“…our ability to perceive damage (whether inflicted or neglected) on the Earth is the same capacity to feel regeneration as it occurs. Your body is an instrument of Gaia.”
Joe Brewer, The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth
We’d love to promote your business in our programs and on our sites! Check out our Donation & Sponsorship page and learn how you can show that you understand the value of supporting resilient activists while you nurture The Resilient Activist organization!
“The best way to take care of the environment is to take care of the environmentalist.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart
Participate!
We’d love to have you join us at our upcoming events.
The Resilient Activist JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Book Club
Are you interested in learning more about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in America with a group of like-minded and open-hearted people? Do you enjoy reading and discussing books that expand your understanding of yourself and the world? If these questions touch a chord, then The Resilient Activist JEDI Book Club is for you! For our November 2022 JEDI Book Club, we will be reading Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh. Below is a summary from Goodreads: In this ambitious successor to The Great Derangement, acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh finds the origins of our contemporary climate crisis in Western colonialism’s violent exploitation of human life and the natural environment. A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning. Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
Please feel welcome to attend, even if you missed earlier meetings. This is an open group, and we understand that our lives are busy and not everyone will be able to attend each month! The JEDI Book Club is facilitated by Resilient Activists Brenda Bennett-Pike and Anne Melia. We hope you will join us!
Is the latest IPCC report keeping you up at night?
Join our next Climate Café for a safe space to process it.
The Resilient Activist offers our own interpretation of these gatherings, based on training we have received through the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, and other resilience practices we incorporate into our programs including short meditations, journaling, nature connection, and breakout rooms.
This is your best opportunity to connect with a community that gets you, with folks who are experiencing many of the emotions that climate change has brought out in your heart and mind.
There is nothing for you to commit to except to gather your favorite beverage, a journal, find a comfortable spot with your Zoom window open, and just be you.
Each session will include facilitators from The Resilient Activist as well as a Climate-Aware Therapist to guide the conversations in ways that are supportive and nurturing.
The Resilient Activist JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Book Club
Are you interested in learning more about justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) in America with a group of like-minded and open-hearted people?
Do you enjoy reading and discussing books that expand your understanding of yourself and the world?
If these questions touch a chord, then The Resilient Activist JEDI Book Club is for you!
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Please feel welcome to attend, even if you missed earlier meetings. This is an open group, and we understand that our lives are busy and not everyone will be able to attend each month!
The JEDI Book Club is facilitated by Resilient Activists Brenda Bennett-Pike and Anne Melia. We hope you will join us!
How can a dream group support environmental activism?
What’s a dream group? It’s a small circle of people who listen to each other’s dreams, trusting that each dream holds collective wisdom for growth, insight, and resilience.
Why listen to dreams?
Dreams are energetic realities, made of images and emotions, that carry transformative innate wisdom from our unconscious to our waking consciousness. As we learn to understand our dreams, share them with others, and live them out through actions, art, and relationships, we are doing courageous, powerful work!
Sharing our dreams helps us all “grow into ourselves” – individually and together…which makes for more resilient activism!
Interpreting dreams is deeply, wildly fun!
How does this work? You’ll learn a way of sharing dreams that goes deep but keeps the dreamer’s personal stuff out of it. (Seriously, this works.) No experience is needed: you just show up ready to dive in and “dream” another person’s dream. You’ll also learn to integrate the dream through active imagination, art, ritual, and play.
Who is leading?
Laura Huff Hileman is a certified Jungian-oriented dreamworker who has led dreams groups for over 20 years. She believes that group dreamwork is a phenomenal resource for environmental and social justice, and she’s thrilled to share this work with The Resilient Activist. You can check out her website and download a free “Field Guide to Dreaming” at www.firebynight.net.
When do we meet?
Come for a free 90-minute Introductory Zoom session on Wed. Jan 18 at 6-7:45 pm Central time.
Participants will be invited to join the 6-week program that will meet by Zoom 6-7:45 pm every Wednesday, Jan. 25th – March 1st. This group is limited to 6 participants: if we have more interest, we’ll form a second group.
Cost? The Introductory Session is free. The 6-week group is $150 with some scholarships available.
The Resilient Activist’s Speakers Bureau offers educational and inspiring presentations and workshops designed to help audiences better understand how they can be a part of creating a healthier planet in ways that also support our well-being. Check out our Speakers Bureau Presentations page for a detailed list of topics.
Speaker Sami Aaron: Reconnecting to nature
“Activism is the art of taking action to support, nurture, and protect what we hold dear.” ~The Resilient Activist
