Spring Equinox 2024: The Thing with Feathers
You know how Bell has those billboards every January that say “Let’s talk?” That’s what this blog might be titled. Only it’s not only about the mental health and grief of the individual I want to speak, but the collective.
I’ve been thinking about the word “depression” lately, from my own experiences of grief and those I know who live with chronic depression. Some of the words I’ve heard to describe that experience are instructive: Feeling hollow. Stuck. Empty. Enervating. Like energy being sucked out of a person. Darkness. A hole.
I think we as a world are in a deep depression right now, the “mess of the world” as one friend put it to me recently, a painful reality of autocrats, vicious wars, increasing natural disasters, famine, failed states, and houselessness. Not to mention inflation, high food and housing costs!
In the midst of this, I’ve been thinking about climate grief. There’s a scene etched in my mind of another el niño winter, standing on the doorstep of my younger brother’s home on Christmas Day, 1997, looking out on the gray-brown horizon of Edmonton from those heights, and wondering what it meant.
Now I know what it means. I know that several days at plus 15 or 18 degrees (Celsius) is not “normal” for March in Edmonton. I know that the record low snowfall we’ve had over this winter means another year of drought. I know I’m not alone. Slowly we are starting to talk. Though the conversations are sometimes small and tentative. Whispered. Loud. And other times disjointed and contradictory.
The friend who wrote to me this week: “Does your place have air conditioning. It is only mid-March and it is getting hot already. Scary.” I don’t have a/c, and I too am dreading summer in Alberta. Another year of extreme wildfires.
When others say, “I know we need the snow, but I so wish spring would come.” A part of me wants that too. Or on a warm dry autumn day, another friend confides, “I know it’s bad for the forests, but I’m glad it’s so hot. The sun makes me feel better.” We know this is not logical, but we are trying to cope.
This past winter I was conscious of how my own relationship to the seasons is changing. On one hand I was glad, even grateful, to be able to walk outdoors and breathe clean air under clear (smoke-free) skies. At the same time I know what this means about summer for me. A diminishing of those radiant days… I know there’s a disconnect.
My mother grew up on the land in the Great Depression of Saskatchewan and Alberta. That connection to the environment is still imprinted on her, especially when it comes to trees. A couple of weeks ago she told me she touched one of the apple trees at the seniors residence where she lives. She told me the bark at that time of year is usually filled with flecks of green among the brown. This year “there wasn’t a spec of green.” She felt guilty. Maybe she should have watered them more last summer. (She hauled a few pails in the heat one day but gave up after that—you can guess her age.) “They are so dry. I don’t know what is going to happen to them.” This too is climate grief.
How do we build resilience? How do we adapt to our new realities? Psychologists say we have a lot to learn from the research on natural disasters—how people process their feelings or not, avoid pain or embrace it, build and connect more deeply to community in the aftermath or not. How we seek meaning and growth or seek distractions. How we draw closer to the land or distance from it.
When I first moved to Boyle Street neighbourhood, I formulated a “safety plan” to manage my fears about the neighbourhood. I had been living in the suburbs for more than a decade and had taken on the stereotypes of the larger community about “downtown” as a “dangerous” place. Here was my simple plan: I had a few friends in the neighbourhood. And as I met more, I made a point of knowing where everyone lived, what block and what house along my walking route, so that if I had to, I could run to the nearest safe house.
I smile at myself. Now that I’ve lived here so long, I know that most of the doors are safe doors and I could knock on just about any of them in a pinch. So far, twelve years and counting, I haven’t had to. But it illustrates how connection can help us positively adapt to our environment.
How can we embrace our many feelings about climate change?
“Hope” is the thing with feathers. (Emily Dickinson) It’s elusive. Inexplicable. Beautiful and magical when it happens. And born out of deep reflection.
I have been contemplating a strand of mysticism, common to most spiritual traditions, sometimes called the apophatic way or the via negativa, the negative path. It’s an invitation to surrender to ambiguity, to not knowing, to darkness, to birth new meaning. It’s remarkable that Christian mystics from centuries past used metaphors so apt for the climate crises we are going through today: the inner desert (Gregory of Nyssa) and dark night (John of the Cross), mist (Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing) and women’s experience of pregnancy and labour (Meister Eckart): “this birth takes place in darkness.”
If we could see this dark night as an invitation to rebirth... And the fruit of this via negativa? Compassion.
Let’s talk.
17 Comments
Anita Jenkins
March 18, 2024“…autocrats, vicious wars, increasing natural disasters, famine, failed states, and houselessness. Not to mention inflation, high food and housing costs!” All true, but David Byrne said it very well: “Same as it ever was.” It’s just that those living in North America after WWII have had a period of wealth and security and peace almost unknown throughout recorded history.
Anita Jenkins
March 19, 2024Makes me think of how we feared the end of the world after the invention of the atomic bomb (and ever since). We have to hope that humanity will figure out how to survive. Or not.
Audrey
March 19, 2024Thanks, Anita. “We have to hope.”
Audrey
March 20, 2024That’s true–though we haven’t had such massive weapons of destruction (as you point out) until the 20th century. I would say that climate change is a massive and in part realized threat as well.
Betty Jane Hegerat
March 18, 2024As ever, Audrey, your insights are provocative and appreciated. Yes, the whole world needs this invitation. Thank you.
Audrey
March 19, 2024Thank you Betty Jane for commenting and accepting the invitation. I hope it gives some strength for the journey ahead of us this spring.
Linda Winski
March 19, 2024Let’s talk indeed! This is no ordinary time and the journey forward requires that we learn how to inhabit the moment and the vulnerability in communion.
Audrey
March 19, 2024Thank you, Linda. It is about vulnerability and how we navigate that in ourselves and our communities. I often think of the houseless as the first causalities of climate change. Think about the unprocessed trauma that has brought many people to that point. And what reaction they arouse in us–a fear that this could be us too. After all, there’s not much separating us.
jano thibodeau
March 19, 2024Audrey dearest woman friend of late 1970’s in Edmonton. Here I am at 89 yrs old living in an apartment in Nanaimo Vancouver Island with a view of the ocean. True and deeply moved by your sharing. Beautiful Struggles I am in now with bronchitis virus. Breathing is difficult. Grateful for this prescription drug.
LIFE IS BEAUTY Light and Darkness one Whole Creation. How to heal Human behaviors?
“let’s talk”
Audrey
March 20, 2024Dear Jano, We’ve been around for a while;) and I’m glad we are still connected. I have had bronchitis; I know a little of what that feels like. “Life is beauty.” Yes. I hope your breath is restored soon. Without breath what can we say? Thank you for staying in touch.
Anne Fitzpatrick
March 20, 2024You have captured the state of things, the feelings they engender, and the dilemma they pose, so eloquently. We need to embrace your “invitation to surrender to ambiguity, to not knowing, to darkness, to birth new meaning”. For me, it feels like the challenge is in creating the opportunities and the environment that nurtures, rather than restrains, exploration involving diverse perspectives.
Audrey
March 20, 2024I agree with you Anne, and from my experience of you, you’re very adept at doing that–inviting conversation, listening, being open to different viewpoints. Holding a receptive space. Thank you for writing.
Linda Bumstead
March 20, 2024Audrey,
You have well expressed my fears of climate change. Like your mother I am watching the trees. Deciduous trees have been suffering from drought for a long time and now I see that evergreens (the hero trees of Alberta) are also really suffering. I do feel a lot of climate grief, both for the environment and displaced people all over the world, including here. It was good to hear your message of hope.
Audrey
March 20, 2024Hi Linda, I think witnessing is critical as is doing whatever small actions we can to protect the land, even if it’s just giving a pail of water to a tree. Those things will give us hope too. Thanks for sharing your witness.
Janice Pelletier
March 23, 2024Hi Audrey,
Every single time I read something you’ve written I say – THANK YOU – for your insight, your wisdom, your grace and your compassion. I will re-read this blog post many more times and will focus on the “hope” you invite us to find. (And I’ll remember to give the tree in our communal back yard a bucket of water now and again!). With warmest thoughts and biggest hugs – Janice
Audrey
March 24, 2024Definitely give that tree a pail of water when you can;) Thanks so much for reading and reflecting, Janice.
Henny Flinterman Vroege
April 1, 2024Thank you, again, Audrey. Compassion. Hope. Love. And, of course, doing our part, however small it may be.