Forms and Opportunities for Engaged Practice
Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair while the land is saying "Help"?
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
No small part of our challenge is the pervasive poverty of agency. How often do we hear, including from ourselves, “but I’m just one person”? Yet both Dharma and sociology disagree. Our words and actions matter so much and indeed they are all we have.
Yet whether or not our actions make a big difference that we can actually see, feel, and touch is, in a way, none of our business. Our opportunity is to meaningfully respond. We can speak in ways that actually help. We can act in ways that are deeply rooted, skillful, strategic, and unattached to specific outcomes.
Featured Action Organizations
- 50501: “The first #50501 protests were a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies. The idea—50 protests in 50 states on 1 day—was born on r/50501 and spread rapidly on social media.”
- Hope and Haven Refugees: “We help Sudanese refugees in Adré camp, eastern Chad & displaced families in Sudan with vital humanitarian aid.”
- International Rivers: “We seek a world where healthy rivers and the rights of local river communities are valued and protected. We envision a world where water and energy needs are met without degrading nature or increasing poverty, and where people have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives.”
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” Mary Oliver
Featured Calls to Digital Action
- Read: Planting Seeds of Freedom in Palestine’s First Ecovillage by Atmos
- Train: People have the power! Join Beyond Plastics for a free, virtual, two-part grassroots organizing training to learn practical and powerful ways to end plastic pollution and engage your larger community. Join us for this free, virtual training starting Saturday, May 3.
- Boycott: February 28th is being organized as a US economic blackout by People’s Union USA. Support and learn more.
- Read: Meditations in an Emergency an ongoing blog by Rebecca Solnit
- Sign: Tell your rep to fight for the EPA with Earthworks.
- Read: MAGA’s 7 Deadly Sins–So Far–and How to Fight Back by Qasim Rashid
- Read: DOGE is hiring. The response did not disappoint by Waging Nonviolence
- Sign: Demand Congress Protect FEMA Now with Interfaith Power and Light
- Sign: Pledge for Canada. “The threats of economic coercion from the United States, our neighbour and leading trading partner, pose serious risks to the well-being of all Canadians and to our sovereign right to determine our political, economic, social, and cultural destiny.”
Past Campaigns
Campaign
Campaign
Faith Climate Action Week 2024
- Katie Benvenuti
Our partners at Interfaith Power and Light are inviting people of diverse faith backgrounds to learn about and examine our relationship to our faith, food and climate this upcoming Earth Day.
Campaign
Campaign
Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community
- Katie Benvenuti
Regeneration Nexus is a database of ecological solutions that aim to nourish and regenerate broader systems within the living Earth community while reducing warming.
Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It's not enough to grieve. It's not enough to just stop doing bad things.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
Stories of Engagement
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- Melvin McLeod, David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda and Joan Sutherland
How does our Dharma practice call us into politics and shape our engagement? While we no longer live in the moment of Occupy and the Tea Party movements, the words of David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, and Joan Suthlerland speak powerfully to this moment of 2024.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- Steve Seigan Miron
With its recent installation of an emissions-free heating system, Zen Mountain Monastery is one step closer to its goal of phasing out fossil fuel use by 2030.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma
Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India
- Justin Whitaker
In Ladakh, India, a coalition of political and religious leaders is organizing to safeguard human rights, cultural heritage, and environmental well-being.
