 Good, so welcome everybody to the first Q&A of deep adaptation with a special guest with Karen Baker who's a psychotherapist and former professor of psychology and and history joining us from Colorado And I'm delighted to have her on as she's written so many books On the whole field of collapse and its implications It's it's really quite impressive. So Caroline Um Matthew will need to unmute you and then we can bring you in Hello, unmute myself Great. Yes. Hello. Where what time is it where you are? It is a little bit after 9 a.m. Okay, so good morning, and thank you for joining As I was I was saying it's a you're our first guest of what we hope to be doing once a month as a way of Sort of animating the deep adaptation forum, but also we share these we'll be sharing these on YouTube as well So thanks for joining. You're welcome. Thanks for having me and It's it's an honor to be on and to be the first to be on in this forum series Yeah, it seemed to me to be quite appropriate because I mean, I think you were probably the first writer I came across who was talking about the likelihood of a of a societal collapse or breakdown because of eco eco side ecological destruction and climate change and I remember back then I remember back then thinking how how you You really sounded incredibly brave and really quite depressing and And I realized it's a few years ago now, and I've come quite a long way Since then to now be in a place where I still see still see the bravery, but I'm not so so I'm not so focused on the idea that it's depressing And it's also it clearly. I mean you've been quite prolific. You've written so many books So I'm I'm really interested in how you found a sense of sort of purpose and agency and energy Given that you have the world view that you have that you've Have the conclusion that you have about the way the future is so I was wondering if you could say something to kick off Where'd you find that that that passion to to think this through to feel this through and to be engaged in public life? on this topic Well, I started to really open up to the possibility of collapse around 2006 2007 I Saw a wonderful documentary on two hours long called What a way to go life at the end of Empire which had a number of luminaries in it talking about the possibility of collapse and What that documentary did for me was to take my thinking out of well, there's this problem and this problem and this problem and Really put it together in a synthesis of oh our Overriding problem is the collapse of industrial civilization and the paradigm in which that's been built And so from there, I just felt compelled because Lots of people were writing about physical survival and how do we store food and how do we grow gardens and all of that? wonderful information and yet I was asking myself as a former psychotherapist. How are people going to deal with this emotionally and spiritually? Yes, that's when I began to write. I wrote sacred demise walking the spiritual path of industrial civilizations collapse in 2008 and It's very poetic and still is today a kind of Mytho poetic look at the whole subject and I thought well It's too depressing people aren't going to be interested and it was more successful than I thought it would be and then I went on to write Navigating the coming chaos a handbook for inner transition and from there I just kept exploring in terms of the emotional and spiritual impact of collapse and how do we navigate it? Emotionally and spiritually because It's going to have a huge impact on us in those areas of our lives as well as physically Do you think it was part of your own? Navigating of that to sort of processing your own emotions the writing process Yes, absolutely. I was a Jungian therapist and had been in Jungian therapy myself and so I was really looking at that that world and at the world and the situation from that perspective and the wholeness of it and how it affects every part of us and I began to really rest wrestle with how is this going to affect me? And what impact is it going to have on me emotionally and spiritually? Of course, I think most of us approach things from from that perspective and out of our hearts and our own experience we're able to speak Those things I see I mean since I've started talking about a near-term societal collapse Some people think it's a bit of an unhelpful term as it's quite totalizing and for some people They think it leaves no sense of agency or could even Induce panic. I was wondering given the fact you've been talking about this for over 10 years How would you respond when you when you hear people say that it's an unhelpful framing? Well, we can say that about a lot of things, but that doesn't change the fact that it's happening And I think perhaps that response is you know contains a bit of denial that we that we really need to look at at least look at the what if and And and go deeper with that and ask ourselves if there's some Meaning that we can find in the experience and that's that's bottom line what I'm writing about is how do we find purpose in this? And that's the way I've been framing it So how do you frame that but is that how you frame the current crisis in in your mind and heart this For this quest for meaning, but but is there more about the way you've Through that thinking what what you've come up with Yeah, I hope not to be too long-winded here, but you know When we were facing climate catastrophe and we're facing the collapse of systems We're looking at something that is much larger than a Scientific reality. We're dealing with an existential issue and you know, there are Five things in life. I call them the big five That we can't deal with just intellectually and those are love death Eternity the sacred and suffering those are existential issues all of which are wrapped in What we're dealing with right now? So I began a few years ago to you know because I've studied mythology and I've studied Jung a great deal I begin to look at the archetype or the universal theme that we've seen in thousands of Mystical traditions and indigenous traditions throughout history and that is the rite of passage and I begin to frame collapse in that way That that we are in some sort of rite of passage with the earth actually being our teacher and What we're being asked to do right now is to open to this experience so that we can be remade by it When the young person in a tribe is initiated around the age of puberty The men take the boys the older women take the girls out into nature to experience some sort of ordeal and That's not just to torture them There's a purpose in it and the purpose is to Compel that young person to reach down deeply inside themselves to find resources there that they did not know they had and To connect with something greater than the rational mind of the human ego and through that ordeal Which is always a brush with death They are transformed. They are remade in many ways and then they go back into the community where they're celebrated and honored and So I began to see a collapse and climate catastrophe more in that light and What that helps me do is open to it Not that I like it or I welcome it, but I open to it as my teacher Yes, this tragedy is a train wreck, but it's also a teaching I see and that is the the focus that I have on our present predicament So I I see therefore this there's a positive dimension you're seeing in humanity's rite of passage to extend that metaphor but in a In those ceremonies, what what happens is the rest of an adult life An accomplishment being a man or being a woman and possibly then going on to have children The human humanities predicament now There's not necessarily a direct correlation at least with our material experience So I was wondering therefore if if there's something spiritual in the in this rite of passage or this coming of age for for humanity Well in an indigenous culture. Yes, the young man or young woman would go on to start a family and have children But that's not the only that's not the only product of their initiation for us, you know, it is to come back and serve the community it is for us to Support others in their initiatory experience, whatever that looks like to extend our compassion to reach out to others and be a support in the community and to to heal is a big part of it and to serve the earth community not just humans But other than humans as well. So there's much that we can do That doesn't have anything to to do with starting families and raising children and also knowing that our legacy and whatever our Task is, you know, it may be very short lived But that's our commitment and our commitment changes our lives and how we live Thank you. I just like to say to everyone who's on the call in about about five minutes I'll I'll turn to Matthew and see which questions that he's selecting for us to put to Carolyn Baker So if you use the chat box to put right in your questions and as Matthew said Indicate if you're not able in terms of where you are to be on video and audio because of background noise Otherwise, he'll assume you are and then he will actually then once he selected here your question He'll he'll ask you to speak and unmute you. So we'll come to that in about five to ten minutes Carolyn I was really interested to see that you you wrote a blog commenting on the short film I made I made a made a film when I was living in Indonesia called which I called grieve play love Which was about my own processes of grieving and as the sense of loss and how how for me the the importance of of Connecting with the beauty of nature and the beauty of play and fellowship with other other people and then and then for seeing that I posed the question about to myself and to other people given the nature of our predicament What what is love inviting of us now that rather than panic or fear and so on so I was in your blog There was some interesting reflections where you delve down into I think we need to look closer at what? What do we mean by love and what what kinds of love might be helpful in this situation and what might not be? I was wondering if you could sort of share some of the main ideas from that for us Yeah, I really really loved the video and And I was just caught by the word love because in our culture in Western culture We have such a limited definition mostly. It's You know war love is a warm and fuzzy emotion. It's a sentiment that you know makes us feel good and I wanted to broaden the definition just a little bit because in indigenous cultures for example Love might be something else, you know it love is actually that initiatory ceremony That is very painful. That is a tremendous ordeal But out of love for the potential in the young person and out of love for the community Which really believes this needs to happen This this ordeal is carried out also You know from Jung's perspective Love would include the willingness to do shadow work To explore the dark side of ourselves, which doesn't feel good and doesn't always feel warm and fuzzy But it's a very important aspect of love. I believe we have a moral obligation to look at our shadow and See how we might be projecting that in the world Could I explore that a bit more with you? So it's this idea that Self-love involves a compassion and a self-acceptance of all that we are and all that's within Including some of the things that we haven't liked to look at or some of the emotions Which we've tried to suppress is that right when you say shadow work because some people won't won't be aware of what you mean Yes, thank you for that Clarification that's exactly what I mean and then of course by doing that Openly with others whether intimate partners or in families or in group processes or in public life We're we're giving sort of some kind of permission for others to to do that for themselves as well, aren't we? Yes, we are and I wrote about that extensively in my book dark gold the human shadow and the global crisis Okay, great, and I was just thinking you mentioned the five five core things in life You know love and death and so on before do you explore that in particular in any one of your books? Well, definitely We have to explore death because we're facing the death we're facing suffering on so many levels and One of my Favorite people speaking on the topic of death these days and not just physical death is Steven Jenkins and some folks may have read his book die wise and He talks about Climate change in this way. He says the question is not are we going to fail? Mitigating climate change, but how are we going to fail? He says the question is what shall be the manner of our inability to care for what was entrusted to us? because how we fail matters and In die wise he spends more than 300 pages telling us that how we die matters not that we die But how and in the same way, you know What how do we die wisely in terms of our failure in the climate crisis? And as we face our own extinction and the extinction of species Death is one of the many rites of passage initiations that we encounter in the human experience and that alters who we are and so How can we be transformed by this climate catastrophe? Something that we cannot change and what difference is that transformation going to make in our relationships with everyone? and everything So as well as I mean I've read Steven Jenkins's book as well die wise and it was quite powerful for me Where he said that we sort of have such death aversion in our culture that we therefore Don't don't look at this issue in terms of how do we wish to die or he's talks about doing dying? Consciously and Yeah, I mean given the fact that people are so afraid of even discussing a voluntary euthanasia and so on I think we've got quite a long way to go in in our discussions around death and and dying And it's it's strange isn't it because so many of the both mystical traditions, but also religious religions in general Talk about the importance of having death in mind in in how we choose to live our life day to day So it'd be interesting to see also what what religions Bring to this and religious leaders bring to this in future. Have you I know you've worked with With a couple of spiritual leaders and could you say something about those collaborations? well, I think that Certainly some religions are beginning to wake up more and more to our predicament, but for the most part I think it's Still underestimated and most religious groups are not willing to dive full-on Into into the questions that we are facing I would like to and this is not totally unrelated I'd like to say more about something that Steven Jenkins in has said He said this in an interview with me a couple of years ago And it's very relevant to our conversation here and to the former question He talks about the word Catastrophe and he analyzes it etymologically dissecting Cata and Strophae He's pointed out that the prefix Cata is a Greek preposition that means Downward and inward Which implies a descent and a descent for a purpose Strophae is the suffix that relates to the early technology of weaving So the fuller meaning of the word is that catastrophe is a descent Down and in ourselves With a path that has been woven before us that we didn't seek So it's both an opportunity and an obligation to descend beneath what the culture is comfortable with and That we're not alone in that descent because people who've gone before us have experienced it and In current time then we weave this path of going down and in together that is the Deeper meaning and I think glorious meaning of catastrophe Now I like his way of words and his his writing is quite is quite poetic, isn't it? So thanks for that I'm now gonna turn to all the people who've joined us from all over the world and Matthew has been looking at some of the questions and picked some out. We're gonna go to Paul Boddenham I don't know Bowdenham. I'm however. I pronounce your name Matthew is now gonna Unmute you you need to find you on the screen and then I'll meet you and as soon as you are muted Paul Please speak up and share your question. Okay. Is that can you hear me? Yes Hello, yeah, thank you. And yeah, thanks Carol in and and I wanted to come to this idea of initiation And explore what that means for us for this group of people because I Don't like to use this word of myself But it feels to me and it's often felt to me over the last few months awakening to this kind of thing that we are We are the initiates We are the ones who are awakening and we with that comes a great responsibility Because as other people awaken they Need I needed people who were awakened before me and it's thanks to Adaptation and all of that and people like you that I found some grab rails so what so I just want to explore this process of What I understand as a vocation We we are somehow something someone is calling us into a new mode of being and The it requires a great transformation in us But it also requires accountability of us because we have to keep people safe We have to look after ourselves, but we have to be responsible to other people and In fact, I noticed a comment from from Gavin who's always called as well talking about humility which That's a great Challenge, and I think it's something very crucial to growing into What's growing up to but actually growing down to it's funny how that down downward motion. Yes Okay, I'll stop you there get an appointment quite a multi-prong question How we act With this insight and so Caroline your thoughts on this as one of the one of the leading earliest communicators of this message Well, yes, we have as we awaken we have a great Responsibility to not only look after ourselves, but each other and the earth community not just humans, but other beings as well We we definitely have that responsibility and we have we must do it as Gavin speaks of with humility and To be as humble as possible and also to realize that Um Initiation doesn't come through us. It comes through life experiences. It comes from the earth Jung had a very interesting definition of the Initiation he traveled all over the world and studied these Indigenous cultures where initiation took place and he came back to Europe and said well We don't have those formal rites of passage in our culture But what we have are these smaller initiations Informal initiations, which he even said are like little deaths and You know day-to-day It could be divorce It could be bankruptcy It could be Diagnosis of a terminal illness. It could be losing a child. It could be losing a home Um Whatever things that take us deeply down into the psyche into the soul as if we were out in the wilderness having an ordeal and that our work is to deal with those on a daily basis and We truly need emotional resilience and Some sort of spiritual path to help us do that. Yes, and Paul mentioned Gavin's question. So I'll just mention this now So he said he said you quoted Rumi at the end of your article Rumi saying make yourself as humble as dust and ashes and I was wondering if you have any thoughts on further thoughts on on humility in in that It's something which is quite live for me so whereas people either see People approach me as if they think I might have answers Or they criticize me as if they think I'm pretending to have all the answers and And where I try to say I'm just trying to start conversations, but um any thoughts on this issue of Humility and what you meant by that quote as well from Rumi Indeed and I don't know if I was thinking about it when I wrote that article, but I'm thinking about it now and My experience is that so often as we begin to talk about collapse of systems and climate catastrophe People want to know when Okay, so when is this going to happen? How long do you think we have and I see this in preoccupation with some of the conversations on Facebook about this and My philosophy these days is I am really attached to not knowing I Have really attached to not knowing because I don't know You don't know none of us on this call knows when where how and so to stay in that place of not knowing which is a place of possibility It's a place of the unexpected That you know, it isn't going to unfold exactly as we think or predict and in that not knowing I believe is more potential and more strength than being attached to certainty. I See that's quite. Yeah, very well put. Thank you. All right. I'm now going to turn to Luca Ruggieri Matthew if you could unmute Luca And Luca as soon as you are muted if you want to put a question to Carolyn Yeah, hi. Hello, and I mean thanks for time for these very helpful Actually, I'm also reflecting on Disanswer that you that you gave to Paul's question that is actually in line with my understanding My point is I've been very Interested into the concept of the big fives And especially to love and the sacred because I mean I really need to understand how maybe we can try to Spread this world so be initiated, but also understanding how we can transfer these Awareness of not knowing that is actually the the right key of the right approach To other people so how we can in a sense in a certain sense help them and how we can use the sacred The love and other and the big files to induce these cultural change and the acceptance trying to change something I don't know if actually it doesn't make any sense to change anything. We'll we'll know in this group, but I Mean trying to find I don't know maybe a purpose or something to do daily. They could be also Something to Be Okay, thank you. Thank you, Luca. So Carolyn your thoughts are on that Well, you know in my coaching practice have people coming all the time who are deeply disturbed and hurt and disappointed and scared regarding relatives and friends who are not awake to these realities and They you know, they want to know what to do. How do I change them? How do I fix them? How do I get them to see what I see and it's profoundly frustrating for them When they realize they really can't change other folks and that the most important thing they can do is love them And just be present with them and That they need then to deal with their grief About that that disappointment and the fact that You know, their son their daughter their brother their sister may never see what they see And I think there's a false belief that if they just see what I see they'll be spared You know, and I think that's an illusion And I think that the most important thing we can do with each other If someone is is not open to hearing the facts and the realities of this predicament then then the most important thing we can do is love them and be present with them and You know assist them in whatever ways we can and then deal with how sad we feel That they can't see what we see But not to think that we're gonna be spared and they aren't you know, we're all in this together We're all in the human condition together and there aren't any guarantees Thank You Carolyn. So we're gonna change slight gear now to talk about particular difficult emotion. There's been a couple of questions regarding Parenthood and The difficult feelings around that as we look at the future. So it's not just our own risks to our own life But also feelings of guilt. So Susan Susan Livingston. I Let me just check who it's Susan Yes, Susan Livingstone, you'll be unmuted by Matthew and when you are please ask your question Hi, I'm I'm here Hello, Carolyn. I'm no see good to see you The issue of parenting comes up a lot in in discussions about these end times and It's usually focused on parents of young children I'm a parent of grown children. My firstborn is 50 years old today and It's absolutely heartbreaking The lack of acceptance of that generation to our predicament and it's also fills me with a lot of regret. I mean, I I love my kids and I'm very proud of them and yet if I had it to do over I would not bring more humans into this world and so there's the regret and there's also an issue of the guilt around the the hubris that I felt as a 20-something, you know, yeah, sure we're in overshoot But you know what my kids are different. My kids are going to save the world, you know, that whole exceptionalism thing and I don't know what to do with those feelings I'm happy with the unknown, but I'm not happy with my own self-judgment. I hear you. I hear you Okay, thank you for saying that sharing that Susan and just before I hand over to Carolyn I've noticed on the list that Matthew's prepared for me only men asking questions So so I don't like that Let's have some women I see on the call We've got perhaps even more women than men on the call So please don't be shy type your questions in the box. So over to you Carolyn Well, I really feel for what you're saying Susan and You know, I I don't know really anything else to tell you To do with this except grieve it and Grieve it in support with other folks and possibly with other parents I don't know to what extent your relationship with your son allows you to talk about this with him Is is that possible? Could you unmute yourself Susan? I got it. Okay Yeah, as a matter of fact, I'm going to spend a week for my 50th Mother's Day at his home and I was hoping to Have some kind of conversation about what's ahead of us I totally agree with you about or with Jim about, you know Not going into that sales pitch about if you only agree with me, then maybe you'll be spared We're all gonna die Whether we where there were deniers or evangelists. It doesn't matter, you know, it affects everyone, you know But I I don't know I've tried He's Like so many from that generation. He's one of these people who the minute the Topic becomes the least bit dark. It's like, okay. I'm done. Let's change the subject. You know, it's this avoidance thing It's not a matter. He knows how bad things are. It's a matter of many of us. Many of us have probably some similar Similar experiences and in how to chat with loved ones in our families Caroline when you said that you were Suggested that Susan sort of grieve those emotions or grieve that situation. Could you say a little bit more about? about About what that might look like how other than obviously talking about the predicament with with the loved one What what else or how to approach that conversation or what else to do to? Well, you know It could be as simple as you just sit down and have a good cry Or it could be journaling about it or you could be putting it in some sort of art form And what occurs to me that might be really powerful is just sitting with some other parents Who are facing a similar situation and talking about it and giving each other permission to grieve together and Then you know when you visit your son you might You know if it feels right and it's the you know appropriate time you might just ask him like You know when I talk about dark things I notice you don't want to talk about them and you know I don't like I don't like talking all the time about dark things either But it sounds like you're afraid of something what you know what might you be afraid of and just see what he says You might not give you more than a sentence But but just to throw that question out there and see what happens He's in that other situation. He's got teenagers All right, there's your answer. Yeah Yeah, thanks for thanks for that Susan Matt Simone's is I don't know if that's a is that a name Matt us. Yeah, Matt Osmond Hello, you're your life. Thank you. You can hear me. Okay, Carolyn. Yes, I can Hi, I was very grateful to encounter a deep adaptation about a year ago or whenever whenever the paper came out And I felt like it gave a new name to a process that I've been You know drawn into over the past few years and I think the area in the last four years particularly my life Where I felt most substantially able to negotiate it is in Steady day-to-day communication with spiritual friends within community I'm a slight I'm a migratory species in that context, but have long-standing connections to two spiritual communities And I wonder I wonder about the place of this in the context of societal collapse and if you had any thoughts about the manner of community that might best service as The kind of broader social structures cease to protect us Well, I think it has to be about what is local to you and what's available to you So many people I work with have nothing they're really in isolation and It's kind of up to them to create some kind of community and many people are willing to do that and experiment with it Others just find that impossible But I think we have to be very careful in terms of Being part of any kind of community In the in terms of doing our own shadow work I don't know if people know this but 98% of intentional communities fail and They fail because people don't know how to get along with each other They don't know how to communicate and people are not looking at their shadow And we all have a very big one given that we've been raised in industrial civilization So I think shadow work needs to accompany our search for community And I don't have any particular suggestions, you know, we had The transition movement was very big in the united states for several years It's still big in tautness uk But You know, I don't have any recommendations about specific communities But certainly to search around with your heart open and see what calls you Yeah, thank you for that So there's a question from uh, nancy About extinction rebellion sunrise and activism So matthew if you could unmute nancy, please Yes, hi Thanks for hosting this And carolyn for your work over the years and gem for yours. It's it's really helpful I'm a clean energy advocate and uh been doing it for quite a while now and I'm encouraged to see groups like extinction rebellion and Sunrise movement. They're really making headway and even though it's not A cure-all It will help people to have a better life I'm very convinced of that when you look at the fact that You know for one week germany ran on 75 on wind and solar california a couple days 75 wind and solar i mean again not a panacea But a way For us to get out there and express the fact that it's not okay For a small group of people to destroy our planet and I wonder if you could both address the role of advocacy In our predicament Well, I certainly support extinction rebellion because I'm not interested in the outcome I'm interested in the process and I honor the process I think it's a beautiful thing. What can it hurt really? And I I certainly honor what you're doing nancy and I've been doing for years and That whole notion of putting our energy into that Um Not as it's going to be a panacea as you said But that this is something that calls us and I really want to emphasize in terms of activism and what I call sacred activism To follow the call of our heart. What does our heart call us to do? Your heart isn't calling you to work with animals nancy and help save animals Your heart has always been calling you to this energy quest And so to follow that and put your heart and soul into it Because that is part of what gives you satisfaction and helps you find meaning in this crisis Thank you. So, um, we're going to follow up now with a question Uh, which also may really lead into some of your most recent writings as well. Well, carolin. It's a question from elizabeth About the sacred feminine and I also just to connect with that. Um, I I uh I've been really impressed with the women's leadership of extinction rebellion and the very participatory approach to organizing And the support that people offer each other to express difficult emotions So it's the extinction rebellion is as much about the way people are coming together Uh, and the community that's being built through the activism as as much as what it's trying to achieve So, um, elizabeth, are you unmuted and you can ask your question? I am. Thank you. Uh, hi carolin Hi, um, uh, so yeah, my question is is about the sacred feminine and um, I'm You know, we hear a lot about the sacred feminine these days and the ascent of the sacred feminine, um but, um I find that and I I do think women have a prominent role going forward and um Can maybe model a new way um, but I also Um, there seems to be the message that the masculine needs to be subsumed somehow or set aside because it's failed us and it just seems to me that um I guess for my own work. I'm inquiring into how does say the toxic masculine and Patriarchy live within me and what is what is a healthy mature masculine within me look like? um and an integration of The sacred feminine and a healthier masculine and I'm I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that I just feel like right now the feminine is being Uh set in opposition to the masculine and it seems to me there's a role for Both though the masculine obviously needs a lot of healing In a way that's different from the harm that's been done to the feminine I certainly do have thoughts and um My very first book that I wrote back in 1996 Before anybody was talking about collapse. It was called reclaiming the dark feminine and so uh, it was a book about the feminine shadow and what's true is that women can be as patriarchal as men and you know, you you brought forth the idea that um the masculine and the feminine live within each of us And so our work is to bring forth uh, both of them and uh, you know Women can bring it forth in a way that says patriarchal is as men around them Or women can bring it forth in a way that really serves the feminine and serves the world and serves the earth And so that's where shadow work comes in Um that we as women can look at we need to look at ways that we've taken on patriarchy And we can develop the positive masculine within ourselves Um, which helps us in our relationship with men and with with all living beings So I thank you for that question and um I feel very strongly that we need both As we go forth in dealing with this predicament Thank you. Yeah, I um, I really wanted to reflect on that as well in that I gave a speech in Oxford Circus to open the rebellion on the 15th of april And I wanted to honor the fact that so there's so many women have been leading extinction rebellion with wonderful approaches to to how people can can connect And and many of them do see uh our Othering of nature and of other people of peoples who are different to us as at the root of of Our crisis and also our dualism in terms of our consciousness where we see nature and spirit or human and nature as separate So I I spoke about that in my opening speech the um We're what we what I want to do now carolin is ask you a little bit about your new book you have a new book out and It has a what I would say a very unusual title um a kind of a a title that's a bit like a co-own Saving animals from ourselves a man of festo for healing the divine animal within um So can you tell us a little bit about the book and why that is relevant to our predicament? Well, thanks for the question jim What we've done, I've I've co-written this with andrew harvey and this is our third book together in a trilogy And uh, what we've done in this book is attempted to marry the latest scientific research on animal consciousness With what the mystical traditions have always known about animals, which is that we all need some sort of relationship with animals, whether It's with a household pet Or by feeding the birds every day or tending bees and their work or whatever that might be Any kind of relationship that allows us to be taught by animals and to love them and be loved by them because we are animals But you know for the last three or four hundred years since the enlightenment We've made animals the other and ourselves superior beings who can dominate dissect and destroy them And because we've disowned this animal within Um, we can do this with impunity or rationalize that the end justifies the means But when we begin to heal our own animal within We will not only treat animals differently, but demand that human abuse and extermination of them cease and also Connecting with our own innate animal consciousness We'll also inform inform our relationships with other humans. We'll have more compassion for the disowned abused animal in them and will more fully honor and respect their animal wisdom. So Our book is going to be out within the next couple of weeks. It'll be on amazon and of course at my website And We'll we'll be making that announcement very soon. I'm interested in how this builds on existing spiritual traditions because you say you've done it with Andrew Harvey Could you say something about how it draws upon? Some ancient or mystical traditions and philosophies well, of course shamanic traditions use animals and As guides all the time and there's a you know in shamanic traditions, which many indigenous treat traditions have There's a deep relationship with animals as power animals as guides from another another dimension And We have a story in the book about roomy himself Who had this deep relationship with his cat? And was actually buried with his cat. He said I'm sure many of us can relate to that Yes, absolutely, and insisted on being buried with his cat and so We talk about our own relationship with animals. We talk about the latest research on animal consciousness And which is really quite amazing some of the things we're finding out about animal consciousness And how we can utilize that to inform our own consciousness and um To heal to heal ourselves animals are amazing healers as we know from all the research that we see all the time about, you know How they how they can be utilized in illness situations how they're utilized so brilliantly in many Rehabilitation situations that reducing the rate of recidivism in many institutions um, so yeah I'm it's fascinating to hear. I mean for me this The the way I'm dealing with So the difficult emotions of our predicament Is definitely to prioritize spiritual inquiry and Also recognizing that that needs to be through embodied experience as much as reading and Studying and talking But it's a fascinating this paradox with humans, isn't it because we have language unlike animals and A language allows us to be connecting like we all are so we're 75 people I just had a look 75 people all around the world Connecting around something for the past hour because of language and yet of course language is is the thing that made us so attached to our stories and and perhaps separate us from Realization of what we most depended on which is which is the ecology that we are a part of and is part of us So it's this paradox, but um and unresolvable perhaps um, but uh, I'm I'm finding some way to wrap up Because it's time to wrap up so carolin. Thank you for for joining us Do you want to say a website where people can find more of your work? Yes, please visit my website at carolin baker net. That's carolin with a y carolin baker net and you'll see some of the things that i'm up to on there And uh, you'll also see me making comments on deep adaptation And uh, I thank you so much gem for this opportunity. Thank you all for being here Yes, well, thank you very much and it's been fascinating You'll see all these chats as well in the in the box And I'm sorry for people who started asking your questions. Maybe a bit too too late For us to include but there will be uh time in future if you want to show Sorry, there'll be future q and a's the next one next month is with Joanna macy probably well known to many of you Buddhist elder and famous author who's done Who has a book called coming back to life which has a lot of processes for groups on how to process difficult emotions and finding the form of resilience to keep going And uh spreading the love so i'm really delighted she'll join us If you want to share this video with people who think that they might benefit from it then Go to deep adaptation info top right. There's the link through to the youtube channel that way That's where this will be listed and um In within the deep adaptation forum I think some of the themes we've touched on will probably be being discussed in the holistic approaches group Which is looking at inner and outer transformation. So more of that that sort of stuff But also the coaching and counseling group for those of you who actually work as coaches or counselors Then that also is a thriving group for people who are kind of collaborate to help people who are on the front line of these issues With some psychotherapeutic and other support So, uh, thanks Matthew for doing tech. Thanks everybody and um See you on the deep adaptation forum all the positive deep adaptation pace for group. Bye. Bye You