At the core of this question is the question of civilization. Ten thousand years ago humans started to build the first cities, as agriculture allow the creation of permanent settlements. This was a big change from the hunter-gatherer existence that preceded it. Agriculture and civilization brought about changes in diet, in culture, and even in... Continue Reading →
Articles
Let’s Make 2019 the Peak of Our Carbon Emissions — Pat Mosley, LMBT, Permaculture
“The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere just hit its highest level in 800,000 years, and scientists predict deadly consequences.” You may feel like you just read that at the start of this week when it was discovered that humanity has reached a new high in carbon emissions. But actually that’s the headline from... Continue Reading →
Spiritual Community, Ecologic Community (Week 9) | The Thought Forge
Human and non-human communities are already being displaced, already being forced into extinction by human-driven climate change. Habitat loss is spiritual loss, and that breaks down communities and the relationships that joins them together. There is deep trauma there, and deep grief. Not only for ourselves, but for the planet as well. I don't think... Continue Reading →
Deepening Resilience 2: Fears and barriers – Wild Gods
The decoupling of seasonal phenomena leading to migratory species arriving somewhere too early or too late to find food when they get there, or non-migratory species unable to adapt to changing conditions, are both a practical threat to human survival, and an existential threat to living on a planet that is home to other species... Continue Reading →
Happy Belated Earth Day! | The Thought Forge
In broad strokes, both animism and ecology are talking about the same thing from different perspectives; our relationship to the environment and the world around us. This is the delicate dance of science and spirituality. Physics, astronomy, biology, art, writing, stories, civilization, the Earth… All of it becomes an experience of the spiritual... At the... Continue Reading →
Making Earth Day Every Day — Pat Mosley, LMBT, Permaculture
In 2018, the United States’ national Earth Overshoot Day occurred on March 15th. This means that if the entire globe consumed natural resources at the rate of the United States, humanity would surpass Earth’s capacity to sustain us halfway through March, the third month of the year. Only five other countries preceded the US: Qatar... Continue Reading →
Community Resilience (Week 7) | The Thought Forge
With all these pressures on my local communities and systems, things like social breakdown also becomes a possibility. With failing crops, flood waters, droughts, climate refugees… It is an open question of whether or not local and state governments and communities could bring the resources needed to handle all these problems. Governments and cities could... Continue Reading →
Engaging With An Impermanent Earth — Pat Mosley, LMBT, Permaculture
There’s a fundamental quality to life—Buddhists call it anicca, or, impermanence. Essentially, things are always arising and disappearing. Nothing is permanent. These changes arise and disappear according to karma, or, the idea of cause and effect, but we should be careful about applying a lens of morality or punishment around them because that’s not necessarily... Continue Reading →
Deepening Resilience 1: The meaning of resilience – Wild Gods
In a rural part of western Washington state, surrounded by farms, ranches, and commercial timberland, my husband and I can stand at the top of the hill where we intend to one day build a house and look out at what is left behind when the materials to build other houses are harvested. Our land,... Continue Reading →
Facing Ecological Grief Together — Pat Mosley, LMBT, Permaculture
The catastrophe colloquially called ‘climate change’ is matched in immensity by the breadth of human emotional responses to it. From denial to numbness to anger and everything else, we are intimately feeling our planet’s health. But the more I write about this, the more I realize that identifying the problem isn’t really the answer we... Continue Reading →
Deepening Resilience: Earth-based Responses to Climate Change 