Climate Change
A Crucible of Transformation
Winter 2016 vol 1, issue 1
Welcome to the premier issue of Turning Point. Our name echoes the widespread recognition that our world, and our humanity, has arrived at a pivotal turning point in evolutionary history. At the center of which lies a summoning call to each of us: to nurture a vital presence that continuously regenerates our lives and enlivens the whole of life as well.
We invite you to imagine this journal, essentially, as a forum for inspired conversation around how we might best envision and care for our world—and each article, simply a means to begin a conversation. Conversation that calls us to see beyond our own time yet act on behalf of the love that wants to live though us, now.
May we act in Beauty, act from Inspiration, act Together… Read More
The Great Turning
Editor’s Note
The Great Turning has become a signature term that visionaries in our midst give to this defining point in human history—a phrase ushered into public awareness through the work of Joanna Macy and others who view human development as inextricably linked to planetary well being. *
Earth is issuing her own State of Our Union address in increasingly critical terms. Of the many relational transitions underway, “climate change” has arisen as a center point of concern among a diverse spectrum of scientific, religious, political, sociological, environmental and economic agencies. Our planet has put us on notice that we, as a species, must awaken to our responsibility, our capacity, and our desire for life affirming co-creation And we must do so now. Read More
To Choose Life
by Molly Brown and Joanna Macy
I call heaven and earth to record this day to your account
that I have set before you life and death,
blessing and cursing:
therefore choose life,
that both you and your seed
shall live.
Deuteronomy 30.19
As we confront the unprecedented crises in today’s world, it’s easy to feel powerless and overwhelmed. “We’re doing all we can!” Our hearts break with each new horror as we read the details of just how bad things are: climate disasters, new depths of poverty, financial conspiracies, police killings, mass incarceration, school massacres…. Why should we know all this when we can’t do anything about it? We try to avoid panic on the one side or paralysis on the other. How can we face the mess we’re in without going crazy? Read More
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Our Grandchildren’s Future
by Paul Severance
It’s 3:23 in the morning, and I’m awake
because my great, great, grandchildren won’t let me sleep.
My great, great, grandchildren ask me in dreams:
What did you do, while the planet was plundered?
What did you do, when the earth was unraveling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing –
as the mammals, reptiles, and birds were all dying?
Did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen?
What did you do
once
you
knew?
Drew Dellinger, Hieroglyphic Stairway
When I first heard this poem, it triggered a deeply disturbing vision of my great, great grandchildren facing a steadily dying future world – because we had largely ignored the threat of global warming. They might be researching to find out what I, their great, great grandfather, did or did not do, once I knew. Read More
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To See or Not to See, That is the Question
by Will Wilkinson
“The environmental crisis may be the result of a recent and collective
perceptual disorder in our species, a unique form of myopia
which it now forces us to correct.”
– David Abram
Sometimes a ¼ inch is enough to separate two worlds.
I recently attended a weekend for men on Climate Change. I’d been attracted by the topic, the fact that it was guys in nature discussing a serious issue, and the keynote speaker, a Marine Biologist who promised to provide the scientific, non-political-bs truth about just how threatened humanity is in the 21st Century (I have friends who believe in what’s called Near-Term Human Extinction… are they crazy or realistic, I’ve wondered? Here was my chance to find out). Read More
Dancing Between Worlds
by Kathleen Schomaker
I am an ecologist, so I believe everything truly is related to everything else. The mystery and joy is to puzzle through how things are connected — by logic, intuition or synchronicity — and then how to walk and dance with what arises. Recently two readings came to my attention synchronously:
Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul by Michael Meade, an engaging, well-storied Jungian discourse on the human journey, a luxurious and edifying read for contemplating human life; and Gauging Aging: Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understanding of Aging in America, from FrameWorks Institute, a timely piece of social research on ageism in contemporary America.
Puzzling through personal connections, I see my destiny in pursuing a career in environmental advocacy nose-to-nose with my personal experience of ageing and ageism in working with Gray Is Green. Read More
On Angels
All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.
There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.
now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.
The voice — no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightening.
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
day draw near
another one
do what you can.
by Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)