May 27, 2014 | Sacred Activism
Contrary to our cherished assumption of vanquishing all forms of injustice, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to put love into action even if we don’t physically survive. The extremity of the crisis does not limit Sacred Activism, but rather expands it because we make ourselves available to 1) Bearing witness to the likely irreversible horrors of climate chaos and 2) Commitment to compassionate service to all living beings who suffer with us. This requires unwavering engagement with serving the earth community and practicing good manners toward all species in order to make their demise, and ours, easier. Taking one’s own life or succumbing to escapist self-medication is easy. Commitment to a life of service and fortifying one’s own connection with the sacred, thus deepening one’s sense of meaning and purpose, constitute a far more daunting and painful path.
Apr 6, 2014 | Book Review
From my perspective, whether we are in hospice or merely transitioning to a new story or both, these questions constitute our overarching assignment in the time we have left, and they form the crux of my work in the wake of our predicament. The pivotal task, I believe is an invitation offered on Page 66: “Imagine yourself on your deathbed, looking back on your life. What moments seem the most precious? What choices will you be the most grateful for?” This is hard-core hospice work.
Oct 9, 2013 | Carolyn's Books
That sense of a journey—waiting for us, forced upon us, or both at once—runs all through Carolyn’s writing, but Collapsing Consciously seems to me to embody it even more clearly than most. Her introduction sets the tone with a discussion of her own journey out of the familiar belief systems of modern American culture, and what follows develops the same wayfaring spirit in a variety of ways. The resulting book once again takes the collective conversation about the deindustrial future further than it has previously gone, pushing past the increasingly sterile debates around peak oil as an abstraction to come to terms with the human realities of loss, awakening, and renewal that accompany every great historical change.
