EP 180 : Climate Change and Climate Resilience | Sarah Queblatin

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Hi, welcome to the Radical Responsibility podcast. This is your host, Fleet Maul. And today I'm having a conversation with Sarah K. Blatan, an amazing climate change at activist who invites us into really examining and reclaiming a moral consciousness in relationship to our first mother the Earth, and to really reimagine the kind of relationship, lifestyle, way of being in society that really would be in alignment and one where we would not live in a continual state of almost moral injury that we tend to ignore. But we know. We know we are doing damage to this environment. We know we are in danger of passing on.

A global environment that is unsustainable to our children and our children's children.

And.

And she invites us into a deep conversation about this. It's a non shame based deep exploration to where we could really possibly shift our fundamental mindset so that we would just naturally begin realigning our lives and our lifestyle and our society in a sustainable relationship with our first mother of the earth, Sarah K. Blatten.

Welcome, Sarah.

Thank you, Fleet. And hello everyone. I'm grateful to be here and happy to share and support the discussions and discovery.

Process for everyone joining this summit. Salamat for having me.

Well, we're thrilled to have you. And so I'm going to share a bit of your bio with our audience so they become more familiar with the amazing work you're doing and then we'll just jump right into the conversation. Okay.

Am I pronouncing your name correctly? Kebleton?

Yeah, that's fine.

Good.

Yeah.

Do you want to say it? I want to make sure people get your name right.

Yeah, Keblatin. Okay, great. Keblatin. All right, so Sarah Keblatin is a regenerative design strategist, facilitating inclusive ecosystem leadership. She is passionate about transforming the narrative of disaster risk reduction into that of designing for resilience and regeneration with communities affected by disaster, displacement and unsustainable development. She weaves collective experiences in peace building, cultural heritage, conservation, environmental education and humanitarian assistance for almost 15 years. Sarah integrates traditional ecological knowledge with permaculture and ecovillage design. As founding executive director of Green Relief Initiative, as a member of Permaculture for Refugees, realiance and the Global Ecovillage Network, she speaks and facilitates about regenerative climate mitigation and adaptation in Asia and The Pacific. With a background in expressive arts therapy, mental health and psychosocial support.

MHPSS and echo psychology, she has a trauma informed understanding of resilience. Sarah is also a community artist working with cultural memory and imagination in climate and conflict vulnerable communities through her Living Story Landscapes project. Wow, what an amazing body of work that you do. And.

A lot of feels like a lot of parallels for me, even though my particular focus has not been climate activism, I'm more involved in the criminal justice world trying to transform our criminal justice systems around the world. But I train mindfulness teachers and train people in trauma informed approaches to transformation and training, trying to transform corrections into a trauma informed approach to supporting people. So I'm sure we have a lot of similar background in the trauma informed aspect of our work with different applications. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So, you know, these last couple of years have been amazingly challenging for all of us, the whole global community. I mean if there is any silver lining to this pandemic, the fact that we've all gone through this together, hopefully we'll find some shared experience that will be a benefit over time globally. But it has been a really tough time with so much tragic loss for so many people, so much divisiveness and polarization even around issues, at least in my country, of vaccination and mask wearing and things like that. And this is against a backdrop of the increasingly obvious climate emergency we're in. The existential threat of human caused global warming, continued geopolitical conflicts around the world. Seems like we're just endless wars and refugee crises around the world, the Middle east and Asia and now in Europe with this latest war and refugee crisis in in Eastern Europe and so challenging times we're living in. And I'm wondering how this, at least this last two year period of the pandemic has been for you and your family and and for your community in the Philippines.

Yeah, gosh, I just listening to what you're saying, it's also like having to go through the news in my head, you know, the news that I images and actually stopped going on social media the last two days just to take a break and now when you spoke about it, it started going back as if I'm scrolling the images and yeah, thanks for asking. In my part of the world, the Philippines is, I probably people already know we are one of the most climate.

Vulnerable nations in the world.

And so we on top of the pandemic, have been struggling with the increase of our climate vulnerability. Just last year, last December, we Had a super massive super typhoon that was from category one that became category five.

Overnight in 24 hours.

So many communities that were not often used to this were really severely damaged and. And lots of displacement. And it's not new to us, but it's also what's new, I guess, is the intensity and the unpredictability in terms of how intense it could be. Or the places that have not been hit often are also getting affected. It's my first time to actually have my own place get affected. And after several years of working in this, it did make me kind of wonder, you know, am I like, wow, should I leave this place or should I move somewhere else? And I was lucky enough that I was still in the UK after the COP26, and I was stuck there because.

My flight was moved and ended up.

Actually survived not having had gone through the challenge, although I'm lucky and privileged to be more situated in better circumstances.

But I came home with my roof.

Deck, with someone else's roof on my roof. And so just knowing that other people have that challenge was really difficult for me. And so on top of the pandemic, there are all these systemic issues, of course, political challenges in my country. We're also one of the.

Violent countries in terms of environmental defenders. And I've worked with indigenous peoples as well. And some of you know, there are some indigenous peoples and leaders that we know have been targeted by our governments. And it's very sad to see that.

Internal political challenge on top of the ecological challenges. Of course, the pandemic has brought about a lot of economic changes for people, not to mention, of course, mental health challenges. And so on many levels, it's a wicked problem with very many overlapping issues that have already been existing prior to.

The pandemic and have just became more and more complex.

But in spite of that, of course, you know, there's the Filipino spirit is we have this term called bayanihan, which is nation building. And then the root word is nation. And another word that is rooted to it is bayani, which is heroism. And we have this collective spirit of collaboration. And so in every disaster challenge, people come together and do everything to volunteer and help. Though over the years, of course, it has also become like a flagship for resilience and has been romanticized. And so it's something that we need to look deeper into how to regenerate and revive the spirit in the country. But despite this, yeah, we see pockets of that. We see.

People making the best out of the challenges. But I would say a lot of countries in the world, of course, have.

Probably also have the same or maybe even worse.

And so we're also, especially in the Asia and the Pacific region. I also like, I guess relate to this place, the bioregionalism of our place.

So much as my country.

So, yeah, it's very interesting to observe, to be part of this rapidly changing.

Part of the world.

Yes.

It'S such a complex interdependent world that we live in and yet our experience always ends up being local in the end. So balancing those two things, very interesting. And is the current situation in the pandemic easing in the Philippines? I know recently there was an outbreak in Hong Kong. I think I read not too long ago. It feels like here in the US things are getting better, but you just don't seem to know there's variant after variant.

Yeah, well, we've kind of lowered our alert levels and so I think it's also partly to recover economically, but it's not, we would say, of course, in a country with not so efficient health system, we wouldn't really be sure exactly how many are really our actual cases.

So but according to our government, it.

Is kind of lowering. The cases are lowering. And so that also gave them a.

Case to lower down the restrictions and alert levels.

But of course it is definitely driven.

By economic recovery as well and.

Adaptation, growing adaptation to the reality.

But yes, we wouldn't really know where the next variant hits and how will happen.

Well, hopefully we are on the tail end of this globally and we will be able to return to some kind of normalcy. Hopefully not back to the old normal, but hopefully some transformed normal where we can at least engage in person with each other again freely. And hopefully we will have learned a lot from these two years.

So your work has focused a lot on regenerative leadership, training leaders and really designing for resilience at various levels. And.

You actually have an incredibly positive vision for change. I've been so inspired just reading about your work. You have a very positive vision for what's possible even at scale.

I'm just curious how you've been able to develop such a positive vision.

Amidst these really uncertain times. I mean, there's, you know, times are really uncertain and there's a lot of sort of negative data out there about what's going on. But you have a very positive vision for what's possible and not only what we could do locally, but then how to take that to scale. So how did you come by that? How has your work developed?

I guess I will also thank you for sharing that it's also nice to see, to know what people are seeing. And what I'm experiencing is, I guess I wouldn't really say entirely positive. I would also be acknowledging the fear.

Of course.

I also have fear and doom and vulnerability. Really. I'm, to be honest, also reflecting about.

My future, my own life, about having.

Seen the front lines and seen the.

Aftermaths of these changes.

I also need to question myself, like.

About my own future. So I guess I wouldn't. Maybe positive. Positive is great. But I also maybe, how do I say more? I guess I try to be transcendent.

Of the dualism, fear and.

The fear and the hope together. I guess as an artist, I also.

Work with creative handles.

And when I work with creative handles, I work with some of the creative.

Tools we use in learning arts and making art.

And in the process, it also taught me about the idea of the power of.

Creating something that is not yet there. And how do we use this creativity to transform, you know, from chaos and how chaos and creativity are work together and how it births new ways of thinking and new ways of being. And of course, it does invite indeed that lens of hopefulness. And I think part of it is also working with the journey. So I have a journey process where over the years I've witnessed this with communities that are affected by disaster. So it started actually in 2013, and my mom was also dying. And so in that process, I was working with those affected by typhoons, but I also was going through the dying and the idea of, like, what. What does the future hold when things.

Are falling apart from the personal to the collective?

And in the last seven years and eight years, I've observed this journey working with, from imitation, where we follow like.

A norm or a system and what.

The system used to be. And when something happens to us, we work with our illusion. What is already changing, what paradigm is shifting, what needs to die and what.

Do we need to let go?

And then at the end is how do we reclaim our intuition? And this is where resilience work comes from. So working in mental health and trauma informed practice, resilience for us is being able to remember that something that we had, we used to think was lost, is never lost. And being able to reclaim that wholeness in the process. And so working from that trauma informed lens is how do we support people.

To move from victim to survivor.

And from that idea of, you know, from the illusion into intuition. As a survivor, you've now reclaimed your.

Part of your being, like your identity.

Or your sense of self and belonging. And Your sense of wholeness back. And from that I think being able.

To know who we are and reclaim ourselves sense of self or purpose.

So that practice is something I need to reclaim back. Often in my work it's like, oh, we don't have the resources to do this. Okay, wait, what resources do we existing do we have now first to start with or the project is so uncertain, it's so unclear. How do we. What do we already know for now? And how do we sit with uncertainty? And what are the tools that, that we can use to navigate a chart our way when the map is not yet there? And from this intuition stage of being survivor is shifting into now working with our imagination and imagination is for me as an artist, how do we create something that is not there in peace building work.

I've also done peace building work before.

And work with the government in the.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the peace process.

Between them and work with the consultation.

Process and also help develop some ceremonies for the peace talks and the signing of the peace agreement.

But in the process, it's the idea of upholding the moral imagination.

You know, how do we hold our.

Values and ethics despite the. Things are just really, really challenging now. I mean like right now I'm thinking about Ukraine, the president and how can he keep that vision alive of being ethical despite that you have like, you.

Know, the dragon in front of your door.

And that kind of imagination is a practice being able to.

It's not something that is. It's really hard.

To see something that is not yet there and create that.

If you don't have a sense of wholeness. And that wholeness comes from our resilience.

The intuition where we access to our.

Intuition or remembering who we are, our.

Truth, our sense of place, our wisdom and the resources we have, the inner and outer resources. And from there we build on the imagination. We create what we want, we design. So from our toolbox, we work with regenerative design. How can communities design now the future that they want, knowing that.

The resources.

That they can already reclaim from within.

Themselves their own leadership and their own ecosystem. And so from that imagination we now, you know, continue to build on the reality we want. So yeah, I would say it's a journey of transformation and being able to hold that journey as a process of going through the chaos like, oh God, is another typhoon this happened or another.

War is going to happen.

How could I cultivate my, my imagination in the work and so journey with my old belief from my illusion to reclaiming my truth with my intuition and.

Now creating the truth that I want the reality one with imagination.

So that's kind of, I guess, how I process things.

And yeah.

It'S nice to know it's positive. It reflects as a positive approach from.

Where you're seeing things.

Well, it does. And wow. I mean, you said so many powerful things there and so beautifully weaving the individual work we need to do with the collective work. And you said, I think you used the term moral imagination towards the end, I believe, and I love that term. Right. You know, and I think that's something we can lose because of the amount of negativity we're surrounded by. And we have to be able to actually imagine reclaiming the landscape of goodness and a moral ethical way to be together as human beings. And actually, you know, there's a lot of times with a certain collective cynicism that almost seems naive. And our great leaders have always broken through that. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, many others. I remember the nonviolent overthrow, I believe the Marcos regime in the Philippines, which captured so much, much of our attention in my generation, to see people standing in front of those tanks and appeal peaceful revolution like that. And you know, that, that moral imagination is what has really transformed the world leaders who've had moral imagination. And it seems like, like President Zelensky is manifesting some of that at the moment for his people and for all of us. It's really quite amazing. And what you said, you know, my first teacher was a Tibetan meditation master, very famously said at one point that chaos is good news. And it became kind of a meme. We didn't use that term, meme so much back then in the 70s, but it became kind of a meme. It's even in a, I think the movie Tron with Jeff Bridges, it was quoted in there. And you know, it's the idea that, that, that things open up at that point. Right. And so I think what you're talking about is having a very realistic view of working with things as they are. And what, you know, if there is chaos and if things are falling apart, what, what, what, what needs to go forward, what, what is, what has it's time to dissolve and let go of and so forth. So, and you also pointed to the individual work that we need to do our own healing work so that we can tap into our own wholeness to have the resilience to then be part of that process of working with chaos and allowing the emergent to come forward. Right. So, you know, it's like we have Otto Swarmer on this Summit. He talks about leading from an emergent future, which I think is a lot of what you're talking about. But for leaders to lead from emergent future, they have to do their own work, their own healing work. And so we need to support people in being able at the level to find their own healing, healing their own trauma so they find their wholeness and find their strength. So then we can all kind of catch that signal of what is emerging, what's emerging from the chaos. That's the good way forward for all of us. And you articulated all of that so beautifully. I wonder if we could talk about. I know your work involves both around the realities of human caused global warming, of climate change and all the disruptions that's creating now, especially for some of the most vulnerable and marginalized, marginalized populations around the world and including in your own country, Philippines.

That.

There are both these approaches of mitigation and adaptation. I know your work involves both and I think at the public policy level we're still mostly focused on mitigation. I mean, we're just waking up to that. I mean there's still a lot of the world that wants to do business as usual and arguing about how much coal we should produce instead of getting off of carbon altogether. Right. And so I think the mitigation work to get to a carbon neutral economy, to really get to.

Slow down global warming is incredibly important. But at the same time we've set in motion some things that are clearly going to happen and we need to prepare ourselves. And so the adaptation work I think is really important. So I'm wondering if you could talk about the balancing of those two.

Of continuing our efforts to slow down global warming and to get off the carbon economy while at the same time preparing ourselves to adapt to a changing climate.

Yeah.

One thing that I. So I've been in five COPs, conference.

Parties of the unscclass and the most recent one was in Glasgow and the.

First one was in, in Paris for the, for the, you know, the Paris agreement. The Paris agreement which was like I was so hopeful, you know, I was.

It'S my first cop and I was so like inspired.

Finally we'll end the fossil fuel. And of course more cops happen later on. More disasters happened later on in my country. And then after Glasgow we had this recent super typhoon again.

And.

One thing that struck me.

In Glasgow.

I was actually.

I was meeting.

One of our partners, a Dutch NGO called Common Land. And we also worked with them, working.

With theory on large scale ecosystem restoration and bringing stakeholders together, government, business and Sort of society together to design large scale restoration efforts, but working with theory, working with systems thinking, deep ecology, and bringing them back to their leadership in the process. So I met Willem Fragrate at CEO.

There as our partner.

And for me that, you know, it was a quiet conversations with people at the same time being away from the big venue and then also the work of leadership, the inner leadership that's calling.

Us in this work and this is.

Why we design these large scale labs.

That bring us back to our ecosystem leadership.

And then at the same time, in.

My process, I was also reflecting on.

My own life and the climate march was happening like the Fridays for Future movement, the young people marching on the site. And I was in the University of Glasgow and I was reflecting on my.

Own future, to be honest. And I was thinking about motherhood and if I should be a mother, you.

Know, knowing the uncertainty of this world and, and I was also in deep reflection that I was, I felt so vulnerable that time.

I was by the river and I.

Was reflecting that the conflict within me was I should be in this march.

You know, because I would fight for the future.

And there was also the part of me that's also struggling with the concept.

Of motherhood in this time.

And to be with the next generation.

Was a bit of a challenge for me.

And then to sit with that was also the idea that maybe this is.

What true climate vulnerability is, you know.

And for me, we've rallied along the.

Word climate vulnerability because we have a climate vulnerable nation. We always say that we're always climate vulnerable, but where.

Second time found the nation, at least in some years, we've been on top of the top five.

But for me, I realized over the years I've heard about climate ambition a lot and many governments would commit money, commit targets, and often a lot of those targets are not met, as we know. And that's also a struggle for us. The nations that have been already, often.

The post colonized nations who have inherited.

Systems that have also been destructive to our ecosystems at the same time are also the most impacted because we have.

Lesser carbon footprint compared to the global north and often the former colonizers.

So there's the struggle of the idea of climate ambition and making all these promises.

And what is, you know, in my culture when we talk about ambition, sometimes it's a very lofty goal. When people say, what's your ambition in life? We actually ask that as a child for children. I want to be a doctor.

My ambition is to be this and that.

But when you think about it, it's also still very far along.

And then I was reflecting on true.

Climate vulnerability for myself.

And maybe what we all need is.

Climate vulnerability from the lens of what.

Does it take to.

What is it that I feel vulnerable with in this work and how can I draw inspiration to heal that and.

To address that and work from there.

From that inner source?

And I was just. When I landed in Glasgow, my first session was actually helping hold space, was also with Laurelin.

It was called Climate Emotions. It was a session that she helped organize. She organized with the ias, the Institute for Advanced Sustainable Studies and helped facilitate that session where the leaders people participated at the cop, where they're huddled together.

Talking about our emotions, our climate emotions.

And you see that from that small group and you see this big pavilion with lots of the targets and aims which have been repeated over time in many, many cups. And I'm not saying that they are not needed, but I was saying that maybe these pockets of spaces where we.

Are reflecting on our leadership and our.

Vulnerability is not enough. And maybe that actually there's a gap.

Between the ambition and true vulnerability in the process. And.

And so for me, I don't know if I answered your question, but.

In terms of what's ahead, I guess that's where we are. So, like I was sharing with you, we're working on this landscape restoration labs where we learn, we do a learning journey with leaders and.

Government leaders, civil society leaders, grassroots leaders, businesses, so that.

We can all listen to each other.

And understand truly from a place of empathy and really see ourselves in the other and the system.

That we are part of and ourselves in the system. And from that place of going into.

Our leadership and to the source of our mental models.

So it's not even just our mental.

Models, even, but going deeper to the purpose, what is my purpose, what is calling me to respond to this work.

And often we are missing that in many change agendas. And I think it's becoming more important.

Now, though, because we're seeing the Inner Development Goals showing up.

But in this journey, I really witnessed the power of where vulnerability can take us and where.

Just the other day I was facilitating a webinar for eight officials and staff of the Department of.

Environment and Natural Resources in the Philippines, our Ministry of Environment.

And it really dawned on me that at the end of the day, you know, government employees and officials, they all deal with the same thing and they.

All deal with their own burnout, their.

Own emotional challenges at home and work, coworkers. And then on top of that, we have to address our climate crisis.

As a nation. So.

And how do we work with the tools to help us remember our.

True self and our wholeness?

And that for me has been the process, I think.

To bridge the gap between the ambition and vulnerability.

And to really actually have more.

I guess, authentic.

Change process and sincere change process. Because vis a vis ambition, at least in my culture, it's still very lofty.

It's like things that you say as.

A politician, you know, the problems.

And when, where we see, you know, actual admission of our limitation and how can.

We work with others so that we.

Can address the problems together. And yeah, so for me that's. That for me is the key at least because we have so many solutions already. And you see it.

There'S a million solutions, but how do we implement the solution?

It's really what's missing. And how do we deal with the complexity of the actual implementation of the solution? Because more often than not there are many plans and many white papers, many presentations, but actually do really opens up a lot of challenges and it really invites us to really, actually be true to the process.

And then I guess, yeah, if the climate crisis invites us to fall apart, then how can we safely fall apart.

So that something else can be born?

And so kind of.

You know, that's, that's where I'm thinking at the moment, maybe it will change in the next few years. But I think for me, I'm really, I'm, I guess convinced and I'm drawing.

Deeper, from a deeper source of this experience where I am now looking back to where I started.

Wow. Wow. I love that you're really taking us on a journey into the inner dimension of this work and it's so important. Last year on the summit, we had a wonderful group of climate scientists who were basically laying out the reality of where we're at. And it was very helpful. A group of scientists from the Woodwell Institute in the US and talking about the climate loops that are accelerating global warming and so forth. And this year somehow it just evolved that we're really focused a lot more on the inner part of the this work. We have Britt Ray with her work, we have Thomas Daugherty who and several people supporting people around climate anxiety and climate emotions and you know, all of us who have spent time at conferences of all kinds, we know that the real work happens in the breaks and the corridors and the one on one meetings and the relationships that you develop as opposed to, you know, all the talk and the plenary sessions, which is important, but it's really the relationships. And I love that you spoke from your vulnerability. And I appreciate so much you, Sarah, being just so transparent about your own desire to be out there on the front lines with the activists and also your reflections on motherhood and these uncertain times. And it is from that place of vulnerability that will change. Really, the overarching kind of inquiry of this summit is how do we create the resilience, the healing, the social cohesion to come together to address these really daunting problems facing humanity or these daunting challenges. And, you know, again, I just really appreciate your vision that is so grounded in the reality, even being willing to go into the emotional inner reality and then still having a vision that, you know, this is part of the process of change and transformation and who knows where we are as a global community and in the cycle of what's going to happen with us on Earth. But we are awakening, and there's possibilities of profound awakening. And.

I was referencing my Tibetan teacher. I also study the Zen tradition. My Zen teacher, Bernie Glassman, developed a model along with colleagues called the three tenets of not knowing. Bearing witness and then loving action, compassionate action. And it all begins from being willing to bear witness from that place of not knowing, which means you're in that place of vulnerability and openness and allowing things to emerge. And so I just love the journey that you're taking us on here. And, you know, part of that deep work you referenced a little bit.

You know, we have this history of how things evolved in the world, which, you know, I don't know if things could have happened differently. History has happened the way it's happened, but we certainly have all the negative impacts of colonization and the impacts on so many peoples around the world and the devastation of indigenous communities and indigenous cultures. And so I know part of your focus on the healing work that we need to do has to do with sort of decolonization, which. Which I think I'm understanding is more like, how do we. How do we get that mindset? How do we decolonize our own. Our own mindset, Right? The exploitative mindset. And then. And then re. Indigenization. I'm not exactly sure how you're meaning that, but I think somehow it, you know, we have a. The. The last day of the summit is all indigenous elders speaking. And what we're. You know, it's just been an amazing day of the summit each year and really hearing from these indigenous voices about how can we come back into relationship with our first mother of the Earth? And so there's all that ancestral indigenous wisdom that we've kind of just set aside in modern culture. And so I suspect maybe you're talking about ways in which we can reclaim that in appropriate ways so that can inform our global culture. So at any rate, I wonder if you could speak more to that in terms of what you mean by kind of decolonization and re. Indigenation as part of the process of healing and allowing something new to emerge.

Yeah, thank you. You know, in many levels I could speak from this. From many levels. For one, I've been privileged to work.

With indigenous elders and shamans in the Philippines. And shamans here, we call them Babaylans.

And in many ways, you know, they've shown up in my life where I.

Was actually going through my own personal crisis and I said that their mom was dying.

And then I've also had the privilege.

To work with them in terms of the peace process and also working with documenting their narratives. And.

So I guess that's, that's. I want to acknowledge that first, like a lot of this inspiration.

The wisdom.

Of these others that I've had a.

Chance to work with, also part of.

The global networks that I'm a part of where I also meet indigenous elders and shamans from other cultures.

And so in the process, in my work, I'm a permaculture designer and educator.

So we work with permaculture for those who are not familiar. It's a design system working with nature.

Basically it was founded by. Founded kind of put together by two.

Bill Mollison and David Pompom, and they're Australians.

And it was also inspired by nature.

And the forest and the indigenous worldview.

But over time, as I was working with this, we work with this in Indigenous communities affected by.

Climate disasters, just referring to more climate induced disasters and conflict areas where displacement happens.

And many times it has to do with having to translate the methodology. But of course we also acknowledge that people have existing traditional ecological knowledge because it's not something new actually. It's just a remembering of what they already know and the ways they have related to nature that they have forgotten. And so. But in the process, something was missing for me. And.

Permaculture begins with observe and interact. Of course it can start from any principle, but one of the first steps to do when you're designing for our.

Salience system is to. To observe the system and interact.

And for me that often that to start by observing without acknowledging and asking.

Permission or acknowledgement or honoring of a.

Place is already even like having lost that Connection that something before you started observing has already been there.

There's already existing local knowledge towards knowledge.

Doesn'T have to be indigenous like where there's start kind of existing system in place still, but maybe like ancestral knowing.

That from your heritage that could already have been there.

But so I started drafting principle zero, which is to acknowledge the local knowing and knowledge and wisdom and even the.

Stewardship of the place, the seen and unseen. Because it is also in many cultures there's this recognition of the unseen process.

But anyway, over this journey, because the movement is also predominantly white, often the.

Practitioners are often from the Caucasian race.

But it's also. But also, you know, people I admire.

And work with closely as well, without.

Knowing, definitely knowing that they do acknowledge this. But this recognition that we need to be explicit that before any design happens, we recognize this. And so I think from this experience.

I see many of the work that's happening now in development and regeneration.

We're starting to recognize indigenous knowledge and wisdom.

And that's a great thing because over.

Time that has been difficult in the.

Past and I think there's now more growing spaces to acknowledge and hear the voices.

So that's also very important, the narrative.

Sovereignty people to tell their own stories instead of us telling it for them is very important.

But at the same time, yeah, I guess the dialogue that happens for us to learn that actually there's common ground between what are, you know, what we.

Have lost are also the same about to people.

For example, we have.

Lauren and I are actually embarking on.

A British Council grant on a dialogue between the UK and the Philippine.

Ways.

Of restoring our cultural and ecological narratives on climate change.

And so the dialogue that takes place invites us to look at each other with empathy and also not just from the nations that have been formerly colonized, but also where we can see where their heritage have also been lost in the global north and how to recognize.

That and how can we learn from each other.

I guess I'm in that place where, yes, there's a need for recognizing. And then where do we go from there? And how do we create these spaces of dialogue and collaboration?

And where we really. Because we're working also like for the Philippines, where my NGO Green Relief was working with the national targets for the UN decade for ecosystem restoration. So we're helping shape the national targets. And because the UN has declared that the next 10 years as a decade for ecosystem restoration. And when we talk about restoration.

I work with the two terms to restore.

And so for us to restore what.

The local knowing that we have there, but at the same time acknowledging, like, for example, in the Philippines, almost 90% of areas of high biodiversity and where watersheds are actually owned by ancestral domains of indigenous peoples. And so being able to restore the leadership and the management of these lands to them is actually important, the first important step. And the same way, with a lot of us having to heal our soils and our waters around the world, it doesn't have to be working with indigenous peoples, but working with what are the existing traditional past.

That our ancestors have.

Done it to have restored their soil.

And kept our soil healthy or manage our water systems. And how do we read the landscape from where, you know, like, for example, the aboriginal elders and aboriginal people have worked with fire for many years. And, you know, and now the bushfires that are happening is actually a mismanagement of how fire is being used. So how do we restore that knowledge and wisdom? And then in the process, how do we restore it and change the narrative of the place and our sense of belonging in it? Like, for example, one beautiful interview I had with one I can't name her because I didn't ask for permission that I have mentioned her. But we are interviewing this project in Queensland.

And.

It'S an eco.

Resort that has been burned down. And one of the reflections that they've had is to stay still and not respond right away and what is the land telling us? And one of the reflections that came out was that maybe this place never really actually because of this was ancient land of the original people, and it was never really meant for people to settle in, you know, and to set up a place which had burned down can also invite us to see, like, how can we design for temporary stay and to just honor the place as it is as a place of visit. And honoring so and so the changing of the narrative to restory.

It'S also about like where we work with indigenous communities that have, because.

They had failure.

With a coffee program in the past.

And that wasn't really inclusively designed and that what brought in so much money, but actually didn't really honor the indigenous value system and systems of working, that the project failed, that the people started cutting down their forests and converted to GMO corn. And so we work with them after the typhoon because all of their lands have been now corn based. And so without trees, their lands get.

Flattened from the monoculture. And then at the end of the.

Day, it's also about the soils that have been polluted with glyphosate. And to restore it, to change the narrative of this Land is helping the.

Indigenous peoples who work to remember the.

Values of their ancestors of taking care and stewardship of this land and the heritage that they still have. And so that they could, we could heal the soil of this land and transform their social and ecological systems. It's not easy and I don't know if like there's a clear like.

Pathway at the moment for me at least, but that's where I feel that the dynamics between, you know, the dialogue of restoration, learning from, learning from, you know, the traditional ecological knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and learning from also the cultures that have, may have also lost their own traditions. And how can we create that space together to find common ground and heal. And yeah, I think that's, that's where for me the restoration movement is very, it's rising at the moment. Lots of people growing their own food.

Working with regenerative agriculture.

But it's also.

Sometimes the storytelling and.

The people who are doing it are.

Often forgetting that.

In acknowledgement of what has already been done there in the first place.

That's so beautiful and it's so important. As you said, there's a lot of solutions, we know a lot of solutions. And what's it actually going to take for us to implement those solutions? And the modern technological mind, sometimes we just want to come up with a solution and then we're going to come into some place, okay, you have to do this. We got the solution. Just go do this. Right? And with no acknowledgment of the land or the people or what's been or the history. And I think the thread that I'm hearing through our conversation today is one of that shift from the head to the heart, to vulnerability and to humility. The humility, it allows us to slow down, really get in relationship with the land, with the people who have been stewarding the land and to really, because, you know.

Human behavior really at the individual and collective level is driven by narrative, right? It really is driven by our narratives about how we've made sense of our lives. And some narratives are very life affirming and then some narratives, you know, because of the kind of fear based conditioning of life, I mean there is a survival imperative and part of the human condition so we can get caught up in that fear and survival based on some of those narratives and, or the narratives of exploitation and so forth. But if we can come back with tremendous humility and I think the narratives that are already there.

In the human heart, when you can drop in at that level, like with my teacher, that practice of not Knowing and then just being willing to bear witness that those narratives emerge that will actually be the source of transformation. I just love everything you're saying because.

You know, the solutions are important. There's a lot of brilliant people coming up with a lot of brilliant ideas. And, you know, I mean, any kind of regenerative work, I mean, one of the most leveraged ways to shift the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is to regenerate our topsoil around the world. And so all the regenerative agricultural work that's being done and, you know, that could trap so much of the carbon from the atmosphere, all these things are really important. And then there may be some other, you know, technological solutions and all kinds of things, but it's really what we seem to be called to at this time on the planet is transformation, human transformation, which is a return to humility and to the heart. And there's just so much more. You're saying. I'm reminded of Joanna Macy's work who. The Buddhist, the American Buddhist, deep ecologist and activist who did all her work around the Council of All Beings. And, and that first we need to go into our heart and be willing to grieve, to recognize that the devastating species loss and the danger of nuclearization and be willing to let our hearts break. And then on the other side of that can be the transformation and the solutions. Right. And so I just love that you're willing to slow down and invite us into this journey of vulnerability and healing and, and trusting the heart and getting, you know, back into this very human narrative. Right. That could really be the basis of transformation.

It's very inspirational. And.

Yeah, I'm wondering just. We're kind of towards the end of our time, Sarah, and I'm wondering if there's any.

Kind of final message you might have for our audience. You know, I think you're in. You know, there's this whole spectrum of the work, really. Right. You know, we have the important work of the young. It's often the. I was an anti war activist myself. Right. So when we're young, we're more likely to be out there on the front lines. Not to say that sometimes you see an elderly woman out there on the front lines with her sign, you know, waving her sign, you know, or something. But, but, you know, so we have extinction, rebellion and Greta Thunberg and all the last year we had Siva Astida on our summit and, you know, doing all the high schools protests and so forth. And so that kind of prophetic voice of saying, stop Wake up right now. Right? And then we have all the, you know, the policy work going on at COP and all those kind of things. And so we have all the different. The spectrum of how do we find our way to transformation, how we find our way to the solutions. And.

I love that you're taking us really into the depths of the human journey that we're all on together. So I'm just wondering if there's anything. And you've been emblematic. I know you've been a young activist. You're reflecting on motherhood. You're reflecting on where can you add value now as someone who's accumulated a lot of experience and expertise as a climate activist. So maybe from where you are in your own journey, if you have any final message.

Or just an additional message for our audience that we can. Because I think everybody's. We're all so. There's so much uncertainty, and it's so easy to kind of feel lost and feel hopeless and. Yeah.

Yeah. Gosh.

In the Filipino, our word for nature is called Kalikasan. And in the core, the root word of it is lika, which is creation, and ka, which is like a shared sense of self. And we have ka in every word of. As much as you would notice, a.

Lot of the Filipino words have ka in them.

It's a shared experience. And so Kali kasan is like a co creator. And.

This idea of co creator being creator and from a creative lens and working with chaos and creativity and also working with creative systems thinking, and then, of course, thinking about motherhood is also the idea of creating a new life. The idea of.

Being able to reclaim our capacity to create is something that I've been really, you know, like how along the lines of moral imagination and.

Recovering our wholeness so that from there.

We rebirth ourselves. You know, the things, the parts that we thought we lost for now, bringing.

Our new soul parts back.

Yeah, that's something that I've been working on. How do we.

Remember this. This capacity, the highest nature of being.

Human is to create.

And that actually means both creating the worst civilization and also creating.

A civilization that will truly evolve. You know, the probably long lines of.

Soul work, collective soul becoming that we are together with, probably have been with for a long time. And so for me, that's something that I really, truly am reflecting a lot on.

And.

I don't know if it's. I've been really listening to some of my intuitive gifts, and I don't know if it's really meant. I'm really meant to share them.

In public a lot.

But a lot of them also remind us with all the destruction that I also foresee, I also am foreseeing a lot of hope and regeneration and in life. And so in that process is that the humanity is always at the crossroads, right? We can create.

You know, the wars that could happen. Like what's at the endorsed, the doorstep of probably in the people in Europe or even in the US like you right now. And that's a possibility. But there's also that possibility like we can create wars, we can create peace and we can create a lot of these things. And because we've been so conditioned to consume and we've been so conditioned to follow, you know, and sometimes the system has to break down, disasters have to happen so that we can remember our own resilience, to remember our wholeness and our capacity to create and imagine the.

The life we want.

And that's that, that's something that for.

Me is important to remember that we can create.

We have. That is the highest nature of being human, I think. And that's of course as co creators, you know, whatever belief system we have that have that worldview of being created as a creation and there's. Every culture will have its own creation story. And we are in this cusp of, we are here, we are able to, we are writing a new creation story. And you know, and after, in many narratives of indigenous worldviews and even the Abrahamic traditions, it's like there was a flood, you know, there's that flood story where sometimes in some worldviews.

Creation began.

From floods or of course in a.

In an archetypal feminine worldview, it's also the birthing from the mother's womb. But I think to be able to just remember that. And I think of course that birthing journey comes with death and rebirthing and it's a cycle. So I think for us to.

See ourselves as part of that bigger.

Nested.

Nested system of creation and being co creator in the process I think would be, I don't know, I don't have wise words to say in terms of like this is the first time I think I'm sharing something, maybe I'll die tomorrow. And maybe these words. But yeah, I think that for me has been my process so far. And if I'm faced with a challenging situation, I also can forget my own true nature to create.

And that's something I need to reclaim back over and over again. The practice, of course, you know, like creating art is to remember, I think, or creating, planting and growing Food is to remember, oh right, we can create something or amending something broken instead of buying. It's also about, oh, I can create a new pattern in this. Genes that have some pollen or you know, it can be many things or. And be able to create also invites.

Us to.

Know that death and change comes with it. To be able to give birth, plants, seeds have to break open.

Butterflies, caterpillars have to morph into something new so that it can be a butterfly. So that's the narrative that we all have that we have blueprints about already.

A blueprint within us.

We just forget it.

And so I think that's something that.

I could probably share.

It is so amazing. You know, we tend to think of creation stories as these things that happened long ago that are in the books or something. And you know, for us to remember that we are the actors in the creation story right now of the emerging future and we're the co creators of that story right now. Right. That is so empowering and so inspiring and yeah, modern, you know, whatever, you know, I mean history goes the way it goes and for whatever reason we've drifted into this very consumer based society and exploitive, you know, kind of economy and we've all been conditioned to be consumers and we've forgotten that we are creators and co creators and I think absolutely, I think that's the direction to remember that we are co creators of the emerging future right now. What a beautiful message. Thank you so much Sarah. Thank you for your work and thank you so much for being with us on the summit today.

I'm grateful and truly honored to be part of it.

I hope I was able to share.

Something meaningful enough and I look forward to learning from others who are also.

Part of this summit. Thank you again for having me.

No, thank you so much. Wish you all the best in your work.

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