We are not going back. But how do we go forward now in a world where the old norms are under assault by people who move fast and break everything? How do we find a place of balance and compassion – for ourselves, each other and the More than Human world – so that we can move forward in a way that isn’t just a replaying of the old binaries?
How do we all respond to the seismic events of the US election? Specifically, how do those of us over 50 respond? (and how would the younger generations like us to respond)?
Young people are facing a world where the only certainty is uncertainty. where the only known is the unknown. So what can we do to offer them the best grounding to move forward into the transition to come?
Today we speak to the author of ‘The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell’ – a work that is both memoir and eulogy for a dying world. It brings together Richard’s passionate love of the natural world with his care for his two young children and considers how we help the generations that come after us to fall in love with a world that is going to be so, so different from when we were young – however old you are now, whatever your memories.
Deborah Benham is a trained Biomimicry Educator and with a background in Jon Young’s Deep Nature Connection work. She shares a practical, experiential lived and living toolkit to help us build thriving human societies, cultures, communities and businesses, designing with and as nature, creating mutual benefit for all life, using tech in life affirming ways, and uplifting justice, kindness and cooperation.
Jenny Grettve’s heart-mind is huge and deep and we explored many areas of the transformation that’s coming, from the evolution of a primary school along Doughnut Economic lines to the future of architecture, to the role of systems thinking in our political, social and, in the end, human, evolution. It was a truly heart-warming conversation and I hope it helps you, too, to think to the edges of yourself.
How can we, as parents, grandparents and anyone who cares about the fate of future generations, live our lives in such a way that when our children ask us why we didn’t do more, we can say with honesty that we did all that we could? How do we help them to build resilience, to feel safe in a supportive community and in connection with the natural world so that as they grow, they can face the truth about the world they have inherited?
And how can we use our role as parents to create conversations that matter, not only with people with meet in our daily lives but also with those in positions of power.
Building community out of the remnants of our fractured culture – connecting to each other and the land – is how we’ll get through. Elisa Rathje is doing just this – and making TV of the process.
We know we have most of the answers to the poly crisis. Our challenge is getting them into the mainstream. And that means we need to understand what works when we craft our new narratives of how the world could look and feel.
How do we bring artists, scientists, policy makers, educators, conservationists, journalists, and all the different siloed tribes together in ways that let them genuinely communicate and listen to the web of life?
How can we bridge the space between where we are now and the systems, structures and practices we need to give us the best chance of a generative future?
If we are in the dying days of the system, how can we best hold space for the new one to be born? How can the older generations become allies to the young people whose world is emerging around us? How can young people make sense of a senseless world and find belonging. Zineb Mouhyi, co-founder of YouthxYouth talks about being the emergence, empowering today’s young people.