: go here (updated links) to subscribe safely. As ever, you can see previous issues of this newsletter in the archive here, to better appreciate the context. You can subscribe there too if you haven't already. (Tip: All best viewed in landscape if you're on your mobile.)
Meanwhile, please spread the word and share this email, as it's so urgent now. Stay well, keep safe, and I'll be in touch again in a couple of weeks, mostly the first and third Mondays of each month.
All best wishes, Barbara
If you don't already know me, you might be wondering who I am and what moves me to create this series. Well, I am an accredited executive and personal Coach,
which basically means I help people to think deeply about their own personal situations and then to act on their thinking.
I have a particular interest in well-being, resilience and effectiveness, and in recent years I've become personally and shockingly aware of the climate emergency and related issues. I'm not a climate or sustainability expert - just a very concerned human.
And so, with many coaching colleagues, including Synergy Global, I want to do what I can to spread information, inspire hope and encourage action. See the buttons above for more.
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