Think Resiliency and Winona LaDuke’s “The Seventh Fire”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Resource review by Martha O’Hehir

‘Think Resiliency’ is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities.  https://www.resilience.org

Every day, I may be uplifted, encouraged, and challenged by articles published by resilience.org through a weekly or daily digest. I receive word of world-wide creativity and the stories of prophetic people who are responding to climate and fossil fuel based collapse with solution-oriented projects that are re-teaching us how to live on this planet. 

This morning, my growing suspicion that we cannot live without the forgiveness and wisdom of those who were native to the bioregions of the earth, was affirmed through the gracious and bold testimony of Winona LaDuke in her article, “The Seventh Fire.” <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-07-18/uncertain-future-forum-winona-laduke-essay/>

The web site also offers Richard Heinberg’s online course called “Think Resiliency,” and since taking it, my life has not been the same. The first half of the course explained how we got to where we are on this planet, and it did so historically, compassionately, and matter-of-factly. This was not about blame so much as an evolutionary history. The second part is a call to evolve away from our previous choices and toward what is regenerative. He may have been the first to articulate what Deep Adaptation might look like. https://education.resilience.org/

This perspective is very useful for calming the paralyzing terror and uprooting the powerlessness we sometimes feel over the magnitude of planetary crises. It reaffirms Joanna’s story from Buddhist traditions: “What humankind has done, humankind can undo.”

I highly recommend this site for seeing with new eyes and finding our call in going forth. Even if it is too late, we do what we can, we act on every opportunity to which we are called,  and we celebrate each other’s efforts, going forth.


Martha O’Hehir is an educator and writer and has served as an editor or contributing editor for several publications, including The Deep Times JournalThe Music Practitioner, The Orff Echo, and Reverberations. She wrote curriculums for elementary music and math, high school religious studies, and music improvisation for adult healing musicians. She is a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects and gives retreats and workshops connecting the Great Turning with the spirituality of Teilhard de Chardin. Ordained to interfaith ministry as an Eco-Chaplain in 2017, Martha aspires to nurture growth in consciousness and to promote Earth stewardship as an act of spirituality, through her writing, music, and spiritual direction.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.