I'm offering an online workshop, Feb. 27, on Writing for Change with
’s group, Scribente Maternum. Would love to see some friendly faces!Hello friends.
I have to tell you, I spent a lot of this week mega stressed. I went with my kid and a group of our friends to the trans kids rights rally on Monday night, and also wrote about it for New York Magazine, and also appeared on CNN at 5:45 am Wednesday discussing the attack on the Education Department, while juggling a dozen other projects, trying not to be overwhelmed by the news while also continuing with my self-appointed task to digest the news for all of you each week (post coming Monday).
Deep breath.
This week I’m offering you a wonderful, beautiful, life-affirming and yet very real and honest conversation on The Golden Hour podcast.
In this audio experiment, my plan is to bring you a series of fascinating conversations with deep thinkers about the polycrisis and its impact on our emotions and our everyday lives.
I’m doing at least one a month in 2025.
And my second guest in the series is the amazing Katharine Wilkinson. Katharine is a bestselling author and an inspiring thinker who convenes communities around climate solutions. She worked on Drawdown, which is an enormously influential encyclopedia of climate solutions, that I refer to all the time, and she co-edited, with
, the bestselling anthology All We Can Save , which featured 60 women climate leaders. And that’s now evolved into a Circles project, a space for deep dialogues, as well as Climate Wayfinding, which is an experiential, educational project.I’ve been such a big fan of hers since we first met in 2019 and I was so delighted that she wanted to take the time to talk with you all, and the conversation was like a big drink of water in this crazy, chaotic time. So please, take a listen, or if you prefer, here is the transcript.
I started by asking Katharine how she got started in this climate journey.
Katharine: When I was in high school, I spent a semester at this wonderful experiential education school called the Outdoor Academy, which is in Pisgah Forest, Western North Carolina. I lived in the woods with 25 kids. And our teacher Susan Tinsley-Daily took us up through this beautiful ravine in the National Forest and out onto a just completely denuded, clearcut ridgeside.
And it was just one of those moments of my heart kind of breaking open. I was 16, and I still have the little hand bound journal that I had at that time. And I wrote down after that clear cut visit, I want to help the world be connected to the earth and change the way I live.
And I think those things still hold pretty true.
And then the zigzagging has been in kind of figuring out, well, what does that mean? And what does that look like? And how do I move sort of more and more deeply into the work that is most mine to do, right? Cause there is so very much to be done.
Um, and I've definitely gone down some paths of like, yeah, no, that's not, that's not the best use, of a Katharine. And I think yeah, over, over the years I've found my way.
Anya: And so what's on your plate right now?
Katharine: One of the things that's on my plate is trying to have less on my plate. I'm spending my work days leading the All We Can Save project, which is an outgrowth, as you know, Anya, of the anthology All We Can Save that I co edited with Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson that came out in September of 2020.
It's a collection of essays and poetry and art from 60 women, um, and so it's a reflection, of the community that is rising to meet this moment, but I also wanted to think about how the book could grow and deepen that community, right, and not just be a reflection of it.
I designed a program called All We Can Save Circles, which is a sort of small group journey that moves through each each section of the book with kind of a similar recipe of some sort of embodied and feelings based elements. But really, the core of it is three generous questions that take some core themes from each section of the book, but invite people into a broader conversation.
And I think often a more generous conversation than we are typically having about climate. Um, and that's an open source program. It has been used in ways we will never know about. But we know there have been at least 2000 circles that have popped up in more than 30 countries. And some of them have continued for years into action circles and accountability circles.
And more recently that the past couple of years, we've been really focused on it. What has now become sort of our flagship program, which is called Climate Wayfinding. And part of that grew out of what we were hearing from people who had done circles, but also just people I would say sort of tiptoeing into climate, but also like wading hip deep in climate, which was a need for deeper support in community.
And so Climate Wayfinding is our answer to that need. It's a program we ran with a number of, of pilot cohorts. And then we've been focused over the last year, putting that program into the hands of faculty and staff in higher education. Uh, we've trained 73 folks, um, who are bringing the program to more than 60 campuses. So thinking about, how do we, yeah, how do we better equip people for the very tricky navigation that I think this moment of being human on earth is asking of us, as we make our way through a world where maps no longer work.
And we try to find ways to contribute meaningfully amidst that very challenging landscape.
Anya: Tell me about women. Why did you choose to highlight women in the anthology and why the special feeling for for women's role in this, or people who are gender expansive?
Katharine: My thinking on this, has has evolved for sure Yeah, all of the contributors to all we can save identify as women there had been such a clear gap , particularly when you look at kind of indicators of, who's holding big public microphones on this topic.
And we need a full mosaic, of perspectives and approaches, and so that was kind of the initial impetus, and of course, we now have a lot of evidence that when women are present and leading on climate in numbers that look something like a fair representation, the outcomes are better and that's from local level policy initiatives to what we see legislatively and parliaments like across the board.
This is not just something that seems like the right thing to do, to have more equitable seats at the table and shaping our collective future, but it is actually better for that collective future. It was interesting when we, when we rolled out circles, we started to get emails from men who are like, hi, would it be okay for me to do a circle?
Of course the answer was yes. And it prompted for us some thinking about how we frame the work to make sure it feels very. open and inclusive and expansive to people of, of all genders. So the way I think about it now, um, is that there is a real kind of feminine energy in the heart of the work that is compassionate and creative and collaborative and centers care, um, and centers the heart.
Um, but of course, all of those things are cross cutting for people who identify of any gender. Yeah,
Anya : My experience has been that, um, the movement, the rank and file of the movement is so female and queer.
Katharine: Totally. Totally. Yeah. And so, um, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's who's getting the attention and the help and the funding or getting, you know, invited on to the nightly news or placing op eds or yeah, whatever sort of metrics we have for that shows, yeah, a real gap between who's actually participating in this work and who is speaking on behalf of this work, right? And sort of shaping, shaping the zeitgeist, right?
And this has shifted, I would say, even since All We Can Save came out. But I think, certainly at that time, it was still like, well, the zeitgeist is highly, it's technical, it's scientific, it's wonky, it's, you know, um, often much more speaking to the head than the heart. Of course, we need both.
Finding more balance, I think, is really important.
Anya: So speaking of running an initiative on campuses that is totally woke and totally DEI, how are you navigating this landscape post election and what are you thinking about for the coming years?
Katharine: We have a lot of the facilitators we've trained will be running the program for the first time this winter and spring. So, um, Early indications are that students for sort of the folks who are able to get it up and running most quickly in the fall semester, they're just so hungry for this space, right?
A space that really greets them and invites in the fullness of what they're grappling with, um, around climate awareness and climate action. Um, and they're really, really hungry for relationship and community
I think one of the beautiful things is that, mycelial approach of expanding the reach of this program is working with Individual faculty and staff who are bringing it into spaces that they're already cultivating. Um, so it's less likely to encounter like intense blockades, but I think the heaviness that students are bringing.
Into the conversations and into the experience will be different. , if circles were any indication, it's exactly the kind of space that people need, right? Those started in the midst of the 2020 elections. And after a really horrifying summer of climate impacts, and the pandemic and all the rest.
I'm hoping it will be precisely the thing that folks need. Um, and I think, yeah, in the incoming administration, like a lot of the aboveground work is, is struggling, right? And, which is not to say we won't make progress at the local level of the state level, or, or in other ways.
But I think it's a moment for sort of attending to the underground part of the work, and that that sort of like nurturing of the “we” is, is long-term work.
Like we think about these tight timelines on climate because of the closing window for viable futures. But I think the reality is that we are in this, we need this longer term term. Tending of the emotional spiritual roots of the work , when you when you look at other social movements, it is so clear that they need a spiritual core, right?
And they need those spaces of sanctuary and community building. Um, I grew up and live again in Atlanta. And you can't like you can't think about it. The history of the civil rights movement without understanding it's, it's anchors in the black church, right? And in places like the Highlander Center. And so,, I feel really grateful in this moment to be already like deeply invested in, yeah, what I think of as the underground side and, and the inner work and relational work
Anya: I'm hearing the tension and I hear it from many people between the long game and the urgency and, I want to bring to you something that Katherine Hayhoe posted on LinkedIn, um—a scientist who studies sea level rise, his house burned down in Altadena. I don't know if you saw this.
And he said, I'm in the middle with my colleagues of revising a document called thriving on a changing planet published in 2017. And he's like. I don't think we're thriving on a changing planet, and I don't think we're going to be thriving in decades. How do you process something like that?
Katharine: Yeah, I think about, uh, Francis Weller's description of being in the long dark. I think we're in a long dark, um, that I don't think precludes a life giving future in the future, right? But I think the idea that we're going to sort of feel like no holds barred. We're like fully thriving now feels a little disconnected from the hard realities that we're facing.
And at the same time, you know, I think It maybe invites a little bit of an inquiry into what it means to be thriving, right? I think this is a very soul trying time, but also a very soul forging time. I was thinking about this last night, uh, the Indigo Girls, who are an Atlanta, Atlanta creation, um, did a beautiful show. That was, uh, a benefit for Beloved Asheville. And so there was conversation about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and how people have responded and the sort of like neighbor to neighbor connections and help right that we know happen during and after, um, these kinds of disasters and right there's.
Thriving, in some sense, even amidst the unraveling, right? And I so I think it's a little bit of being able to hold to hold both. , I also think, to me, that part of thriving is being able to hold an okay ness around death, um, and I think that is probably one of the, yeah, one of those kind of soul forging lessons of the climate movement that Buddhists have been trying to help us with for a long, long time.
Anya: Beautifully put. So tell me about the things that you do that bring you joy and take care of your heart.
Katharine: So I have a horse. I have a horse. Um, his name is Birdie. And, um, I've had him for a little about two and a half years. Um, and I bring up Birdie not because I think horses are the answer for everyone. But for me, horses have always been this like profound connection to life force. And I think one of the ways that we care for ourselves in this moment is to tend those, like, most visceral connections we have to that, pulsating life force that is, I think, the fundamental truth of this planet, that for 3. 8 billion years life has managed to move forward to more life.
I have a little, a little picture of myself. I think I'm probably not even two and I'm like holding onto a fence crouched like I look like I'm going to jump out of my own skin looking at this pony. And, It took me a while to get to a place where I was like, it is actually important for me to make time and space in my life for this thing.
And it is not a, like, shirking of responsibility to other things. It's actually something that enables me. to show up and the rest of my life and work in, in better ways . And I'm like, one of the things that I think makes life worth living is getting to be on a planet with animals. , and so that's been, that's been really important for me and also a very much sort of a meditative practice for me.
Anya: That's really important, right? Because it might not be a horse, it's giving yourself permission, even though what you're doing is so urgent and so valuable, giving yourself permission to do the things that keep you going.
Katharine: Totally. Because I think, you know, I think the.energy that we bring into this work is as important as the sort of nuts and bolts of the work, right? It's not enough just to bring the energy, but And I can say this as someone who has had some, some pretty intense bouts of, of burnout where it's like, I'm, I'm bringing , just a heaviness into this work, right?
That is not, imbuing it with the wisdom or pull or care that, that I want it to have.
I mean, sure, veg out and binge Netflix or whatever you need to do, but like those things that really tap you into a deeper well , of your being, I think are really important.
I also think it's a time that we really, really need community and Ritual in community, um, and it took me a long time to figure out what, that meant and for, I guess I think 13 years now, I've been part of a, a monthly circle in Atlanta that very much brings together community and ritual and introspection and connection, , that's been, yeah, just a wellspring for me, that's not explicitly about climate, but is often the place that I take whatever feels I've got whirling, and find some sense of, yeah, of kind of reconnection and, and reinvigoration.
Anya: That's wonderful. Yeah, I've got something like that too. And I also found that, um, I'm getting pulled more back into Judaism from this work. I had that experience of, of the youth group and the, and camp , all of, all of the wonderful community building, ritual, song learning, and then turning it toward this work. It's like very coming together.
Katharine: Oh, that's cool. We left this out of the zigzagging story, but there was a significant chapter in my own climate journey of. Exploring the intersection of religion and climate. So my first book was called Between God and Green, which is based on my doctoral research.
About what was at the time seemed like maybe some hopeful movement within American evangelicalism around climate that has largely largely petered out, um, or sort of been quashed by broader political dynamics. But, when we think about the infrastructure that is needed in this time, both for moving solutions forward, for caring for each other.
And certainly when we think about sort of resilience and survival, religious institutions know how to do a lot of that. Um, and yeah, it's exciting. that there is some, wonderful. kind of integration of climate into at least some of those spaces.
Anya: It's super interesting because, well, in the Jewish world, there's a generational, strong generational dynamic and that there's a lot to play out there.
There's a lot of care for generations, a lot of care for future generations, but also a lot of assumptions going back and forth about what each generation wants and values. Yeah. Um, where in the Buddhist community, which you alluded to, it doesn't feel that way. People come to Buddhism in different ways, um, but those two faith traditions are part of my background.
And, uh, I do see that very strongly. I mean, I agree with you very much that that's like a fertile zone. And it gets me to my last question, I guess, which we talked a little bit about Buddhism. You talked about Francis Weller, like, are there, like, what are your mantras or what are your frames that you turn to again and again?
Katharine: There was something that I. Wrote from a TED talk now many years ago that also found its way into the closing Paragraph of all we can save this idea that it is a magnificent thing to be alive in a moment that matters so much and sometimes I have to sort of like coach myself, you know on on that, but I do really think you know, various people have articulated that,, where we have chosen to be on this earth in this moment for the things that are needed in this time, um, and, you know, this sort of human search for meaning and purpose, like, I can't imagine anything more worth spending our days of embodiment on than trying to participate in the continuation of life, um, whatever that whatever that may look like.
Um, and I do kind of, you know, Ellen Bass and in her poem and all you can save says, I try to look at the big picture, right. And I think sort of seeing that bigger picture, both of, of movements, um, I just saw Suffs in its closing weekend, right?
I've just like, this is long term work, right? You know, even if you understand one of the major root drivers of the climate crisis to be patriarchy among a number of others, wow, this is millennia in the making and will probably be millennia in the healing. And so seeing myself as small in a good way, because I think we are each these like nodes of possibility for this bigger ecosystem that we're that we're a part of.
I also think, uh, so Sherri Mitchell is a dear friend and, for folks who have not read her wonderful book, Sacred Instructions, I highly recommend it. Sherri has helped me to understand, from a variety actually of indigenous traditions, the conception that human beings have been in this moment before.
Um, and it hasn't ended maybe the way we hope that it will this time. , but essentially that whatever progress we make in terms of, the human evolutionary endeavor, If we've got to pick back up and try it again, we will pick back up from whatever progress we've made. And that helps me to get out a little bit of the, like, there's some kind of definitive success or failure in this work, right?
And that, progress is the point, whatever the outcomes look like.
That doesn't feel like the most hopeful place to end, but, um,
Anya: no, I totally, I mean, listen, like you said, we can't do anything pre packaged, you know?
Katharine: It's just not the moment. It's not the moment. Um, and I think,
that just like, sometimes the thing to do is just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And like that in and of itself is faith, right? That faith is some kind of engagement and perseverance, even when the odds seem long.
Anya: Totally. Totally. I mean, for me, what I've really learned. Is to like the, the crushing disappointment is a measurement of our great desire we can always imagine something being, perfect, we can imagine perfection, we can only imagine perfection.
We can also imagine things being wonderful and amazing and turning out the way we want them to all the time. And, and our brains can do that. And then we're comparing, we're comparing what, what's happening to that. Totally. Yeah. I mean, of course we're going to be disappointed. That's just classic. Like Buddhist disillusionment type of thinking but it's like yeah, like of course you want it to be different. Yeah
Katharine: Yeah, and Parker Palmer describes it as the tragic gap, right? Which I think in some ways I was like, oh great Okay, as long as it's meant to be tragic like as long as that's just the thing we're in, and that actually part of the work is to stay in that tension, right? To stay in the tragic gap and not sort of flip out of it into some kind of either just like F- it all pessimism or, or some kind of Pollyanna optimism, um, but actually just to stay in the tension because the tension is the productive space of change.
Anya: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a great way of talking about it.
I guess another way of looking at it is like, well, it's interesting you brought up the long dark. I was hanging out with a friend last night who is African and we were talking about dark because people are now sort of critiquing the use of “dark”. You know, and that polarity—it's okay that there's a polarity, but why are we assigning a value judgment to the polarity?
Katharine: Yeah, I guess I. I really like the dark, I think that there's like extraordinary, productive, magical things that, that happen in the dark. It sort of goes back, to the underground thing, right? That, there's this really rich, often unseen world where so many important things are happening. Mm.
Anya: Really, really appreciate it. It's a pleasure.
Katharine: All right. Talk to you soon.
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