If you think you are too small to make a difference,
you haven't spent a night with a mosquito.
African Proverb

Tipping Toward Life and Love:
My Climate Journey in Verse

Since the Spring of 2020, I have been slowly expanding my life coaching practice to include coaching individuals for climate action, and in September, motivated by the catastrophic fires in California, I announced a new coaching program titled THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE to do just that. This month, I started an ALL WE CAN SAVE circle to engage a group of participants through courageous discussions on the topic of climate change. This circle has given me the opportunity to reflect and to further understand my own journey towards climate action. How did I get here? What are my motivations for engaging and trying to engage others in climate actions? How can I do more? What’s next?
I am not interested in boring you with the steps that took me here and why I took them. Instead, I want to invite you to start your own journey by sharing with you four poems that have lit the path for me. After reading each poem, you will be invited to answer the following question for yourself: “where do I find myself in this poem?”. Enjoy the journey!

Let me start with the short poem Global Warming by award-winning poet, and essayist Jane Hirshfield:

When his ship first came to Australia,
Cook wrote, the natives
continued fishing, without looking up.
Unable, it seems, to fear what was too large to be comprehended.

Pause and reflect: “Where do I find myself in this poem?”

Continuing the journey with Questionnaire from the American novelist, poet, and farmer Wendell Berry

1. How much poison are you willing
   to eat for the success of the free
   market and global trade? Please
   name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
   evil are you willing to do?
   Fill in the following blanks
   with the names of your favorite
   evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
   to make for culture and civilization?
   Please list the monuments, shrines,
   and works of art you would
   most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
   the flag, how much of our beloved
   land are you willing to desecrate?
   List in the following spaces
   the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
   you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
   the energy sources, the kinds of security,
   for which you would kill a child.
   Name, please, the children whom
   you would be willing to kill.

Pause and reflect: “Where do I find myself in this poem?”

Now, let’s go a further along, guided by November by Lynna Odel, a writer, engineer, activist, and mother:

If I can't save us

then let me feel you
happy and safe 
under my chin. 

If this will drown 
or burn 

then let us drink starlight
nap under trees
sing on beaches—

the morning rush to sit indoors is for
what, again? 

If we are dying

then let me rip open
and bleed Love,
spill it, spend it
see how much 
there is

the reward for misers is 
what, again? 

If this life is ending

then let me begin 
a new one 

Pause and reflect: “Where do I find myself in this poem?”

Now, let’s arrive at today’s destination with this favorite poem of mine that I have shared on my website before: Testimony by Rebecca Baggett, author of poems, essays, and stories, winner of the 2020 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award:

I want to tell you
that the world is still beautiful.

I tell you that despite
children raped on city streets,
shot down in school rooms,
despite the slow poisons seeping
from old and hidden sins
into our air, soil, water,
despite the thinning film
that encloses our aching world.

Despite my own terror and despair
I want you to look again and again,
to recognize the tender grasses,
curled like a baby's fine hairs
around your fingers, as a recurring
miracle, to see that the river rocks
shine like God, that the crisp
voices of the orange and gold
October leaves are laughing at death.

I want you to look beneath
the grass, to note
the fragile hieroglyphs
of ant, snail, beetle. I want
you to understand that you are
no more and no less necessary
than the brown recluse, the ruby-
throated hummingbird, the humpback
whale, the profligate mimosa.

I want to say, like Neruda,
that I am waiting for
"a great and common tenderness,"
that I still believe
we are capable of attention,
that anyone who notices the world
must want to save it.

Pause and reflect: “Where do I find myself in this poem?”

I would like to invite you to find a quiet place and time where you can read these poems again, listen to the voice inside, and reflect on what journey you may be called to embark on. As Lynna Odel writes in her essay How I Take On Climate As a Regular Person, “it’s undeniable that when I take a step forward, I reap huge rewards”. And if you need a guide on the journey, feel free to write back.

Warmly,
Anne-Marie

Awake In The Wild Sunrise Meditation

I will be leading the daily nature meditation for Awake In The Wild on Saturday February 6 at 7:30am PT. These meditations are led by Mark Coleman, senior meditation teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, on weekdays and by his certified teachers on the week-end. They are offered on dana.

Seasonal Contemplative Walks for Women

As of today, I am still hoping that I can hold these walks as the California Regional Stay at Home Order was rescinded statewide as of January 25. If walks in person are not permitted, I will look into conducting them virtually, depending on the level of interest.

Women’s Pilgrimage in Japan

Assuming that by Fall of this year we can be vaccinated and freely resume international travel, I am continuing to plan a pilgrimage for women in Japan in October. If you are interested, I encourage you to sign-up to be among the first to review the itinerary for the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage, and to receive an application form.