Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Now, tomorrow is the equinox. We'll be shifting. Most of the days are already getting downward, but we're moving into spring. Although here in Chicago, it doesn't feel like it in terms of the temperature. There are occasional signs. Anyway, I want to speak this morning about, as the days get longer, as we move into spring, about hope, which also includes acknowledging our fear and anger and sorrow and even hopelessness. So I'm going to talk today about Joanna Macy's work.

[01:06]

First, the work that reconnects and then I know and also her great turning. So yesterday afternoon. Online at ancient dragons and gate we had a workshop with. That strike is a. member of our Sangha, but also a priest at Minnesota's Ed Meditation Center, leading. And the first part of it, so this was all based on the work of Joanna Macy, who's an old friend and mentor of mine. We lived near each other in Berkeley before I moved to Chicago. And so this is about acknowledging that all the difficulties of the world and how do we respond? So Joanne is a Buddhist teacher and a scholar. And so we talked, so the first part of the workshop, so I won't go into all the details and I won't reveal what different participants said, but the first part was to bring a stone, a stick, some dead leaves and an empty bowl.

[02:24]

The stone is for facing our fears, the stick for expressing anger, the dead leaves for sorrow with the fading of things, and the empty bowl for facing our hopelessness. So before we move into positive responses, it's necessary to acknowledge all that's happening. And particularly, we were talking about this in terms of climate and the climate breakdown. And it's very clear all around the world that there are climate catastrophes happening, climate-enhanced catastrophes, floods and droughts and storms and earthquakes And so the world is in difficult shape.

[03:30]

And I'm sure you all know it. It's not hidden particularly. And so, you know, in terms of the anger, we don't need to harbor ill will as our precepts say. to be angry at, we don't have to be angry at particular people. We don't have to do that, but to look at the systems that have created these problems and to acknowledge our feelings, including our feelings of hopelessness. This is the starting point. So in addition to all the climate disasters everywhere, I expressed my fears and unhappiness with some of the things that are happening, not just in our world, but in our country.

[04:37]

The rising fascism, that's the appropriate word. So just for a couple of examples, in South Carolina, now there is a bill in front of the legislature to make it a capital offense for a woman to have an abortion, even if it's for health needs. So to execute women who have abortions. That's an extreme example, but the attack on women and women's health care is very clear. And then in Atlanta, there's this And I sent out some material on this too. Some of the people here, if you haven't received it and you want to know more about this, you can email info at ancientdragon.org and I'll send out more. But there's this thing that's happening in a forest outside Atlanta that they're cutting down to build what they call Cop City, which is a training ground for police to persecute

[05:45]

peaceful demonstrators and all objections to what's happening so one of the things that's happened is that a person who was preached ordained by my friend and colleague has been arrested along with 22 others and he just attended a concert that was held as a protest to Cobb City he faces 35 years in prison He and the others were charged with domestic terrorism by the police who had killed one of the peaceful protesters, a young man named Beltran, who was a dedicated forest defender. So there's all of this going on. So, of course, hopelessness is available, but I believe it's not actually realistic. There are many... Many Causes for Hope.

[06:53]

Hi, Deborah. Good to see you. So I'm talking about this workshop that Matt Stride led yesterday online at Ancient Dragon about the work of Joanna Macy. And all the things that we have to feel hopeless about and overwhelmed by and fear climate, but also things that are happening in this country. So in addition, it started with participants speaking to their fear or anger or anxiety So our feelings of hopelessness, just to acknowledge that, we need to acknowledge those feelings before we can respond, hopefully. One of the things that we did was a council of all beings where each of us in the workshop wore masks to represent beings in the world, beings in nature who are threatened.

[08:00]

So somebody was water, somebody else was a loon, somebody else was fire. songbird. Somebody else was, a couple people were mountain rangers anyway. And then we spoke to our concerns about the world as those beings. And then some people were, took off their masks and were human beings and heard the responses of water and songbirds. and mountain ranges and dolphins, for example. So we're not doing that, those exercises today, but I wanted to, you know, just say, acknowledge those and say that this kind of work that Joanna Macy has led and that Stripe and Aksonga has trained in are deep and...

[09:04]

ways of seeing our real feelings and ways of seeing what's going on in the world. So this reminded me of an earlier workshop that I participated in with Joanna Macy. So what I've been talking about is her work on the work that reconnects, to reconnect us to our feelings and to all the world and nature. But she also has talked about the great turban. So, and this has to do with beings, partly the time and beings of the future. So when I worked with Joanna in the 80s and 90s, she was doing nuclear guardianship project because the nuclear waste, as Jan knows, Jan's on mine here, is very dangerous and lasts very, very, very, very, very long time.

[10:14]

And so Joanna had been here thinking about this, wondered how will people in the distant future know about these things and She had a project, and I think it's been implemented in a couple of places in the world, but her insight was that to keep alive the knowledge of the dangers of such materials over such wide ranges of time, rather than government bureaucrats, spiritual communities would be the best way to do that. So this was the basis of the guardianship project, which was also based on beings of the future. So I did a workshop with, I've done workshops with Joanna a while back where we talked about beings of the future. This is really... Everything in our life is connected to what will, for those of us here at Lincoln Square, what will Getting Street look like in 100 years or 500 years or 1,000 years.

[11:36]

So in that kind of workshop, people took on beings of the future and spoke to beings of the present about their concerns and encouragement. to us to keep alive wisdom and caring and sanity. So great turning, as Joanna calls it, is kind of hopeful and actually realistic. So many, many, many, many people in the world are working diligently and carefully and helpfully on behalf of all beings of the present, but also beings in the future, how do we keep alive hopefulness and courage and to speak of the, and care and the opposites of those things that we were speaking of in terms of negative feelings, which we need to acknowledge, but many people are doing lots and lots of good work.

[13:04]

And we don't know about it because it's not what's covered in the mass media. It's just not. Occasionally things come in. So I think this idea of the great turning is very helpful and hopeful for us and for us to see how to respond. So one insight is just, and this is... something Joanna came to, but also it goes back to Buddhist and Kamakura period in Japan, Dogen's time, is that the insight that many bodhisattvas from all kinds of world systems are lined up waiting to be born in this world, in this time, eager to be here, because this is the time when we can make the biggest difference.

[14:06]

This is a time of crisis. Of course, people have felt that their time was a time of crisis, and maybe they were correct at lots of different times. But this is a time when everything we do to express our hopefulness and positive energy can make a huge difference, even if it's not recorded in the mass media. So as Bodhisattva practitioners, this is a great time to be alive, to be present, to express kindness in all kinds of ways, just in terms of interpersonal relations, but also in terms of the kinds of work in the world that is positive So this great turning is important. And this is something that Jelani talked about, I don't know, in the 90s and around that.

[15:09]

And one of the things that I think is useful is she talked about three aspects of the great turning. So I think it's a useful way of thinking about helpful Bodhisattva action. So the first is holding actions. So, you know, in a world where we're in the middle of a mass extinction of animals and plants, and, you know, the planet will survive, but how will it be? So holding actions are efforts to try and stop the harm or mitigate the harm to make it less severe. So political work, writing to Congress people, trying to awaken people to the dangers of our time.

[16:10]

So there's all kinds of holding actions going on. And we can participate in those. We can look and see who is doing work that we, what groups are working in ways that feel helpful and that we each connect with. We each have our own particular way of responding to all this. So, building actions is the first. The second aspect of the Great Turning that Joanna talks about is alternative structures. And there's lots of that. So micro banks in South Asia, for example, that are supporting helpful efforts in entrepreneurship and supporting work by marginalized people and donating to that. So that's one kind of alternative structure. Farmer's markets. There's one that happens very close to here once a week.

[17:18]

And so an alternative structure for providing food. And then just, well, what I would call sangha, communities. Communities as islands of sanity is one way John expressed it. So, you know, this is part of our work here. to have a sangha where we can talk about these things, where we can express clarity and sanity and hopefulness and also acknowledge our fears and our anger and our sorrow. It's very important. Anyway, so these alternative structures are the second aspect of the great turning for Jaina. So I've talked about this before, so you've heard this, but it bears repeating. The third one is... changing visions of reality. And this is an important aspect of our Dharma work, in the old teachings, not just in Buddhism, but certainly in Buddhism, teachings from the Buddha, from Dogen, from our Chinese ancestors, to see the world differently than just as a bunch of objects.

[18:39]

to not objectify the world, to not think that the earth is just a place where we can dig up minerals for our own benefit and plunder, plunder other people who we see as other, but also plunder our planet itself. So to see the world, to see reality, the way Doga talks about mountains and rivers and mountains moving, and to see the whole world as alive, to see even objects as having their own integrity, to not see other people as other or as objects, but to see how connected we are. All of the Buddha's teachings are about this changing vision of the world and of reality. So this is one of the things that dharma is about, and that modern Buddhists are doing to not see the world as a field of competition, to not see that we have to compete with so-called other beings and do unto others before they do unto us, but to see actually that there is this possibility of cooperation and caring in the world.

[20:03]

this is a big one and this is, you know, at the heart of our study practice. So it's not just about, uh, studying old texts. It's about in our Zazen, feel a feeling, the sense of wholeness, the sense of connection that we feel as we sit here in this room together, breathe the air together. And also hopefully on Zoom, as we work with, uh, being connected to lots of beings, all the beings, all the great practitioners who are joining us online. So how do we foster a world of interconnectedness where we recognize non-separation, where we recognize that we're all deeply connected? deeply connected to each other or deeply connected to people from other countries and other races and other ethnicities and all the so-called others that our mainstream culture thinks we can have wars against because they're not us, they're not quite human.

[21:19]

That kind of old thinking is really destructive, but we can change that. And so that's a big part of what we're doing here. Both from Dharma teachings, going way back to the Vajra, Doga, and so forth, and the Buddha, but also in our own body and mind, see how we are connected to forests and mountains and the great lake that's nearby, and all the people we've ever known. So this sense of connectedness really changes the way people see the world, and that change makes a difference in the world. So, again, it's not just theoretical, it's physical. It's somatic. It's in our own body and mind, to be kind to our own bodies and minds.

[22:22]

to be kind to everyone else is because we are all deeply connected. Even the people who we disagree with are part of who we are. And we don't have to be, again, as I said, we don't have to objectify or condemn people we disagree with, but we can talk about policies and actions and what is helpful in the world and what isn't. So this insight of Joanna's comes from deep ecology, the sense of this deep connectedness of all the environment. And it also, she talks about deep time. And in talking with her, we've connected that with being time. which Dogen wrote about, that all time is our time of being.

[23:24]

Time is not just some objectified clock time. Time is the next breath and the next exhale. And in terms of thinking about beings of the future and what legacy we're leaving for them, beings in the next generation, children and grandchildren. People walking by this place in 500 years, what will the world be like? How are we taking care of them? And how are they taking care of us? So I wrote an essay that's on our website about meeting our ancestors in the future, because they are helping us too. So the whole idea of ancestors in Zen is very important. We sometimes, and we will do this during practice prayer chat, the names of our ancestors going back to Buddha, the lineage that came to Dogen and Suzuki Roshi.

[24:28]

Here we are. But there are many kinds of ancestors. There are cultural ancestors, there are great musicians, great artists, great thinkers, great writers who inspire us. So to call on the ancestors, as Dogen encourages in his writings, is to call on all the beings, past and future, who are part of this network of our activities right now. So one example of that is Hongzhou, who lived in the 1100s in China, the greatest Sao Tung and Shou Tung teacher of that time, who talked about Sao Tung of the nation and Shou Tung of the nation, which are background of our city. He said, one contemplation of the 10,000 years goes beyond all the transitory, allows us to go beyond estrangement and degradation.

[25:40]

So this is a gift from our teaching that we think that we can see a wide range of time. Many people in our culture are stuck in quarterly profit margins and don't see a wide range of time. You don't see that beings are going extinct and so forth. They think that they don't realize how connected all of the environmental disasters are, for example. So this deep time, the sense of long time, the sense of the 10,000 years, I think our human history Maybe David Ray knows this. When was the Trojan War? The traditional date is around 1200 BC.

[26:42]

Okay, so, you know, that's 3,200 years ago, more or less. But our human history, the human prehistory, the human history that wasn't written down in text goes back further. You know, I think it goes back 10,000 years, as they've found. human fossils that are relics that go back further than that. But some of the nuclear waste that we're producing now that is our time's legacy to the future is deadly for 10,000 years, 100,000 years. Anyway, it's, yeah. So how do we start to see our being of time as Duncan teaches us? with deep time, with the ranges of time. So this is part of the great journey to see this. I'll read a little bit from one of the essays of Gerard Nice's book, A Wild Love for the World.

[27:50]

This is one that I wrote about deep time. Yes. Well, I'll just read this whole section, just one paragraph. In 1994, I filled in for Joanna Nessie when she was invited to a Global Future Generations Conference in Kyoto, where I had lived for a couple of years before that. And I delivered a paper called Meeting Our Ancestors in the Future. I had worked with Joanna on a nuclear guardianship project in Berkeley, and then presented her views of nuclear waste issues when I went to Kyoto, Japan. the early 90s, when we connect with and appreciate our ancestors, whether from spiritual, artistic, or social action traditions, we enrich our sense of time, the present and past and future, to see our purpose in time. Joanna later wrote in her book, Coming Back to Life, quote,

[28:56]

To make the transition to a life-sustaining society, we must retrieve that ancestral capacity. In other words, act like ancestors. We need to attune to longer ecological rhythms and nourish a strong felt connection with past and future generations, unquote. Such ancestors are not only in the past and acting in the present. When we engage beings of the future, we can venerate our as yet unknown future ancestors, who are looking back at us to support, they are looking back at us to support us and to support our work that will help their lives. So we're connected to all the beings on the planet now, deeply connected to all the people, but also to trees and lakes and rivers and birds and fish, all of nature, four-legged.

[30:03]

How do we see our connection to beings in time as well? So what we're doing here in 2023, in Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, you know, and in other samtras and other khenviris, Buddhist and otherwise, to be helpful to beings of the future, you know, is being supported by beings of the future. They're looking back at us, encouraging us to act with a sense of their presence. So I'm going to close with a poem. This was sent to me by Joanne. New Year's Eve 2019. And she sent me this poem she had just found from Ursula Le Guin, a great science fiction writer. And she's... And she said that when she read this instantly, her heart and mind jumped to...

[31:18]

beings. Is this not a worthy companion to Dogen's being? Anyway, here's a poem for those with this poem by Ursula Glenn. It's called A Hymn to Time. Time says, let there be every moment and instantly there is space and the radiance of each bright galaxy. and eyes beholding radiance, and the gnats flickering dance, and the seas expanse, and death and chaps. Time makes room for going and coming home, and in time's womb begins all ending. Time is being, and being time. It is all one thing, the shining, the seeing, the dark abounding, So I don't know if first we'll read it with a document, but anyway, I'll read it again.

[32:23]

Hymn to Time. Time says, let there be every moment and instantly there is space and the radiance of each bright galaxy and eyes beholding radiance and the gnats flickering dance and the seas expands and death and chance. Time makes room for going and coming home And in time's world begins all ending. Time is being and being time. It is all one thing. The shining, the seeing, the dark abounding. So thank you all for listening. We have time for comments, questions, discussion. So, David, will you help me with people on Zoom and people in the room? I can see you all. Please raise your hands. I'm interested in your comments and reflections.

[33:23]

I have so many reactions to what you've been saying that I don't even know where to begin. You might be aware. Well, I could read all I wrote down, but that would just be a jumble. I once gave a talk about what to do with nuclear waste at the College of Complexes, and I had worked very hard on it. prepared for two weeks and had a PowerPoint delivery. And the person who was in charge of this disagreed with me and he never posted my talk. And so I'd like to just really briefly go into it because it explains so much of what Taigen was saying in the first place. We must pay attention to indigenous people if we're going to have any hope of doing something about the nuclear waste.

[34:40]

Now, the nuclear waste is going to last longer than Lake Michigan's been out there. I think Lake Michigan is about 12 or 13,000 years old. And nuclear waste will last forever. Some scientists say 100,000 years, but they're the optimists. Others say 200,000 years, and some say 1 million years. There's a very, very complicated reason that it lasts so long and is so dangerous. But that's really getting into the weeds. But... basically the Anishinabek, and I, I pronounced that wrong. And the Iroquois came up in 2017 with a plan for nuclear waste that included never forgetting. And we're pretty good at, I mean, in our culture, we're very, very good at forgetting.

[35:48]

And, They aren't good at remembering for 100,000 years, but it's an attempt to understand how we can remember that this stuff is out there for all this time. In Illinois, they're trying to rescind a moratorium on building new nuclear plants. And I think everybody in the Sangha knows that Illinois is the most nuclear state in the Union, and we have the most nuclear. high-level radioactive waste of any state, because we took it from other places before 1982 when the law was passed about nuclear waste. So we've got all of our own, plus that which was sent to us before the law was passed. And there are people now I mean, I've been in Springfield trying to talk to these people that are trying to rescind the moratorium that's in place in Illinois on building any more nuclear plants before the federal government has a repository, which personally I believe they're never going to have.

[37:06]

And so these people are really hot to build more nukes. In Ukraine, their people are hot to build more nukes. And when you look at what's going on in Ukraine, one would think we've got to really hurry and shut them all down and get the waste out of the pools and get the waste out of the reactors. It only seems logical. But even in Ukraine, the propaganda... is so strong that people are saying we need to build more nuclear power plants in Ukraine. We need to build more in Illinois. We need to build more all over the United States. And in Wisconsin, they have rescinded their moratorium, which they had, which is like the one in Illinois, but it's been rescinded along with two other States. I think one of them is Connecticut, but I really can't remember the other two. And, um, Okay, so let me just really make this brief.

[38:13]

We're now entered on a new period of colonialism where we are continuing to co-opt the lands of indigenous Americans And it's called green colonialism. And let me give you one example. At Thacker Pass in Nevada, there's the biggest deposit of lithium in the United States. And they've already started digging it up. The courts ruled against the tribes that were trying to save that part of their lands. And it has been colonized by the not even the United States, by a corporation called American Lithium or something like that. So it's a corporation that has colonized these lands and started to dig up Thatcher Pass for the lithium that's there.

[39:19]

So that's very, very brief. It's kind of discouraging unless you look at what the indigenous people are saying we need to do. But they're not being paid attention to by anybody but us. I don't know, me and Gordon Edwards of Canada. You know, it's really difficult because we give lip service to the quality of our Indigenous people, but we don't think they know anything. They're not modern. They're not scientific. Totally untrue. They're very, very scientific. They know what's going on. And we are brushing them under the rug and colonizing more of their lands than we already have. And so I'm just, I really have to shut up, so I will. But I wanted to thank Taigen for understanding these things. and for bringing them to the attention of the Sangha. And I'll just close that if anybody wants to do a program on what is the best practices for nuclear waste, I'd be very, very happy to prepare and present such a program.

[40:34]

Thank you, Jan, for educating our Sangha about a lot of this, and we'll see what we can do about having you do that. You talked about nuclear waste. There's also all of the fossil fuel and oil and gas that is contributing directly to climate breakdown and climate damage. We have actually the technology, solar and wind and other technologies too, that can provide all the energy we need, but the corporations and government governments controlled by them to some extent are lobbying very hard to keep fossil fuel and the president just signed, just is allowing more oil drilling in the Arctic.

[41:45]

So yeah, there's a lot of A lot of difficulty with, and a lot of people who understand this, as you do, Jan. So anyway, we have to work to change some of this. So other people with comments, responses. Actually, David Ray, you were at that workshop yesterday. Is there anything else you want to say related to that? You know, I'm still sitting with those feelings of grief. Not so much hopelessness, and not so much anger, but grief. And feeling a tenderness. Feeling a tenderness for the planet. So, no, I guess the short answer is no. I don't have further insights to offer from that workshop. It was very powerful for me, though. Thank you, David. Any other comments? Just in terms of any of what we've been talking about, about ancestors or about how we are connected or about acknowledging fear and anger and sorrow.

[43:07]

Hi. Yeah, I was just thinking of... of being in working with Joanna in person and how, you know, she had such a strong presence and it just feel that I could just feel that I was in the presence of a great soul when I did a few retreats with her. Also in the late 80s and early 90s and did the nuclear guardianship work and found it very powerful and also found it really helpful in dealing with the AIDS pandemic or epidemic or whatever it's called in San Francisco, which I was kind of ground down. zero of and you know just uh her work really helped me to deal with my despair my sorrow my anger all that all of those emotions with regard to what was happening to my community as it was being ravaged by aids um and i guess the other thing i was thinking about is that um

[44:28]

because of Joanna's presence, you know, uh, you know, or even her physical beauty, her voice, you know, she, she could, um, somehow this stuff was so inspiring to, to hear from her, you know, just, she, she, there was so much hope that she imbued, um, that it's, she was just a great, one of the great teachers and visionaries of our time. And, I feel very grateful that I had the opportunities that I had to be with her in person. So, I guess that's what I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. I can echo all of that. We lived a couple blocks away in Berkeley before I moved to Chicago for some years, and so I would see her not necessarily often, but regularly. We had great conversations. Yes, she's a wonderful being.

[45:30]

But there are many wonderful beings. There are wonderful beings in the Sangha. There are wonderful beings in many places. Joanna is special in terms of what she's offered to us. But anyway, just to say that. Other comments? Any kind of comments? I have a comment. Good. Kathy? I just, you know, I don't know if other people feel this way, but sometimes what I have to cope with, you know, in hearing talks, but also the news coming from so many sources is dealing with despair. And I think it's, so sometimes I kind of feel like I'm getting afraid from this. But what I have determined is an important thing that I can do I'm not a particularly wealthy person. I can't contribute to everything that comes in my mail that is a worthy cause around climate change.

[46:32]

But it is being more mindful in the community. I've noticed small things like last summer there were signs on some of the trees in the what do you call the walkway in front of, along the sidewalk. And that neighbors were wanting, some people were wanting them taken down. And then there was some controversy over it. And I would be really sad if any of them were taken down. I think we need more, not less. And some of these are very old trees. But it's an example I'm trying to give of, I think, we also need to pay attention to where we are and the natural world where we are. It's true not only for conservation, but for a lot of issues. But I think as a society, we're not nearly as tuned into our own neighborhoods as we were when I was a kid. where I think there was more ownership and more staying attuned.

[47:38]

And I know for a fact that there's more than one development in Chicago that has gotten stopped when there was such huge public outcry. And these were developments that would be cutting down trees or moving into the lakefront or bringing in lots of parking spaces. And so I just want to encourage, you know, going to your local alderman meetings or you're paying attention to your local newsletter, but I think being attuned, I think sometimes there's a danger of getting overwhelmed by a large picture and losing track of, oh my gosh, that Park just got tugged down for development. I didn't even know that was happening. You know, I think we need to be tuning in and taking ownership and knowing what's going on around us. Thank you, Kathy.

[48:42]

Yes. Part of what you want to call super returning is people responding. And there's lots of levels. And we each have our own area of affinity for response so yes to respond to things happening in our own neighborhoods and as well as things happening all over the world and each of us can pay attention to some piece of that and I've had this mantra for a while. I can't do everything. Sometimes I'd like to. But no, none of us is the king of the world and can just change things all of that, change things that will. But people have the power, as has been said, and we can make changes in how the world is. And yeah, there are lots of, so many examples of how people people coming together and have, you know, objected to a particular local venture or whatever and changed it.

[49:53]

And also people responding to national and global issues also can make changes. So it's easy to feel overwhelmed. It's easy to feel, I can't deal with all of this. It's just too much. And I think that's something that we all feel at times. But also, as you're saying, Kathy, we can pay attention to some piece of it and respond and encourage others to respond and make a difference. It's possible. Other comments or responses or reflections at any time? And about time, I think just being aware of time, you know, as well as space as a realm of awareness and action that our ideas about what's written about history, you know, now they're trying to, you know, there are politicians and

[51:08]

Texas and Florida, for example, were trying to change history and say that, you know, to not allow people to talk about our legacy of racism and slavery, for example. History is the story we're telling ourselves now about what happened, and it's possible to become informed, and that's an area, too, where we can make a difference. support, you know, not banning books, for example. So all of this is happening and it does feel overwhelming, but we can make a difference. So anyway, just Buddhism is about awareness. So how do we be aware of what's going on and respond? And it doesn't mean that we're going to fix things according to our ideas of how they should be, but our Responding does make a difference.

[52:10]

Jan, you have something else? I put some things in the chat because I've already said a lot. Basically, Joanna Macy has been on the ground floor of anti-nuclear activism. And she came to our last conference in Chicago. It was just so exciting to see her there. And then I mentioned that the people of Rogers Park have resisted for at least two generations now, having Lakeshore Drive extended up to Evanston. And these activism, this public activism has been very effective. Lakeshore Drive still stops at Hollywood and they haven't ever started to tear up the lake and do new construction on the lakefront for this. And it's just because of people resisting and activism. And I also mentioned that overwhelming us is part of the long game of the conservatives.

[53:12]

Why they're called that is God only knows, who always want to make changes. So I've got to be quiet. Thank you for the example of Rogers Park. Is there anybody else here or online who lives in Rogers Park? Close. Close, yeah. It's a good example. So I think, you know, it's helpful and encouraging to think of particular local examples of changes that have been made. That's a good example. Thank you, Jack. So that's encouraging. Anybody else? Anything? You know, this woman in New York City organized the people of... I believe it was the people of one of the boroughs to resist having their neighborhoods split up by a big drive going to the airport. And it worked.

[54:13]

Her name is Johnson. She's a very famous city planner. I've heard about that, yes. You know... Changes and destruction, damaging changes, can be a part of success. People do have the power. It's a matter of how we pay attention to things and find ways to respond together. Paul, you have something? Well, just another example, the elementary school I work at, you know, maybe four or five years ago, the city tried to, um, close the school down. They wanted to convert it to, uh, a high school. Um, uh, that would be especially for like, I live in a, or I work the schools and kind of a pretty gentrifying area of Chicago. And I think that, you know, the idea was that they wanted a high school, especially for the kind of richer families moving into the area.

[55:15]

But this elementary school had been built, um, know amidst the kind of public housing that existed there you know it was very important school for the you know um the black and brown community of that area so parents students teachers all like kind of organized and fought back against the closing of the school and eventually won um so you know we tell that story all the time to the students um There was a documentary that came out this past year about it. But it just, you know, especially to tell the story to kids who weren't necessarily there at the time, it's very powerful. This is a local example of people kind of banding together. And it's I guess we're saying, too, I think this is the right around now is the 10 year anniversary of Rahm Emanuel closing the 50 schools in Chicago. That was especially devastating to black educators and black and brown communities.

[56:20]

You know, so these kind of fights are ongoing, but there are examples of. You know. I guess you want to call it victory, but it's like that holding action that Joanna Macy is identifying as one thing you can do. Thank you, yes, for that example. And there are many examples that go beyond the local, although the local ones are totally important. But, you know, the Soviet Union collection, the Lin Wall coming down, apartheid ending in South Africa. And, you know, in in my lifetime, many, many changes for the better that came about because of public pressure. So that's the positive side of the great journey. But, you know, the other side, again, is just to actually feel our sorrow, actually to acknowledge our feeling overwhelmed. It's very available, you know, to feel our fear and anger

[57:25]

rather than trying to repress them and hide them as if we shouldn't feel anything. So it's a complicated process. Thank you all for listening. Unless there's some other last comments anywhere? Yes, Brian? Yeah, just briefly. We've been talking a lot about the kind of hope that is grounded in action, whether that's local or a wider field. And I appreciated the way you also spoke about hope in a different way, which is basically, it sounded like to me, living in interconnectedness now that is not dependent on things changing. external things changing. And the person I followed, strangely enough, was Anne Frank.

[58:29]

She wasn't an activist trying to bring down Nazism. She was finding hope, not because things were going to change, but she just found it. And there's an aspect of faith or hope that has to do with living it now, no matter what the conditions are. And I appreciate your addressing that part there, too. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Yes, it's internal, too. It's how do we find our own courage just to be ourselves? Planned communities. Small communities, yes. There's the macro, you know, all the problems of the world. And yet, how do we support small communities, to be aware, to be kind. So this is what Joanna is talking about in terms of the great turning, to not turn away from our feelings, but also to turn towards positive awareness of interconnectedness, of ancestors, of kindness.

[59:37]

So, yes, thank you very much, Amanda.

[59:39]

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