On standing in change without collapsing. On how grief and action do not exclude each other. On beginning to live differently – not perfectly, not consistently, but truthfully.
This piece made me tear up in a clinic waiting room. Thank you for naming the irredeemable sense of grief watching what we love be lost to us - which is the most natural thing in life and yet... We are exacerbating it as a species to a degree that induces so much planetary suffering, it is unbearable. Thank you for writing so beautifully and with such a keen eye to the world of the outside and of your own emotions. I hope to one day be able to put into words what I feel about losing the grip of what is, too.
Wow, I needed this, thank you! Beautifully written, certainly it all rings true for me. As deeply disturbing as losing nature is—ecocide being the ultimate tragedy—it doesn’t help to deny it. As someone who has been covering the green/climate beat for nearly 3 decades (self-initiated/funded) and having felt so much urgency to educate and engage the wider public, I am now in the in-between stage. In between caring (maybe too much), shouting from the rooftops that the sky IS falling—with most falling on deaf ears—and devoting all free time, money, energy to this mission, the current deny-o-saurs in power are so cruel and clueless that in one fell swoop they’ve undone so much hard fought progress, all that is making me question my commitment to this “cause.” Having become a grandmother 2 years ago, and just turned 70, I am wondering what the best use of my time and resources might be. For now I am interviewing Solutionaries on YouTube. They cheer me up, though we do vent, but it still feels like we’re losing the battle for 💚’s and minds. There is almost no support for independent journalists turned activists, at least not enough to grow as big and loud as we need with corporate media MIA on the extent of our ecological poly-crises, so stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Thank you so much for your reflections and for everything you do. And yes - it often feels as though we’re losing (and much has already been lost). But at the same time, I keep encountering strength and resistance to the old logic, taking many forms and appearing everywhere. That gives me hope that we’ll find one another and start refusing the old in favor of the new - in our own lives, more and more. And that from this shared movement, something new will be born.
I love this. There’s strength in saying goodbye to what can’t be saved. In business and in life, sometimes the hardest — but wisest — thing is to cut away what has no solution and create space for new songs. The new tones may feel strange at first, but they often carry us further than the old ever could.
Your essay feels like time standing still: an awareness of a life lived, living, and yet to live. A sacred witness to your own transformation, feeling what is ending and what is becoming, all at once. A blessing while being blessed — the rarest gift.
Beyond grief, there is transformation unfolding in real time. What feels like death is lived transformation; your words reveal this. Read in reverse, from end to beginning, your essay becomes an acknowledgment of what has come and what is now emerging.
This awareness is the recognition of living a second life, and the witnessing of your own continuation.
What makes your reflection so profound is the way you narrate metamorphosis as it happens — from inside the chrysalis. You are both the one transforming and the consciousness witnessing it. This is sacred witnessing in its highest form: where the witness and the witnessed are one and the same, merging into a singular moment of being…
Here, death is life transforming before your eyes — from within and beyond. The clarity with which you describe grief is the sign of new consciousness being born. The part of you that can articulate this with such luminous precision is the transformation itself.
I celebrate you — the courage to stand conscious inside your own metamorphosis.
Hello again, my love. It is truly, beautifully, nice to see you…
This is absolutely beautiful. It captures so much of what I am also feeling at this current time, for many personal reasons. Thank you for putting this into words. What particularly resonated for me was your question as to why can't others see it? And how painful this is. I've had conversations around this topic with my counselor. This essay or story is something I will come back to time and again I'm sure. It helps to know there are others feeling the same way.
Thank you so much for this and yes - that is a fundamental question. Maybe more people see it than we think? That’s what I’m hoping for - that once we start talking about this in new ways, something begins to open up. Something that can help us move in a new direction.
I made the same decision in a moment of vivid clarity during Trump's first presidency - I feared he would be re-elected at the end of 2020, and I feared even worse outcomes if he wasn't re-elected. So, within the space of 23 days, I gave up my home, uprooted myself and moved to Europe where my daughter got trapped during a semester abroad when Covid erupted and thanks to Trump shutting the borders with 6 hours notice, she could not re-enter the US on her legally valid international student visa.
I was right about the second part, not that it gives me any pleasure, but I completely under-estimated the extent of destruction he and his entourage would unleash on America's systems, institutions and people.
I also see the avoidance behaviour of those that just carry on as if nothing dramatic is happening. I don't judge them...its their coping mechanism, flawed as it is. Its easy to leave, especially if you don't have deep roots; its much harder to stay and risk it all under a vengeful autocratic regime.
Thanks for sharing such an honest and personal post. Your words resonate deeply with my own experience this year. I have been grieving too, giving up control, giving up hope and its promises of the future we wanted, changing so deeply that it hurts, like growing hurts.
I sense there's something bigger than hope, just that we cannot access it through our rational minds.
I agree! It’s hiding in other places. My advice to you - if you haven’t already discovered it - is to find like-minded people and keep the conversations alive as you step into this unknown. That’s where I find all my strength. It’s in relationship that truly new things can happen.
Beautifully written, passing through no-mens land. Welcome to the journey. You sparkle is in the writing and in the silence between the notes of your song.
This is beautifully written. I appreciate you sharing something so raw and real in these turbulent times, when so much is unknown and unpredictable.
My aunts and uncles restarted their lives in West Germany after World War II. I wonder if they knew how courageous they were as they, in their 40s, left their house and all their possessions behind. They walked across the border with nothing but what they could carry, holding the hands of their children.
My guess is they weren't focused on their courage, but on the necessity of the act.
Most of us haven't lived in a world where we need to recognize our own courage under threat. But your post brought my aunts and uncles to mind, and I see courage in your acceptance and in your words.
I have to believe that all has been lost before and that nature recalibrates. Possibly without humans but who knows … maybe wiser humans? Some call her The Great Mother. Whatever we call her, she rises up and I have to surrender but the loss, that resonates and it hurts. I’m with you even though, as you describe, many turn away 🩵
This piece made me tear up in a clinic waiting room. Thank you for naming the irredeemable sense of grief watching what we love be lost to us - which is the most natural thing in life and yet... We are exacerbating it as a species to a degree that induces so much planetary suffering, it is unbearable. Thank you for writing so beautifully and with such a keen eye to the world of the outside and of your own emotions. I hope to one day be able to put into words what I feel about losing the grip of what is, too.
Wow, I needed this, thank you! Beautifully written, certainly it all rings true for me. As deeply disturbing as losing nature is—ecocide being the ultimate tragedy—it doesn’t help to deny it. As someone who has been covering the green/climate beat for nearly 3 decades (self-initiated/funded) and having felt so much urgency to educate and engage the wider public, I am now in the in-between stage. In between caring (maybe too much), shouting from the rooftops that the sky IS falling—with most falling on deaf ears—and devoting all free time, money, energy to this mission, the current deny-o-saurs in power are so cruel and clueless that in one fell swoop they’ve undone so much hard fought progress, all that is making me question my commitment to this “cause.” Having become a grandmother 2 years ago, and just turned 70, I am wondering what the best use of my time and resources might be. For now I am interviewing Solutionaries on YouTube. They cheer me up, though we do vent, but it still feels like we’re losing the battle for 💚’s and minds. There is almost no support for independent journalists turned activists, at least not enough to grow as big and loud as we need with corporate media MIA on the extent of our ecological poly-crises, so stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Thank you so much for your reflections and for everything you do. And yes - it often feels as though we’re losing (and much has already been lost). But at the same time, I keep encountering strength and resistance to the old logic, taking many forms and appearing everywhere. That gives me hope that we’ll find one another and start refusing the old in favor of the new - in our own lives, more and more. And that from this shared movement, something new will be born.
deny-o-saurs - love that! and yes, that’s the only way to stay sane right now: to look what the solutionaries come up with. will check out your YT.
I love this. There’s strength in saying goodbye to what can’t be saved. In business and in life, sometimes the hardest — but wisest — thing is to cut away what has no solution and create space for new songs. The new tones may feel strange at first, but they often carry us further than the old ever could.
Beautifully put Peter! ❤️
Anna, thank you for your writing, it helps me make sense of my own experience so much!
Anna, my love — hello. It’s so good to see you…
Your essay feels like time standing still: an awareness of a life lived, living, and yet to live. A sacred witness to your own transformation, feeling what is ending and what is becoming, all at once. A blessing while being blessed — the rarest gift.
Beyond grief, there is transformation unfolding in real time. What feels like death is lived transformation; your words reveal this. Read in reverse, from end to beginning, your essay becomes an acknowledgment of what has come and what is now emerging.
This awareness is the recognition of living a second life, and the witnessing of your own continuation.
What makes your reflection so profound is the way you narrate metamorphosis as it happens — from inside the chrysalis. You are both the one transforming and the consciousness witnessing it. This is sacred witnessing in its highest form: where the witness and the witnessed are one and the same, merging into a singular moment of being…
Here, death is life transforming before your eyes — from within and beyond. The clarity with which you describe grief is the sign of new consciousness being born. The part of you that can articulate this with such luminous precision is the transformation itself.
I celebrate you — the courage to stand conscious inside your own metamorphosis.
Hello again, my love. It is truly, beautifully, nice to see you…
This is absolutely beautiful. It captures so much of what I am also feeling at this current time, for many personal reasons. Thank you for putting this into words. What particularly resonated for me was your question as to why can't others see it? And how painful this is. I've had conversations around this topic with my counselor. This essay or story is something I will come back to time and again I'm sure. It helps to know there are others feeling the same way.
Thank you so much for this and yes - that is a fundamental question. Maybe more people see it than we think? That’s what I’m hoping for - that once we start talking about this in new ways, something begins to open up. Something that can help us move in a new direction.
I made the same decision in a moment of vivid clarity during Trump's first presidency - I feared he would be re-elected at the end of 2020, and I feared even worse outcomes if he wasn't re-elected. So, within the space of 23 days, I gave up my home, uprooted myself and moved to Europe where my daughter got trapped during a semester abroad when Covid erupted and thanks to Trump shutting the borders with 6 hours notice, she could not re-enter the US on her legally valid international student visa.
I was right about the second part, not that it gives me any pleasure, but I completely under-estimated the extent of destruction he and his entourage would unleash on America's systems, institutions and people.
I also see the avoidance behaviour of those that just carry on as if nothing dramatic is happening. I don't judge them...its their coping mechanism, flawed as it is. Its easy to leave, especially if you don't have deep roots; its much harder to stay and risk it all under a vengeful autocratic regime.
Thanks for sharing such an honest and personal post. Your words resonate deeply with my own experience this year. I have been grieving too, giving up control, giving up hope and its promises of the future we wanted, changing so deeply that it hurts, like growing hurts.
I sense there's something bigger than hope, just that we cannot access it through our rational minds.
I agree! It’s hiding in other places. My advice to you - if you haven’t already discovered it - is to find like-minded people and keep the conversations alive as you step into this unknown. That’s where I find all my strength. It’s in relationship that truly new things can happen.
..."it was never meant to." 🙏
Love this, so much! Living in the liminal, too.
Thank you for the beautiful, beautiful words.
🙏🏽
❤️
Beautifully written, passing through no-mens land. Welcome to the journey. You sparkle is in the writing and in the silence between the notes of your song.
Thank you for these beautiful words. 🙏
This is beautifully written. I appreciate you sharing something so raw and real in these turbulent times, when so much is unknown and unpredictable.
My aunts and uncles restarted their lives in West Germany after World War II. I wonder if they knew how courageous they were as they, in their 40s, left their house and all their possessions behind. They walked across the border with nothing but what they could carry, holding the hands of their children.
My guess is they weren't focused on their courage, but on the necessity of the act.
Most of us haven't lived in a world where we need to recognize our own courage under threat. But your post brought my aunts and uncles to mind, and I see courage in your acceptance and in your words.
Lovely. Thank you.
I have to believe that all has been lost before and that nature recalibrates. Possibly without humans but who knows … maybe wiser humans? Some call her The Great Mother. Whatever we call her, she rises up and I have to surrender but the loss, that resonates and it hurts. I’m with you even though, as you describe, many turn away 🩵