humble ramble: wayfinding
It is not easy finding your way in the world these days.
Understanding is growing that we are experiencing a series of interrelated systemic crises hurtling us toward an increasingly fraught world. This recognition of how escalating ecological disasters are creating unprecedented instability and discontinuity means that conventional tools like forecasts and blueprints are no longer effective for navigating the uncertainty of our time. We need compasses, we need to become wayfinders orienting toward our shared future by consciously acknowledging and embracing the unknown path ahead. It is a journey with less predictability than many of us have come to know in our lifetimes, and one brimming with possibility. While our paths may be our own, our journeys are never made alone.
My introduction to (climate) wayfinding.
In March 2021 I read an unforgettable anthology entitled All We Can Save. It captured me. I read of the astounding courage, love and leadership of women in the climate movement. Essays and poetry, heartfelt and hopeful, each asking me in their own way to sit with them, to learn and connect with their experience. As I listened I began to open, feeling that I had found stories that challenged me and inspired me to connect more deeply with my own peculiar mash-up of anxiety and hope about the climate emergency. As Audre Lorde shares (and is quoted in this beautiful book) “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.”
All We Can Save is for everyone. For all of us seeking to make sense of and find our way to meaning, joy and justice in a time of ecological and intersecting crises. Learning of the courageous and brilliant climate leaders and their deep connection to community made a lasting impression on me.
This past autumn, things came full circle (as it were) when I participated in the Climate Wayfinding course hosted by All We Can Save Project (AWCS) and Terra.do. It is wholly without hyperbole that I describe it as the most profound experience of connecting & community that I’ve ever had, even though the course was hosted entirely online, once a week, for five weeks. During these sessions, I was immersed in a kind, inspiring and deeply thoughtful group of humans, within which I felt immediately seen and held. My fellow participants arrived from all walks of life and levels of experience in climate work.
For five weeks, 20 of us explored how we were and how we could be contributing to the climate movement in a manner that tapped into our own personal values, interests and skills. The course began with self-reflection and sharing emotions that are connected to the climate crisis. This beautiful beginning set the tone for all that was to follow. Self-reflection is difficult work and often not engaged meaningfully in climate-related courses (or in general for that matter) but was a primary reason I was drawn to this course. I feel this personal work — to understand and attend to one’s own feelings around the climate crisis is foundational for contributing to a world of mutual flourishing that is personally fulfilling. This internal focus also opened up space to then discuss personal values and motivations that we orient from in contributing to climate work, including what might be standing in the way, including our own personal fears.
Only a space that truly understands this and centers trust can cultivate sharing and connection on an emotional level. Our facilitators, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson (co-founder and executive director of the All We Can Save (AWCS) Project ) & Amy Curtis (learning lead of the AWCS project) guided these sessions expertly with compassion, creativity and love, preparing the ground for us all to reside upon, together. I believe these small spaces — intimate and full with trust, absent of ego or performance— are where restorative joy is fostered and resilience cultivated. As the course continued and we all turned our lenses outward, I felt deeply grounded and connected through shared experience that I could be more open and vulnerable that I would have thought possible. It turns out being vulnerable can be deeply cathartic, it is a practice of letting go — of expectations and inhibitions, of ‘needing to’ be anything other than who you are.
Wayfinding as letting go.
Wayfinding is intuitively about discovery, finding and forging one’s path. There is also a complimentary component that gets far less attention: letting go. You can’t get where you want to go, or envision the potential routes ahead it if you are not letting go of what is not in harmony with your journey.
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I spent the holiday season in Tofino, a small surfing town on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island in Canada. Winter is storm season, which means blustery and rainy weather, captivating ocean swells and rainforest rambles. It is off-season and many resorts are closed, the number of visitors is tiny compared to summertime providing with ample opportunity to quietly appreciate the intoxicating tides. This backdrop gave me the opportunity to reflect on my recent experiences at work, relationships, and the world around me and I had a revelation. My stress and lack of peace had an epi-center — my inability to let go.
All at once this hit me in a profound way. While I knew on some level that this was already a personal struggle, I came to understand it differently as I more consciously thought about where I wanted to go in the future and what was inhibiting my energy and path. It had became a now identifiable trigger point for my anxiety and now that it was, I saw it everywhere — in conversations with family, friends and work colleagues. I had been holding on to many things, large and small that had not served me and my wellbeing. Some were feelings that had been left unattended, or ideas of what I could or should be doing with my life, or what others could or should be doing, while others were internalized, arbitrary expectations- mostly that I had simply made up in my mind.
I was (am still) coming to realize all that was carrying. All those expectations and rationalizations, their weight was a burden I had decided to carry for no reason. Worse, it had become normalized and no longer recognizable as the burden it was. But now I see, I feel it for what it was & is — the thief of joy and the obfuscation of my path ahead.
The future is practice — letting go of the thoughts of self-critique, of the relationships and memories and thinking that are rooted in a place or time that I no longer inhabit is at the core of continuing my journey in fulfilling way (or simply getting out of my own way). I had the good fortune to meet and connect with a kindred spirit while in Tofino who shared her own journey in such a kind and open way, it was as though she knew I needed to hear it. I suppose many of us are on a journey something like this, trying to make sense of the world around us that is rapidly changing, while trying to understand ourselves better.
Wayfinding is a way of travelling that seeks to identify a bearing for the direction and journey ahead. And yes the orientation is primary, and often the focus of the learning, but understanding what we are bringing with us also matters — our mindset, expectations, perspective. This reflective work will demand your attention the more you open to reconnecting with community and this magical planet we inhabit. It is achingly restorative and empowering work, and like many things, it is better with friends.
Wayfinding as community.
Wayfinding in our world of crises is ultimately a collective activity. There may be solitary times, but creating a new paradigm will need all of us. The path ahead will ask us for more of ourselves, for more kindness and compassion, for more understanding and patience. Many of us with privilege will be asked again to understand why and upon what that privilege exists, opening the door to our shared humanity and the reconciliations that are needed. These learnings and reciprocations need space and trust. In this dialogue of compassion, connection, creativity and collaboration we can cultivate a leaderful movement that embodies these feminist ideals and where everyone is valued and everyone can shine.
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If you are interested in chatting about my experience with All We Can Save’s Climate Wayfinding course or perhaps in joining a circle, I’d love to hear from you.
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Some of my recent, related reading:
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis: Edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K. Wilkinson.
all about love: new visions; bell hooks
Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation; adrienne maree brown
The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World; Wade Davis
