Moonshot

Moonshot essay was first published in The Deep Times Journal of the Work That Reconnects in the March 2023 issue. You can access the essay here: www.journal.workthatreconnects.org/2023/02/22/moonshot/

Moonshot is my third and most intimate climate story. The essay started coming to me, and through me, in November when I was recovering from covid and laying low in my isolation, and reading the news about the opening of the Shell cracker plant, a massive petrochemical facility, not too far from us. Body, heart and mind aching, writing turned into another practice of “inner composting”, transforming my heavy earth emotions into something lighter and hopefully helpful.

I hope you have people in your life with whom you can be real, vulnerable, brave, and share and listen in a safe way. It's much better to face these difficult times and all the feelings –numbness and apathy included– that arise when we face our shared reality together.

Here’s some some resources that I find healing and helpful when dealing with difficult earth emotions:

Active Hope - How to face the mess we're in with unexpected resilience and creative power by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone

Gen Dread book and newsletter by Britt Wray

Gen Dread interview with with eco-anxiety researcher Panu Pihkala

Panu Pihkala’s article in Sustainability 2022: The Process of Eco-Anxiety and Ecological Grief: A Narrative Review and a New Proposal