Honoring Our Pain for the World

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honoring-pain

Heartbroken © Carolyn Treadway

In owning and honoring our pain for the world, and daring to experience it, we learn the true meaning of compassion: to “suffer with”. We begin to know the immensity of our heart-mind. What had isolated us in private anguish now opens outward and delivers us into the wider reaches of our inter-existence.

 

September 2023

Burning River

poem by Amelia Brady

The Joyful Lament: on Pain for the World

by Skye Cielita Flor & Miraz Indira
Growing the capacity to be with and metabolise our sorrows, in community, is how we come back to life, and remember how to tend to it again. 

Lament of the Bones

poem by Osnat Lev Ari
in English and Hebrew

The Global Scale of Metabolizing Grief

by Yulia Smagorinsky
Yulia shares a perspective on our world today, suggesting that releasing our pain to Earth can support Earth’s regeneration.

A Vote of Confidence in Human Goodness

by Juliana Diniz
Juliana explores how to resist hyper-individualization and "unclog our emotional pores" as we confront massive suffering and loss in the world today.

holy communion

poem by Kert Lenseigne

March 2023

Dirge for the ocean

Poem by Leo Murray

Rewilding Activism

Interview with Michael Wellman by Molly Brown
Part One of a two part interview focuses on Honoring Our Pain for the World as explored in Michael's dissertation.

Moonshot

by Kirsi Jansa
An eloquent essay inviting us to deeply honor our grief for the world, "to come to our hearts and our senses."

Gaia’s got a lot to do

Poem by Will Falk

September 2022

The Seer & the Believer

Prose poem by Shayontoni Rhea Ghosh

Active Hope in Japan: Journeys to Fukushima

日本でのアクティブ・ホープ〜福島への旅を通して
by Maki Tajima田嶋真紀
Maki shares her experiences and the stories she heard from people she met and traveled with in Fukushima. - Japanese & English

Some remember…

Poem by Anonymous

The sun is black

Le soleil est noir
by Florence-Marie Jégoux
The author shares a song by the band "Tri Yann" that she uses for Honoring Our Pain in workshops. French & English

Earth-grief: Conversations for revealing and healing our kinship

by Bridget Woods
A six-month series based on the Spiral offered by the author and Leigh Meinert in South Africa, exploring and embracing grief arising from loss in all its many forms.

Syrian Lullaby

Poem by Abigail Brandt

March 2022

Disrupting Patriarchal Legacies of Dealing with Trauma and Pain

by Juliana Mota Diniz
Juliana explores the relationship between personal and collective trauma and the healing of both by embracing the pain.

Postscript

poem by Marie Howe

Work That Reconnects Participation and Climate Change Engagement

by Jo Hamilton
A report on the author's PhD research on how Work That Reconnects workshops helped participants embrace painful emotions related to the climate crisis and engage more fully in climate activism.

Appalachian Elegy (excerpts)

poem by bell hooks

And the Walls come Tumbling Down

by Stephanie Hiller
Patriarchy, war, and the Great Unraveling happening today.

Wounded Healer

poem by Jacqueline Sheridan

The Birthing Room

Art by Jane Sherry

September 2021

The Rising

Poem by Annie Hayes

The Pain that Reconnects

by Karina Lutz
Brain food on honoring our pain for the world

Dark Faith

Poem by Tim Weidman

Tribute

Video introduced by John Croft
John shares the inspiring last words of his wife Vivienne Elanta, on the message of cancer for humanity.

Our Aching Conscience: Moral Injury and the Work That Reconnects

by Molly Brown
Honoring our pain for the world in an interconnected world includes honoring the pain of moral injury that we all share, consciously or not. 

March 2021

Shards

Poem by Susana Rinderle

Trauma hurts

Poem by Fionnuala O’Shea

Numb

by Anna Charalambous-Green
Anna describes the many numbing traumas she experienced as a refugee from war--and how she is healing.

Alive

Prose poem by Vicky Chang

September 2020

No posts found.

March 2020

Requiem for Nature

by Rosalie Chappie
A meditation on the smoke from the catastrophic Australian bush fires, December 2019.

Mass Mourning

A poem by Karina Lutz

Letter of Apology to Mother Earth

by Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler apologizes to our Mother, the Earth, in this moving piece originally published at brainpickings.

Resurrection

A poem by Nico Arcilla.

August 2019

As the Climate Collapses, We Ask: “How Then Shall We Live?”

by Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil
This commentary is the first of a series in TruthOut: “How, Then, Shall We Live?: Finding Our Way Amidst Global Collapse.” It is about the moonlight leaking between the roof planks of this ruined house.

The Monster In My Room

Poem by Sarah Ryan

Deep Adaptation: from the end of “normal” to solidarity

by Silvia Di Blasio
A response to Jem Bendell's “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy.”

Thinking the Unthinkable, Encountering the Unbearable

by Carolyn Treadway
A report on an Open Sentence practice that explores one's responses to impending collapse

February 2019

Burning Love: Love Notes from the Anthropocene

by Jolie Elan
"Our sacred Mother Earth is raising a fever to burn out dis-ease, overgrowth, competition, and the deadly belief that humanity exists outside the natural world, that we are separate."

The White Swan: Beyond Occam’s Razor

by John Salskov-Iversen
An in-depth exploration of the historical shift from symbiotic economies to extractive economies at the dawn of the Neolithic era.

Through the Pain, Into Tomorrow

poem by Carolyn Treadway

July 2018

A Mandala of Tears for the World

Mandala by Dennis Rivers
One of a series of prayer mandalas with themes sourced in the Work That Reconnects.

Carrying the Burden of “Forever Karma” is Too Big to Carry Alone

by Martha O'Hehir
Sharing a thread of emails among the editorial team of Deep Times regarding our "nuclear legacies."

FROG SONG or DDT

Poem by Megan Hollingsworth

Recognizing the Wounds

by Jen Peer Rich
A reflection on the need to honor our collective wounds in order to heal them.

Home

Poem by Warsan Shire

Our turn/we were warned

Poem by Karina Lutz

Blessing the Migrations

Poem by Rick Benjamin

February 2018

Extinction Anxiety in the Age of Trumpism

by Randy Morris
In the age of Trumpism, a time when lies are celebrated, nature is commodified, relationships are monetized and the sacred is mocked, it is very important to know ‘where you stand’ in the midst of this maelstrom.

Re-Membering Europa: An Initiatory Journey to Life Beyond the Patriarchy

by Alessandra Bosco
Reflections on patriarchal capitalism, its greed and destructive effects throughout Europe, and how ancient Goddesses can inspire movement beyond it.

Drone

Poem by Molly Scott

May 2017

Poem: You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing

by Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Discovery

by Yuka Saito
Our modern culture does not teach us how to deal with pain. Instead, it teaches us to be cheerful, uncomplaining, and optimistic all the time. At first, I did the same thing with the pain around the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. This time, however, something happened that changed me completely. What you are reading here is the story of that change, a story from my heart.

Poem: That’s Right

by Toby Bush

Blowing in the Wind

by Kathleen Rude
Welcome to Rocky Flats, a picturesque expanse of open range with a stunning mountain view of Colorado’s Front Range, located just sixteen miles northwest of downtown Denver. This beautiful and blustery spot has a dark and dangerous past that has forever marred it. The 5,800-acre Rocky Flats area and 20,000 adjacent acres are contaminated with one of the most deadly materials humans have ever created — radioactive plutonium-239.

Poem: Inside Job

by Karina Lutz

Evoking the Great Turning from the Inside Out

by Adrián Villasenor-Galarza
A response to the question: in light of the alienating behaviors advocated by the industrial system and the psycho-emotional responses that reinforce our anthropocentric confusion, where can we find the energy to free ourselves and connect with genuine alternative sources of planetary wealth and well being?

November 2016

Poem: Evening primrose

by Karina Lutz

Poem: Destiny

by Megan Hollingsworth

Let’s All Take a Breath Together

by Jen Myzel
Let’s all take a breath together. Take a moment from the perpetual scroll of overwhelm and breathe… I had become silenced by overwhelm, and I just tapped into the truth of it this early morning.

Buddha Told Us Not to Go There

by A.M. Davis
Where was our world? We wept. I had gone looking for Dad’s old office and found out that I was long dead.

Mourning Our Planet

by Dahr Jamail
I have been researching and writing about anthropogenic climate disruption for the past year, because I have long been deeply troubled by how fast the planet has been emitting its obvious distress signals.