Welcome MAEEC 2009 Cohort!

This blog was created to draw on the collective experience and wisdom of our classmates to confront despair and gain hope through mindful practices.

In our quest to change the world, we can process inner despair by quieting the senses to fully engage the despair and in doing so, gain hope through compassion and connectivity. This personal journey speaks to the soul, and in healing yourself, you add to the healing of the Earth.

We invite each of you to share your personal stories and tools of how you bravely acknowledge despair through mindfulness. By informing each other of our experiences throughout these two years, we hope to create meaning for each other and foster a collective understanding of the power of stillness.

Looking forward,
Leigh, Alla, Michelle, and Elisa

Sunday, August 2, 2009

What if we can't change the world?


Ideas were flying all around the room. How can we better communicate about the marine environment if people can’t actually see what’s hidden in the ocean’s depths? What policy mechanisms could be used to address consumerism and overpopulation? What role can businesses play in the shift to a more sustainable economy? As the energy level rose and inspiration bubbled up about all the possible ways we could change the world, one question lurked menacingly in the background. No one wanted to give voice to the dark monster, until finally, Leigh quietly uttered our common fear: What if we can’t change the world?
And then it hit us. We all know it is there, somewhere beneath the surface. It is that feeling that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and none of our efforts, big or small, can do anything to stop it. How can we prevent the world’s glaciers from melting, the fish from dying, the coral from bleaching, or the hungry babies of the world from crying if we are struggling with our own sense of grief and despair?
The question was so compelling we could no longer ignore it. This group came together out of a shared belief that learning to understand and deal with our sense of despair for the world would allow us to find a new sense of hope and an ability to move forward in the environmental careers that we each feel is our calling. As a possible direction toward solutions, we wanted to explore the idea of silence, of quieting the senses and stilling the mind to gain inner peace. Many great thinkers have said that finding inner peace is a pre-condition for seeking global peace. The Dalai Lama says, “World peace must develop out of inner peace. Without inner peace it is impossible to achieve world peace, external peace” (Lama, 1993). So then we asked, what could this mean for all of us?

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