It always starts in the dark
Happy Solstice my friends, I hope you’ve been keeping well.
It’s been a challenging season and I find myself welcoming the dark nights and short days, settling into the rest that the harsh Prairie cold demands. I haven’t been posting much, but some exciting things have been happening behind the scenes.
This fall, I had the opportunity to work with a group of teachers here in Saskatoon who were preparing to lead their classrooms in sustainability action this year. We talked about how to make room for emotions in the midst of motivating action, the importance of slowing down and modeling grief to young people who are likely feeling a mix of hope and despair, and how to frame this climate story from multiple angles to acknowledge the diversity of characters, turning points, and mobilizing moments we each experience. Explore the worksheets used in this session here.
I’m also looking forward to working with a group bringing together a cohort of youth for a climate writers program with a focus on contemplative ecology. We are asking questions like “What can we learn from the land as we contemplate our place in this climate story?”; “When we are feeling eco-anxious, what is the value of silence, meditation, and solitude?”; and “What might a practice of writing, reflection, and introspection offer us as individuals, but also as a collective–a community of people searching for meaning right now?”
But most of my spare time this season has gone toward another passion project, a way to channel my own eco-anxiety into something tangible and life-giving: growing edible gourmet mushrooms. My partner, Wing, and I started a new business growing lion’s mane and oyster mushrooms this year, and it’s been a wild adventure. Our efforts have often felt small in a world grappling with rising fascism, ongoing genocide, and a system seemingly hell-bent on preserving the status quo. But amidst that storm, we are trying to plant new seeds and invest in a sustainable way to contribute to our local food economy.
Mycology is a great metaphor for community organizing. One of the mushroom growers we’ve learned the most from, Michael from Southwest Mycology, describes the growing process like this: “It always starts in the dark. Not with a spark, not with light, but with breath, with stillness.” As community organizer adrienne marie brown, notes: “All of us who are working to build an equitable, just, abundant and resilient future here on Earth have much to learn from mycelia — the fungal network that binds the soil beneath our feet…What impresses me most about mycelia is that the majority of its existence and work is done underground, and yet it tangibly contributes to the resilience and well-being of itself and its entire ecosystem. I think humans, and especially those of us who are seeking collaborative justice, have so much to learn from our distant fungal relatives.”
As I contemplate these themes on the longest night of the year, it makes me think about the importance of darkness, the value of leaning into the uncertainty, the void of grief, pain, and disappointment. It isn’t separate from light and life, but a crucial part of it. As brown writes, “Mycelia see the potential life in everything. Everything dead and alive goes into the soil and gets processed into life. When we understand that our pain and grief are part of our aliveness, part of how we learn to be, and part of how we ultimately contribute to the life of our planet, we can learn to eat everything and make it fuel. We can recycle and upcycle everything, because it is all material, data, content, source. We can make death into life.”
I hope you take a moment to chew on the darkness today, and that together, we continue to find ways to fuel the movements we are a part of through our grief and anxiety. Not in spite of, but in light of, the darker parts of our experiences. I hope you find courage in the stillness. See you on the other side.
