How to Avoid Burnout and Let in Inspiration

 Living in this world can make you wonder where it's all going. Some days it seems just too depressing to watch the news. Our problems can feel overwhelming, and it's tempting to just hide your head in the sand and ignore the red flags waving on so many fronts. On those days, it helps for me to pull away from the planet, imagine I'm floating around among the stars and then look down on the earth. What I see from up there is such a beautiful place, so intricate and lush and amazing in its multitude of landscapes, its living creatures, its climate that supports millions of life forms. In all our known universe, this is unique. Our home has evolved over millions of years into a world friendly to life. And we get to live here! That's what I view from high above the surface. But I also view the struggles of our species. We have come a long way since those early ancestors. In this age of technology, we have become proficient in an incredible variety of things. And yet we flounder when it comes to getting along with each other, and getting along with our environment, our earth mother. We are such a smart species. But we're approaching a time when, unless we learn to live compatibly and sustainably with the earth, we probably won't be here much longer. That is a big red flag!

Without other searching people, I would be much more dispirited about our future. But I am fortunate enough to be involved in inspiring organizations and groups that allow me to share my concerns and ask questions, learn from others, and find a path in my life that feels worthwhile. Just in this past week, I've had (or will have) four such searching and inspiring experiences. On Saturday, I attended the second session of a three-month Iowa Master Naturalist course, this time at Wikiup Hill Nature Center, where we studied Native American land use and lifestyle, and hiked up to a Wikiup burial mound. This opened our minds yet again to a vision of nature in which humans were thought of as a part of the whole creation, relatives of other living things. We were seeing a culture of respect for all of life.

The second experience this week was a "Worship-Sharing Group" sponsored by Quaker Earthcare Witness, a wonderful North American organization. I am lucky enough to represent the Iowa Quakers on QEW's steering committee, and I am continually inspired by all my contact with the people I've met. Like Quaker practice in general, the worship-sharing group focused on looking deeply inside each of us for truth and leadings. This time the topic was "stewardship". Should people be good stewards of the earth? Or is stewardship a concept that gives us too much authority, too much importance? Our history shows us that all too often, our species has exploited the planet's natural resources without thinking about the health of the whole. So in a way, being good stewards seemed a good path to change that pattern. But nowadays, stewardship seems a bit high and mighty still. Maybe we need first to sit at the feet of Nature and observe what it knows, how it works, as it creates balance and health for whole ecosystems. Maybe only then will we be wise enough to know our proper role. The sharing that came from our QEW group was thought-provoking and made me think more about how to find my best place in the natural world.

Today was the third inspiring experience. I'm taking a UI Senior College course on Native American Historical Lifeways. Today was the last session. This time our teachers were two Native Americans, both university teachers, both steeped in their cultures and committed to the life-affirming practices and worldviews they grew up with. For me, it was like sitting at the feet of wise elders. There were so many gifts of wisdom, and I felt filled with gratitude for experiencing them. Here are some of the things I wrote down that they said: 

    -The key to health and surviving hardship in their cultures is the practice of gathering in circles and listening to each other. 

    -They can learn to face pain collectively in the presence of community. 

    -Healing is to restore balance, whether it is a whole ecosystem or a person. 

    -In our simplest form, we are energy.

    -In our sacred circle of life, we can create energy together. 

    -We are all connected.

    -Gratitude is key to being resilient 

And tomorrow will be the fourth inspiring collective happening in my week. Two months ago, a number of members of our cohousing community split up into four groups to study the book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power, by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone. It's not been easy to look together at the problems of our culture, face how we feel about them and how helpless we might feel in the face of them. And yet it has also been empowering, and very good to look at these things together. I'm going to end this blog post with a quote from Joanna Macy that gives me hope:

"Active Hope is not wishful thinking. Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued by some savior. Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act. We belong to this world. The web of life is calling us forth at this time. We've come a long way and are here to play our part. With Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store, strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with. Active Hope is a readiness to discover the strengths in ourselves and in others; a readiness to discover the reasons for hope and the occasions for love. A readiness to discover the size and strength of our hearts, our quickness of mind, our steadiness of purpose, our own authority, our love for life, the liveliness of our curiosity, the unsuspected deep well of patience and diligence, the keenness of our senses, and our capacity to lead. None of these can be discovered in an armchair or without risk."