Living Between Worlds 4 7 — Standing in the eye

Foreign. Welcome everybody. This is Living between worlds for July 19, 2023. Living between worlds with grace, dignity and power. We're glad to have you here. We're going to start this month. We're going to start, as we often do, big picture and somewhat philosophical. But we want to get very practical today and very action focused. A lot of you who asked about that. We see an important relationship between the big picture and the specific, between the philosophical and the action. But we'll get more explicit there today. Let me first ask you, we offered some pre readings today. How many of you read the Rebecca Solnit article to show of hands real quick? So what's that about a third? Sounds like. I encourage you, if you can, to take a look at it. She is, to my mind, an extraordinarily insightful and perceptive and eloquent writer, thinker, analyst of the, of the current well, of the world we live in. Let me ask for those of you who read it, what mood did you find yourself in as you read it or after you read it? I don't want to, I don't want to invite a discussion now. We'll have time for that in a bit. But just a word or two characterizing your mood, not whether you agreed or disagreed, but just sort of where you were in, in the course of diving into that thing. Anybody?

Go ahead.

Well, I feel for me it really confirmed that all I need to see is a shred of hope that there's something in the future that we can get to. I don't want to hear about how hard it's going to be. It just fuels my determination. So it was extremely. She always fuels my, my feelings of hope and determination.

Open determination. Thank you. Somebody else. Manuel, need your mic on Manuel. Hope and action. Hope and action. Okay, good. And people, please, if you can use the zoom hand wave function because it's puts you into it, stacks you into a cube in order, helps us manage the flow better. George?

Yeah, I, as I, as I told you I have problems with the idea of hope. But Rebecca Solnit's work, you know, her book on paradise and emergency response.

That'S.

Really, really been useful to me and I appreciated her reiteration of that in the article.

Great, thank you for that. Solid. Has a different approach to hope than the common way that's used in this culture. So it's one of the reasons I encourage you to read it. Alistair? Yes, I was actually doubtful, maybe even not depressed.

But yeah, doubtful maybe of myself, you.

Know, or of response in general. Okay, thank You. Anyone else? One or two more and we'll go on.

Well, I don't find the raised hand in my reactions.

We'll take it. We'll take it.

I do have it.

Oh, go ahead, Go ahead. Calling on you. What, what, what mood did it provoke for you?

Well, I, having just been subject to a purge out of the group that I've been involved in for 14 years, my hope was definitely.

Under stress.

And I think she gave a good sense that keep the longer view and out of the distress can transform into better options. And I try and hold on to that.

Thank you. And thank you. Some of you are putting the mood in the chat. That's fine too. Feel free to do that if you'd rather not speak loud. Good. Okay. So, Heather.

For me it was a reminder to be careful of my attachment.

To expectations, good or bad. Right. Thank you. Very, very sobering. It's a picture of the depth of the unraveling that we are possibly facing, that he would argue that we are facing. We've talked from, from the beginning of these calls about the time between worlds where an old world, an old order is going away and a new one is coming and we don't know what it is and we're in the middle. And his is a deeply grounded validation of that and disturbing for me and, you know, supports the folks who say it's time to study collapsology, that it's just like, you know, boom, it's over. Nothing to do but pull up the ladders, hunker down, and do your best by yourself. But, you know, this is not the first time humans have lived through massive disruption and perhaps collapse of societies. People have lived in them and have lived through them through tumultuous and apocalyptic times. I heard last week on KPFA an interview with a writer named John Valent did a book called Fire Weather. And it's even for somebody like me who pays a lot of attention to climate issues, it was a chilling listen about the scale of the fire future that we're facing. He talked in particular about what happens when you build homes that have a lot of petroleum products in them. Vinyl siding, plastic furniture, synthetic countertops, et cetera. And when a firestorm approaches before the fire gets to the house from maybe a quarter mile away, there's a thousand degree heat front moving forward and that heat front reaches the houses and the petroleum products start to volatilize and they give off flammable gases. And at some point the house just goes and it's gone in three to Five minutes, an entire building down to the ground. There's that. So he. He's going through this litany of holy crap. And then at the end, said this, what I thought was remarkable. He think he said a remarkable thing. He said, what an amazing time to be alive. How thrilling it is that we're in a moment where we will have to reinvent everything. I thought, wow, what a way to frame it in the terror is an opportunity that doesn't come very often. A willingness to reinvent everything doesn't come very often across the bay from me. You know, 119 years ago, San Francisco went down to the ground in the 1904 earthquake, and it had to be rebuilt in its entirety. What does it look like to rebuild everything in its entirety, hopefully, before it goes down to the ground? So, you know, in that context, and I think this echoes what Solnit has said, hope is not a prediction. It's not a. It's not an. It's not a declaration that everything's going to be all right. It's a stance, it's an orientation. It's a way of being in the world, committed to something. It's a commitment, not a prediction. And as such, it's a kind of power. I will say, and we haven't talked about power for a while. It's there in the subtitle of this series, Living between worlds with grace and dignity and power. And power is a funny thing. Folks on the left don't like to talk about power very much. We are democratic. We don't like hierarchy. But power isn't just about power over. The physics definition of power is the ability to do work. It's power to the sociologist Michael Mann. Not the climatologist Michael Mann, but the sociologist Michael Mann, in his book Sources of Social Power, identifies four principal sources of power as being control over economic, ideological, military, and political resources. Some of those are out of our hands as individual people. Some of them are not. So let me stop there. I see a couple of hands. Let me just offer. The general question is, what does both the Solit reading and what I just spoke provoke for you in terms of mood, in terms of ideas, in terms of directions? Where do you want to go with this? We'll talk together for. Ken, what about 10 minutes? 10 or 12 minutes? Then we'll go into breakouts and dive a little bit deeper into some more specific questions. So I've got Mary and Stuart and all queued up. Mary, go ahead. Do you have. If you can turn your camera on, we'd Love to see you, but if not, it's okay. But do turn your mic on. Okay, Mary, we'll go on to Stuart and come back to you if you can get your mic going. Stuart?

Yeah.

I just wanted to quickly say the idea of hope.

Okay. Sitting around and hoping it's going to.

Get better, it can be extremely deceptive. And I just wanted to point out that.

What I like to think of is Joanna Macy's frame activist hope, in other words. Yeah, hope for something better, but also take action as kind of a critical point linking with hope. It's just like sitting around and praying that things are going to get better.

No, do something. Do something. So I just wanted to add that into the mix. Thank you, Shel.

Yeah. I often use the phrase optimistic creativity, and I think the Solnan piece was loaded with that. I always find her writing to be very inspirational in part because she is able to see the people's movements change things. And so many people just give us this litany of oh, woe is me. The world is falling apart. Chicken Little and I have always built my activism things, and so many people just give us a litany of oh, woe is me. The world is full. I'm on the idea that I don't always know when it's going to be, but sometimes I make a difference, and sometimes we, as people's movements make a difference. I've been lucky enough to be part of a few that were successful or successful for a while. Like in the case of the safe energy movement of the 1970s, fighting against nuclear power, we have to do that again. In the case of abortion rights and reproductive rights, we have to do it again.

But, you know, 40, 50 years.

These movements had a victory, and it turned out to be more temporary than we thought, but it was still a victory. I used a lot of optimistic creativity in starting the movement that saved the mountain very close to my house from a horrible, horrible trophy home development.

So, you know, history is filled with these examples. Mainstream media is not filled with these examples. It's not an accident, I would say.

No, it's not. But there's so much media out there that from yes magazine to the various good news newsletters, it's easy to surround yourself with what's going on. That's great.

And we want to. We want to go there a bit more in this call. Thank you. Mary, do you still want to take a shot and get your mic on, maybe not others? What is. What are these questions provoking for you? Mark, Go ahead, please. We'll need Your mic on, though.

We can do it. And thank you.

We there.

First of all, the different arenas you mentioned are all linked together. And they may either. It's a. It's a partial and loose linking, but it's linking with enormous potential. So that once we. There. First of all, the different arenas you mentioned are all linked together and they meet. There is a. It's a partial and loose linking, but it's linking with enormous potential. So that once we start making changes economically and we're doing it in collaboration with the movement, which is what I'm trying to do, then we unleash. We unleash political power, and the political power unleashes the opportunity to complete the technological and economic changes. We start making changes economically, and we're doing it in collaboration with the movement, which is what I'm trying to do. Then we. And those things can create a virtuous cycle as well as a vicious cycle. So we have to learn what the difference is and how to make it go one direction instead of the other.

Thanks, Mark. The other linkage there, of course, is the ideological power, the beliefs, the conversations that we have, the ideas that sustain.

We unleash political power, and the political power unleashes the opportunity culture, which is.

A place where we are all able to act in ways that we can't. Obviously, militarily, we can only do to some extent economically. So how. And this is one of the reasons that we focus so much in these conversations about. On conversations about how we.

To complete the technological and economic changes.

We speak with each other and how we speak with ourselves, because that's one of the realms of ideological power. So thank you for that, George. And then Randy. Welcome, Randy.

And those things can create a virtuous cycle as well as a vicious cycle. So we, yeah. Have to learn what the difference is and how to make it go one direction instead of the other.

There's another source of power, the other.

Thanks, Mark. The other linkage there, of course, is.

The ideological power, which I don't think man. Man mentions. Okay, but that's your own power moving from your own center, finding what your center is.

Yeah. The beliefs, the conversations that we have, the ideas that sustain it, and then moving from that.

And I think that's the beginning of all that stuff. Social, economic, political, military. You have to have your own center first. A friend of mine emailed me the other day, like other friends now, getting freaked out.

Culture, which is a place where we are all able to act in ways we can't, obviously, militarily, and we can only do to some extent economically. So how. And this is one of the reasons that we focus so much in these conversations about, on conversations about how about, about climate.

And he said we should put together a conference that would, would be able to do something afterwards.

And I see we speak with each other and how we speak with ourselves.

Because that's one of the electoral politics and many things like we have to do this first in order to be able to do that, do the next thing that we actually want to do. I'm more of a direct action guy. When I was involved in anti nuclear work, what we were doing was an energy show talking about insulation and solar.

And the alternatives are all realms of ideological power. So thank you for that, George. And then Randy. Welcome. Randy. Yeah.

There's another source of power throughout New England for about two and a half years. I would like to see a similar thing happening through farmers markets so that we could change the energy structure within a year. At this point in time, the television media that I see is beginning to take climate seriously. It's beginning to lead the news almost every day because it has to. But I would also like to see them focus on practice, which I don't think man mentions, but that replicable actions that people are taking around the world now in such a way that the viewers could take them and make them happen within their own communities. We need to do this and we need to do this quickly because as probably everybody on this call knows, your own power, moving from your own center, finding what your center is. We passed the point of no return and then moving from that. And I think that's the beginning of all that stuff, social, economic, political, military. Randy, you have to have your own center first. A friend of mine emailed me the other day.

Yes, thank you, Gil. I'm in Philadelphia and I just drove down. We have a place in Ontario and so I was following the smoke from the fires in Canada and I think that is, it really is reason.

Like other friends now getting freaked out about climate.

And he said seeing awareness like there.

We need more raising of awareness.

But no, we should put together a conference that would, would be able to.

Do some more evidence. People are really thinking like wow, this can change the weather in Philadelphia. So I, I think to me hope.

Thing afterwards and I see is a.

State of mind which allows you to take action. And it reminds me of, of the Gospel of Luke. I always think of Luke as hope and healing. You know, he did healing. He didn't just hope that Christ was coming back or whatever. It was about healing, it was about taking action. And I did want to mention one wonderful TED talk I saw just recently that gave me a lot of hope. It was by Alan Shapiro about stopping the desertification around the world. It was just about 17 minutes or so. And I know he's, he's been doing this work for 30 years, so it's a shame that he gotten a lot, a lot more attention.

But it's electoral politics and many things like we have to do this first in order to be able to do that, do the next thing that we actually wanted.

Really, really worth watching. I've been telling everybody about it. If you want hope.

Thank you. If you can put a link in the chat, if you haven't, that would be great.

Okay, sure.

Thank you, Hank.

Yeah, I work with the concept of.

Hope quite a lot.

And I put in the chat hope is an active verb. I also was happy that Stuart mentioned Joanna.

I'm more of a direct action guy. When I was involved in anti nuclear work, what we were doing was an.

Energy act of hope because that's the only type of hope that ever will lead to doing things. And I like to deal your, your citation of, from, from the book about the fire, Fire Watcher. Was it that fire weather. Fire weather that it's a gift to be alive in this moment because we have the opportunity now to reframe everything. And after that you said yes. And in the terror comes this opportunity. And I think that's really thing to keep in mind. There are a lot of people in, in Western countries in talking about insulation.

And solar and the alternatives, all Western.

Europe, probably in North America as well who are totally stressed out. Especially young people have experience a lot of stress, whether it relates to climate stress or various other things in their. So I think it's very important that there are groups of people like this one here and some others that I know Gil and Stuart and Ken are involved with that actually are ready to pick up this challenge of finding the opportunity to help the world rethink everything. So I thought that's worth mentioning again, worth underlining and marking with yellow and green markers.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll take Stuart and Mark real briefly and then we're going to move into breakouts. Gentlemen. Stuart. Yeah, quickly, I just put a link in the chat. I just read an article about climate therapy. Real important for young people who are.

Looking out at the world and seeing, oh my God, what am I stepping.

Into, what's the future going to look.

Like and managing themselves psychologically and emotionally. Around that.

Thank you, Mark.

And there is a latent project for designing knowledge bases to design sustainable economies and implement and throughout New England for.

About two and a half years. I would like to see a similar thing happening through farmers markets so that we could change the energy structure within a year. At this point in time, the television media that I see is beginning to take climate seriously.

It's beginning and manage them. And there's Tim Forsman is the world class expert on that and I'm a friend of his and we're on the same page about it and I've been working on my design for about 45 years too. And then there's another guy who can handle the technical frame underneath Chris Richardson.

If you could share links in the chat, that would be great. On the way into breakouts, Solnit, Rebecca Solnit posted last night. She said, acknowledging that there are enemies of hope, there are folks who are propagating despair and surrender for many different reasons. And what she said is that what all these enemies of hope have in common is confidence about what is going to happen, a false certainty that excuses inaction. Not acting, Solnit says, is a luxury those in immediate danger do not have and despair is something they cannot afford. Climate defeatism is a form of destructive emission that needs to be capped, especially when coming from the comfortable homes in the global North. Sus Ken, take us into breakouts or another layer of discussion about this.

Okay, so we touched a little bit on doomerism, doomism and collapsology, which I think are great terms and they really rub me the wrong way because it does tend to dissuade a lot of people from taking action. So what we'd like to know is we'll put this in the chat. Now, second, in the midst of doomism and collapsology, where are you focusing your energies? How do you stay resilient and on purpose in the face of the barrage of bad news that assaults us every single day?

To lead the news almost every day because it has to. But I would also like to see them focus on practical, replicable actions that people are taking around the world now in such a way that the viewers could take them.

So we happen to have an even number of people, 32. So I'm gonna have eight breakout rooms of four people each. I'm gonna open them now. We'll have. What do you think Gill? About 18 minutes on this one. Sound good?

Let's do fit. Let's do. Yeah, that should work.

All right, 18 minutes.

Here you go.

Enjoy. Thank you all. Hope that was a good session for you. It certainly was for the group I was in. Before we move to the next room, let's just hear a couple of reporters. Anybody hear something that surprised them or delighted them for me and make them.

Happen within their own communities. We need to do this, We need to do this quickly because as probably everybody on this call knows, we passed the point of no return.

Randy.

No foreign groups. Thanks, Stuart. Nobody wants to share anything. Dean, please.

Joe Redstone and I got off on the thinking of Daniel Schmachtenberger and his, his idea that underlying all of this is the way we have our entire societies and our entire world set up. That we're separate, we're rivals and therefore we're in rivalous relationships.

Yes. Thank you, Gil. I'm in Philadelphia and I just.

Plus exponential tech which is growing faster and faster. And as rivals we're always trying to externalize cost and internalize profits. And it, it. We are in what he calls.

We're drove down. We have a place in Ontario and so I was following the smoke from the fires in Canada and I think that is, it really is raising awareness like there we need more raising of.

Awareness but no connected in competitive relationships with everybody. A multi, multi channel risk. Risk that can only be avoided by I think living simply and living together for each other rather than seeing ourselves separate is, is, is seeing ourselves all together and, and, and living from there difficult to do. Yeah, I'll stop there.

Thank you, Gene. Don.

Yeah, I just.

More evidence. People are really thinking like wow, this can change the weather.

Since I went to the Walter Russell Museum in Waynesboro, Virginia last fall and spent a week there and learned about the Twilight Club that met in New York City starting in the 1870s. And I just didn't share this in the breakout, but one of the most in Philadelphia.

So I, I think to me hope is a state of mind which allows you to take action. And it reminds me of, of the Gospel of Luke. I always think of Luke.

Most inspiring stories in the Twilight Club is that in 1895 this young woman, so Sophie Irene Loeb showed up at 19 years old, sitting in a mansion living room with all the most famous people in the world at that time. And she got, they got behind her and she had grown up in the orphanages and had been part of the orphanage sweatshop enslavement of children that was going on in the, in the uptown part of New York in the 1880s and 1890s in the industrial complex.

Hope and healing, you know, he did healing. He didn't just hope that Christ, where.

These kids were just being worked and lived in these orphanages and it was.

Just a horror this was coming back or whatever. It was about healing. It was about taking action.

And, and very few people really understand the degree to which New York City had.

I did want to mention one wonderful TED talk I saw just recently that gave me a lot of hope. It was by Alan Shapiro at that going on.

And you know, these guys got behind this young woman and she wrote articles and they eliminated sweatshops and they eliminated orphanages and they, they just started reinventing our society out of this group that met at twilight in New York, facilitated by a spiritual adept named Walter about.

Stopping the desertification around the world.

Muscle. And I just. At that time, things were really bad for people, for most people and New York was a cesspool and Teddy Roosevelt's mother and wife died on the same day because of the. The.

The was just about 17 minutes or so. And I know he's. He's been doing these. This work for 30 years, so it's a shame that he hasn't gotten a lot, a lot more attention. But it's really, really worth watching. I've been telling everybody about it. If you want hope.

Thank you.

The unsanitary conditions. And he was sick his whole childhood because he lived in New York. And so, you know, that was a time when it was really, really looking bad. And a group of people just got together and they came up with the Poets Code and they empowered Sophie Irene Loeb and many other people and they literally reinvented our society over a multi decade period through these conversations and embedding the Poet. Poet's Code into our lives. And I just have gotten a tremendous amount of inspiration from. From the fact that that occurred and also fascinating fact that no one has ever. I mean, I, you know, I do a straw poll right here.

If you can put a link in the chat. If you haven't, that would be great.

Okay, sure.

Thank you, Hank.

Yeah, I, I work with the concept of hope quite a lot. And I put in the chat, hope is an active verb.

Many people know the name Walter Russell. Nobody knows about this guy who was like Leonardo to the fourth power, who really reinvented our whole world with his friends and nobody knows anything about it. It's really fascinating.

I would, I would add to the stories of. Yeah, thank you. I'd add to that. At the demise of the sweatshops, it was.

I also was happy that Stuart mentioned Joanna.

Not just a bunch of leadership people propagating messages. But it was also unions and people out in the street and strikes and frankly political violence and the triangle waste fire against working people and triangle waste.

You know the fires breaking up Casey's act of hope. Because that's the only type of hope that ever will lead to doing.

I guess I am and take it. Take it over. I'll fix my.

I think that was. I was talking to you Gil is there was that Triangle shirtwaist fire factory where they had locked all the people inside to keep them from going on a brakes and like 180 women and children died. That was a huge horrible thing that just motivated people to take action. We're gonna move on to the next breakout room. So we have another question for you.

Things and I like to deal your. Your citation of. From.

From the book about which is now we want to focus on you personally. How do you orient in these times? What do you look for? Nourishment, inspiration, roadmaps. What are you seeing that's encouraging? What's keeping you grounded in the mood of possibility? So I've got some read on the breakouts of new people and we'll again have 18 minutes and we're gonna go.

The fire Fire watcher. Was it that?

All right. Welcome back boy. I had a great breakout room but I'm not gonna hog the mic here, let me open it up. And who'd like to fair weather fire.

Weather that it's a gift to be alive in this moment because I share what they heard.

It was found something inspiring or touching. Bill Anderson, please.

Yeah.

The group I was in what came.

Up for me which I hadn't known about was focusing oriented psychotherapy because I threw out a psychoanalytical little.

We have the opportunity now to reframe everything. And after that you said yes. And in the terror comes this opportunity.

Something I read in a book by Martha Nussbaum. So it was very something to look into.

It was.

Intriguing. Bill, is that connected with Eugene?

And I think that's really a very important thing to keep in mind.

There are a lot of people's book focusing.

Yeah.

And they're referenceable in. In western countries in the ch.

Yeah.

Western Europe probably in North America as well.

Who are.

We had a great discussion. It was Randy and Catherine and dawn and me on creativity on the arts.

Totally stressed out. Especially young people have experienced a lot of stress whether it relates to climate.

Role in social change and also in the generational passing of knowledge. And how can young people get inspired when they haven't had the life experience that gives people who've been around through the movement for a while more hope. Really good discussion. And for those who like me, weren't able to find the raise hand button at first, it's hiding under more. It's not under reaction.

So today with stress or various other things in their environment. So I think it's very important.

It's different places for different people. For me, it's all out by itself. So go figure.

That's because you have your screen expand.

That there are groups of people like this one here and some others that I know Gill and Stuart and Ken are involved with that actually ended enough.

For the bottom to be seen if your screen's smaller.

There you go. Go into more mysteries of zoom.

Clouds, please.

Yeah, I was just struck with the, the, the concept of local engagement.

Right.

I mean this is already to pick.

Up this challenge of we, we pretty.

Much know the types of changes that we need to engage with and we may not have a real handle on.

Finding the opportunity to help the world rethink everything. So I thought that's worth mentioning again, worth underlining and marking with yellow and green markers.

Thank you. Thank you.

How to engage locally and where to get in. But for sure, the temptation to find techno solutions, to get inventions and techno ideas to solve this here is tempting, but it's just really misleading. And you know, I'm in the food business, right. And the idea, for example, that we.

Can, we'll take Stuart and Mark real briefly and then we're going to move into breakouts.

Overcome the challenge of raising meat in such destructive ways by doing this through fermented meats and cellular growth meats. It's just not going to happen. You know, the investments that would be required to build any level of capacity that would make an impact. You're talking 10, 20, 30 years in the future. Just think about the billions of animals that we process on an annual basis. To replace anywhere near that capacity is virtually impossible. So we need to be realistic. And there is far more we can achieve with personal consumption changes, changing our consumption patterns and adapting in that way that has an instant impact and it costs nothing.

Gentlemen. Stuart. Yeah, quickly. I just put a link in the chat. I just read an article about climate therapy. Real important for young people who are.

Looking out at the world and seeing, oh my God, what am I stepping into? What's the future going to look like and managing that.

And it doesn't take any kind of investment. So it's just, it's just these nature based solutions I think is is should be our focus.

Thank you Felix.

Well we had a discussion that that got back to hope in a different way which was what can we do to give ourselves permission to hope for and make our goals what we really know we want self psychologically and emotionally.

Around that or are we going to.

Settle for what the whole climate movement basically says which is work the rest of our lives to avoid the worst consequences or slow down what's coming.

Mark and there is a latent project.

For can we actually give ourselves a vision of the world we want and talk about that give that motivate young people with that. Currently my group is in conversations with Tony Seba who gives a picture of a lot of ways the world could change much more quickly than anyone imagines and you know and designing knowledge bases.

To design sustainable economies and implement and manage them. And there's Tim Forsman is the world.

On the last question I think a vision of the world class expert on.

That and I am a friend of his and we're on the same page about it and I've been working on my design for about 45 years too and then there's another guy who can handle the technical frame underneath Chris Richardson.

If you could share links without eating.

Meat is a combination of change in personal actions and a huge amount of evolution of society infrastructures and technology and solutions. So I think that the combination of.

Behavior chat that would be great on the way into breakouts real change and.

New technologies are going to give a lot of people hope that we can actually have a better world.

Thank you Felix. Mark.

Solnit Rebecca Solnit posted last night she said acknowledge well first yay for.

Tony Seba and then our group talked.

About.

Youth and older people and older.

People there are enemies of hope. There are folks who are propagating despair and surrender for many different reasons. And what she said is that what all these enemies of hope have in common is confidence about what is going to happen a false certainty.

Well being able to provide insight and inspiration even if we don't have as much energy and talk about youth and one point was made that youth are not turning conservative as they pass 35 anymore. And then we also talked about blessed.

Unrest that excuses inaction not acting solely.

Like thousands of categories of millions of groups who are all working together. It reminds me of the statement that you know 34% of the population thought it was me and my six friends.

That came out of the says is a luxury those in immediate danger do not have and despair is something they cannot afford.

Climate defeatism is a form of cultural creative studies. So that's just a few points.

Thank you, Mark. I'm curious to know if anybody in your small groups brought up anything around.

Learning from first destructive emission that needs to be capped, especially when coming nations and indigenous peoples.

Tapping there.

I'm sorry, Ken, could you speak more.

Clearly from the comfortable homes in the global North Sus. Your sound is soft and kind of muddy. Ken.

Okay, hold on.

Ken, take us into breakouts or another layer of discussion.

I'm dial then.

Better.

Actually getting to my discussion about this. Okay, so we touched a little bit on humorism, hearing aids. Better.

Yes.

Okay. I'm curious to know if anybody in your small groups brought up learning from first nations peoples drawing on indigenous wisdoms, Indigenous wisdom traditions, because that's a completely different worldview. And I hear a lot of people who look like me talking about what we're going to do rather than what can we learn from people who've been living in continuous community for 40 or 60,000 years. Anybody touch on that in your groups? Doomism and collapsology, which I think are great terms and they really rub me the wrong way because it does tend to dissuade a lot of people from taking action. So what we'd like to know is put this in the chat. Now, second, in the midst of Dunism and collapsology, where are you focusing your energies? How do you stay resilient and on purpose in the face of the barrage of bad news that assaults us every single day? Okay, if you didn't question.

It's a. It's a tradition well worth looking into if you have not a couple of remarkable books as possible. Starting points are Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Santok by Ken. Give me the last name. I don't have it in my head.

Tyson Young supporter.

And we'll put those.

So we happen to have an even number of people.

32 seconds in the chat and there's, you know, I mean, this is a. A tiny slice of the resources that.

Are have eight breakout rooms of four people each. I'm going to open them now. We'll have. What do you think, Gil? About 18 minutes in this one. Sound good?

Let's do fit. Let's do. Yeah, that should work.

All right, 18 minutes available.

And for those of you who haven't looked at it yet, the dawn of Everything. There you go.

Enjoy.

By David. David Graeber and David Wengrow, which gives you a very different perspective on the last 50,000 years of human history and who we are and what we do. I found it one of the most richly encouraging things that I've read in a very, very long time.

Stuart, who had to leave us, raised this in the first small group and I think Don and Catherine hinted at it in the second one.

Thank you.

I interviewed Tom Hartman a week ago.

And he highly praised it and quoted it. And Hartman's got a new book out, by the way. People should check it out.

Thank you all. Hope that was a good session for you. It certainly was for the group I was in. Before we move to the next room.

Yeah, it's quite something. The Hidden History of American Democracy, in which he traces our roots in Native American and Indigenous political societies.

Louis Henry Morgan wrote about that a long time ago in League of the Iroquois, back in the mid 19th century. One of the things that I do is energy and other events.

Let's just hear a couple of reporters. Anybody hear something that surprised them or delighted them or mostly.

And I'm going to prepare my next for August. And one of the things that I found is around the world people are beginning to have discussions about indigenous knowledge and what that means. I was at a lunch with some friends.

No foreign groups on.

On Saturday, one of whom was a young landscaper. And when I said, oh, do you do anything with permaculture? She said, oh, you mean how they. They took the aboriginal.

Thanks, Stuart. Nobody wants to share anything. Dean, please.

Knowledge and presented as white people knowledge.

So. Well, you know, there's an interesting dilemma there, George, because on the one hand there's that and on the other hand we want that knowledge out in the world widely and widely shared and widely used. So there you go. Klaus, back to you.

Yeah. On this topic of indigenous.

Joe Redstone.

What would you say to a Japanese farmer who has follow. Who is following practices that have been established over some 4,000 years?

I got off on the thinking of Daniel Schmachtenberger and have been able to.

Live on their land without destroying their soil and maintains soil health and viability and the ability to feed their population. Same is true for Germany, Greece, France. You know, the Europeans have been farming there since before the Roman Empire and maintain the viability of their soil. So I think this indigenous. We understand the indigenous as indigenous people, but there's indigenous wisdom in cultures and cuisines around the world who have successfully.

His idea that underlying all of this.

Maintains their viability on their land, which is unlike what we are doing is.

The way we have our entire societies and our entire world set up that.

We'Re set us where we already have Destroyed now some 40% of our topsoil 50% of our watersheds are polluted beyond.

Being able to feed separate we're rivals and therefore we're in rivalous relationships plus exponential tech which is growing faster and faster.

Sure we create in it so just a perspective on what is indigenous Klaus.

What I would say to people who've been farming land for 4,000 years sustainably and as rivals we're always trying to externalize cost and internalize profits and it it we are in what I would say thank you.

Yeah and what I would offer is directly from Tyson's book Sanso. He says for the purposes of the thought experiments in this book an indigenous person is a member of a community retaining memories of a life he calls.

We're connected in competitive relationships with everybody a multi multi channel live sustainably on.

A land base as part of that land base indigenous knowledge is any application of those memories as living knowledge to improve present and future circumstances risk risk.

That can only be avoided by so.

So it doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a particular shade of skin.

But I think living simply and living together for each other rather than seeing ourselves separate is is seeing ourselves all together and and living from there rather.

If you are connected to the earth in that way where you're living sustainably Tyson says that's indigenous Catherine, please.

Thank you. And then Jan and Mitch we're coming close to the end of our 90 minutes so if you please keep your comments brief and focused that would be great. Yeah really I was just going to reiterate what Ken spoke to which difficult to do. Yeah I'll stop there Chiz. We all have intimate and immediate access to the greatest indigenous thank you Jean John yeah I just teacher of all and that's Mama Earth so finding ways to connect with her in really powerful.

Since I went to the Walter Russell.

Museum and ways is always there as as an invitation and as a practice an invitation to all of us to get outside.

Thank you Katherine.

John.

Yeah I just am reminded from this Waynesboro Virginia last fall and spent a week there and learned about the Twilight Club that met in New York City starting in the 1870s. This conversation of I just had a meeting with the chief purpose officer at Traditional Medicinals and I don't don't know how many of you know of this company but and I just didn't share this in the breakout but one of the most this company has gone around the planet it's the Leading medicinal. Most inspiring stories in the Twilight Club is that in 1895 this young woman Sophie company in the world and their whole business model is to Irene Loeb showed up at 19 years old sitting in a mansion living room with all the most famous people in the world at that time. And she got. They got restore indigenous cultures around particular kinds of plants up behind her. And she had grown up in the orphanages and had been part of the orphanage sweatshop enslavement of children that was going on in the gypsy cultures cultures in India. All over the planet. They have been revitalizing indigenous communities to create the. The uptown part of New York in the 1880s and 1890s in the industrial complex where these kids were just being worked and lived in these orphanages. And it was just a horror. A commons based global supply chain of the highest quality medicinal plants on the planet. And all of them come from these indigenous communities that have been. And very few people really understand the degree to which New York City had that going on. And you know these guys got behind this young woman and she doing this for thousands of years. That this company very proactively is regenerating at an astonishing level of stewardship. He wrote articles and they eliminated sweatshops and they eliminated orphanages and they. They just started reinventing our society out of this group that if I find that hopeful that.

Thanks John.

Thank you.

Met at twilight in New York facilitated by a spiritual adept named Walter Russell. And I just at that time things were really bad for people for most people and New York was a cesspool. And Teddy Roosevelt's mother and wife died on the same day because of the.

Mitch and Doc. And then I'm going to turn it over to Gil to end. So if you can keep it brief, please.

I often find indigenous as a word or a way of describing something is presented as a division between us and them.

The unsanitary conditions. And he was sick his whole childhood because he lived in New York. And so you know, that was a time when it was really, really looking bad.

And what I would love to see everybody thinking about is how do we become indigenous which is direct.

And a group of people just got together and they came up with the poets code and they empowered Sophie Irene Loeb and many other people. And they literally reinvented our society over a multi decade period through these conversations and embedding the poet co Poet's code into our lives. And I just have got recognized that.

We are part of a system. And then to become comfortable with it the Communities that we refer to as indigenous are also migrants too because we all came from one small part of the world and spread out. How did they become indigenous to those places?

That's a tremendous amount of inspiration from. From the fact that that occurred and also fascinating fact that no one has ever I mean I you know I do a straw poll right here.

How much the secret we need to understand. It's not exactly how they practiced. It's how did they become that way so that we become that way in relationship to the world we are in today. Yeah. Nicely said Mitch. Peter Berg had a publication called planet drum some 50 years ago.

Many people know the name Walter Russell. Nobody knows about this guy who was like Leonardo to the fourth power who really reinvented our whole world with his friends and nobody knows anything about it. It's really fascinating.

I would. I would add San Francisco which talked a lot about reinhabiting. Not just moving into a place but becoming of that place. Wendell Berry goes into this in another way Tyson in another way. But being being belonging to to the stories of. Yeah Jan, thank you. I'd add to that looking at the demise of the sweatshops. It was a place belonging to land, ecosystem, community to the living world. For me that's become increasingly part of the key to the not just a bunch of leadership people propagating messages but it was also unions and people out in the street and strikes and frankly.

Political violence and the Triangle waste fire.

Against working people and Triangle waste. You know the fire breaking up. I guess I am and take it. Take it over. I'll door that we're trying to open here. Doc over to you.

Yes well I've had conversations with a.

Few indigenous people about this in some depth and the conclusion fix my.

I think I was. I was talking to you is there was that Triangle shirtwaist fire factory where they had locked all the people inside people on a break 180 usually reached.

Is they too cannot return to the.

Way their forefathers lived.

Now there's too much technology. There's too much destruction. There are too many people in the.

World who can't do exactly what they did.

We've got a challenge unlike any other.

Women and children died. That was a huge yeah horrible thing that just motivated people to take action. We're gonna move on to the next breakout room. So we have another question for you. In humanity's past to cut way back and let nature restore itself as best we can. And we really don't know how to.

Do that very well.

So which Is now we want to focus on you personally. How do you orient in these times? What do you look for? Nourishment, inspiration, roadmaps. What are you seeing that's encouraging with.

Keeping such a big learning project for everybody? But we may, we may learn grounded.

In the mood of possibility. So I've got some read on the breakouts of new people and we'll again have 18 minutes and we're going to go.

People certainly going to help. Yep. Doc, thank you. We may, we may actually learn something. The European Union just this week promulgated a new. I don't know if it's a regulation or a commitment or something, some policy thing talking about re wilding 20% of the land and marine areas in Europe. I mean, you think about. I don't know what the. Details are. Some of you may know more. But just on the face of it, it's a stunning declaration and a step in the direction, Doc, that you're speaking about. So.

All right, welcome back, boy. I have a great breakout room, but I'm not gonna hog the mic here, let me open it up. And who'd like to.

Golly, thank you all for an, you know, an exceptionally rich call and conversation. I appreciate each and every one of you, both what you've shared here on the call and what I know or don't know about what you do in the world. One thing struck me in the some of the breakouts that I listened to.

Share what they heard. Who's found something inspiring or touching?

Just noticing how easy it is for us to fall into, if not the despair, into the diagnoses of the mess. It's very easy for us to focus on and talk about what's wrong.

Go, go, Anderson. Feed.

Yeah.

The group. What's missing, what's not working, what they're doing, what we don't like. And not that I wasn't.

What came up for me, which I hadn't known about, was focusing oriented psychotherapy because I threw out a psychoanalytical little something I read in a book by Martha Nussbaum. So it was very.

There's anything wrong with that. We do that. But in the breakouts I was in the conversations, started a little bit there, but then moved into what are people doing? Where are people grounded? What are people drawing inspiration from? What are we seeing that's working? And the flavor, the mood, if you.

Will, something to look into.

It was.

Intriguing. Bill, is that connected with Eugene Gendlin's book Focusing?

Yeah. And the reference is in the chat, The physical texture, the Energy, the spirit, the creativity in the conversation is a very different thing. So my invitation for all of us is that we be aware of that. Notice how we move between those two realms, between those two postures and stances. There is, there is room for the criticism. In fact, diagnosing the system is one of the important parts of the work that we have to do to understand where the.

Yeah, we had a great discussion, it was Randy and Catherine and dawn and me on creativity, on the arts, role in social change and also in the generational passing of knowledge. And how can young people get inspired when they haven't had the life experience that gives people who've been around through the movement for a while more hopefully, really good discussion. And for those who, like me, weren't able to find the raise handbook breakdowns.

Are where the weak points are, where the leverage is. But part of the work that we have to do is to bring ourselves forward into this in a spirit of well, as I said earlier in the call and hope. Hope as a stance, not as a prediction. Hope is a commitment. Joanna Macy, beautifully said. There's no word for hope in the Buddhist tradition, perhaps because it takes you out of the present moment. So here we are. Another as that other great sage, Charles Schwab, the senior once said, the best place to start is where you are with what you have.

And at first it's hiding under more it's not under reactions.

Today.

It'S different places for different people. For me, it's all and so may we all do that and do that fruitfully will be hope out by itself. So go figure, right?

That's because you have your screen expanded enough for the bottom to be seen if your screen's smaller.

There you go. To see you next month, same time, same place. We again invite you to invite other people, help us enrich the conversation. We would love to have more diversity of voices. Ken and I do what we can to broaden the invite. But each of you knows people more mysteries of zoom.

All right, Klaus, please.

Yeah, I was just stuck with who.

Would welcome being in this conversation, who could bring something to it, perhaps bring.

Very the concept of local engagement.

Right.

I mean this is we pretty much.

Know.

The the types of different experience than you or we do. Can I see your finger pointing to.

The sky along those along those lines, I'd like to ask. I know several of you have children and grandchildren and Gil and I have tossed around this idea of having an intergenerational conversation on this channel. So if you think it would be.

Possible changes that we, we need to engage with. And we may not have a real handle on how to engage locally and where to get in, but for sure.

The temptation to invite children or grandchildren, hopefully at least teenagers, I don't know that really young kids would do well, but it'd be awesome to have a real genuine intergenerational conversation here. And if it turns out that we can only do that if we.

To find techno solutions to get inventions and techno ideas to solve this here is tempting, but it's just really misleading. And you know I'm in the food business, right? And the idea, for example, that we.

Can, we can let us know, but we're interested in doing this. So please think about that and if you'd be willing to do that, let us know. We'd really love to, to try that out.

Okay. Again, thank you all for coming and as always, we will ask Brandi Carlisle to play us out. Song is the Eye. The chorus is you can dance in.

A hurricane overcome the challenge of raising meat in such destructive ways, but.

But only if you're standing in the eye. It's a wonderful summary of the conversations that we've been having these last four years. Look it up, listen to the whole thing, it's a gorgeous piece of work.

And carry that by doing this through fermented meats and cellular coarse meats in your hearts.

We'll see you next time.

It's just not going to happen. The investments that would be required to build any level of capacity that would make an impact, you're talking 10, 20, 30 years in the future.

Dance in a hurricane.

But only if.

You'Re standing in the eye. You can dance in a hurricane.

But.

Only if you're standing in the eye.

I mean, I mean just think about the billions of animals that we, that we process on an annual basis. To replace anywhere near that capacity is virtually impossible. So we need to be realistic and there is far more we can achieve with personal consumption. Changes, changing our consumption patterns and adapting in that way that has an instant impact and it costs nothing and it doesn't take any kind of investment. So it's just these nature based solutions I think should be our focus.

Thank you, Felix.

Well, we had a discussion that got back to hope in a different way, which was what can we do to give ourselves permission to hope for and make our goals what we really know we want? Or are we going to settle for what the whole climate movement basically says, which is work the rest of our lives to avoid the worst consequences or slow down what's coming can we actually give ourselves a vision of the world we want and talk about that, give that, motivate young people with that? Currently my group is in conversations with Tony Seba, who gives a picture of a lot of ways the world could change much more quickly than anyone imagines. On the last question. I think a vision of the world without eating meat is a combination of change in personal actions and a huge amount of evolution of society, infrastructures and technology and solutions. So I think that the combination of behavioral change and new technologies are going to give a lot of people hope that we can actually have a better world.

Thank you, Felix. Mark.

Well, first, yay for Tony Seba. And then our group talked about youth and older people and older people being able to provide insight and inspiration even if we don't have as much energy and talk about youth. And one point was made that youth are not turning conservative as they pass 35 anymore. And then we also talked about blessed unrest, like thousands of categories of millions of groups who are all working together. It reminds me of the statement that 34% of the population thought it was me and my six friends that came out of the Cultural Creatives studies. So that's just a few points.