Where to from here?

This post is inspired by Rajani’s powerful poem https://thotpurge.wordpress.com/2024/06/01/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-climate-change/

In the final verse of her poem Rajani suggests that there are ways forward but that we are just not seeing them. I thought I would pick up on this theme and explore some ideas that offer ways through the impasse of Anthropocentric thinking. Recently I’ve been going through the information I compiled while I was writing about the Anthropocene last year. In my final post in that series I wrote about the difference between Anthropocentric and anthropocenic thinking. Here’s the final paragraph of that post:-

Anthropocenic thinking calls into question some of the established assumptions, paradigms and theories of the dominate worldview. In so doing it opens the way for new ways of thinking and acting in relation to the natural world. Rather than seeing the Anthropocene as a closed, fixed epoch, anthropocenic thinking creates room for expansive ideas about what it means to be human to emerge. Through such thinking more holistic and ethical ways of living can develop – ways of living that sustain and nourish both human and non-human life. https://wayfaring9.wordpress.com/2023/11/15/anthropocentric-or-anthropocenic-thinking/

Climate change and environmental degradation are calling on us to grow up as a species and to realize that extractive capitalism is the problem. Not all human activities result in environmental catastrophes. There are ways for humans to live in harmony with the natural world. Many indigenous and traditional cultures live in ways that respect and nurture the environment. Permaculture and regenerative agriculture offer sustainable alternatives to current agricultural practices. Culturally there are many emergent ideas that point to ways society could be restructured along more equitable lines. Participatory democracy, the universal basic income, doughnut economics and post humanism suggest possible ways we could develop more egalitarian ways of living that respect all beings, human and non-human alike.

Currently over 50% of people in Australia, and possibly much of the developed world, think climate change won’t affect them. Living in suburban enclaves and surrounded by material goods, they think that climate change is something that happens elsewhere – and presumably only to poor people living in disadvantaged situations. While I could go into a rant about this I will just say I think they are wrong. Sooner or later climate change will affect all people regardless of how much money they have or how big their house is.

It would be great if governments suddenly woke up, stopped fighting and figured out how to work together to save the environment but there are very few signs that such a structural turnaround is likely to happen in the immediate future. Instead, governments and corporations are currently exerting more controls on citizens that, by and large, are further alienating us from each other. It would also be great if the majority of people woke up the existential threat of climate change but to do so would utterly undermine their world view. I can see how it is more comfortable to live in denial, at least until the seas are lapping at the door.

At the same time reports of environmental damage are increasingly dire. It is very easy to get depressed by all this and to feel powerless. Last year I wrote a few posts about the importance of hope and how we might find it in these times. Looking back at these posts I realize we find hope where we can. The ecologist, Anna Tsing finds hope in looking at the way fungi grow in decaying matter. To see nature regenerating itself is an inspiration to her. Others find hope in emergent political ideas and in technological possibilities.

The future is up to us and the seeds for that future can be planted in the present. The philosopher Timothy Morton speaks about the ‘dark sweet’ as an attitude that will support psychological survival during these times. He writes about the need to engage with ideas for possible futures in creative ways. To go back to Rajani’s poem, it’s time to look out the window and look for those alternative possibilities.

A is for Anthropocene

Rajani has been kind enough to include some of my poems in her latest chapbook “A is for Anthropocene”. I wish her every success with the publication.

New Chapbook ( a climate change dictionary)

A is for Anthropocene

Anthropocentric or Anthropocenic Thinking

I recently had a conversation with someone about the difference between anthropocentric and anthropocenic thinking. I used both terms in my recent posts on the Anthropocene but did not define the difference between the two. After doing some research I came up with the following definitions:-

In anthropocentric thinking humans are seen as separate and superior to nature. Human values and experiences are considered to be more important than those of all other living and non-living entities. The exploitation of the natural environment is seen as necessary for human development.

Anthropocenic thinking challenges this worldview for it recognises that humans are part of nature and are dependent upon it. Instead of being separate from the natural world, humans are embedded in a complex network of interactions with other lifeforms. This way of seeing the world incorporates many diverse perspectives and includes ideas from ecology, sociology, ethics, art, literature, spirituality and indigenous worldviews.

Anthropocenic thinking calls into question some of the established assumptions, paradigms and theories of the dominate worldview. In so doing it opens the way for new ways of thinking and acting in relation to the natural world. Rather than seeing the Anthropocene as a closed, fixed epoch, anthropocenic thinking creates room for expansive ideas about what it means to be human to emerge. Through such thinking more holistic and ethical ways of living can develop – ways of living that sustain and nourish both human and non-human life.

Journal spread – What does it mean to be human?

Powerlessness in the Anthropocene

The environmental results of ecological damage are not restricted by geography. Wild weather caused by climate change is not limited by national boundaries. It is indiscriminate and global.

The same can be said for the oppression of people at society’s margins. Increasingly the economic repercussions are felt by poorer people in rich countries as well as those in global south. My heart goes out to indigenous people displaced from their traditional homelands to make way for cattle farming or lithium mining to make batteries for electric cars. Their plight is tragic. At the same time the number of families sleeping in tents and people unable to buy enough food is on the increase here in Australia. As an older white woman experiencing housing insecurity I speak from firsthand experience. Apparently too, other countries in the developed world are experiencing similar economic conditions.

The current political and economic conditions are divisive and marginalize those on the edges of society – indigenous communities, the disabled, the aging and those with mental health issues struggle to make their voices heard over the rush and roar of the post-pandemic ‘getting back to normal’ frenzy and paranoia.

Underneath more recent economic impacts the long term and historical impacts of colonial capitalism fester as an unhealed wound in many parts of the world. Recognition of the injustices wrought by colonization is a fraught issue that haunts the present.

This can be seen in Australia where we are being asked to vote on whether Aboriginal people should have a legally constituted voice to parliament to give advice on issues that impact their communities. Voting occurs on October 14. In the build up vitriolic, and sometimes racist, opinions are getting a lot of media attention. Misinformation is rife and wild speculations about property ownership highlight the underlying unease of many Australians living on unceded Aboriginal land. Somehow we have to find our way to a peaceful solution that gives all Australians a say in how we live upon this ancient land that works its way into the soul of most who live upon it. At times such equitable co-existence seems a long way off.

The political machinations of these times go hand in hand with the economic hardships many are experiencing and with the impact of environmental disasters wrought by climate change – the extreme bushfires, the floods that alienate whole towns, the droughts that go for decades etc.

Meanwhile the fossil fuel and other extractive industries continue to pollute, exploit, degrade environments and dump waste. These activities are aided by government subsidies and neo-liberal policies that actively suppress opposition.

Once again, I come up against the impasse of the Anthropocene. Whichever way I approach the problem, I come to the realization that the only way forward is through changing and transforming way we live on Earth.

As much as we need to deconstruct the thinking that sees humans as separate from nature, we need to overhaul the political and economic frameworks that support extractive capitalism.

There are many different economic that provide for more equitable social conditions. These include doughnut economics, ecological economics and decolonial economics. Alternatives to capitalism in the 21st century include decolonial and eco-feminist social practices and the concept of direct democracy.

One thing all these ideas have in common is that they require a radical re-imagining of how we think and live. As a creative person communicating with other creatives I see there are opportunities for us here. We can contribute to the dialogue that leads us forward through our writings, poetry, art and other creative endeavours. I will look at this idea next.

Making Meaning in the Anthropocene

At this point in this series I need to recap some of the ideas I’ve covered here. As I stated earlier, this series is about the psychological impact living in the Anthropocene can have mentally, emotionally and spiritually. To begin to understand this I had to delve into the mental structures that underlie the culture we live in.

There is a growing consensus among philosophers. eco-feminists and anthropologists that the way we have mentally split ourselves off from nature is the foundation of our current ecological crisis. While opinions vary as to when the nature/human divide occurred, many consider the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th century to be a crucial stage in the development of our culture. At that time reason and logic became the principles which governed society. This freed us from the domination of oppressive religious beliefs and blind faith, but it also meant intuition, magical understandings of the world and the spirituality of indigenous peoples were designated as superstitious and ignorant. As a result, our world view was skewed in favour of rational, mechanistic and scientific constructs.

While this has led to the technological innovations of our modern world it has also created the ecological, economic and social crises we now confront. This places us in an invidious position. It is reason that bought us to this crisis but when we try to use reason to dismantle it, we run into an impasse. For example, when we apply rational, scientific thinking to the problems of climate change we come up with ideas that really just perpetuate the problem. Green technologies are wonderfully innovative but their construction and implementation still relies on the extractive capitalist actions that got us into this mess in the first place. To make the massive wind turbines and solar panels major corporations have decided are the solution, we have to mine rare metals, transport them across the globe and use vast amounts of energy to make the products. At present both the turbines and panels have a life span of around thirty years and many cannot be recycled.

At best these technological innovations buy us time. They are not a blanket solution which will instantly solve climate change although the governments and major mining conglomerates would have us believe they are.

Reason got us into this mess but reason alone cannot get us out of it. As we dither about in confusion the ecological, economic and social crises deepen. Species extinction accelerates, the polar ice continues to melt, indigenous people still face extreme prejudice and those at the bottom rungs of society are struggling to find adequate food and shelter. The psychological impact of all of this is great. Anxiety, fear, grief, numbness, denial and depression are some of the ways this manifests.

We are inside a box created by our own thinking processes. For as long as we remain in the box we are imprisoned by it and cannot see beyond it. We lose hope and sink further into negative emotions.

In his book ‘The Principle of Hope’ the social theorist, Ernst Bloch explored the idea that hope is a basic trait of the human condition. It is expressed in music, dreams and daydreams, fairytales and imaginative stories that take us into worlds that are not yet physical but which might become so. He argued that it operates through intuition and the senses rather than through reason.

Bloch and other social theorists of the mid 20th century developed the understanding that hope does not depend on wishful or positive thinking. Neither is it based in reason and an assessment of existing possibilities. They contend that hope is a strategy that can take us out of defeatism and despair and into imaginings of a better world.

Hope is an intuitive sense that some other way of being might be possible,
that different futures might exist.

When considered in this way hope becomes something we make rather than something we find. Through it we get glimpses of futures beyond the impasse of the Anthropocene. Cracks appear in the walls of our mental prison and, at last, light begins to penetrate our inner darkness.

Looking outside of cultural constructs of mainstream society and shifting our point of view we can find other ways of being in the world. Indigenous people can teach us much about how to live in harmony with the natural world. Through learning from them we can develop awareness of the sacredness of the Earth and of developing a sense of kinship with all beings.

Eastern philosophies and religions can also teach us much. Meditative practices can help us become aware of the unity and harmony of all life. Developing our understanding of the Indian concepts of karma and dharma as well as the Chinese concept of chi and the flow of life force energies can offer us guidelines as to how we can live in more holistic ways.

Learning about ecological world views based on the idea that humans are part of the web of life can help us develop respect for the diversity of life. This realization can promote the desire to live in more ethical ways that are ecologically sustainable.

Developing a sense of wonder and an appreciation of the beauty of life can lift our mood and connect us more deeply to the world around us.

Peaceful political actions can give us a sense of purpose and feelings solidarity with other people who have similar values.

While these ideas and practices can help us develop more environmentally aware ways of living it has to be said that there is absolutely no guarantee that they will have any long term effect on the complex crises that confront us. They are, essentially, an alternative to nihilistic despair. They are ways of making meaning and making hope.

to be continued…

The Anthropocene as the uncanny

The earth turns and the seasons shift. Here in Australia spring came early and it is already unseasonably warm. Bushfires are burning in the north of the country and the warnings about the developing el Nino weather pattern become increasingly dire by the day. Our Anthropocenic weather is uncanny, strange and unstable.

The anthropologists Nils Bubandt and Martijn van Beek consider the Anthropocene itself to be uncanny:- “the Anthropocene is a truly an uncanny time, a time when the proper separation between things – between culture and nature, subject and object, human and
nonhuman, life and non-life – is collapsing.” (https://anthropocene.au.dk/fileadmin/Anthropocene/MORE_THAN_HUMAN_vol.3.pdf)

The philosopher, Jacques Derrida saw the Anthropocene is a time when we are haunted by the spectres of ecological catastrophe, mass extinction and planetary crisis. This spectrality propels us into rethinking our relationship to the natural world as traces of all that has been excluded, repressed or forgotten by the dominant culture are exposed.

Here in Australia the trauma of our colonial past is currently being disclosed. Aboriginal people are speaking up about the true history of the country. Similar stories of the abuse of indigenous people under colonialization are coming to light across the globe. Massacre sites, places where children were stolen away from their mothers and where tribal ceremonies were disrupted are being revealed. Often there is something uncanny about these places. The rocks, hills and valleys seem to reverberate with echoes of past atrocities as if some deep psychic wounding has become embedded in the physical structure of the Earth.

Controlling people through colonial practices has occurred alongside the exploitation of nature. The Anthropocene is asking us to examine the human/nature split. At the same time indigenous people are asking us to examine our relationship with all people on Earth. A number of scholars suggest that slavery and European colonization define the Anthropocene. Others say the deforestation and development of industrialized agriculture on indigenous land as well the exploitation of indigenous people has played a significant part in causing our current ecological crisis. To fully deconstruct the way in which our thinking has bought us to our current ecological crisis we have to consider the impact of colonization.

There is a weirdness to these times. Our concept of what it means to be human is being called into a question but a deeper question also arises. Are all humans are equally implicated in behaving in ways that have bought us to ecological crisis of the Anthropocene? Indigenous cultures are living cultures that have operated in harmony with the Earth for countless millennia. Notions of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life are fundamental to these cultures.

The ghosts of these cultures haunt us. As bushfires rage out control we learn of indigenous fire stick farming and how, in pre-colonial Australia, bushfires did not occur. More unsettling still, we learn that this fire stick farming was undertaken so that the people could grow food crops. Here where I live there are drawings done by early settlers that depict Aboriginal women harvesting yams. Across the country evidence is emerging that prior to white settlement Aboriginal people cultivated the land, established villages and built dams, weirs and food stores. The colonial idea that Aboriginal people were hunter gatherer nomads who lived at a subsidence level is being proven to be false.

I found today’s post difficult to write and even more difficult to draw to a conclusion. I’m finding that the deeper I dig into the idea of the Anthropocene as a cultural crisis the more it seems impossible that we can extricate ourselves from this mess. Being determined to find pathways through the impasse I am going to write about finding hope in the Anthropocene tomorrow.

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Connecting to nature

I’m still pondering the quote I posted yesterday:-

“_{We are the land … the Earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth. The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies. It is not a means of survival, a setting for our affairs … It is rather a part of our being, dynamic, significant, real. It is our self …}” _{Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo (1979)}

The distance between the way most of us think about what it means to be human and the idea of humans as the mind of the Earth is so vast, I can’t quite imagine how we could ever get to that point. Still, our current way of thinking is just getting us deeper and deeper in the shit so, the way I see it, trying to find alternative ways of thinking is worth attempting.

The anthropologist, Tim Ingold says humans do not live in the world but move through it. He uses the term ‘wayfaring’ to describe the experience of walking through the world in slow, intuitive ways that connect to life. Such experiences broaden our knowledge of the world as we open up to the awareness that we co-exist with other beings, both human and non-human.

Wayfaring through the world also opens up to experiences of awe and wonder. The Australian biologist and TV journalist, Julia Baird says “Awe is something not easy to define, but usually involves stopping in your tracks, being amazed by something and, often, feeling small against the full scale of the universe.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-03/awe-hunters-stunning-secret-solace-wonder-transformation/102755992

Many awesome experiences involve some grand adventure or some out of the ordinary experience like seeing phosphorescence on the sea but is possible to experience moments of awe and wonder within the everyday. The way the light falls across a puddle on the pavement, a sudden unexpected sight of an eagle wheeling in the wind above city buildings, or the simple sight of an ant carrying a crumb three times larger than itself can be moments when we are taken out of ourselves and into the wider world. Opening to these moments and slowing down enough to actually notice them is the challenge.

Another way we can stimulate feelings of connection to the world is through curiosity. Recently I’ve been learning more about the mangrove trees that grow along a riverbank near my house. I was amazed to learn the little trunks sticking up out of the water are actually how the trees breathe. I thought they were simply trunks that hadn’t grown any leaves. Learning that breaking these breathing tubes can kill the trees has made me more aware how I move along the river bank. Now I know one careless step could kill a tree that plays a vital role in capturing carbon out the atmosphere:-

“Blue Carbon is CO₂ that is captured by coastal wetlands mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses. It can remain in the sediment for thousands of years, making it one of the most powerful natural solutions to climate change.” – The Nature Conservatory, Australia.

Walking meditations, forest bathing and bird watching are all also suggested as ways to connect to nature. I love wandering through the bush or beside the sea enjoying the beauty of the world and sometimes that’s enough –

sometimes it’s necessary to turn of the News, to move away from the social media feed, to unplug the mind and just be in nature.

Today is the equinox – a time of balance when the day and night are of equal length. In the old Earth ways this was always considered a sacred time. A moment when the Earth rests in harmony.

Letting ourselves feel these sacred moments is part of the process towards becoming more attuned to nature – to move towards understanding ourselves as part of nature.

Deconstructing anthropocentric thinking

I’m loving all your comments. They are helping me get clear on where these posts are going. I’ve made a mud map of future posts and think there will probably be 7 more. The inspiration is flowing now and I am hoping to get a post up every day.

So many thoughts are swirling around my mind as I consider your comments on religion, patriarchy and the economy. At first, I thought I’d have to tackle them all in separate posts but then I realized they are intrinsically linked. I’ve given up trying to write this stuff in a logical, grammatically correct manner. Taking Einstein’s idea that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them as my guide, I will approach these blog posts through a stream-of-consciousness wayfaring process.

We need a paradigm shift. A change in how we live on the planet.

The system we live in is a construct that favours the few at the top and oppresses everyone else. It is based on exploitation, whether that is the exploitation of the natural world, animals or people without power or privilege.

It could be said that the chaos we are witnessing now is a direct end result of the mental structures that lie beneath this patriarchal, capitalist system – a system structured around the concept of unlimited growth on a planet of limited resources. It is a system that ultimately cannot sustain itself.

Now the foundations are beginning to collapse
under the weight of their own inconsistencies.

There are lots of ideas out there about how new systems could be structured. In this series of posts about anthropocentric consciousness I am not focusing on practical economic solutions because I am not an economist. Two concepts I came across when I did some research are ecological economics and participatory economics but I’ll leave it to interested readers to do their own research. The idea of a circular economy makes a lot of sense of to me because I think we throw too much away. Where is this ‘away’? As far as I can see there is no away because our waste is now coming back to haunt us. I also think the redistribution of wealth secreted away by the top 1% would go a long way to solving world hunger and providing adequate shelter for all.

To implement any of these ideas

WE NEED A PARADIGM SHIFT

To get there I think we have to deconstruct the conceptual base of this system where powerful white males (and their minions) think they have a God given right to exploit the Earth.

This has to stem from the Biblical passage:-

Genesis 1:26New King James Version “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So obviously the god we are talking about here has no relationship to the spiritual beliefs of indigenous people or with pre Christian Earth goddesses…

If I jump out of the matrix and go to the spiritual beliefs of indigenous people and to the ancient Earth goddesses I see that many centre around the concept of humans living in harmony with the Earth and all nonhuman life. Feelings of being embodied on the Earth lead into the desire to respect, nurture and protect all life.

This is not a superficial notion but is a way of thinking about being human that is utterly different from mainstream Western ideas. It is beautifully expressed here:-

“_{We are the land … the Earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth. The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies. It is not a means of survival, a setting for our affairs … It is rather a part of our being, dynamic, significant, real. It is our self … Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo (1979: 191–192)}

This leads to the question of how we change our thinking and shift towards more holistic ways of living in harmony with each other, the planet and all non-human beings. Researching this I came across a fascinating article on the subject at https://earthathome.org/

“Changing a closely held worldview is not about changing understandings of isolated concepts, but rather remaking that worldview. What goes into such a large change? Changing one’s mind about deeply held beliefs requires reaching a tipping point.”

This concept of a tipping point fits with the idea that the many crises of the Anthropocene can propel us into rethinking the values of our culture. Old certainties are suddenly no longer as stable as they once were. The places we inhabit can be altered, even destroyed by environmental degradation, natural disasters and climate change. Conditions we once considered secure are no longer rock solid structures. Our usual ways of thinking and living are challenged. In so many ways we are being unmade.

The French philosopher, Giles Deleuze and the psychoanalyst, Felix Guattari called this unmaking ‘deterritorialization’. This is followed by a remaking, or what they call ‘reterritorialization’ – a complex non-linear process that can be contradictory and destabilizing but which leads to new, more fluid ways of being – an always becoming.

I ‘ll take a deeper dive into these ideas in my next post. Please keep your comments coming. They are an important part of this investigation for they expand the discussion into areas I haven’t thought of myself.

Chasing anthropocenic consciousness

The implications of what it means to alive in the Anthropocene can be infinitely depressing. While the mainstream view is that the current crisis is because we burn fossil fuels there’s more going on that. The Anthropocene is also about the plastic swirling around in vast ocean gyres, fast fashion waste, pharmaceuticals past their use by date and dumped in landfill sites, types of plastic no one has yet figured out how to recycle, the fact the bees are dying etc. etc… The list goes on and on.

All of these things are effects of our behaviour though. The question is why do we behave in such life destroying ways in the first place? The answer to that question has to be tied up with the way we consider nature to be a resource we can use for our own betterment and how Western consciousness is constructed around the idea that humans are separate from nature.

Just how we break down this way of thinking is matter of conjecture. The feminist scholar, Donna Haraway suggests that one place to begin is make kin with other beings:-

“I first started using the word “kin” when I was in college in a Shakespeare class because I realized that Shakespeare punned with “kin” and “kind.” Etymologically they’re very closely related. To be kind is to be kin, but kin is not kind. Kin is often quite the opposite of kind. It’s not necessarily to be biologically related but in some consequential way to belong in the same category with each other in such a way that has consequences. If I am kin with the human and more-than-human beings of the Monterey Bay area, then I have accountabilities and obligations and pleasures that are different than if I cared about another place. Nobody can be kin to everything, but our kin networks can be full of attachment sites. I feel like the need for the care across generations is urgent, and it cannot be just a humanist affair.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/making-kin-an-interview-with-donna-haraway/

I’m finding it difficult to follow logical lines of thought through the impasse of the Anthropocene. I’ve tried writing long blog posts explaining some of the complex ideas I’ve come across but I can’t get anywhere with that approach. I’m thinking the problem might be that such an approach is that is really just continuing to work in the ways of the old system we have been conditioned to believe is the only way things can be. As Einstein said  “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

I’m finding exploring ideas with images and metaphors works best for me right now. If you want to share any art, poetry or writing you have made about this process of finding pathways beyond the fatalism of mainstream anthropocentric thinking please feel free to post a link to your work in the comment section. Communicating with each other is one way to keep our thinking moving.

Anthropocene Awareness

‘The Anthropocene’ is a term that is increasingly used to define a new planetary epoch: one in which humans have become the dominant force shaping Earth’s bio-geophysical composition and processes. Although it originated in the Earth Sciences, it has since been widely adopted across academia and the public sphere as a catch-all description for the overwhelming impact of human activity on the planet. https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/anthropocene

The Anthropocene is a time when the human impact on Earth is becoming alarmingly apparent. The seas, heavy with plastic waste, are rising due to global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The polar ice caps, the permafrost and the glaciers are melting as the temperatures rise across the globe. The soils are contaminated with pesticide run off, chemical fertilizers and, in the worst case, radio-active waste. Climate change brings us terrifying and unpredictable weather. Biodiversity is threatened and species extinction is accelerating because of deforestation, urbanization and modern agricultural practices…

but all of that information and more can be found by simple Google searches or watching the nightly News.

What interests me is how the Anthropocene affects us mentally and emotionally. Personally, I have experienced deep levels of fear and anxiety, even despair as I realize that we humans have caused this environmental mayhem but are also the victims of it. The Earth is our home but we have despoiled our own nest. It all makes me question many of the ideas and attitudes that I have been taught to believe about what it means to be human. In examining and rethinking these attitudes I hope to develop more psychological resilience. I want to move through the paralysis of fear and join with others searching for a way through the impasse of anthropocenic thinking.

Taking the ideas of the anthropologist, Tim Ingold as a guide I am wayfaring through a wide range of ideas and concepts that shed light on the way the human/nature divide has brought us to this impasse.

Rather than sink into fatalistic despair I seek to find pathways that will take me into what Ingold describes as a dynamic and embodied engagement with the world. Part of this process involves creating journal pages where I combine my own photos and digital images with keywords and phrases about the concepts I am researching.