Spider just ran across my desk, pretty small but moving fast. They love this corner of the house. I, too, am running... a bit behind again, or so it seems/feels. A major due date looms on just the other side of this weekend, a writing project that has been consuming my creative endeavors.

In the day, I sat by the fire in the chilly air, as the pitter-patter of melting drops fell onto the worn deck. As dark came, fire stoked, I saw and listened to the hearts of a ceremonially immersed community as they shared a check-in Council, little squares of themselves passed to me by some digital wizardry.

Now, a week or so hence, that 126-page chapter has been submitted and reviewed; it's my longest single writing argument yet. Strange to me how the scaffolding of such an endeavor manifests. Feels joyous and also confusing. Mostly, though, I am grateful to have released the inner grip so that I have, for a few days now, been able to gaze deeply into Collfeatherz's eyes in heart dialogue, lounge around a little with our pups, and take some deep moments in reflection.

The integrative aspects of long-form writing really shift my understanding from surface to depth, and not just because I keep revisiting the matter. Something happens in the alchemy of parsing ideas across media, to physical notes, sketches in OneNote, paragraph threads on GoogDocs, and then finally, the recollection of said ideas into a stream of Word/s. Here, in this creative writing as blog, there are images too.

In reflection, I think this may have been one of the most profoundly transformative years of my life.

The breadth of humans and more-than-humans that I had the privilege of meeting, of hearing, of connecting…

The aliveness and vitality in both the deconstruction and reconstruction of deep inner struggles… 

The depth of feelingness that is calling me in and toward…

  And still, what feels most alive on this day of solstice is the 50-degree weather outside and with it, the collapse of any probabilistic uncertainty into the shape of things to come that are here now. How many books and articles have I read, research reports, experiential accounts, photographic essays? How many well-researched, intellectual letters have crossed my water-filled eyes? Yet, the embodied depth of walking outside, feeling the heat on my exposed legs, arms, face, is an entirely different order of magnitude.

I cannot avoid the depth of feeling of change this is bringing. Decades ago, Albrecht called this solastalgia – defined as that sense of homesickness or longing when an environment you are deeply connected to undergoes a great change (Albrecht et al., 2007). More recently, Comtesse et al. (2021) have articulated this as climate grief and Woodbury (2019) as climatic trauma. Whatever the name, these reciprocal impacts are growing.

Underlying both the fields of somatic psychology and ecopsychology is an explicit intent and praxis to facilitate and navigate psychological distress, with particular emphasis on the embodied and reciprocal relations of human Selves situated within the larger lifeworld of more-than-humans. As a budding somatic ecopsychological researcher, I am interested in understanding how to orient myself and my human peoples in a way that facilitates meaningful healing and change that is both embodied and reciprocal with this lifeworld. Climate disorientation is at the heart of this. I align with Thoma et al. (2021) who stated that, "Clinical ecopsychology seeks to systematically examine the direct and indirect mental impacts of the progressing climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and/or destruction of the air, soil, water, and ecosystems” (p. 3), and I believe we must expand that to include all levels of body/embodiment, across all species/ecosystem boundaries. Even so, a clinical orientation may not be enough.

As a sensitive being, I feel these changes. As a child, that sensitivity was often shamed as inconvenient or irrelevant/interruptive to whatever the larger plan was for that time. I emerged from this with serious wounds around this, like so many others, where belonging and love were conditional. One of the most insidious aspects of this was how I internalized that story, an outer world's impatience becoming an inner bully. This has been one of the more difficult shards to alchemize (see starting line of this blog).

Yet, as I look at the larger narrative, beyond all the particular contexts of my existence and those who filled certain roles, I see this story as a fractal of the human-nature relationship for centuries. Who cares if these chemicals are destroying (insert many different species) populations, these things help the plants grow! Who cares if the runoff from the Mississippi causes a dead zone in the ocean, not my problem? Who cares if the planet is warming, I still need to (insert the entire transportation infrastructure and commerce system, including food, school, work, etc).

I am guilty, more than some less than others, and deeply complicit in this. This causes what is sometimes referred to clinically as cognitive dissonance–--the stress of having two conflicting beliefs or values. In rites-of-passage work, we name this as engaging or holding the paradox, and note it as one of the primary tasks for each of us as we claim and navigate our initiated adulthood.

The issue drives at a central pillar of Western thought, as I understand it and learned it as a child: what is wrong must be fixed. This is a pragmatic orientation that can be ruthless in its execution (e.g., look up the economic definition of externalities).

Yet, I cannot fix the climate, cause snow to fall, protect the fragile ecosystems of the river that may fail if the snows do not fall. So what do I do? Clinical diagnosis: cognitive dissonance.

But here is the shift: Somatic ecopsychology does not see these experiences as dissonant or pathological. Instead, the orientation is toward sensitivity and reflection. Not how do I fix this, but rather, how might I engage with this relationally, how might I left this open my heart? And critically, that such an experience of confusion and helplessness may not only be natural but may be calling forth a deeper passion and ache that longs to be tended.

Sensitivity to that which is occurring, to that which we feel in our bones and across the softness of our cheeks, is aliveness embodied. Sensitivity is a direct path to vitality, to awakening, to an awareness continuum that exists beyond the scope of any single I/me/ego. In sum, toward healing.

If the path into this threatened web of existence within which we find ourselves was paved with insensitivity, with externalities, with power-over, fix-it dynamics, with the irresponsible kicking that can down the road paradigm of the industrial growth society, then it is my understanding that the path through is to reawaken our sensitive selves, to open our awareness to the subjecthood of other-than-human life, and to feelingly lean in and let our hearts be opened by the suffering of fragile life on the brink.

That is the call that is ringing off the hook, an elephant in the room that is not here to wound us or shame us but here to invite us into our deepest empathies and compassions. It is the call of compassion crossing the threshold of our awareness, and asking us to come home.

Will you answer it?

Will I?

in kindness, tbird

 References

 Albrecht, G., Sartore, G.-M., Connor, L., Higginbotham, N., Freeman, S., Kelly, B., Stain, H., Tonna, A., & Pollard, G. (2007). Solastalgia: The distress caused by environmental change. Australasian Psychiatry, 15(Suppl 1), S95–S98. https://doi.org/10.1080/10398560701701288

 Comtesse, H., Ertl, V., Hengst, S.M.C., Rosner, R., & Smid, G.E. (2021). Ecological grief as a response to environmental change: A mental health risk or functional response? International Journey of Environment Research & Public Health, 18: Article 734. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020734

 Thoma, M. V., Rössler, N., & Rosner, R. (2021). Clinical ecopsychology: The mental health impact of the climate and environmental crisis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 675936. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.675936

 Woodbury, Z. (2019). Climate trauma: Toward a new taxonomy of trauma. Ecopsychology, 11(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1089/eco.2018.0021