by Edwina von Gal
Despite the alarming news I read each day, watching our environmental protections get torn apart, my thoughts tend toward a radicle optimism. Surprise!
In fact, in addition to huge difficulties, I am expecting many good surprises in the tumultuous days ahead—Surprises from people I know and from people I don’t know: all teaching me surprising new things about how good people can be.
Of course, I’m also expecting surprises from my garden. It is teaching me as I watch how it responds to new, intense weather patterns, which are pushing wild explosions of life and death. I am learning from the surprises it brings from the lives that were here when I arrived, those I introduced, and the ones who have appeared on their own—an ever-increasing array of flora and fauna, which, in turn, are welcoming other lives that depend upon them.
I’m suspecting there will be surprises in our ecosystems as well. As the climate changes, plant and animal communities are also—necessarily—changing to survive, forming new relationships, interactions, and dependencies. Yes, too many species are going extinct, but at the same time, natural systems, given the chance, are showing remarkable resiliency. Nothing ever has stayed the same, and now, “not the same” is happening at a speed so fast that we can actually see the changes, feel them.
Since speed and suddenness are the basic ingredients of surprises, how much is it possible to prepare for them and influence the impact? At the brink of what could be either total disaster or an opportunity to create new, healthier relationships with nature, how much can we gently guide our responses toward the latter? When the next storm hits, will we see nothing but the damages and rail against them as if they had nothing but loss to offer? Or can we honor the losses, the grief, and the hardships by changing the way we do things to ensure that the next time will be different? Instead of racing forward and hardening ourselves and our landscapes against the forces of nature, could we slow down and work all together to create softened and sympathetic places from which we can safely marvel at nature’s powerful acts of healing?
Now wouldn’t that be a great surprise.
RECOMMENDATIONS
🌱 Listen: “The Inner Landscape of Beauty” Krista Tippett’s interview with John O’Donohue on her podcast On Being. A long time favorite, it’s as fresh and relevant now as it was when first recorded.
🌱 Read: What if We Get it Right: Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (One World, 2024). So much optimism seems almost innocent, but the ideas presented in this book are super well informed. We have to be able to envision a functioning world if we ever will get there.
🌱 Watch: Alan Watts’s lectures on the environment.
🌱 Learn: Check out Native Plant Trust‘s excellent online offerings (Full disclosure, I am so honored to be on their advisory council.)
QUOTE
” . . . human survival is a niche interest.” —George Monbiot
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