 Thank you for everyone for your patience and for those of you who are with me since the half an hour ago Discussing with Katie and then Tony about using Joanna's work, particularly the truth Mandela In workshops on deep adaptation and our experiences with that. Thank you for waiting for Joanna, but And now and thank you to Tony. Thank you to Katie for standing in Without any notice whatsoever Joanna. Hello, and Hi, good. How you're in California. Are you was it afternoon there? That's right. That's right And then it turns out that there's several folks on this call. They're You're California's well, Colorado. Yeah here Yeah, we have 75 people now So I'm I'm joining you from Greece and I see people in the UK and so on so there's everyone who's just for context Joanna everyone who's joining joins as a member they're a member of the deep adaptation forum which I set up in order to to Try and deal with the in a useful way with the the amount of people who are getting in touch to After my deep adaptation paper came out and who wanted to really connect with others and explore Questions of collapse and how do we feel and how do we what do we actually do in if we feel that some form of societal collapse is either inevitable or likely and Of course, that's how we connected And I know Joanna you and I have been having a couple of conversations over the last months But I'm really pleased that you agreed to do a Q&A With us today. So welcome Good to be here So I first discovered your work About 20 years ago and I used a I think I used your systems game in my teaching quite quite quite often But I really reconnected with it when particularly the work around How to how to hold space For people dealing with with difficult emotions As we as we sense That we're in the heart of us in the middle of a sixth massive mass extinction and and and we Feel the the the terrifying situation that will that confronts us. How do we how do we find some sort of both Equanimity but also engagements and not to turn away but turn toward these difficult times and I felt Your your book coming back to life really really speaks to that So first up I would I'd love any Thoughts you could share on how you feel Uh your work is is is perhaps finding Greater relevance and resonance around the world right now Sadly because of of growing awareness of our predicament Well because this work sprang out of an awareness of this predicament, but that was 42 years ago I had been an environmental activist with my family and my teenage children and we So that was we knew a lot and then it was my son his freshman year in university When I visited in Boston took me to a a Day one day Looking at the threats to the biosphere. So this was 77 And there was everything it was the Cousteau Society Jacques Yves Cousteau himself was there But it was much more than the On destruction of the oceans and the pollution and the loss of And was a big concern then but it was the oil spills and the But then it covered all the other things as well On the depredation on the species the extraction of the Before station. So this was 42 years ago and I went from display to display to panel discussions And this was all information That I was familiar with I was in my middle 40s then Or late whatever I just turned 90. So it's hard for me to figure back that far. It was about halfway Happy birthday for recently Now I met so that I mean de nostra vita halfway in the course of our life. Anyway But there was one thing I saw and it just tipped it And on my way back to where I was staying On a train over the bridge of the river charles. I it just suddenly hit me that our species Was destroying our world And that they And of what I saw which somehow pulled out the Scaffolding that had kept all that information as information in my mind My mental Acuity there it put and it just cascaded down Through my body my heart my feelings to my feet and I thought we're done so this was And I and so the question for me From them was how do I live? Uh in a world that my species live. How can I live? So that I am present enough in full presence so that I could enjoy it and be useful To good questions While my species is destroying it and um And that led to Work that you have that you encountered 20 years ago and a few months ago again So that it became It was evident to me after a year and a half of sort of a dark journey that People did not lack information And for me to tell people what was happening Particularly the people who were responsible Or who were voting but almost anybody Except a certain diehard activists for almost anybody else Uh, they would turn away And say well, there's nothing I can do about it. It is a shame. Isn't it? Oh such a shame But there's nothing I can do about it, but they there was a reluctance to feel mental pain Moral pain so that was what started the work and that scene central. How can we? Be with uh, discomfort mental and moral and psychological discomfort and um And I didn't like it myself, but I got very curious And so that went right from the start We we were because I was teaching meditation at the time as well Um began to experiment with how close you could get to the fire and and then to um We found simple things that we're still using like open sentences and much better than questions Or that helped people and because I was looking for not to persuade people About how bad things were That that your eyes would just glaze over That was the one thing they didn't want to hear they just think I know so but they How could I get the Voice from inside them as the most voice they most needed to hear which was a voice of caring And so that wasn't so hard. I see I see that really does come through in your work The voice of caring inside them to connect back with that rather than The the fear of the pain that they might experience that the fear of despair That would keep them away from con being conscious From from connecting with their compassion and their benevolence. I just do any you mentioned meditation Can I can I uh come in on that? You're welcome So um, I'm you you're um, you're a buddhist and I was wondering I don't that term you don't use the term How would you describe yourself? I'm a person who loves the teachings and practices of the buddha. Right I see that was not a buddhist Excellent. Thank you I was wondering how How a buddhist philosophy And also buddhist practices Or either of them You you think or you're finding helpful For for yourself or for other people as as we sense this ever greater Terror about As as this destruction of life on earth seems to be coming to our own doorstep Um, when I say our I'm I'm recognizing the people here on zoom around the world probably the educated middle class people Most people living in the west It's sort of coming home to roost now on that test. I was wondering if if you're finding The buddhist philosophy or buddhist practices to be of of help in that context I I did from the beginning Okay, usually um, see this What what what makes it difficult for us? coming out of um The western mind coming out of uh the um and theistic traditions uh is that um We have uh See ourselves as separate individuals um basically And um and this has grown of course extremely strong in the last five centuries uh of hyper individualism. So what for me as a um Westerner and a and an academic and an activist and a professor and uh was to um Not just read about it in books about them but to uh working with uh buddhist refugees from to bed and and and in the 60s I encountered their way of being and that intrigued me and I um What I found was that the experience of being a Who you are is not put in an isolation cell or a prison cell of being a separate and permanent self or individual And that that is actually that separateness and permanence is actually a delusion And it's a delusion created by your appetites or power and praise And and and the and aversion So to So we've lost our way now. It's okay. If you think of yourself as a um What let me get back to so that the right now today we we how do we handle such overwhelming these that The world that I need the world that has brought me forth Or that I am now living on with my family and my job is coming apart. What do I do? I'm lost I went and I How can I so the move that's the buddhist made and now that you can make with an understanding that our World is alive That our earth is a living system that everything we are and know and feel and Is part of that earth if you make a shift Break free of that isolation cell of the separate self always so greedy for Recognition and And all and kind so ready to compete This this Right this separate false pray to I got I got to find somebody. Who can I blame for this? Could I could I just pick up on that one? Which is which is fascinating to me because you've you've talked about your work about inviting people into that place of compassion and you've just said also to one of the ways of not One of the ways of coping with a sense of that you're losing control in your life and things are falling away is is is to blame somebody Just on that issue. So I find that quite a lot of people who are either concerned about climate change or who are Clearly activists on climate change are talking about who to blame And it may be oil executives or it may be a whole country that's profligate or a whole class of people and I was wondering What are your thoughts on the I mean and and also some people say that it's actually strategic or tactical to to have someone or to blame I was wondering what your thoughts are on blame in general but also Where that might come from in terms of your your spiritual philosophy and so on and I'm thinking also let let's make this Why should the What are your thoughts on whether or not young people should be blaming us For the predicament we've created so children today who are facing such a terrifying future Well, I'm not hearing blame from From Greta Thunberg on by and large. I only hear them wanting us to hear them They want our ear Listen to me. They say Don't turn away. Listen Care, please care about this You've got the levers of power as she says to whether she's in Davos are talking to the House of whatever parliaments where she can get out without taking the plane That so I don't Frankly, I don't I don't get blame from the young ones and the the youth and the millennials um because they uh know that they're Well, I don't know. I can't explain why but they don't and I think that the people who are the most I'm susceptible to blaming are the ones who have the smallest And tiniest sense of self that they are totally identified with their social or economic position And they're the votes or voices or that they can Harvest so that the We are called I've just spent a day with a wisdom keeper of the rainforest in the amazon and I have never met A more humble person and it's evokes the humility Humility is freedom as far as I'm experiencing again to go because you find this in the indigenous people You don't have to go to the buddhas. As a matter of fact, I've know some buddhas that were pretty concerned about their rank priority Thank you. I was wondering the other aspect of blame is self blame or guilt and If you hear people who feel guilty about this situation and our contribution to it what what's your What's your response? Yeah, I could say that we're You know There again is a focus on the separate self. It could be endless You can look in the mirror morally from now to doomsday. That is so boring We've got to graduate from that We have a planet-wide disaster where we finally step out of your separate Self adulation because self judgment and self praise are so equal you're focused on How great you are we could just take it off as if we're taking off a suit of armor Yeah, no, it's it's uh as I feel that way too and I And I don't know how to often to say it Yeah, it's just because I've had a lot of people Talk to me about our predicament and all these sorts of things about who to blame or blaming the self and so on and none of those views seem to lead to Compassion action So yes, I hear what you're saying very clearly there I'm gonna turn open now Joanna to the 80 people who've joined us and invite So hopefully Joanna, would you be able to stay with us for another half an hour? Is that possible? Okay, good. So we'll have half an hour of questions and of course people who thought this was ending On the hour then obviously duck out and I'm sorry for the delay in getting started Matthew I know you were good. What I think I'd like to do is actually have a question on on hope and the context for this Joanna is um I have been criticized for So taking away hope by talking about how I believe now that the societal collapse is inevitable And so I know you've done quite a bit of work on hope in the past now. We have a question on hope from Iowan and Matthew Matthew if you could unmute Iowan and We'll we'll hear from Iowan directly on this matter of hope Have you We can hear you Loving to talk to you Joanna. I was a student of jr. Krishnamurti and used to say that hope must die And I wonder how you relate to that well He's got a point Is yeah, I I I myself when I wrote the last I co-wrote the last book called active hope My people who've been with me over the decades couldn't believe I had written anything with the word hope in it because I had been experiencing and saying and teaching all along that If your attachment to hope takes you out of the present moment And this is where you can act You can't act yesterday. You can't act tomorrow or next year. You can act now Now is this huge a beautiful arena of the present moment and this is where you can make a difference and so Hope actually takes you out of the present into what you can gesture is That happens. So that's why however with my co-author Chris Johnstone and who's living up in northern scotland now and we actually wrote the book by skype, which is quite a romp and What we did was combine it with both systems theory and um The buddhist teachings where uh, what you can do in the moment is You with your intention to know what you want what you wish for What you uh, love Oh the the program, uh A civilizational program that uh, you want to get get behind even if you feel it's unlikely But that's where if you want to get behind and so we linked hope with intention which is what actually Both in both systems and and buddhism happens and that way we could talk about that's that's active hope Active hope is what you can do right what you you see yourself and choosing to do It's that great thing we have which is choice There people choosing to um Be online right at the moment And those who have a last to choose that they have to go because their babysitter is gone Thank you any thoughts on that i1 Well, yes Um lots I mean it it feels to me that you know There has been a turn of events That they're feeling that it is too late and and this draining away of hope Um, especially, you know relating to what I do as well Uh using theater To produce reenchantment. Actually, this is my work Um because I don't think anything's going to change unless there's a reenchantment and a love of nature Okay Yeah, I mean just say um I I was the other day I was uh talking with somebody about this and I brought up the example or illustration From the fellowship of the rings and photo going to through mordor for the ring And imagining somebody asking him when he's in the hardship working Do you have hope are you optimistic about this venture? And I he doesn't have time get out of here. I don't have time for questions like that. You have to concentrate So it's not that Hope your whole plus you just don't bother Talking about hope or nurturing hope if you're looking right at the moment right the act you're in the middle of That's very clear indeed That's my one o'clock clock Oh, you have a fun clock better more fun than mine so Yeah, I've I've um, I've started to hear people talking about being hope free Uh, but other people then talking about a kind of hope Which is how we wish to be in the moment rather than speculating on things we we won't we don't really know about But that also connects though to this this idea of Some strands and spirituality, uh Particularly influenced by the law of attraction concept think that We need to imagine some positive material future for it to be so and by not imagining that we somehow make it So I was wondering what you Uh, what you say to people like that. I'm thinking also of um That yeah, we hear a lot about the power of vision the power of a compelling story around the more beautiful world our hearts know It's possible for example Well, what are your thoughts on those people that say that we we need a powerful vision of a better material future I think it's a very unfortunate example of a magical thinking That you that that uh, you are thinking of something Makes it so I haven't myself found that persuasive Or useful in my life I think that being willing to be with what is I had uh to I was having a hard time at last fall over Um at I was actually went to a facility. Oh, I'm talking too much Let's bring on the The next question. Okay. Sure. Are we gonna ask there's a question from from linda? And by the way, please do put questions if you're ready to ask questions of Joanna put them in the chat box also, um Be good to get a mix of the men and women asking asking questions linda you've asking you're asking a question about if it's to do with being a Speaker and a teacher and on this topic and and how difficult it is to find something to say in these desperate times Over to linda matthew if you could unmute linda I think I am unmuted but thank you. Um Yes, I I um hi Joanna. Thank you so much for today. I um I podcast and ironically is the reluctant evolutionary at voice of evolution radio And I wrote a radio drama series about why the world is where it is as an imaginary character giving a kind of not advice but sharing an open-handed offering to humanity about where we are and how we got here today and After I wrote that I found that I I didn't know what else to say that I I haven't really podcast in a very long time And I'm You know, how do we be with all we know And find compassion for our own reluctance because I have to raise my hand as a reluctant evolutionary Myself and and how do we use our voices? In combination of an urgency And humanity I I'll add to it that I'm also I became certified as a forest therapy guide so that I could Reconnect people to the more than human world and make it personal again Because I know that if something is personal we care about it and we want to protect it and we have Categorized it as an object So that we see it as outside of ourselves right now I you know, I have so much trouble today finding my own voice in this being a voice for the voiceless And I can't find my own voice And so I'm wondering if you might have some thoughts about that Well, I think this is a there can be a very fruitful situation I think that that's then give yourself a break from your own voice There's so many people who are shooting off their opinion is how do you know, what's your own voice? But you can let other parts of you speak you can let your Taste buds speak or your feelings of your heart speak. Oh, this is good. Oh, this scares me The I think it's a sign. I was just we're just talking about this this man from the rainforest this teacher He was so humble He was so humble and that if but you can You can write stories or you can ask questions You can turn from not having your voice To having a being of this blessed state of curiosity and inviting people To speak how they see the world What scares them? What worries them? What do they love our first question? at in a climate emergency Meeting We could do a go. I did an open sentence and which was as I face Collapse of our culture What I'm grateful for is That's a wonderful question try it. That's a brilliant brilliant. That's really powerful for me to hear that as well Joanna um in the sense of of And it's a difficult thing to do, isn't it when suddenly people Everybody wants someone with the answers everyone wants someone to give them a pep talk And and you know what excuse me? They don't want it. They don't want your answer basic They ask as if they want but what they in their deepest heart They want to hear the voice inside them Yes, very beautifully put. I I had a an experience recently at a at a camp Where after a q&a Which was set up well out there for I was an expert on this topic of societal collapse and and how we live with that anticipation Um, there were quite there were parents of of young children and they were particularly troubled by this And I have no answers and no answers at all about about but So the only answer was simply to offer a space and and katie and another camp member They just hosted the space and it was an invitation for people to share their emotions With no answers. It's just to be with the pain and to witness each other's pain And honor that it's like say it it's it is the way to be in this predicament. There's no way out of it We have to be there with that pain and and then and then find community find something else on the back of that sharing You are a brave man And that is exactly What I find so admirable and so persuasive that true humility of yours Is what what caused me to believe right off the bat? Here is someone that I want to read and learn from You are entirely there You're not trying to spoil anything. You're not even trying to spell Your own brilliance or you're not trying to sell Humility, you're not trying you're just putting it You're joining people. You're paying them the great Complement the great honor of being Intellectually naked are emotionally available before And I think that this allows excuse me for preaching. I tend to preach but this this allows Gaia Gaia consciousness to speak through you Or any of us who get our separate competitive self out of the way Thank you. Thank you Joanna and You've spoken to my Higher self. I know I fall away from that. I get busy. I fall back into ego stories of of doing and responsibility and contribution and And and then I become imbalanced in my personal life and all the all the all the nonsense that goes on goes on in me too But that was wonderful to hear. Thank you very much and bless you I've seen quite a few questions are now coming into the chat box. Wow Um, I'm going to go to beca Beca who's got a question here. Matthew if you could unmute beca Hey Joanna, um Thank you once again, and I would love to hear if you have any advice on what is the best way to come to terms On the spiritual level with ours on the planet's demise. Um I'm just curious to know what your reflections have been on Do you think this is a part of our collective souls evolution? Is this supposed to be how things unfold because it's so hard to accept the loss and suffering but Is this maybe just some form loss of form we are facing? Um, you know, I I guess what I'm coming up against a lot at the moment is really dealing with people's existential Crisis and grief around what's happening and I'm trying to understand the best way to support them through their own Coming to terms with what is We've been given this beautiful life this beautiful planet If you let yourself really love it If you let yourself be open to what the ancient ones and the indigenous people and the Um Contemporary science, this is a living planet Uh, you can find that you can Grow in your life in widening circles Widening circles that reach out across the world you're that big We're liberated from us that little prison cell of the ego And then when you're in widening circles, you see pain. Oh, yes, you do, but you see also A The beauty of this planet out of which we grow then we're not we aren't coming out I don't believe we're coming from anywhere else. We weren't manufactured We're not coming out of a laboratory, but even that would be coming out of so that this we can Plumb and just turn to Again our gratitude for life and for the love of this and when we see oh my god Things are going to be bad. Then you say well, how can how can we Uh So you see what's falling apart is a demented system It is a system a political economic system of the industrial growth society Corporate capitalism and its guises in not, you know Countries that don't like to use the word capitalism, but they are commodifying our mother They're breaking her up and eating devouring that So this needs to be this needs to be destroyed. This needs to come apart Not be disturbed, but it's and so we look at this. How can we Love this world as this Demented and destructive Political economy Dies We go into a system what we call in systems thinking positive disintegration This happens actually at every stage of the evolutionary as we evolve from one Level of evolution to another the old codes the old appetites The old fears have to come apart the armor has to be taken off So that the soft sensitive skin and fingertips so that the Vulnerable parts eyes and lips and ears can't blow so that we can grow in connection It's only to connect when grow and learn in connection And the industrial growth society forgot about that Because you can't build connection in a factory Can I can I just come in on that Joanna? You're you're pointing to Well, some people Tell me that actually why do I sound so gloomy or terrified about collapse? If it's the collapse of industrial consumer growth society Which has been so abusive not only to nature, but up to our nature and to us as nature Then then why why be so doom and gloom about about it? And I think well Because It's going to be quite a lot of pain along the way and and maybe people dying young and and so on so What's what's your response to the people who say oh, let's just welcome collapse. It's it's it's about time Well, um, I can see their point, but we we have we can't just say toss it all so that we we can Try to make what I was hearing already Uh In the 90s As more and more people were recognizing the mortality or the short liveness of this Corporate capitalism that we need to bring it to a soft landing Let's let's not and that was even back then contemplated that we could But now But that's still so we we tried to acquaint people so that with the necessity of this maybe So that they don't Blame each other It's the blaming the system otherwise they've turned that this is this is all because of trump or all because of the Mexicans trying to get into the states or you know, we blame each other that's pointless We've all made a huge mistake Yeah, so there's that sense of unfortunately We humans could make a bad situation worse rather than Learn from it and have this as a as a rather tough invitation to awakening And for me, I think I don't see I don't have any story I don't believe in any story that this means that all of humanity will awaken to peace and love and understanding but many of us will And we can be actively seeking to do that ourselves and be part of that ourselves Um, I think that's what what you were you were saying as well I'd like to um call on azul who's with uh with tony in totnes Azul you have a question and I think it's um, oh, let me see azul's face Okay, so azul can you one? Matthew, can you look for tony? Look for tony and i'm new tony and azul is there bonsoir, duana It's fine you're on hi. Yes. Hello. We can hear you. Yes. Hi. Hi, duana. Hi everyone Uh, duana, I have a question which is um Actually, I might have changed the question originally my question was If you were speaking from the river, what would you say to us? But I remember that you have a tree outside the window that you love very much so perhaps uh Yeah, perhaps you could uh We could change the river to the tree. Whatever you choose Oh, no, I was thinking um I was just thinking that that that you know that that last sonnet of real kids that I love so much And he says And if the world has ceased to hear you Say to the rushing No, I say to the silent earth I flow And to the rushing Water speak I am So we give We Experience our inter-existence I had a wonderful revelation at the dark river near you Where a wonderful swan spoke to me The year was the year after the year my husband died We have the the earth is alive as you know We can awaken to that And the awake awaken that the the earth Uh holds us The poets know that The early our ancestors knew that the early ones know that And to be with our mother As she's suffering do we not want could anything be sweeter than to be with her? In this hard time Do you look at your watch say I can't bear to I don't have time to be with the suffering of my mother Hmm We discover I love all over again Music's wonderful rushing rivers are wonderful poetry is wonderful Looking at two poets right there Thank you Joanna. Um I And uh, I'm loving the reaction on faces Um around the world through this digital system. I'm seeing Faces uh with tears of joy Uh, so I I wonder I don't know quite how to ask this question. Um Uh, you just you just turn 90 And uh I was wondering As as death becomes less of an abstract thing in your own life in terms of your own mortality As it becomes something that Might be more imminent. I mean who knows I might die tomorrow, but it it there's a sense that it may be more imminent now How is that if anything changing your outlook if at all in in in it does that Can we learn anything from that in terms of as we as we fear our own mortality as we look at What's happening with with climate change and the the potential for Uh a breakdown in our own way of life I don't fear it I want to stay around as long as I uh Can keep up with what's happening Um I think this is the most exquisite moment on earth I think the conversation we're having now Is the conversation we all need to have we all need to fall in love again with what is And what is is an exquisite planet with wonderful arts and great species and we Have a chance to move together and not blow ourselves up and not kill ourselves with these misplaced fears I am would like to I just received a painting. I can't do that that I look at and it's a painting from a friend I've never seen because he's on death row at this San Quentin prison and uh, he painted um a Woods like a woods you go through or like Dante found himself in the woods in the middle of his life And then in the woods he has in the distance Uh His name is Orlando and he painted a window and the window Is open and there's a white bird flying through Like and I saw it as an angel of death first But and you look through the window and there fields and oceans and waters beyond Uh And I saw oh, that's my death. He's painting my death So I just find it you know Jam, I think at buddha fields around the universe People are lining up To be born on earth right now to be here now because this is a moment of such exquisite Realization And that's why I love you so much because you are helping people realize I tell what it's like to be show what a human a human can be at this time So I look at that picture from San Quentin that man did that I said, oh, that's my death But I'm going to stay here in the shrub shrubbery for a while longer as long Thank you for thank you for for answering that and Wow, I I uh, I I I just can only hope that I I'm I'm for me. I'm new to this path Joanna. I'm I had sort of a a positive disintegration of self um about a year ago and and Decided to not do that quietly Yeah, and still experiencing the consequences of that but um, it's been wonderful to To connect with What is most important in life? And you've spoken to that very clearly over the past hour and so much so just in in reflecting on that last question. So thank you very very much and um, and I'm going to call it to a close now because we've we've overrun so um Uh, thank you everyone around the world for tuning in and also for dealing with the technical issues with your Thank you. Joanna wonderful to to connect to Not just your words, but that sense of passion and Divine inspiration behind the words. It's wonderful indeed. So I really feel blessed to have been chatting with you today Thank you. Thank you for this hour