Picture of Sarah Jaquette Ray

Sarah Jaquette Ray

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray is chair and professor of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California, on Wiyot land. She works at the intersection of emotions and climate justice. Her first book, The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture, explores the role of the emotion of disgust in pitting U.S. environmentalism against movements for social justice. Her second book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, explores the role of emotions (joy, despair, guilt, etc) in climate justice activism and is "an existential toolkit for the climate generation." She is a 2022 graduate of the UCLA Mindfulness Teacher training, and offers a mindfulness course to transform climate anxiety through Pacific Mindfulness. In 2024, Dr. Ray published an edited volume with Jennifer Atkinson, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World. More information on her website.

Skills Development: Group Dynamics & Facilitation

This Module explores the relational and collective dimensions of EcoDharma, offering practical tools for facilitation, conflict transformation, Deep Democracy, trauma-aware group work, and community leadership in times of ecological and social instability. Participants are invited to develop their own approach to cultivating resilient, trustworthy, and life-serving communities capable of holding grief, difference, uncertainty, and collective transformation.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma

What Exactly Are We Doing Here Together?

What do trust and belonging have to do with a midterm test? In this piece, a Dharma teacher gets creative in the lecture hall.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
Many of us experience learned helplessness in the face of climate and other crises. Sarah Jaquette Ray leads a warm inquiry into the causes of this mind state and the possibilities for a different response.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
It can be tempting to cast humanity as an unambiguous villain in the unfolding story of Earth. But how might a more nuanced understanding support our engaged practice?
EcoDharma
EcoDharma

Why Turn Inward Just as the Planet Needs Us Most?

How might our fixation on urgency and impact actually undermine our ecological response? Sarah Jaquette Ray explores the subversive power of slowing down and acting from abundance.