13 Comments

What a beautiful treasure from Aristotle Johns. Thank you for sharing and of course for all the ideas you presented!

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My pleasure! Thank you for reading :)

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Wow! Love the poem!

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Me too! I was so impressed!

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Thank you for this post, so important! Thank you also for suggesting a Climate Cafe. I have been holding a monthly in-person Climate Cafe in Palo Alto for the past 6 months. I use the Climate Psychology model, they are onto something wonderful. My next cafe is on February 5th in Peers Park, https://www.engageon.org/events/bay-area-climate-cafe-feb22

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My pleasure! Thank you for holding a Climate Cafe and for providing the information for the next session.

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I loved the poem. Great ideas for therapy. The newest most affordable therapy is family constellation. At the group session I went to this topic came up in one of the settings.

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I also loved it! Thank you very much for this additional resource.

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That is one of the best poems I’ve read period.

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He is very talented!

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That poem is beautiful! Hits the mark!

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And written so quickly, on the spot!

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I have realized that Anne Marie's posts give us a bevy of menu options to try and find our voice, the cause that resonates most for each of us to embark on our climate action journey. I found I was able to dive deep into internet posts, links, and books since I was home unable to drive or work due to surgery. While I am grateful for that time to get me up to speed with the current state of climate change (also keenly aware of it's affects as the province went into a state of emergency due to the flooding) and supply chain effects that continue, I found that I got into a frenzy of where to put my efforts. In the busi-ness I have been in regarding holding Canadian clothing companies accountable for their practices, trying to investigate issues here in BC and the Cdn North, I missed the Zoom webinar that my mother's community library put on with their first ever "climate writer in residence": Katja Lafferty, from the Dene nation. What the hec was I doing on Saturday pm? I cannot tell you, I had looked forward to that webinar for weeks!, The library didn't send a reminder ding on my cell phone, like we are so used to in this techno-age. She is going to work with West Vancouver youth! I encourage you to get your libraries to do the same.

Last night, I finally watched the video of the Austrian priest (decidedly young and healthy) who restored an abandoned farm in the Piedmont mountains of Italy when he took a 3 year sabbatical and built a chapel. It kept showing up on my internet feed. I found the terracing he did to grow food on the mountainside fascinating as he talked about the microclimates he was creating on each terrace, and also how 1 degree C made the difference in viability of the vine tomatoes he could grow in his glassed greenhouse at his altitude. Google it, you will be entrance.

I was led to T. Findley's TED talk about growing food in LA from a previous post on Zero Waste Chef, and from him, the posts on Zero Waste chef, and our own food insecurity from the supply chain issues here, and us being dependent online shopping due to my surgery I have ordered for the first time in my life: tomatoe and veg seeds to put our huge patio that gets the western sun to use. The garden he planted at a famous US library led me to see what libraries are doing here locally.

However, what I thought was ad following the priest's video, and was nearly going to click "skip ads" but for some compelling reason I kept watching and I got my answer. I was in tears. In 2011, I heard about a 9 year girl in Seattle who was killed in a horrific MVA a month after her birthday. The report of that MVA stuck with me for a couple of significant personal reasons and I became interested in her cause for donation of her birthday money. Over time I lost connection with her website, could remember her name but not why. The internet was not what it is now. I also became active in another political cause, but that is activism is no longer necessary, since we do not live in the US anymore. However, as I watched the ad which became a story of one man, and he began describing the story of a 9 year old who was killed in a horrific MVA in Seattle......and I began to feel so emotionally primed as knew the story I would hear: the legacy of Rachel Beckwith, and the magnificent growth of "charity: water. It felt like coming home. I grew up and again live in a place live in a place known to have the one of the best water quality H20 in the planet, soft, and plentiful and notable for it's water pressure. I live by the ocean, and certainly know the climate issues for it, and have always loved to follow the path of Canada's rivers deep into the mountains to their source: lakes, glaciers..... I have studied the making of digging for wells, setting up wells, learned about the success of wells build in 3rd world countries, those that did not work. I have found my cause, my focus: water, and all of the issues, thereof. Yep, I know if is broad, but it's a narrowness that I will now embrace, I encourage y'all to find your focus! The power of a story, a legacy....

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