Strategy Options Dialogue

1. Enabling

The conversations that led to the founding of the Diversity & Decolonising Circle took place in the DAF Strategy Options Dialogue, in early 2020. I was one of the volunteers who was convening that space and holding the conversations.

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Strategy Options Dialogue

2. Immediate

As the facilitator, I was popping from small group to small group to eavesdrop and make sure that people were progressing. And every time I dropped into the room where Wendy and Sasha and Dorian in particular were, there was this common theme and common thread, and my curiosity was to be with that topic, and to see how it was unfolding – as I always had this issue around accessibility and the voices that were never heard, and the perspectives that were never represented. But I didn’t have the ability to do that, because I needed to be paying attention to the whole event and every conversation thread.

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Aspirational narrative

I came into the circle with an attitude of, “I can learn better skills to make the spaces I host more accessible and more inclusive.” I feel a little bit of embarrassment to admit it, but I was definitely naive about the complexity involved in this type of work. I wasn’t naive or blind to the impact of racism – I’d seen it as a child in my mum’s workplaces, in the decisions that she had made, and the heartbreak she would carry with her because of the racism that she was observing as a medical professional. And then I moved to Australia, where there was still a White Australia Policy in 1983. And blacks would have to cross the street to avoid whites and were not allowed to be on the same public transport. So I wasn’t naive about racism. But I was absolutely naive about how ubiquitous it is, about how every structure – every one of our normal ways of being – are racist: our ways of being are designed to separate and to isolate.

D&D

4. Immediate

It felt easy from the very beginning. And perhaps that’s because we’d coalesced around a purpose or at the very least a curiosity, without any real picture of what that might mean or what that might be or what the end point was. For me, that made it really easy to be part of the conversation. Because it wasn’t prescriptive. It wasn’t fixed. There were no big expectations or grand ideas. It really was just a tremendous curiosity and this heart-open… “Well, what if? What about?” and so for me, that was part of the appeal of becoming part of this circle of folk working together.

I4

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D&D

5. Potential

The early work that we were doing in the run up to and then in response to the anti racism training, in November 2020, helped me start to really understand systemic racism and just how blind nearly everybody is to it unless they are suffering because of it, unless they are a marginalized group – unless they are black or indigenous.

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D&D

6. Immediate

So I went through a lot of heartbreak and a lot of crying, a lot of shame and a lot of embarrassment for all the situations in my life where I had not consciously acted to stop racism. I never consciously contributed to it but I was so blind, I didn’t speak up. And I never thought to question it, it never occurred to me.

I2

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D&D

7. Potential

My discussions with other participants in the circle led me to consider whether this was, at least in part, due to my being a woman: I never felt empowered to speak up to my brothers who were awful, or to challenge the authority at school or university or at my workplaces.

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D&D

8. Enabling

Everyone I’ve worked with in this circle has been so gentle, so compassionate and so incredibly supportive – especially Nonty, whom we must have inadvertently wounded and hurt many times over, and yet she is still here, celebrating each tiny step forward that we take.

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Value narrative

There is also something powerful about the speed at which we have been doing our work. It hasn’t felt forced, or rushed, there was always lots of space, it’s felt very much like the relationships came first. For example, I remember being in meetings where in the check-in someone’s having a bad time or is in a particularly difficult place, or showing up with difficult emotions, and the work gets pushed to one side, because what’s important in that moment is being present with the other in there. And similarly with moments of celebration and happiness. So it’s been really centred around relationships. As a result, being here isn’t onerous – when this meeting pops up in a calendar every week, I’ve never once had that feeling of “God, again?!” – it’s always like, “Oh, great!” because it’s not fixed, it’s not rigid, you don’t know what you’re arriving into, or even at the moment of clicking “Join the meeting,” what you’re arriving with. But just knowing that there is space for all of that feels really powerful.

Ground narrative

Another important thing is that I haven’t noticed any of us dominating. Not having a single leader is so beautiful, because that leaves loads of space for co-creation and for creating in that moment, as a group of people. At one time or another, some of us have stepped forward to make things happen or to take on a responsibility. But I’ve never felt like anybody was exerting undue power or influence or control over the group or what the group was doing. And my sense is, if any one of us had been particularly dominant, or particularly controlling and demanding of the others, we would have had a lot more tension and difficulty than we did have. And the tensions we had were very challenging and exhausting. In those moments as we were getting through them, had we had a very dominant vocal person in the group who was pressing their perspective and their way, we would have disintegrated. That level of tension and argument may have just pushed us beyond reasonable limits, particularly around a topic which is so challenging and painful already.

D&D

9. Transformative

This journey of learning has been deeply transformational for me. I almost feel like I’ve now got a fluency, and the language, that will allow me to speak up anywhere even when there’s that little doubtful voice on my shoulder that says, “Hang on a minute! What if, what if, what if…?”

T2

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Work-place

10. Applied

Thanks to my involvement in the DAF anti-racism training, in November 2020 I invited Nonty to organise an anti-racism training for my team/network outside of DAF. This training has been instrumental in supporting a National Environmental Movement (comprising more than 60 organisations) that are now engaging in the hard work of decolonising their ways of operating, to increase their accessibility and to value and engage appropriately marginalised groups within their local areas.

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Work-place

12. Strategic

As a result of this successful training, I was approached in the Summer of 2021 by a Rivers Trust in the South East of England to provide advice and support on inviting BIPoC to their board. All in all, after introducing this work to the National Rivers Trust network, 74 individual trusts are making a combined effort to address systemic racism, white supremacy and to enhance equity, diversity and inclusion in their teams and in the communities in which they operate. This speaks to a potential big change. Many of the original trainees continue to meet monthly to support their ongoing learning.

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Work-place

13. Realised

I also heard that the training we ran inspired several other organisations to launch their own anti-racism efforts supported by the national umbrella organisation. Progress is slow but steady and there are still many mistakes being made but now with more consciousness and an awareness of the harms that, prior to this training, were unconscious.

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Retreat

1. Potential

I met Dorian during a retreat I took part in, in Russia, in March 2020.

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Ground narrative

At the time, I was very tired and frustrated by the lack of learning about racism and colonialism on behalf of white Europeans in environmental movements. Also, I felt I was asked to hold indigenous ceremonies on such events and retreats, without any space being offered for me to speak about the social justice issues underlying climate change. So I started speaking out.

Retreat

2. Immediate

At one point, Dorian came to sit down next to me, and admitted he had lost track of his original impetus to work on global sustainability and climate change, which was connected to the deep injustice of it all. He asked me how he could learn to do better. I felt deeply touched by his lack of defensiveness and that he genuinely wanted to hear more and take action. Usually there is a strong reaction of defensiveness towards this topic from the white-body community.

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Retreat

3. Applied

That night, we walked in the ice together. We agreed that the Deep Adaptation Forum, once the retreat was over, would invite my help in support of opening spaces for such discussions in the network. This is how my journey started in Deep Adaptation. A few months later, we began having these conversations. I was soon invited to join the newly established DAF Diversity and Decolonising Circle, as a consultant.

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D&D

4. Immediate

These discussions were difficult at first. The Covid lockdowns had begun, and we were connecting through Zoom. But also because the subject was heavy and scary. I was also starting to see how huge and international DAF was, as a network. I knew how people would react to these kinds of topics, and started wondering what was the point of even doing this, and what my role was supposed to be.

I2

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D&D

5. Potential

But I witnessed strong commitment from the Circle members to keep showing up, and build strong relationships, in spite of the conflicts and difficulties we faced from trying to heal the trauma of racial divide inside of us. People kept coming back, no matter what. I also found that everyone brought strong skills, especially as facilitators, and were able to be creative and use them to craft processes adapted to our specific context, which helped us overcome our difficulties. This commitment to being in the group even when it's difficult helped me feel able to trust these white-body people I worked with.

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D&D

6. Realised

Now, through the work we do in the Circle, I have found a space of safety. A space in which I can openly speak about racism and other oppressions and be fully myself, without having to face the sort of complications and reactions I experienced from white-body people in other organisations. Even though others in the network might not be comfortable with what we do, and how we do it, we've managed to create this space to bring these topics to the forefront. And this has ripple effects, this has an impact on the network and in our personal lives, including other spaces that we interact with.

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D&D

7. Transformative

I think what has happened is very profound. I don't have western words for it. While I originally joined this group only as a consultant, I feel an internal personal change has happened for me, which has given me hope. Now, I can say that I have a space where I can go which feels safe, with white-body people. This is so important! A white-body person cannot understand this - the privilege of feeling safe in spaces and groups and how whiteness can impact on the safety of BIPoC in spaces and group dynamics. It's a space in which I can just express myself openly. It doesn't feel heavy. Although I still experience racism in my life, having this space enables me to breathe and take care of myself, especially my mental health. It makes it possible for me not to feel like I'm fighting all the time.

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Aspirational narrative

It feels very important that we capture what we have achieved, so it can be shared, and maybe this experience can be replicated somewhere else. More people need to witness that this is something that is possible to achieve. Not just white-body people, but also our BIPoC community who are wounded by everyday struggles of oppressions, who are hurt and angry and are seeking justice. They need to know that there are other possibilities, which involve being able to relax, and to heal, without having to fight so much all the time. We can create those spaces of trust. Of course I do not take it for granted, I know it’s a privilege, a privilege that should be a basic human right. Getting to this point required a lot of work and commitment from all of us, and it may not work in other organisations. Policies and strategies are useful, but not enough: radical systemic change will not come only from the justice system (the system is deliberately created to be as it is), or from the documents we write. It has to come from people committing to being on a journey of personal change and the willingness to create an inclusive and just world.

How I joined the Deep Adaptation Forum

Other

1. Orienting

I heard Jem Bendell speak on a podcast, recommended by someone from my organisation who is also a DAF participant. What he said about the science of climate change and collapse wasn't new to me, but his emphasis on love and the reduction of harm resonated with me. It gave me a new perspective on how I should live and what to do with my life.

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How I decided to take action in the field of anti-racism and colonialism

DA FB group

3. Applied

So I joined the Positive Deep Adaptation (PDA) Facebook group.

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DA FB group

4. Potential

Reading a certain conversation thread in the PDA group, I discovered the link between collective trauma, climate change, and colonialism. That felt very true to me.

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Aspirational narrative

I wanted to do this in companionship with someone else.

How the Diversity and Decolonising Circle started

DA FB group

8. Immediate

I felt a sense of connection with her.

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Death
Cafe

9. Enabling

Later, I met Wendy during a Death Cafe session. The space felt so safe that I was able to share about a particular life-changing experience with her and another person, which I have only rarely been able to do so far.

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Strategy Options Dialogue

10. Orienting

During the DAF Strategy Options Dialogue, I realised that I wasn’t interested in the topics of “prepping” for collapse, survival kits, etc. I’ve been through this phase, and I am much more interested in engaging with as much adaptation that is focused on our connection with the Earth, to re-establish that sense of connection.

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Strategy Options Dialogue

11. Enabling

I then met Wendy again in a breakout room during the Strategy Options Dialogue.

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Ground narrative

When soon after its creation, the Black Lives Matter movement came center-stage with the murder of George Floyd, people were open to doing anti-racism work within the framework of DAF.

White supremacy and me

D&D

15. Applied

In November 2020, the D&D circle hosted our first event - the "Dismantling Racism" training, facilitated by Nontokozo Sabic. It was our first foray in attempting to decolonize DAF.

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D&D

16. Immediate

Helping to organize this training made me very wide open to the message. So it landed very deep in me, and I felt deeply shocked at how invisible my privilege had been to me. How could I have not seen that? I sort of knew it, but didn't actually feel what it meant.

I2

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D&D

17. Potential

It made me realise I didn't have a very good grasp on the difference between individual responsibility, and being involved in systemic oppression which has indoctrinated us into white supremacy.

P2

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D&D

18. Immediate

The strong emotions this brought up in me led me into a cycle of blame and shame. Conflict broke out between myself and another member of the circle. The situation became very messy, and I struggled to find a way out of it.

I2

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D&D

19. Potential

I heard a member of the circle mention the need for us in the circle to get better at "calling in," instead of "calling out." I didn't know what it meant. But this felt like somebody was throwing a rope to me that might help. And fortunately, another friend suggested to me there was a course on "Calling In the Calling Out Culture," held by Loretta Ross.

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D&D

20. Applied

I signed up to it, eager to find some helpful insights.

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LR
Course

21. Immediate

The course was really good.

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LR
Course

22. Transformative

I encountered many concepts there that helped me ease my sense of personal shame. For example, Loretta mentioned an analogy that I found very helpful: "If you buy a house, and the plumbing is bad, you're not to blame for the plumbing - but don't you want to get it fixed?" This made me realise that while we're all responsible, we're not to blame. To me, one of the really big obstacles of trying to get through this work is trying to get through that sensation of it landing in my body - that I have benefited massively from a system of white supremacy. I didn't create it, and I don't consciously want to perpetuate it. And I need to really pay attention to how I might do this inadvertently. I need to use my voice, as somebody who stands in the system, to say, "We really need to change it. This plumbing really is leaking, and it's leaking on other people's heads. I'm in the top apartment, and they're living underneath me."

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How the circle helped us transform conflict

D&D

25. Enabling

In going through these difficulties, I have also benefited from Nontokozo's ability to hold a space of holding accountable the rest of us in the circle, while expressing her love. That is not an easy thing, and I find it very rare. The love and bond in our circle generally has also been essential. Our relationships were tested - some of us did get angry, and take some of this out on each other. But love, and the bonds that we had created, helped carry us through this very difficult time.

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Conflict process

27. Immediate

This conflict resolution process was difficult and painful, but very important.

I2

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Conflict process

28. Transformative

It was part of the deepest learning that I've done. Thanks to it, I realised the other person and myself had very different working styles and ways of thinking. So I quit trying to make the other person think like me, and gave them more space! This experience also reminded me that love doesn't always mean sentiments and good feelings. Sometimes, it means really reaching for that part of you that cares and wants to do good.

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What I have learned and experienced in the Forum

D&D

29. Transformative

Not only do I feel that with this work, I'm hopefully contributing to making this world a little better in terms of racism. I've also benefited so deeply from taking a look at how oppression works. I've realised that as for myself, I'm both the oppressor and the oppressed. Even though I grew up feeling a victim, due to what I've experienced, others in the world were faring even worse than me, due to systemic racism. And when I can get the attention off my own pain, and pay attention to how the system is impacting other people, I get the benefit of understanding how oppression is playing out in my life. And I get better at speaking up when I'm in a situation in which I need to stand up for myself.

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How the D&D circle got started

Ground narrative

Around the same time, I witnessed an incident in which a Person of Colour was silenced and forced out of a group I was in, within the permaculture network, for complaining about racism. This person was a friend of mine. So I got together with two other white people to stand with them. This made these issues even more present for me. (Since then, I have fed back into this group some of the work and thinking we did in the D&D circle, which resulted in changes in the language on their website and in their charter.)

Ground narrative

As a result of this context, I became increasingly aware of the privilege I had of being able to speak out loudly and forcefully in the DA Facebook group, about things I didn’t agree with.

DA FB group

1. Immediate

One incident, in particular, struck me deeply: I had just posted a comment that I felt quite pleased with in the group, and a person with disabilities pointed out that this comment was ableist, and didn’t land well with them at all. This gave me the feeling of having a mirror held up to myself, and allowing me to notice more of my privilege (including that of having access to a computer and internet access), and the white worldview that I have, which is also predominant in the group.

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DA FB group

2. Potential

And I realised that I was not the only one expressing myself loudly in this group, and preventing other voices and other stories from being heard: it dawned on me that there was a deeply rich layer of knowledge and experience around the process that I wanted to go through with Deep Adaptation that we were completely missing because of these loud voices in the room. After all, Deep Adaptation is about changing the narratives we live by, and transforming the culture we live in, because it’s killing the planet.

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Aspirational narrative

This made me want to learn to step back to give more space to these other voices – but also learn to step in to make this space safer, by engaging with the other loud voices in the room that can be harmful in completely unconscious ways. I knew I needed to learn the language and skills to do this better.

Strategy options dialogue

3. Enabling

I met Sasha Daucus during the DAF Strategy Options Dialogue in 2020. We were both in a breakout room on the topic of diversity or lack of diversity, and were wondering what could be done in DAF on this issue.

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D&D

4. Applied

So Sasha and I decided to launch an initiative that would help to make the Deep Adaptation Forum more inclusive. Talking about this topic with her, over WhatsApp and some Zoom calls, a picture started to take form. Sometimes, all you need is one other person to give an idea some legs!

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D&D

5. Immediate

It felt very organic.

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D&D

6. Enabling

The DAF Core Team reached out to us and were very supportive of our initiative from the start, which helped us to set up a structure for our discussion group – which became the Diversity & Decolonising Circle – within the Forum. Sasha and I were very well supported in going forward, as two “plain volunteers,” so to me this is an example of the DAF governance structure working tremendously well. Most of the Core Team joined us in the group, and Dorian invited Nontokozo to join us in a consulting role, to provide us with some guidance.

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Aspirational narrative

We were not sure what to do, but had the sincere desire to provide a safer space within DAF for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, who are going through collapse and have been through collapse and their ancestors have been through collapse. Deep Adaptation is very much about them, too.

Learning about my own white supremacy and racism

Value narrative

The more time I spend doing research and spending time in this group, the more I realize that I am absolutely racist. And there are so many things that have happened through the circle that have helped me with that work – although I realise how much more work I still have to do.

WSC workshops

9. Potential

I found out that I could tick every single one of the 20 boxes for behaviours and beliefs that define white supremacy culture. Almost every single one of those was about something that I do, or things that I hold dear, such as being right or always speaking first.

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WSC workshops

10. Immediate

It felt like a big slap in the face.

I2

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Aspirational narrative

Since then, I try to be more aware of myself speaking, particularly in groups where there are Indigenous people or People of Colour. I know that I tend to always jump in and speak first, as a strongly held habit that I am trying to work on

Value narrative

Similarly, the gentle education that I’ve had in the circle, and particularly from working closely with Nonty (Nontokozo Sedibe), has shown me that racism is very present in me. In the past, I’ve sometimes noticed racism in other white people, but thought I myself wasn’t racist. But now I realise that a lot of things I have said, and that I probably will say, are in fact unconsciously racist, and deeply separating.

Ground narrative

This may be partly due to my education – I was born and raised in South Africa, and only left the country at age 37. So I have been socialised into white supremacy and racism from a very young age. Everything about me is born of the privilege of being a white South African. I was at university as Nelson Mandela was being released and apartheid came to an end, so I had access to intellectual information about racism. I don’t think I’ve ever consciously tried to be racist towards someone, but I’ve been taught to differentiate between People of Colour and white people – it’s a huge part of how my mind has been formed.

Aspirational narrative

I have to unpick this. In particular, I want to become more aware of the words that come out of my mouth, and avoid presenting those things in front of people who will be hurt by them.

D&D

12. Potential

Through my engagement in the circle, I have also learned how to better communicate with other White people when I notice that what they are saying may be problematic. Instead of telling them that they are wrong, I talk about my own experiences and beliefs and understanding, and I let people hear the problem in the language/thinking, by critiquing myself.

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DA FB group

13. Applied

I practiced using this language on several occasions in the DA Facebook group, in response to comments that had an ecofascist slant, for example when people talked about overpopulation – which generally refers to there being too many non-white people in the world. When this happened, I didn’t call out these comments as “ecofascist,” but mentioned how I would have said similar things in the past, and how I had become educated about the implications of such statements.

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Other

14. Applied

There was also an example on a Zoom call where a Person of Colour was a participant. Someone else made a comment about overpopulation, and I saw this person flinch. So I stepped in, said that the comment could be received as a micro-aggression by People of Colour on the call, and that I felt it wasn’t OK. I left it at that. In the past, I would have winced, and avoided stepping into such conversations, but I feel that participating in the work of the circle has given me the courage to do so.

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Other

15. Realised

The Person of colour felt supported I think, as they then spoke up in the group call and explained why the comment was problematic from their perspective. It was educational, and I don’t know if this discussion could have happened if I hadn’t stepped in as a white person and pointed out the elephant in the room.

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Aspirational narrative

Also, because I am involved in this circle, I feel it is a responsibility for me to try and make spaces safer, and thus embody in action the circle’s charter, even though I always speak from a personal standpoint, not as an official member of a Diversity group. I want to improve my skills around being an ally, and so I try to intervene in order to engage in deeper learning, and become better with the language I use.

Ground narrative

Sometimes I’m a bit off, and people will give me some feedback.

Loretta Ross’s course

LR
course

16. Immediate

The course was very rich and useful.

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LR
course

17. Potential

As a result of taking it, I’ve become much more confident, and I have learned better skills on how and when to engage with people directly, mostly using private messages, instead of publicly (i.e calling the person “in” rather than publicly “out”).

P3

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Facebook

18. Applied

For example, whenever I see racist comments from South African men on my personal timeline, I call them “in” first about it, in a private message. If I receive poor feedback or a more racist response, I may call them “out” on my public channel, and ask them to apologise. If they don’t do it, I remove them from my friends list – which I had to do with one person.

A3

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Family

19. Applied

On one occasion, a close family member said something problematic during a family call. I pointed out that it was a racist comment. He was angry at me for doing so, but later we had some good conversations about it.

A3

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Family

20. Realised

As a result of our discussions, he doesn’t share the kind of racist jokes that he used to in the past, and he has also toned down the more patriarchal or anti-feminist things he used to express before. So it was difficult for him at first, as he really didn’t feel he was “racist” – but talking about how he sounded, something has shifted. He and I are very close and have deep trust, which might have helped. Calling out racism with people we love is very hard, and risky.

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The transformative power of conflict resolution

Value narrative

For me, the work of anti-racism and decolonising, on a private, personal, interior level, has very much been part and parcel of the work that we’ve gone through in resolving conflict in this group. We are all colonised: we are brought up to have expectations of what work looks like, what our purpose is, and how we should appear to others. We want to maintain an ideal picture of ourselves for others to see. The conflict-resolution process that I went through, for some conflict that I was involved in, was incredibly helpful to peel away some of these onion skins.

Conflict process

23. Potential

Thanks to this process, I started to better understand the white supremacist pattern of assuming oneself to be always right. This encourages us to argue with people who think we are wrong, and try to fight them down, and get them to be wrong. But in this space, I realised that while I may be right, the other person was also 100% right! What had happened was some form of miscommunication between us – not just in the use of words, but in what the words stood for, or how we presented ideas. I also found that none of us meant harm: we both wanted to do the right thing, but in so doing, we hurt or triggered each other, or attempted to paint a picture that we felt should be true for the whole group – which couldn’t happen.

P3

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Conflict process

24. Transformative

It enabled me to see myself from an outsider’s perspective, and gave me deep insights into how different people with good intentions can approach the same situation. Because we look at the world through our own lens, broadening the scope of that lens and understanding that the other person sees the same situation in a very different light can be very helpful.

T1

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Family

26. Applied

The awareness I developed in the process also helped me find a way to have that difficult conversation with my family member around racism, as I drew inspiration from the process to hear them out, and then tell them what I was feeling.

A3

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Other

27. Applied

In another instance, we took advantage of what we had learned in our conflict-resolution process, in order to defuse tensions that were emerging between two of us from the Diversity Circle, and another Deep Adaptation Volunteer, around a certain project. We had a call, and managed to create a space in which each of us could be heard on a very sensitive and personal topic.

A3

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Other

28. Realised

This allowed the other person to better understand what we in the Diversity Circle had in mind, but also gave them the chance to give us some wise advice, and improve the approach we had originally. As a result, there is now much deeper trust and mutual understanding between the three of us.

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Value narrative

Although the work of conflict transformation can be incredibly painful, there is no better way to learn about oneself. So I think people should welcome conflict as an opportunity to help themselves, and their group in which the conflict happens, shift. Besides, the work of Deep Adaptation is to keep looking for the love in our situation and in this predicament. And as the physical predicament gets worse for all of us, the urge to exclude people we don’t get along with will become stronger, and our circles will become smaller. So for me, it’s very important to learn to get on with people that we don’t necessarily understand. I think the best way to begin practising is with someone who is similar to you, speaks the same language, and has a lot of common ground with you – although you don’t get on with them for some reason. To prepare for the situations where we are in serious conflict with those who have very different ideas from us. We need to find ways to get on. It’s difficult, but there’s a huge amount of personal growth that arises out of being able to do that, and it feels to me, to be a fundamental tool in the Deep Adaptation toolbox.

Ground narrative

I first grew aware of the "perverse paradox" of climate change in one of the very first lectures of my Master's degree programme, in the autumn of 2007. The lecturer stressed the utter unfairness of climate change: those least responsible for it, particularly in the Global South, are already (and will keep being) most immediately and heavily impacted - whereas the countries historically most to blame will be hit only later. I still remember the tension and indignation in my body, hearing this. Full of righteous anger, I decided to try and do something to prevent or attenuate this tragedy. This led me to get involved in the field of sustainability, as a consultant working on greenhouse gas emissions assessments. A few years later, I grew disillusioned with the "sustainable development" discourse and became involved in other pursuits, in the field of arts. Although I remained intent on creating social change, I lost sight of the feeling of rage I experienced originally.

Retreat

1. Potential

Until March 2020, when I met Nontokozo Sabic (Nonty) during a retreat in Russia. I had given a presentation on the topic of societal collapse and Deep Adaptation. She expressed deep regret that my presentation focused on the impacts of collapse on rich/industrialised societies, and that it silenced the experiences of collapse on peoples/regions/countries of the Global South, as a result of European imperialism and colonialism.

?

+

Retreat

2. Immediate

Hearing her, I felt defensiveness and the urge to argue with her and justify myself.

?

-

Retreat

3. Potential

But something about Nonty helped me not to act on these impulses. It was probably related to how she voiced her feelings of deep pain, grief and weariness when confronted - again and again - to the ignorance of Europeans, especially in environmental movements, on questions of systemic racism and colonialism. I could perceive the depth of her grief.

?

+

Retreat

4. Applied

So I admitted that she was right about my presentation, and acknowledged that I had lost sight of the issue of climate injustice that had been so motivating to me originally. I also asked her what I could do to better educate myself on these topics. We eventually agreed to work together and try to raise awareness of these systemic issues within the Deep Adaptation Forum.

?

+

D&D

5. Applied

A few months later, following discussions between Sasha and Wendy, on the one hand, and Nonty, Katie, and myself, on the other, the five of us launched the DAF Diversity & Decolonising circle in August 2020.

?

+

Grappling with racism and white supremacy

D&D

6. Applied

The first event put together by our circle, in November 2020, was a 3-day intensive anti-racism programme, designed and presented by Nonty (with support from two other co-facilitators), and geared towards white-bodied volunteers throughout the Deep Adaptation Forum. Over thirty people took part in it, including myself.

A3

+

D&D

7. Immediate

The training felt very rich and well-held, which helped me to engage in it fully.

?

+

D&D

8. Enabling

In particular, Nonty's ability to be candid and vulnerable about the impacts of racism on her life enabled me to allow myself to lay down my defences and be vulnerable with others.

E4

+

D&D

9. Potential

Thanks to this training, I learned a lot about the interpersonal, internalised, institutional and systemic dimensions of racism, and realised the extent to which my whole being had been contaminated by this ideology. For example, I thought back on how my education had taught me to distrust or make fun of classmates of North African origins as a child, and prevented me from making friends with non-white people. I also realised how little I tend to think of the topic of racism, of my own skin colour, or other dimensions of my social privileges ordinarily - I have always had the option not to think of such issues.

P3

+

Aspirational narrative

As a result of the training, I set myself the three following objectives (which I jotted down in my notebook): “Fearlessly act to decolonise DAF; Fearlessly remain aware of my own patterns of racism and privilege, invite critical feedback and thank people for it - then change these patterns as much as possible; Work to consciously change what DA is about and make it much more about matters of race and global justice.”

D&D

11. Realised

The main findings for me were: That the majority of training participants seem to had been successfully disturbed out of their usual ways of thinking and being, brought to acknowledge their privilege and racism, and connected emotionally with the impact of systemic racism on BIPoC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour); That this awakening had brought most attendees to consider various ways in which they might change their practice and/or start new initiatives in order to help dismantle racism, within or outside of DAF (although several were unsure what they could or should do); That feedback on the training and especially the facilitators was overwhelmingly positive, although three respondents didn't connect with the approach that was chosen and voiced constructive criticism about the training.

R1

R2

-

+

WSC workshops

14. Potential

This was the occasion for me to learn more deeply about these other dimensions of the white/modern worldview, which are present in everyone - including myself: for example, I became more aware of my perfectionist tendencies, my fear of open conflict, or my urge to "be right" and to consider myself exceptional.

P3

+

WSC workshops

15. Potential

These workshops also gave me a critical lens through which to examine related emerging phenomena, such as the rise of ecofascist thinking - which, like white supremacy culture, is far from only being the domain of violent extremists: the seeds of such forms of "othering" can be present even in the most benign, "common-sense" remarks.

P3

+

D&D

16. Applied

For example, I was alerted about a video produced by an influential DAF participant, a portion of which could be viewed as reproducing this kind of thinking. I did a critical discourse analysis of this portion of the video, and deconstructed what I saw as problematic about it. I shared this analysis with the rest of the D&D circle. After having discussed it and refined my analysis, we shared it privately with the author of the video, and invited them to a conversation.

A3

+

D&D

17. Realised

They acknowledged the passage was problematic, and edited it out from the video. They also accepted to meet with myself and two other D&D circle members. We had a fruitful conversation.

?

+

D&D

18. Potential

I realised that without the critical awareness developed in me through the workshops and conversations taking place in the circle, I would very likely not have noticed the problematic aspects of the video.

P3

+

D&D

19. Immediate

I felt better educated, and glad to have taken part in this mutual learning process.

?

+

Other

20. Realised

Later on, I discovered that the author of this video decided to integrate the problematic portion that we discussed into a course they ran, in order to invite participants to critically assess it.

R2

+

Other

21. Immediate

This also felt gratifying, and I appreciated their openness to criticism.

?

+

Learning from conflict

Ground narrative

In early 2021, conflict broke out within the D&D circle, and within the DAF core team. The issue centred on questions of white supremacy culture, and how to express one's awareness of it when it manifests in others. This difficult situation lasted several weeks. It was a very painful time for everyone involved, particularly the person who stopped being part of the circle and of the core team as a result, and who self-identifies as a Person of Colour.

DAF

22. Immediate

It was one of the most distressing periods of time in my life. Although I tried to act as an informal mediator, I was painfully conscious of my responsibility in the emergence of this state of affairs, especially as a result of my conflict-aversion and lack of confidence in my own intuition.

I2

-

DAF

23. Potential

Eventually, I participated (with the rest of the D&D circle) in writing a blog post, in which we presented a summary of our circle's aims, what we had done so far, our future aspirations, and in which we recognised some of our failings. I was also involved in co-authoring another text, which was shared with all DAF volunteer groups, in which we in the Core Team gave more details about some of the mistakes we had made as part of the conflict situation.

P6

+

DAF

25. Realised

However, these texts enabled both the D&D Circle and the Core Team to exercise more transparency and accountability, thus interrupting some of our usual white supremacy culture patterns (e.g. defensiveness, fear of open conflict, etc.); by doing so, I also felt we were modelling some of the courageous vulnerability that Nonty encouraged us to cultivate in her anti-racism course. These texts also helped to bring the conflict to a conclusion, albeit an uneasy one.

?

+

DAF

26. Immediate

This felt liberating to me.

?

+

Ground narrative

As a result of the difficult emotions brought about in the course of this first conflict, more tensions erupted between two participants within the D&D circle, and led to one of them leaving the circle for a while. Thankfully, another member of the circle stepped up to facilitate a conflict transformation process between them, which eventually led to their reconciliation.

D&D

27. Potential

A few months later, our circle reflected on this episode. Thanks to the experience which my fellow members brought back to the circle, I learned about the conflict resolution process they followed; how the trust, strong relationships, and sense of purpose cultivated in the circle had been instrumental; and how aspects of the conflict could be seen as manifestations of white supremacy culture at play.

P2

+

Ground narrative

Around the same time, another situation of conflict emerged during a workshop I co-presented, as a member of the D&D circle, on the topic of the silenced stories of marginalisation and racism and colonisation that are present in people's lives - both in the Global North, and in the Global South. One participant, who self-identified as Indigenous, experienced a sense of discrimination and lack of safety in a breakout room during one of the sessions.

D&D

31. Potential

From this experience, I gained further awareness of the challenges associated with holding spaces for conversation around such charged topics, particularly when both white and BIPOC participants take part together in these discussions, and the need for more comprehensive and skilled facilitation of such spaces.

P3

+

D&D

32. Ant. Applied

I plan to bring these insights to any future workshops in which I am involved.

A3

+

Racism, colonialism, and climate change

Ground narrative

Soon after its creation, we in the D&D circle started convening in monthly "learning circles," to share some of the latest insights and discoveries that occurred for us in our respective learning journeys around the topics of racism, decolonisation, etc.

Value narrative

These sessions have been very precious to my own learning.

D&D

33. Potential

Ahead of one of these conversations, one of us shared a link to a new report published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, titled "Racism and Climate (in)Justice" (Abimbola, Aikins, Makhesi-Wilkinson, and Roberts, 2021). I read the report, and strongly reconnected with the sense of outrage and indignation I had first experienced over ten years ago.

P2

+

D&D

34. Immediate

I read the report, and strongly reconnected with the sense of outrage and indignation I had first experienced over ten years ago. I found that the report gave a very comprehensive and well-documented overview of how our climate and ecological predicament is intimately linked to the history of racism and colonialism.

?

+

D&D

35. Potential

Although I already had some background knowledge of this, the report helped me to connect the dots and gain a deeper awareness of these connections. I shared some of the things I had learned in the D&D circle, and shared my wish to spread this knowledge more widely.

P2

P3

+

D&D

36. Potential

Someone suggested I write a blog post about the report.

P2

+

D&D

37. Applied

It sounded like a good idea, so I wrote a text which was published on the DAF Blog.

A3

+

Other

38. Applied

On this foundation, I also wrote the script for a short online film which will I hope present this information in a more accessible format. I am currently working on this project with my partner, with some help from a volunteer who got in touch with us via the DA Facebook group.

A3

A4

+

Towards activating my own vital compass

Ground narrative

In late October 2021, Prof Yin Paradies from Deakin University presented a workshop for DAF participants, in collaboration with the D&D circle, titled "Indigenous Perspectives on Decolonial Futures." I attended, and was glad to see that over two dozen participants had signed up, which is quite good for DAF.

D&D

39. Immediate

I found his presentation very rich and thought-stimulating.

?

+

D&D

40. Potential

Some of the most impactful content (for me) was sourced from the work of the GTDF collective - for example, this quote from Vanessa Machado de Oliveira's book (2021, p.294): “Before anything different can happen, before people can sense, hear, relate, and imagine differently, there must be a clearing, a decluttering, an initiation into the unknowable; and a letting go of the desires for certainty, authority, hierarchy, and of insatiable consumption as a mode of relating to everything. We will need a genuine severance that will shatter all projections, anticipations, hopes, and expectations in order to find something we lost about ourselves, about time/space, about the depth of the shit we are in, about the medicines / poisons we carry. This is about pain, about death, about finding a compass, an antidote to separability. This is about being ready to go—to befriend death—before we are ready to return home and to live as grown-ups.”

P2

P3

+

D&D

41. Immediate

These words were intriguing to me. I appreciated how they pointed to what goes on beyond the realm of the intellect, to an attitude of being that is existentially steeped into the awareness of the predicament - an attitude rooted in the body and in all the affective dimensions of one's being. I read this passage as an invitation to identify the deep unconscious drives that move me in unhelpful ways, to wrestle with these desires, and start undoing their grip on how I am, think, feel and move in the world. This felt like the kind of radical change I had set out to explore and try to help bring into the world - a change that goes beyond the cognitive realm.

?

+

Ground narrative

Previously, I had been exposed on several occasions to the work of the GTDF collective, for example when Jem Bendell published his article on the ideology of ESCAPE, with which GTDF engaged in a fruitful conversation. But I hadn't taken the time to read the collective's production more fully.

Other

42. Potential

In January 2022, I learned from the DA Quarterly newsletter that a series of workshops was planned around the book from which the excerpt above was sourced.

?

+

GTDF workshop

44. Immediate

Reading the book ahead of the workshop, my feeling of resonance and connection with the approach which I perceived in the quote from Prof Paradies' workshop intensified dramatically. The book gave me a feeling of integration and deepening of many ideas and insights I had previously received from these ideas and approach. What spoke to me most powerfully was a particular flavour of radicality (which is all about developing a keen awareness of our individual and collective shit, taking stock of its omnipresence, and contemplating the possibility of human extinction as a result of our species drowning in its own shit) - but with humour and humility woven deep into it, rather than combativeness.

?

+

GTDF workshop

45. Transformative

Above all, a key takeaway message for me was no one living a “modern” lifestyle, especially not a privileged European like me, can make any claims to innocence or purity in the face of our predicament. This allowed me to finally "get" more fully what I had heard my former Core Team colleague Katie Carr say back in 2019, as I was sharing my anger about the crimes committed by fossil fuel companies: "We are all responsible, none of us are innocent." At the time, this landed in me as a kind of relativism that I felt unfairly lumped everyone into the same basket: big oil CEOs who funded climate disinformation, and environmental activists who dedicated their lives to protecting the living world. Now, I understand the term "responsibility" differently: in this case, I think it has to do with an attitude of unconditional commitment to compost the shit that is within and around all of us who have been raised in modernity-coloniality - and limitless accountability in doing so.

T1

+

Other

46. Applied

Following the invitation from one of the book's exercises, I wrote snippets from the "Co-Sense with Radical Tenderness" text on bits of paper, and pasted them all around my living room in the hope to help them seep into my consciousness. I focused on the parts that I comprehended the least. One of these lines I copied down reads: "Seek sense-fullness rather than meaningfulness."

?

+

Other

47. Immediate

This felt intriguing, because "doing meaningful things" or "living my life meaningfully" has been one of my chief personal commandments - perhaps *the* attitude I feel most wedded to. It is at the root of my deciding to embark on this PhD: I want to do something that makes me feel connected with a higher purpose (to be in service to life and other humans) - and not give primacy to things like material comfort, safety, notoriety, or egotistical forms of consumptive enjoyment. So why not pursue meaningfulness?

?

+

Other

48. Applied

In the hope of getting to the bottom of this, I read another book published by the GTDF collective - "Towards Scarring our Collective Soul Wound," by Cree scholar Cash Ahenakew. This passage seemed to address my question: …

A3

+

Other

49. Potential

These words reminded me of an experience I had a few months ago.

?

+

Ground narrative

On the winter solstice of 2021, I went on a hike with two of the people I love the most. The winter was so mild that only the very crest of the mountain was capped in snow. We decided to make this a special occasion, and to consume psychedelics before we walked – it was the first time that we ever did so together. When we reached the top of the mountain, we found it was crowned with huge wind turbines. Something happened in me. I felt hit by a powerful sensation. A shock. A visceral, inchoate flow of energy that raged in my chest and my abdomen like lava for the rest of the hike. Somehow, the flow spoke to me. Later that day, I wrote down in my diary the parts of this message I had received that I felt able to tentatively articulate into words (reductive as these may be): …

Other

50. Potential

Other “bus passengers”⁴⁹ cannot keep but wonder - could this have been the voice of the "vital compass" Ahenakew refers to above? Could this be the kind of "sense-fulness" that the Co-sense with Radical Tenderness refers to - feeling affected by the forces of the world in an unmediated way? And if so, how may I learn to better let go of my symbolic-categorical compass, and instead of seeking *meaningfulness,* (and indexing the world in language), learn to maintain myself open to the land of which I am an extension?

P3

+

Other

51. Ant. Applied

These new questions feel like they might be pointing to a new generative path for me to start exploring. I suspect that some practices that are being actively developed within DAF, such as Earth Listening, or Wider Embraces, might be a key part of my future learning journey.

A3

+

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Indicator(s)

Value

Ground narrative

I joined the Deep Adaptation Facebook group originally in December 2018, after reading the DA paper, but I wasn't attracted to discussing anything so did not “follow” the group (i.e., DA posts did not appear in my FB feed). I had already joined Extinction Rebellion by then, and reading the DA paper just confirmed my decision to do so. I became actively involved in DAF after after joining the core team as Communications Coordinator in September 2020.

Aspirational narrative

Regardless of where I work, my intention has long been to create more mutual aid in the world, and learn to function without needing the state. This way, we can all face our common predicament together, with the right kind of resistance and care.

DAF

1. Immediate

When I arrived in DAF, I had a honeymoon period at first. It all felt very different from XR: I found people in DA much more reflective, more willing to be vulnerable, and more open and reflective about the topic of anti-racism and decolonisation. I was also impressed by things like people warmly welcoming a NYT journalist in the DA Facebook group, and spontaneously sharing many resources with them.

?

+

DAF

2. Potential

However, I gradually found out that things weren't so different, after all –that they just played out in a different way. DAF is more white, middle class than XR. There are more appearances concealing reality, so it takes longer to see what's really going on.

?

+

DAF

3. Applied

Ironically, while I was running workshops on white supremacy culture in DAF, I witnessed these patterns at play very clearly in the network. For example, group-think: I tried to have conversations around whether it even makes sense to talk about collapse with others, given that this can be traumatising, and it's important to think about how promoting this and encouraging its continuation could create harm. But I wasn't allowed to have these conversations. Or fear: it was because the core team was afraid to confront me about ways they thought I was not meeting their expectations that I lost my job as Communications Coordinator - which was unjust. But then, again, these patterns are everywhere around us, so there's nothing special about DAF. And this is why it's important for people to disrupt the status quo, and point out these aspects.

?

-

DAF

4. Potential

From this experience, I've learned that you can't take at face value what people say is going on in a network or organisation, or that they are being fully honest with you.

?

+

Other

5. Realised

I now feel a lot wiser, and better prepared for these things. I’ve come out the other side feeling a lot of empathy for everyone, including myself, because of realising the extent to which these white supremacy patterns are within so many of us, particularly those trained under Western conditions.

?

+

Other

6. Ant. Applied

In the future, I think I might prefer not to work in an organisation again, but rather stay in some sort of coaching or consulting role for people in organisations. I could help others gain a new perspective on how they do things, and be fully honest, without compromising my integrity.

?

+

Aspirational narrative

My vision for DAF would be to keep bringing in people who are driven by the collapse-narrative, who tend to be white, Western, and middle-class. Then guide them towards understanding that the best way to have a loving response to collapse is to: 1) to recognise that the goal is likely to be learning how to take care of one another and keep each other as safe as possible; 2) to understand that the people most likely to help us do this are the people who have benefited the least from the global system we are under; 3) to see that racism and colonisation keep us separate from just such people (thus making us vulnerable to ecofascist solutions / leaders); 4) that once we deal with our separation, and have developed relationships with those who benefit least from the system, we will know where to put our power and privilege to resist and undermine the system, and we will know how to take care of one another and keep each other as safe as possible. But right now, particularly in the DA Facebook group, there's no such vision or guidance of the kind.

Aspirational narrative

As part of the above vision, small affinity groups of 4-5 like-minded people could gather within DAF for support, political education, and to challenge one other to go through the above steps. (An example of an early challenge would be knock on neighbours’ doors.) A facilitator could provide an anchor for accountability so that the affinity groups do not stay within their comfort zones. Stories of the challenges could be shared among the network of groups.

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Indicator

Value

Value narrative

Although I wasn’t able to participate in the 2021 DAF Conscious Learning Festival as much as I wanted, it has been very useful to me, and has brought me meaningful new insights, thoughts and feelings.

Conscious Learning Festival

1.

Immediate

For a start, I was able to experience a sense of deep connection and fellowship with other participants, who were all complete strangers. I found regular spaces in which to acknowledge my painful feelings related to our predicament, and feel understood.

R5

+

Conscious Learning Festival

2.

Potential

Being in these spaces also made me realise that in spite of the dire situation, I was alive! For example, I was very inspired by Jane Dwinell’s Q&A, during which she described building tiny houses on her land, and helping refugees in Lesbos. This pulled me out of my sense of helplessness and hopelessness, and prompted me to reflect deeply on what kind of generative action I might do with my own life.

R5

+

Conscious Learning Festival

3.

Potential

I felt concerned about talking about Deep Adaptation around me, because I didn’t want to drop bombs into people’s emotional worlds. But in one of the Festival calls, someone in a Zoom breakout room said I could think of it in terms of planting seeds, not dropping bombs.

R5

+

Conscious Learning Festival

4.

Immediate

I remembered that I’d spent much of my clinical career having difficult conversations with people, and sensed a renewed sense of courage – I could do this!

R5

+

Other

5.

Applied

I write for the Irish Times occasionally. So I got back in touch with the editor, and suggested I could write a follow-up piece to one I wrote in 2019 on parenting and the climate crisis. I wanted to touch on the latest IPCC report, Caroline Hickman’s research, COP26 – and lay special emphasis on Deep Adaptation and the 4 Rs. The editor eventually wrote back enthusiastically, so I wrote the article.

R10

+

Other

6.

Realised

It was published on November 8, 2021, under the title: “Response to climate emergency set to shape our children’s future,” with the subtitle: “Concept of deep adaptation could prove a useful tool for coping with challenging change.” I wrote it specifically with parents in mind.

R8

+

Other

7.

Potential

The article generated some interesting feedback - interesting in terms of the fact that I was prepared for all sorts… but not expressions of gratitude.

?

?

Other

9.

Realised

Recently, I have been able to sneak Deep Adaptation onto the syllabus for for a brand new Module at the University on our Nursing Programme: ‘Sustainability and Global Public Health’. The Irish Times article was key in getting this over the line as acceptable content.

R10
R13

+

RT

10.

Potential

A conversation with Wendy also inspired me with the idea of launching climate cafés based on solution-focused practice, which is the therapeutic modality that I specialise in.

R10

+

Other

12.

Applied

I have also started working on an online course on parenting in uncertain times, which I am aiming to deliver later this year. Besides, I’ve been commissioned to write a book chapter - working title “For Our Children’s Future - Solution Focused Practice At The Edge Of Despair” - for a work called ‘Holding The Hope’.

R10
R13

+

Other

13.

Immediate

I feel quite keen to crack on with these endeavours. Knowing that I am not alone in this mindset and intention helps me to keep going.

R5

+

Other

14.

Transformative

I’m done with leaving emotions like terror, guilt, or shame, are in my driving seat. It’s fine for them to be in the car, but I’d rather they be passengers. I think cautious optimism may now be in the driving seat – optimism about the beautiful aspects of humanity, and the desire to embody these qualities and fight for them.

T4

+

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Indicator

Value

How the project started

Conscious Learning Festival

1.

Enabling

Wendy and Dorian launched the Conscious Learning Festival in early July 2021. I found it a very interesting initiative, as I felt it opened up an important new sphere of enterprise within the Deep Adaptation Forum that is about ideas, as distinct from the well-developed sphere of facilitation.

R5

+

Conscious Learning Festival

2.

Potential

This gave me the idea to experiment with a new meeting format, which would make use of many of the regular DAF processes, such as check-ins, but which would be about discussing ideas. These meetings would be based on the 4 Rs of Deep Adaptation, as a legitimate target of inquiry that we should elucidate within our community, and perhaps extend with more Rs - as a way to take from a common starting point, and a way for people to build on it.

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

3.

Strategic

During July and early August, I had conversations with several active DAF participants, to clarify what the process might look like for these calls, and what format to use.

R9

+

4Rs Conversations

4.

Potential

Participants found that the 4 Rs were useful:
- to provide a "scaffolding" to help people process their response to collapse-awareness,
- to show a way of moving beyond the initial emotional shock,
- and potentially to be a tool for other communities, as well as our own.

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

5.

Ant. Realised

We decided to plan regular Zoom meetings which could help collect wisdom over time, without being prescriptive. We also envisioned creating videos based on the 4 Rs which could work as "conversation starters," "explainers," "thought-provokers," and "scene-setters," particularly useful to newcomers arriving in DAF.

?

+

The first calls: Developing a format

DAF

6.

Enabling

On Aug. 20, I created the #four-rs-project channel to discuss and plan facilitated events and the production of communication resources around this project, and to share insights emerging from these activities.

R9

+

4Rs Conversations

7.

Applied

On Aug. 25, I ran the first iteration of an experimental "Four Rs Discussion Club." In the first round, each participant had two minutes to bring up their own ideas about the 4 Rs.

R9

+

4Rs Conversations

8.

Strategic

I found that people had an amazing variety of approaches: the Four Rs can accommodate everything from farming, to giving up farming to live in a mobile home, to making films, to organizing your neighbours, to organizing your singing group, to making a map of spiritual advancement.

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

9.

Potential

I realised that this incredible variety among individuals was a primary challenge to creating a coherent model for discussion! One point of general agreement seemed to be the desire for “community.” That led us to questions of “on-line” vs. “real-world” community, and other interesting issues.

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

10.

Applied

In the second round, individuals asked questions of other individuals, who had two minutes to respond. This was good, in that it allowed for reflection and curiosity about others' views. On the other hand, it was unsatisfying, because the responses were short and therefore shallow, leaving many depths unplumbed. This confirmed to me that the balance between depth, participation, and time available is the critical issue for a discussion group. If everyone tells about themselves, then their time must be short and the discussion is shallow. But if one person goes into depth, then everyone else is reduced to listening — which is more like a Q&A or a webinar.

?

+

4Rs Conversations

11.

Ant. Applied

How to provide maximum participation, while also generating useful focus? One possible solution to this, in my view, was the perennial technique of “small groups.” I found we could use the first round to let people bring up topics, and then in the second round, let people divide into small groups according to their preference, to go into depth. This is essentially the Open Space model, writ small.

?

+

Insights from the main discussion series

4Rs Conversations

12.

Applied

Building on the lessons from the first workshop, I ran two more sessions of the discussion club on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, in different time zones. The topic was "Resilience: What do we most value that we want to keep and how?"

R9

+

Ground narrative

After a brief presencing exercise, we went “around the table” and each person offered what they have on the topic. I set a timer to give each person 2 minutes 30 seconds, which seemed to be plenty while also setting a boundary. I also experimented with a new technique: After each person spoke, I asked the group to type into the Zoom chat questions about what they had just heard - questions they thought the speaker was asking, questions they wanted to ask the speaker, or questions inspired by what the speaker said. While these questions could have provided topics for breakout rooms, in these sessions we stayed in one group for a general discussion. The list of questions provided a shared foundation of ideas, helping people to focus and interact with each other (rather than devolving into individual rants, which can happen). The resulting conversation was coherent and deep, with useful ideas surfacing from individuals for respectful discussion by the group. At the end of the second session, I realized that a good conclusion was to go back and ask everyone to actually answer the question posed by the topic: “What do we most value that we want to keep and how?” This provides a glimpse of where people have arrived after the process of the discussion.

4Rs Conversations

13.

Realised

I received positive feedback from participants, who said they found the time pleasant, engaging, and worthwhile. One participant wrote me: "That was a stellar discussion the other day. Thank you for moderating. Probably one of the best discussions I've ever been in and we could've gone on and probably even deeper. We almost got to the real pain (TBD).”

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

14.

Potential

I collected the questions that were asked, to provide a written record of the thoughts and themes of the discussion.

R8

+

4Rs Conversations

15.

Applied

On Sept. 7 and 8, I ran two more discussions, on the topic of "Relinquishment": "What do we need to let go of so as not to make matters worse?" I used the same format as previously. …

R9

+

4Rs Conversations

16.

Potential

It occurred to me that this event format could be used to discuss any question at all: to “State the Question” in a way that seeks actual answers is a great way to give direction and motion to the discussion. However, regardless of the question, people will be sharing their own story, so in a funny way it doesn’t matter what the question is, as long as it “hooks” people’s individual experiences!

?

+

4Rs Conversations

17.

Potential

People **loved** the timer in the “Around the Table” segment! One participant didn’t want to start until they could see the timer on the screen. It creates a boundary and a container, giving a sense of safety. Two minutes thirty seconds (“two-and-a-half minutes”) is a good length of time. …

?

+

4Rs Conversations

18.

Potential

The collected questions (and statements) from this week are on this online file.

R8

+

4Rs Conversations

19.

Applied

On Sept. 14 and 15, I ran two new sessions on the topic of "Restoration: “What could we bring back to help us with these difficult times?” (I added, parenthetically: “What have we lost? Where might we find it?“)"

R9

+

4Rs Conversations

20.

Potential

The notes are on this file.

R8

+

What I learned from this workshop series

Ground narrative

On Oct. 8, I joined the recap call of the Conscious Learning Festival to share what the outcomes of this project had been for me.

4Rs Conversations

22.

Potential

In terms of substantive learning, one thing I found in running these workshops was that discussions around the first 3 Rs (Resilience, Restoration, and Relinquishment) ended up being discussions about community. Resilience can only be found in community. The relinquishment we need to do is the relinquishment of the individual mindset. And the restoration is the restoration of community bonds, which gives us strength. So it's very interesting that those that those conversations converged on that single singular idea. The last one, reconciliation and about making peace, went to a different place - a place of responsibility. People wanted to talk about their responsibility to the people they had wronged, with whom they needed to make reconciliation, and that covered everything from one's personal sense to a historical sense of colonialism and reparations. There was special emphasis on their responsibility to the next generation and their individual children, their actual children. How could they reconcile with their children, given the terrible, the story of a terrible future that they are being required to tell right now?

R5

+

4Rs Conversations

23.

Potential

Interesting procedural learning also happened for me. Running these sessions and reflecting on them iteratively led me to develop an event format which can be useful to discuss any question within the context of an online group. Also, I found that a group of about six to eight people cohered in each of the two separate sessions I ran each time. So it became the same people coming back, which is great, because you get a coherence, you get a mutual understanding, shared background, and so you can get deep into it. However, I did feel the desire that this could be a wider discussion that could be have a wider application.

4Rs Conversations

24.

Potential

It also occurred to me that a group of six to eight people is too many – or not enough. If you want a big group discussion, then you need 12 or 15, or 30. And you use breakout rooms, and everyone gets a chance to sort of mix and mingle. And the voice the voice of the crowd is very encouraging and gives a sensation of activity and being in touch with a group which is very energizing, it can be healing. And then on the other end, if you have one person or two, then you can ask them open ended questions and get to learn what their thoughts really are. Because for most of us, it takes 10 or 15 minutes at least to just even get into what we’re thinking. It takes a while to let that play out at the speed of normal human speech. So that’s why half an hour is the bare minimum for a person just to give the first level of their exploration of the topic of collapse, in any meaningful way. So the discussion group of six or eight people is not enough time to get into it, but not enough people to give a sort of buzz of group vibe.

R5

+

Collapse Club

Other

25.

Ant. Applied

So I started considering how to continue to engage in discussions on questions like the four R's, but in a way that's sort of tilted for broadcast, as it were, instead of six people talking to each other, maybe two people talking to each other, with me as a moderator, as a program, a show, something like a podcast, but as a little discussion. I wanted to figure out how to better share with others, not so much the knowledge we may have, but our reflections on the questions that speak to us, in a living process of inquiry.

R5

+

Collapse Club

26.

Applied

This led me to start a YouTube channel, “Collapse Club.” Through this platform, I publish the conversations I have with interesting thinkers from the field of collapse-awareness (not just from Deep Adaptation, which is a subset of that field), people with insight and wisdom.

R8
R9

+

Aspirational narrative

I want to explore commonalities between the various humans who face into the central question of “How are we to live in the time of collapse?” – while breaking down ideological boundaries in the process. My hope is that these recordings can be of value to people who have not yet begun to walk the path of adaptation, awareness and acceptance. It’s a way of trying to draw from the well and give the nourishment of what’s inside to those who are outside, so that they can be comforted, and find the motivation to embark on their own path. Maybe this will also help the group of people who are aware and accepting to keep growing as time goes on.

Collapse Club

27.

Potential

A key insight from these conversations so far is that relationships and connections are central to the entire question. Relationships with oneself, with other people, with the natural world, and with the divine. When you’re looking for answers, you have to look to what connections do you have. What relationships do you have. If our problem indeed is separation, then the cure is connection.

R5

+

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Ground narrative

I have been engaging with the field of collapsology since 2009. In 2015, I read the books by the French collapsologists (Servigne and others), which had a deep impact on me.

Other

3. Immediate

In September 2019, I took part in a very powerful retreat in Catalonia, "The Practice of Loving and Dying", exploring indigenous rites of passage related to Death. I came out of this retreat very touched and moved. It was a very important experience for me.

+

DA Retreat

4. Immediate

Almost immediately afterwards, I joined a retreat with Katie and Jem in Cumbria. I was not fully present, because I was still trying to digest and metabolise what I had just gone through. But it was very powerful nonetheless.

+

DA Retreat

5. Potential

In this retreat, I got to meet Katie and Jem, as well as other great people. I also discovered many practices that I loved, including Deep Relating, or Death Cafe.

+

Ground narrative

Soon afterwards, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I accompanied her until her death, and her passing sank me into the depths. I went into a dark night of the soul. I decided to devote time to my grief. So I did the Camino de Santiago in harsh conditions, and I went on a vision quest. I also got acquainted with the ideas of Andrew Harvey, a British mystic, and his vision of the global dark night that the world is entering now; and read other authors, who also discussed possible collapse scenarios and their impacts.

Joining the community

Other

7. Enabling

I got back in touch with Katie. We had a long chat, and she started to coach me in Deep Relating. She also invited me to a DA Facilitators call.

+

Other

8. Immediate

I loved it.

+

DAF

9. Applied

After that, I started participating in many DA gatherings, such as Earth Listening, Deep Relating, Songs of One Breath, Ancestors work, Mutual Care, White Supremacy workshops...

+

Other

10. Enabling

Katie also put me in touch with Harriet, who facilitates Ancestors’ Work.

+

Other

11. Orienting

The sessions I did with her have been very powerful. Through them, I went on a journey, thanks to which I realised important things: that the Deep Adaptation community is a shelter to me - a warm and cosy place where to go from time to time, when life is rough; that I need to unleash my passions; and that I want to pursue beauty.

+

Other

12. Potential

I also had another powerful experience, through which I was offered a talking stick. I understood that this stick symbolised the work I must do.

+

Becoming a facilitator

DAF

13. Applied

Now, I've started giving back to the community, by facilitating Deep Relating, the Work that Reconnects, Death Cafes, etc. DA is my work now.

+

DAF

14. Immediate

It feels challenging for me to be a facilitator, because I'm used to speaking. Speaking is a very different craft, and it's one I've practised a lot and been recognised for.

-

Other

15. Applied

Recently, I gave a talk about collapse and DA at my son's engineering school in Scotland, to an audience of scientists.

+

Other

16. Realised

The headmaster loved my talk and the discussion that followed, and so did the students. It was a powerful event. I was invited to come back.

+

DAF

17. Enabling

Katie suggested I join the DA Advocates. I was feeling hesitant about my legitimacy in doing so, because there are some big calibres in that group. But I decided to give it a try, as this could give me a platform as a speaker. So Katie has recommended me to the Advocates group, and I'll be discussing this with her soon.

+

DAF

18. Ant. Applied

However, my calling as a speaker or communicator is still very strong. First, because I love to collect information, come up with models, and share it with others. But also because I want to become better at doing so around the topic of collapse, in order to help awaken people while being conscious of the suffering this can create - which fits with my commitment to loving speech, as part of my training in Zen Buddhism. And I would love to go and do presentations about collapse with my tie, my good shoes, and my costume. That would enable me to make good use of my status as a "regular guy," who hasn't been a lifelong environmentalist; I have more legitimacy this way as a speaker. For example, I could speak at the European Commission, where I can still walk around as an unpaid consultant and where I have access to an audience of thousands of people - I might deliver a Work That Reconnects workshop there at some point. I'm also very well connected in Spain. I also have access to other communities, such as the Spanish Transition Network, as well as access to very effective environmental activist groups.

+

Earth Listening

Earth Listening

19. Enabling

My sessions with Emma Mary and Deep Listening help me to connect with the land, feel the love I have for it, and realise that the land loves me back. In one of the sessions with her, I travelled to a certain place near where I grew up, near the Atlantic, and the Earth spoke to me: "I'm your mother. You made me sick, then sent me to hospice, and now you're using my pension. Is that a way to treat your mother?"

+

Earth Listening

20. Immediate

This has been a very powerful experience.

+

Earth Listening

21. Transformative

Such gatherings and experiences have had a deep impact on me. My participation in them has changed how I relate with reality, and it is also changing the way in which I express myself about our predicament - more and more, I stress the need to approach these questions from the point of view of feelings and relating.

+

Other

22. Applied

For example, I recently wrote an article about the need to learn the language of the Universe. In it, I mentioned how easier it is to learn a language when one is in love. I wrote that people need to fall in love with Nature again in order to learn her language. By listening to trees, rivers, or clouds, we can absorb their vocabulary, and better relate to them.

+

The Spanish Transition Towns movement

Other

23. Applied

I also often share DA practices in the Spanish Transition movement, as I'm in the leading team there. For example, I convened a Deep Relating circle over there recently, as well as an Earth Listening circle.

+

Decolonising

Value narrative

The way I express myself, particularly from where I express myself, has also been massively shaped by what I learned around topics of decolonisation and white supremacy with Heather, as well as critical discourse analysis with Katie and Jem.

Impacts on my life

DAF

24. Potential

As a result of my path, and my ideas, I have gained many friends, but also lost many friends. Some people don't want to see me anymore. And what I say or write within the Spanish Transition movement isn't always welcome either, when it touches on the topics of collapse or DA.

+

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Ground

Toward the end of 2019, Dana had a life crisis. Two of the most important relationships in their life broke down, which precipitated a huge shift in their addressing (and breaking) intergenerational abuse dynamics in their family. This also led them to embark on an eco-psychology course. Simultaneously, Dana’s career became a source of discomfort, as they realised their work had a strongly anthropocentric perspective, which instrumentalised the environment. As a result, Dana started to feel like they had no anchor in their personal or career spheres.

Ground

This led them to use their skills and experience to work on a piece of research to show how the frameworks in their profession were instrumentalising the environment.

Other

1. Potential

It was through this research that Dana discovered collapse-related writing, including Jem Bendell's research and framing of Deep Adaptation. This felt like an important discovery to Dana, as it helped them realise how much knowledge production in their professional field was in fact pointing to factors that are causing collapse, although the word "collapse" itself was barely ever used.

+

Ning

2. Applied

Out of curiosity for the DA field, and hoping to connect with more like-minded professionals, Dana decided to join the Deep Adaptation Forum on the Professions’ Network.

+

Ning

3. Immediate

They almost didn’t join the platform, as they felt put off by how the guidelines were phrased: these felt parent-child.

-

Ning

4. Applied

Dana was concerned they might be joining a cult, so they decided to give it two days to explore the forum, before closing down their account.

+

Ning

6. Applied

They decided to follow the host's advice and to attend as many DA events as possible, to get to know the network better.

+

Earth Listening

7. Immediate

One of the next events they attended was an Earth Listening circle. Although it felt a bit puzzling at first, they loved it.

+

Earth Listening

9. Transformative

This led to a profound change for Dana: now, they cannot imagine not speaking to the earth whenever they are out in the wild.

+

Other

10. Applied

Through connections made in that circle, Dana also joined the five-week “Attending to Place” course (in late 2020).

+

Other

11. Transformative

This was another pivotal moment for them, as a finale on their journey towards healing intergenerational abuse dynamics. It was also the occasion for Dana to write several poems about the natural world, which felt novel and provided another layer of personal healing to them.

+

A new self-understanding

Coaching session

12. Applied

In order to make a better informed decision, they decided to book a session with a coach they met in DAF, who had experience in ecopsychology.

+

Coaching session

13. Potential

The coach helped them realise that they had been on a learning journey for decades (involving courses, books, coaching, therapy, etc.), and been intent on achieving continuous self-improvement, personal growth and accountability. The coach said: “What if this drive for self-improvement is part of an ‘old you’, in which you always have to ‘do better’ and ‘be better’ in order to feel you are of value in the world? What if you have grown and learned enough? How about allowing yourself to step into the world with no more dedicated personal development – and just ‘being you’?”

+

Coaching session

14. Applied

This insight landed deeply in Dana. They decided that the next phase of their life would be about “self-fulfilment, not self-development.” So they didn’t take the course, and over the months that followed, simply allowed themself to be and enjoy life, in spite of their appetite for self-development.

+

Growing disenchanted with the Forum

Ground

Dana also regularly participated in many other offerings within the forum.

DAF

16. Immediate

Seeing the same people and familiar faces again and again made them feel increasingly comfortable and connected. Dana also felt that people in DAF could speak to their different sides, from the professional to the spiritual and the intellectual - which felt unusual.

+

DAF

17. Potential

Besides, Dana found ways to contribute their professional skills and expertise in various groups and initiatives.

+

DAF

18. Immediate

The network started to feel like home.

+

DAF

19. Immediate

However, this didn’t last more than a few months. A sense of intellectual mismatch eventually developed for Dana, as they engaged with several volunteers, Core Team members, or event attendees. In particular, Dana experienced a tendency to perpetuate rigid norms, simplistic group-think, and an absence of critical thinking on the topics of anti-racism, decolonisation, and othering. This lack of nuance felt stifling and dull to Dana, and ultimately even limiting of human rights.

-

What Dana learned from this experience

Value narrative

Although Dana had first felt excited at encountering a network which felt like home, and then was disappointed to experience a lack of belonging to it, they described this journey as a useful process of learning. This showed them that tribal acceptance is less important to them that their sense of personal freedom, and that they do not need to be part of - or aligned with - one group in particular.

Ground narrative

In spite of the disenchantment, they remain closely in touch with several people with whom they developed strong relationships in DAF.

Value narrative

Besides, Dana feels that several experiences they've had thanks to DAF, notably a course in which they had to record a song and display it publicly, enabled them to bring their whole self into the world, which felt very brave and liberating. And the coaching session that led them to renewed self-understanding also gave them the permission to stop trying to find their “tribe” and to fit in.

DAF

21. Transformative

So although they are now much less engaged in DAF than they once were, Dana feels they have become able to more holistically integrate their personal and professional lives together - including both their love for life and nature, and the more brain-centred part of them.

+

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Other

2. Immediate

When I read it, I was struck that someone from the field of conventional sustainability academia was “telling it as it is.”

+

Other

3. Potential

For me, the information was not new: in my circles, people tend to find the actual situation much worse than is normally talked about, and suffer emotionally and physically from it.

+

Other

5. Potential

I realised that permaculture, which is a field in which I’m actively involved, isn’t possible without considering these four questions. It also felt relevant to the work I do with others in the field of community-led climate action...

+

Aspirational narrative

In community-led climate action, people often just focus on behaviour change on the societal scale, and neglect individual transformations. So I felt it would make sense to support a network focused on delivering this kind of learning experiences.

Ning

7. Applied

Therefore, when the Deep Adaptation Forum was launched, I joined the network on Ning, and observed what was going on there.

+

CA Team

9. Potential

... and reached out to people one-to-one, such as Kat Soares, who was a volunteer with the Community Action group.

+

CA Team

10. Applied

I decided to join her as a fellow Group Leader.

+

Cultivating new ways of being and doing

Aspirational narrative

I joined the Community Action group to find ways of making our work, in my community-led climate action circles, more real and more effective. Kat, myself and others focused on finding out how we wanted to collaborate.

Value narrative

We found a good fit, as experienced group process facilitators open to experimentation, and we avoid making things overly complicated.

Ground narrative

As I started engaging in the Forum, I found a lot of conventional culture there - e.g. top-down and hierarchical practices, or predefined "volunteer roles" - in spite of good intentions. In particular, I found that there was no deliberate development of small groups or teams.

CA Team

11. Applied

In our collaborative action care team, we too started working in a conventional way, with an agenda, proposals, notes, etc. But we dropped this, and decided to start working with what is emergent.

+

CA Team

12. Potential

That was a shift for me. I discovered that it doesn't prevent the group to bring about effective outcomes - we do things, but in a relaxed and emergent way.

+

CA Team

13. Realised

This is an inner transformation, for me, which has been influenced by those I interact with in this group and in other spaces.

+

CA Team

14. Applied

Our group also started to actively model the process of “teaming” – forming small teams to do certain kinds of work. Besides, we introduced open space technology into our work, and set up a weekly virtual coworking time slot.

+

How the network has evolved

DAF

15. Realised

In many conversations I had during our weekly check-in meeting, online Open Space events and in 1-on-1 random coffees, I learned that our way of doing things is spreading within DAF. I notice, for example, how the Business and Finance group leaders now announce their events as “Zoom sessions in an ‘open space’ context.” I’ve also heard of teaming processes being used more deliberately, for instance in the DA Facilitators’ group.

+

CA Team

17. Enabling

Our team has been actively involved in facilitating and supporting this change, which doesn't happen automatically, particularly in a remote context.

+

Ground narrative

To be fair, these changes in DAF’s culture of organising have also been facilitated by Kat Soares, in her role as Core Team Coordinator: she has been deeply involved in modelling these processes in our group from the start. And this was also enabled because Jem Bendell, as founder of DAF, was clear that he wanted to step aside, and do this in an orderly way – and he was open to input on how to do it.

What this all means to me

Aspirational narrative

In summary, I notice two tendencies in me now: (1) minimizing structured work time and maximising social time, and (2) showing how to do things by modelling, without giving structured instructions or tutorials or training, maybe by sharing brief "knowledge assets". This is related to (2) because this can only work if people are paying attention. If social time develops trust and relationships, then people might pay attention. With these tendencies in me, I influence teams I'm working with.

Ground narrative

These ways of working are spreading beyond DAF, in other networks and online communities. I’ve taken these practices to other teams I’m in – championing being together remotely while doing things in ways that aren't too over-structured; but this may be part of a more global cultural shift. People are not interested in visioning and backcasting anymore, but prefer to respond to what is emerging.

Value narrative

I find that working in this way makes for a better experience, less stress and less tensions. It's about being fully present in the moment – and this is a spiritual practice.

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

The DA Guidance website

Ning

1. Potential

What first helped me to "find my people" was when I became a volunteer with the Holistic Approaches and Guidance group, on the Professions' Network, and met my co-moderator Dean.

+

Personal relationship

3. Potential

I’ve learned a lot from Dean.

+

DA Guidance

4. Potential

Being a volunteer also enabled me to start working with Stina and Brennan on the DA Guidance website. Stina started working on the design of this website.

+

DA Guidance

5. Immediate

Working with such cooperative, generous, loving people, has felt lovely and organic, as we've focused on what we feel most inspired to do, and focus our collaboration on skills rather than roles.

+

DA Guidance

6. Realised

So far, most Guides have made a profile on the website, but we haven't got much of an active community. The website is not generating much traffic for them or clients, and communication about it is insufficient in the DA community.

0

DA Guidance

7. Ant. Applied

In the project team, we want to foster more self-organising and a more active community around this project, for example to share more personal and professional practices among ourselves. We also want to start offering affordable therapy to activists and others on the front-lines of collapse. We just need to find the capacity to make it happen.

+

Wider Embraces

Wider Embraces circles

8. Potential

I was working with S., who was registered as a Guide on the Guidance website. Her offering was the Wider Embraces Meditation.

+

Wider Embraces circles

9. Applied

I asked if I could try it with her, so we did so.

+

Wider Embraces circles

10. Immediate

I loved trialling Wider Embraces. First, because it helps one to expand one's sense of self, to include much wider dimensions. This provides space and capacity in the being, in which the global predicament can surface more safely than when we just experience ourselves as individuals. Besides, it helps to practice adopting different perspectives, which is a very useful and pertinent skill in these times of polarisation.

+

Wider Embraces circles

11. Potential

So she trained me on guiding this meditation.

+

Coaching

12. Realised

I now offer this meditation as part of my coaching.

+

External event

14. Immediate

I enjoyed the conversation at the end of the event.

+

The 5 Elements of DA

Other

16. Potential

I never warmed to the framework of the 4 Rs, as it feels a bit abstract to me. As I was looking talking with a lot of people in DA, and hearing about their sense of internal collapse and overwhelm when considering global collapse, I started to tease out what goes on for people. I eventually hit upon a new framework through which to consider awareness of and responses to collapse - that of the Five Elements: emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, values, and justice. It's a neat framework, which covers all possible responses to this topic. All are equally necessary and valid, although people may have preferences for one or the other. To me, this framework is a distillation of what I've learned in the DA environment.

+

Coaching

17. Applied

I now use this framework as a diagnostic tool in my coaching, to find out where a person may want to direct their attention to generate individual adaptation pathways. For example, I'm working with a client at the moment, working on one element per session. In the meantime, she explores things through the perspective of that element.

+

External event

19. Enabling

As a coach, I am also part of another group, the Climate Coaching Alliance. As I found there were few collapse-aware participants around me, I put on a couple of workshops for these coaches, inviting them to consider collapse and the DA response, using the framework of the Five Elements which I developed.

+

External event

20. Realised

People asked me for the slides afterwards, so I assume they found value in this framework, or want to use it and adapt it.

+

Coaching

21. Ant. Applied

I would love to work with coaches on the model, to see what it offers them. I also want to make my coaching in general more permeable to the global condition, so that it may enable more professionals to feel into their responses to the global crisis.

+

DAF

22. Ant. Applied

I would also love to see equal attention being placed for each of the 5 elements in the DA community, because each are important. They are also useful to present a narrative of how this community has evolved through time - from sense-making to emotional processing, issues of justice, practical applications...

+

What DAF has brought to my life

Value narrative

I've had the pleasure of meeting very helpful collaborators in the Forum, from whom to learn and with whom to share new processes I've been trialling.

Value narrative

I've made very nourishing friendships.

Value narrative

My work as a volunteer is full of purpose. It enables me to do what I want, to be of service and be useful, which feels very gratifying.

Value narrative

Being part of the DA movement, and participating in the grief circles, Death Cafes and other meetings has helped me better express my grief, and integrate it with other aspects of my life. Grief now plays a healthier and less dominant part in my emotional spectrum. I've learned how to integrate, handle and regulate my anxiety and other negative feelings. I also feel a renewed sense of hope, which is not grounded in an expectation of the future but in how we can be together. I feel part of a community of people who are loving and with whom I'm on the same page. This feels extremely rewarding.

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Other

1. Orienting

My wife and I had concerns about where our civilization was headed, and we wanted to live more responsibly. We moved to Italy, and I started reading up on sustainable agriculture and other matters. This is how I stumbled upon the Deep Adaptation paper, 18 months ago. It made me realise that things were worse than I thought.

+

Other

2. Immediate

I had an episode of depression.

-

Aspirational narrative

I wanted to be able to discuss matters of civilisational collapse with people, to talk about my fears, and find some comfort. And I wanted to learn more. So I joined the PDA Facebook group and started participating.

Joining the DA Facebook Group

DA Facebook group

3. Immediate

I found that the DA group was unlike any other group I've been involved in on Facebook. It doesn't have as many keyboard warriors, trying to shout each other down and out-fact everybody. It feels like an oasis.

+

DA Facebook group

4. Enabling

I also found that the moderators worked hard, and were doing a very good job at modelling certain ways of being. They helped to keep the group civil, kind, and loving. This culture of loving behaviours is also embodied by regular group participants, which makes it easier for new participants to shift their own behaviour. And the group rules, too, are set up to encourage that. It is difficult to change all of this, so people who don't fit in will eventually leave.

+

DA Facebook group

5. Potential

When I arrived in the group, I often reacted angrily to what others wrote. But with the help of other participants, I understood eventually that this anger came from desperately grasping onto my beliefs, defensively. The openness and understanding I found in other group participants helped me accept my fears and worries about the future. I also understood that the group's purpose was to make it possible for people to help each other out, just like I had been helped.

+

DA Facebook group

6. Applied

Engaging with the PDA group has helped me to grow more mindful, and responsible about my thoughts and my own reactions to them. While I used to be react angrily when triggered, I've become better at recognising this anger, and better choose how to respond or behave. For example, since joining DA, I've never pressed the heart button on Facebook comments as much in my entire Facebook career!

+

DA Facebook group

7. Realised

Joining the DA group helped me to overcome the episode of depression I experienced after reading the DA paper. It has also helped me improve the way I deal with my chronic depression. I still suffer from depression, and it still feels the same to me. But thanks to this new mindfulness and sense of responsibility, cultivated within the DA group, my depression - when it reoccurs - isn't having such a damaging effect in my relationship with my wife. So our relationship has improved as a result: I feel that we now communicate on a more intimate level. Our relationship with friends, who live in the rural area around us, has also improved. We get together and hang out more often. Thanks to my engagement with the group, I am also better able to be open and honest about my feelings with family and friends. I used to keep my emotions to myself, but much less so now: I hug people more, I can tell them I love them when these words would have remained stuck in my throat. This has been really liberating - as well as also being a hugely effective way of dealing with my depression: I can defuse it by practising openness. I also search for emotional openness and honesty in people. And I value interpersonal connections much more.

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Becoming a moderator

Ground narrative

Working as a Moderator can be challenging. Certain situations occur that require a lot of effort from all of us to moderate conversations, for example when members attack Jem or some of his video interviews, or when people contact us and demand to know why we didn't accept one of their posts. But I love the other Moderators. I learn from them, and they improve me as a person. Some people didn't fit in as moderators, but with those who are in this group now, I have very frank, honest, open and loving conversations - even when difficult ones occur. We are good at finding consensus among ourselves, in spite of how different each of us is. We bring different skills to the team.

DA Facebook group

10. Realised

Becoming a moderator has made me step up my game: I have become more responsible about my own behaviour and reactions, and consider how others may perceive them. So I am now better at listening to others, and at trying to understand how they feel. This sense of responsibility is also expressed in my improved ability at managing conflict: I stay calmer, am better aware of my own responses in a heated exchange, and better at keeping the big picture in mind.

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DA Facebook group

11. Enabling

Becoming a moderator has made me think that it would be very helpful for many people if they could get the chance to become moderators themselves. Because of the difficult situations you have to deal with, in a responsible way, it is a very good preparation for what lies ahead for all of us in the real world.

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Other

12. Applied

My engagement in the group is also leading me to think more about what a resilient community might look like in the valley where we live. Furthermore, DA has made me consider what the boundaries are to my own agency in the world. My agency is quite small, as I only act on 12 acres of land where I am cultivating the land and trying to bring in more biodiversity. But I'm happy with this work, which many might consider mundane peasant work.

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DA Facebook group

13. Transformative

I've learned many skills that have changed me as a person - I wouldn't be the person I am today without the group. I can honestly say that the last 18 months have been truly life-changing for me.

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Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

How I first grew collapse-aware

Ground narrative

As a child, I felt the extent of our predicament from a very young age, perhaps due to suppressed emotions in my family. It gave me feelings of anger, which my parents wanted me to repress but which I couldn't - I don't have any ability to put a mask up. I then did a lot of reading, which confirmed my initial intuition that things were broken. I told the adults around me about this, but they didn't do anything to fix the situation, which felt very overwhelming.

Ground narrative

To cope with what I was going through, I came up with a 3-part plan: 1. Ignore myself and my thoughts; 2. Stay really curious; 3. Do helpful things. I followed this plan for the next 40 years. Until one day I realised that I had accepted myself. Since then I've come to understand that I can be with myself now and was probably radically accepting myself when I tried to 'ignore my thoughts'.

Ground narrative

Now, I run a huge 20-year internal behaviour change program for the Welsh government, and we're eight years into it. I've been attracted to it because it's about helping people, within the framework of sustainable development and the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. What I need to be able to help others with is the pain, because there will be a lot to relinquish to become sustainable, and that will involve big efforts for this to happen equitably and in healing ways. I'm glad I've had this awareness about collapse from a young age, because otherwise I would have become frightened about understanding the extent of our predicament, sooner or later.

Aspirational narrative

To me, the whole point of this program is to maximise the healing, and become really skilled at doing that, no matter the outcome. Any amount of healing is a success.

What I found in the Deep Adaptation Forum

Personal relationship

1. Immediate

After I had read the DA paper, Jem Bendell twice gave me an hour of his time to discuss the paper, and I felt very honoured to be able to have this conversation with him. I was also glad to be able to share with him that I had been in this mental/emotional space for decades, and that I knew how it feels like.

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Aspirational narrative

I joined with a vague intention to meet people with whom I could discuss my work on collapse (more than my feeling about is as I do get to discuss these with my husband). My intention has deepened; now I feel I am hear to listen to what others have to say and to come, if we can, to collective understandings. 

Ning

3. Applied

Since then, I've attended many of the talks, watched many recordings, made several new connections, and attended the Cadence Roundtable gatherings.

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Ning

4. Immediate

Attending these gatherings has given me a huge sense of relief and connectedness: people were saying the same things that I've been telling my husband for years. I also felt excitement, knowing that I could learn something from people, who would be newer to this field and thus spotting things that I've grown rusty on because I've sat with this lens for a long time. Even though these are very difficult topics, and in fact I've dealt with depression all my life, on and off, it's such a blessing to find people with whom I can sit with the idea that things are worse than we could possibly describe in words. People with whom I can speak to these things without fearing that it's going to cause someone a massive shock.

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Other

5. Potential

I'm now able to have deeper conversations with more people, although sometimes it's only about an element of the predicament, and sticking to the part that people understand already while keeping the broader context in mind.

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Workplace

6. Applied

For example, this week I was working with someone and hinted at the possibility of collapse, but hedged and admitted that I might be wrong about what happens next. However, I think we won’t avoid the worst.

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Ning

7. Applied

In the forum, I joined discussions on behaviours such as panic, suppression (of information or feelings), or the writing of more and more reports (instead of taking action).

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Workplace

8. Potential

These discussions help me understand what it is like for people who don't assume collapse. When I am back at work, our discussions help me feel more sympathetic and to explore new ways of responding to colleagues.

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Workplace

9. Applied

For example, the day after my "coming-out" talk, I was able to have a fruitful conversation with one of my co-workers who I felt had been avoiding collapse, but he was now able to discuss it, and things went very well.

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Workplace

13. Realised

Finally, I don't think we would have done the Work That Reconnects workshops in my team without this confidence that I received from being in the forum.

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Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Coming to terms with a variety of perspectives

Ground narrative

I was working at a homeless shelter.

Personal relationship

1. Potential

In March 2019, a person I trusted recommended I read Jem Bendell's paper.

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Other

2. Immediate

Reading it, I felt galvanized.

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DA Facebook group

3. Applied

So I looked up the Facebook group immediately and started participating.

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Aspirational narrative

I had no particular goal except to reach other people who were considering the issue of potential collapse, which to my mind is and always has been the equivalent of the end of the world as we know it. For me, it's very much an eschatological question.

DA Facebook group

4. Orienting

When I arrived in the FB group, I didn't really know what it was at all. I'd been studying worldwide calamities since I was 17 years old. So as I read what people were sharing, I recognized some of the ideas, and thought I knew what this was about. So I engaged with the group from a position of "I know what's going on here." But I experienced all kinds of pushback from people who disagreed with my approach, sometimes forcefully.

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DA Facebook group

5. Immediate

I found this confusing.

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DA Facebook group

6. Potential

However, I gradually came to recognize that there are a variety of equally valid viewpoints in this conversation. This was the most important lesson of my experience in the Facebook group - there is such a diversity of approaches of feelings and thoughts on the topic generically referred to as "collapse"!

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Ground narrative

It's now more obvious to me that everyone has their own wisdom. My viewpoint is just one viewpoint among innumerable viewpoints. It doesn't make it less valid - in fact, I have deepened my commitment to my own perspective, which comes from a very internal place. But I now feel I have no right to be judgmental about other people's point of view. I still think I'm right, but critically, I'm right *for me*. And I am able to comprehend that someone else is right *for them*. For example, while some people are keen to build sustainable communities around themselves, my belief is that all human arrangements are going to become irrelevant at some point - and that these people are only using this planning as a buffer against accepting the utter dissolution of human society and even biological existence on this planet at this time. But I don't feel the need to interfere with what they're doing. They're learning valuable skills. They're in touch with Mother Earth. So they're doing things that I'm not doing. We don't necessarily need to reconcile that I don't need to go be part of their community.

My experience as a Facebook group Moderator

Moderators’ team

7. Enabling

Soon after I entered the group, one of the Facebook group's moderators recruited me to become a moderator, so I was inducted into the Moderators' group.

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Moderators’ team

8. Immediate

The induction process felt comfortable and appropriate.

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Moderators’ team

9. Potential

Being part of the Moderators' team, I also came to realise that some issues were particularly triggering to people in the group we managed - such as veganism, nuclear power, or overpopulation. These issues tend to polarise opinions.

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Moderators’ team

10. Strategic

And I found that while I was reluctant to spend a long time in dialogue with people I considered trolls, other moderators were keen to do so.

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Moderators’ team

11. Immediate

I also regretted that the Moderators' team tended to fracture out into little technical silos, which made me feel we were lacking coherence and a sense of common direction.

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Moderators’ team

12. Applied

And the others didn't seem to agree with me. So I decided I might as well move on.

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DA Facebook group

13. Immediate

As I was growing dissatisfied with my involvement in the Moderators' group, in which I experienced a lack of belonging, I also grew increasingly tired of the Facebook group. After a while, it felt like the same conversations were happening over and over again, so it stopped being a learning experience for me, as a long-term participant.

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DA Facebook group

14. Potential

Besides, while I believe this group serves an important purpose, I also came to the conclusion that this purpose is limited by the social media format, and by the fact that Facebook is evil: this company is not interested in fostering conversation or information, but in harvesting data.

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DA Facebook group

15. Applied

So I stepped down from my role as a Moderator, and my involvement in the Facebook group decreased.

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Seeking a deeper involvement in the Forum

Aspirational narrative

I was looking for a new kind of experience, deeper, and more involved in the Forum at large.

Ning

16. Applied

Therefore, I became more involved with the Professions' Network, on Ning, and first joined the Narratives & Messaging group.

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Ning

17. Realised

I felt I shared an outlook with Melissa, the volunteer who stepped up in that group, so I tried to figure out what was going on there. Unfortunately, we failed to get much traction.

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Ground narrative

In March 2020, a year after I first became involved in DAF, I took a break. I was anxious at the start of the pandemic, because I thought I was vulnerable, and felt I had to organise my life and those of my loved ones. So I stopped engaging in DAF for about half a year.

Ground narrative

After that time, I came back full of a renewed energy. I was still alive! And I missed being in the Forum. The people in DAF are unlike any other group online, and I couldn't find a similar experience anywhere else. So I decided to come back to the Forum. I really started to buckle down and tried to make connections, and tried to find a place to hook in and contribute.

Some key insights from my time in DAF

Value narrative

I realised that the approach created by Jem Bendell and Katie Carr is quite unique, and attracts a certain kind of person who are different than anyone else. Or perhaps these people simply have access to different practices and procedures which bring out the best in them?

Ground narrative

For example, every meeting - even if it's a business meeting - begins with a brief meditation to center the human person who's participating in the call, and is then followed by a check-in to communicate the humanity of each individual. That's not really done in other groups or other meetings that I attend. And while at first, I thought such practices were too "woo-woo" and a waste of time, I eventually understood how critical they are. First, we have to connect as humans, otherwise the rest of it is useless. So the fact that these practices are part of the culture, and they successfully reveal the humans who are involved, that's unique.

Value narrative

Besides, I'm also very impressed by Jem Bendell's thinking (or most of it at least), and his ability to communicate it.

Value narrative

Another important learning that has happened for me in DAF is understanding the value of teamwork. I've been a lone wolf all my life, and my initiatives have mostly been individual, not to say solitary. In DAF, I observed the commitment to teamwork, and the caliber of people here allows for this to happen at a level I'm comfortable with. It's possible to find actual colleagues here.

Aspirational narrative

What is keeping me in DAF is the desire to be part of the formation of a truly effective team which can bring together the various energetic and profoundly felt impulses that people have, to discover how to enact Deep Adaptation in practice. How can we amplify these different energies which coexist in the fascinating jumble that is Deep Adaptation - as a field which includes Jem Bendell, the DA Facebook group, the Professions' network, etc.? Anything we can do to connect people to each other is valuable, regardless of what's happening in the world, or may happen in the future. Efforts to create community are inherently valuable, and should be pursued. It all comes back to love: any expression of love is inherently valuable. And love in action is community, and justice. We're trying to be kind to people on a mass basis.

Value narrative

No matter what the future may bring, evangelizing for kindness in the context of planetary collapse is a wonderful mission, and a worthy project. I think that's what we're really doing.

Value narrative

My involvement with DA has guided me to some extent, and provided me with an impetus and a safe container: knowing that there are other people on the path is comforting, and that comfort is necessary to proceed. This context has enabled me to pursue internal (spiritual, philosophical, or metaphysical) questions, and reach conclusions that are satisfactory to me. These conclusions enable me to turn back to the world and say: "I'm settled enough in myself. Now, I can engage." This really speaks to the importance of this community in my life.

Social learning space

Cycle / narrative

Story

Value

Ground narrative

In November 2022, I began to make some connections with an informal group, that is carrying out relief work in Ukraine, specifically – but not exclusively – around issues of women’s sexual assault.

My connection with this group happened through a friend I know through OACC, a community organisation that organises a yearly conference in which we are both involved. I appreciate her very much, particularly her warm and outgoing personality, and know her to be both a trustworthy and resourceful person. I heard that she was involved in these efforts in the Ukraine, and felt called to participate in them.

I was feeling in familiar territory with work on sexual assault, as a midwife, as an organiser, and as a woman having done a lot of my own process work around my own sexual assault. Besides, I felt the impetus to be involved in solidarity work as a result of my involvement in the Diversity and Decolonising Circle, and the process we have gone through as a group. The various processes we went through in the Circle also gave me a sense of strength and stability. So I decided to asked my friend about the project to see if I could help. She quickly put me in touch with the right people.

Getting more people involved

Aspirational narrative

It appeared there was a need for more support of these efforts, specifically around offering emotional support online to volunteers who are working in the Ukraine. So I thought of several fellow volunteers in the Deep Adaptation Forum, with whom I had built trusting relationships, and whom I expected might have both the right skills, and an interest in this project.

Personal connections

1. Applied

I contacted them individually.

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Personal connections

2. Immediate

Their responses were extremely positive – every one of them expressed a keen interest to become involved. I also sensed that each of them showed a lot of sophistication in their understanding of what might be needed from them: they stepped in with an attitude of openness, flexibility, and of comfort with self-organising outside of official, bureaucratic channels.

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Personal connections

3. Applied

I connected them with my friend.

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Personal connections

4. Immediate

A few days later, she told me that these new collaborations with the DAF participants I had introduced her to were “growing like slime mould,” very fast and in a purely self-organised fashion. I felt so excited and gratified!

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Personal connections

5. Applied

Besides, as a result of these conversations, I have also become involved in conversations with people in a Ukrainian ecovillage, who are interested in increasing their capacity to house refugees, and in receiving planning help on building straw bale houses. They are also faces with power outages and looking to put the solar energy from panels they have to a wider range of uses.

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Personal connections

6. Ant. Applied

To help with that, I am about to put them in touch with people from my local community with expertise with small scale Solar power systems.

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The importance of self-care

Personal connections

7. Potential

One important insight I have received through these various endeavours is around boundaries. When self-organisation happens and grows so rapidly, it’s important to know how to handle this rush of energy, and be aware of the need for self-care – particularly in the case of such urgent humanitarian efforts. Otherwise, the risk of burnout is real. With the person I’m working with, on sexual assault, I’ve been impressed with her awareness of what she has or hasn’t the capacity for, and when she needs to take some time off. She is very clear in voicing these boundaries, which I find remarkable.

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What has made it all possible?

Value narrative

Reflecting on what enabled this to happen, I found that none of it would have been possible without my connection to the Deep Adaptation Forum. Although I haven’t been such an active volunteer in this network, I sense a deep level of comfort and love in it, and I have great respect for both the organisation and the people I know in it. I introduced the people I know in DAF to my friend out of a sense of respect and understanding for what this network has to offer, and because of the strong relationships I have with people in DAF, who have showed me that they want to create change in the world.

Online event

8. Immediate

In particular, I remembered the affection, respect, and sense of connection that emerged in me for one of these DAF participants during an event he organised a few months ago, after the start of the war. He presented it as an attempt to build bridges between people from Ukraine and Russia. In it, he revealed his pain and vulnerability in a beautiful way, which I found very touching.

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Online event

9. Ant. Applied

This event inspired me to create bridges of my own.

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Value narrative

This particular bridge was also built thanks to the qualities I perceive in the other group of people I am in touch with, who are coordinating the support efforts in Ukraine. I find these people very focused, clear, and open. I found that they were willing to take me at face value, even though they hardly knew me at all. It felt like a remarkable example of what can happen when people set aside some of the usual fear, egos, walls and boundaries to connect with a very focused purpose around an emergency effort. This allowed us all to be quite transparent with one another, and to mobilise quite a level of expertise and connections.

Finally, another factor has been my level of comfort with technology. Due to security concerns, it was critical for these people that I be willing to use the application they favour, which is Signal. I had never used it before, but my familiarity with other tools like WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram was really helpful. Our work on decolonisation has helped me understand that if you want to be in support of others, you should be willing – and able – to use the channels these people want to use!