Cultivating Resilience and Acceptance in a Time of Unraveling

The times we are living in are marked by unprecedented challenges. We are witnessing The Great Unraveling across many intersecting and interconnected societal and environmental dimensions.

A few years ago, I crossed paths with the Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse course, which supports people to collectively “make sense” of these times. When I looked into the curriculum, I immediately knew this was for me. First I took the course (twice), then I became a course leader. I find this course to be so tremendously helpful, informative, and inspiring that I want to pass the gift along to others. 

The Resilience and Acceptance course was created to support people coming together to learn, reflect, and share about the existential realities that we are facing. In a free 9-session course, we briefly review the many interconnected crises (political, financial, climate, commercial, social, cultural) and the predicament that they pose to our global civilization. The main focus of the class, though, is on resourcing participants for living fully present, engaged, resilient, and meaningful lives in the Now, within these times of unraveling.

Resilience, as defined in the course, is both an inner (mental, emotional, and spiritual) and outer (action in the world) capacity. The course aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of resilience in all aspects of life, including the role of acceptance, community-building, localization, and deep adaptation.

Equally important as the curriculum materials, the structure of the course sessions creates a container for deep sharing, both in small groups and with the full group. Participants report that it is the combination of the excellent learning material plus the opportunity for deep processing of it that is meaningful and transformational for them.

Visit the Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse course website to learn more and to register for an upcoming course.

The Eco-Wisdom of Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson‘s eco-wisdom has long inspired me. She was a founding force of the global environmental movement. Her vision and impact stretch far beyond her time. Here are quotes from her writings.

“Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man’s future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.”

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”

“The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.”

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