Author and former climate journalist Dahr Jamail returns to the podcast to discuss the 20th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq by United States-led coalition forces. Jamail began his journalistic career as an unembedded journalist documenting the war from the ground beginning in 2003, highlighting the countless war crimes committed by the occupying forces against the civilians of Iraq, superbly documented in his first book on the subject, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq published in 2007 by Haymarket Books.
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#300 | Part Seven: Transitions, Death, The Ruptures Of Life In Between
Finally, we have reached the end—in more ways than one.
This long series has been a labor of love. It took too long to produce, but ultimately, preparing and releasing each of these parts has been a gratifying, and even cathartic, experience. This last part, fittingly, is a meditation on endings, transitions, the death of things. And, most importantly, love—the love that accompanies all of it.
We are meeting a time of many endings. The overly-complex systems that govern modern human life are meeting their inevitable demise. Centuries of human industrial activity has thrown the living systems of the Earth into disarray, and mass extinction ensues. The global climate is beyond repair, with enough heat baked into the system to guarantee several degrees of warming over the next several decades and centuries—a fact that cannot be contested. The question of human extinction is less a matter of "if" but more a matter of "when." If what is happening is happening, how, then, shall we live?
This part seven is not meant to be overly bleak, but instead, sober and life-affirming. Weaved together with commentary, these six interviews reflect on the nature of the crises we are all living through right now, from the macro scale of this predicament to the deeply personal. And truly, what it all comes back down to, simply, is love—to love and to be loved in the face of our collective death, with all the grief and despair that accompanies it.
Photography by Brendon Holt
Music by Emilee Gomske
TIMELINE:
00:00: '“Sacrament” by Emilee Gomski
1:53: Intro
13:42: Ramon Elani (The Wryd)
32:24: Commentary
34:42: John Halstead (Ring of fire)
54:25: Commentary
55:43: Dougald Hine (Dark materials)
1:23:57: Commentary
1:27:55: Barbara Cecil (Openings)
2:05:51: Commentary
2:08:11: Stephen Jenkinson (Limitations)
2:27:19: Commentary
2:32:56: Barbara Cecil & Dahr Jamail (Grief)
3:35:06: Outro
VIDEO EPISODE:
#257 | Today Is Better Than Tomorrow: A Time Of Endings; Shades Of Denial w/ Dahr Jamail
Intro: 8:18 | Transcript
In this episode, I speak with award-winning journalist and author Dahr Jamail.
I can imagine most of you listening to this episode will recognize what Dahr and I both feel and know in this time we are in. Many of us are beginning to come to terms with the reality we have been dealt — a global predicament that includes a pandemic that won’t soon leave us, economic crisis and social unrest that will only worsen as the months pass on, and nonlinear climate disruption that continues to rear its ugly head, portending horrors that are only beginning to make themselves a reality. And we know, from these trends, this breakdown will only accelerate as the months and years pass. As Dahr states, citing his time in Iraq, “today is better than tomorrow.”
In this interview, Dahr and I delve into this territory by first discussing Dahr’s initial foray into journalism almost two decades ago, when the United States made the fateful decision (under the Bush Administration) to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003. As an unembedded journalist, Dahr was able to get an on-the-ground perspective in his reporting of the completely criminal and wholly unjustified military invasion of Iraq, including all the apparent horrors that were visited on the civilian population of that nation. Dahr explains that what he is witnessing happening in the United States right now is eerily reminiscent of what he reported on and witnessed in his time in Iraq. This is where we begin this discussion, and from there we delve deeply into the dire predicament we all find ourselves in this nation, as well as globally, right now, with all its jarring contradictions and nonlinearities.
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning journalist who (formerly) reported on climate disruption and environmental issues for the online publication Truthout. He is the author of multiple books, including ‘The End Of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.’ Currently, Dahr is collaborating with elder and teacher Stan Rushworth on a new book project, titled ‘The Changing Earth: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island’, which is "an innovative work of research and reportage that will present, via powerful and intimate encounters, the perspective of Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada on the Earth's climate and interrelated Covid-19 emergencies."
Episode Notes:
- Learn more about Dahr and his work: http://www.dahrjamail.net
- Learn more about Dahr and Stan Rushworth’s new book project ‘The Changing Earth’: https://www.thechangingearth.net
- Support Stan and Dahr in their work through the GoFundMe: https://gf.me/u/x3jd52
- The song featured in this episode is “Demon Host” by Timber Timbre from their self-titled album: https://youtu.be/qzJJhKL2uGo
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I guess we'll just jump in.
Dahr, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Last time we spoke, I was sitting in your living room with Barbara [Cecil], and we had a really in-depth, beautiful, deep conversation. It was definitely one of the more important interviews or conversations I've recorded for this podcast. And, I guess I've been thinking, what would be the appropriate subject or topic that we would get into if we were to do another interview. We've been having these personal conversations about what the hell is going on in the United States — there's almost too many things to nail down as far as like, what can we actually discuss?
But we finally, I think, came to some idea, if we were to do an interview, like right now, of what we would actually get into. I think we're both fairly confident in what we want to go over in this discussion.
And so, unfortunately, I'm not sitting in front of you right now. We're doing this remotely. We are living in the age of COVID. So, it just wasn't appropriate or right for me to be there right now. But, anyway, I just really thank you for agreeing to do this, man. Really appreciate it.
Dahr Jamail: Well, it's definitely my pleasure, Patrick, and it's really great to be back on your very important podcast, which is becoming more important and relevant as time goes on, with how you cover things.
So it's really, it's really great to be talking with you about this.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah, and when we were discussing this before, I mean, this is an interesting interview because everything that we've done before, as far as interviews go — and this is the case for most of the people I interview — there's usually some article or book or something that the person that I'm interviewing has produced that we base the interview off of.
And I know that, we discussed this in our last discussion with Barbara that you were going through a transitionary period with your work, as far as journalism goes. You were stepping away — you've done some work since then, but for the most part, you've stepped away from your work as a reporter, as a journalist. And so really right now, what we're doing is we're just basing this whole conversation off of how we're feeling and how we're interpreting what is happening right now, particularly in the United States, over the what's been happening over the past several months since the beginning of this year, basically.
So, we are exploring that territory and we're going to do the best we can as far as that goes. So I thank you for doing that because I know that that's kind of a difficult thing as a writer, as a journalist, as somebody who's like, I don't have this concrete layout, I don't have this subject that I've thoroughly explored and researched and laid out in an article or a book. So I thank you for being willing to even , have this conversation about these subjects.
But what we really wanted to get into at first was: I know that what we've talked about a great deal is your work with climate change, your work discussing climate disruption. And, we've done some really great interviews discussing that particular subject, not only the scientific information surrounding that, but also what it means to be a human being right now, what it means to be alive, the feelings that come up, dealing with grief, denial, despair — all of those stages that people go through when they come to terms with the information presented to them, which you've done an excellent job of doing in your work.
You got your start in journalism covering the war in Iraq, and it's a pretty incredible story. I think when I tell people how you got into journalism, people are like, really? That's how he got into journalism? So I think it would be good [to go over], because, you obviously became well known for that when you started out well over a decade ago, almost two decades I guess at this point. So if we could get into that first, because that's really going to be the base of how we get into this discussion, if you could discuss: how did you get into journalism? What compelled you to be a journalist in the first place?
Dahr Jamail: Right, and it makes sense that — I'll definitely start with Iraq momentarily — but it makes sense that we are going into this.
It just dawned on me, in this place of not knowing what or how to talk about everything that's going on — and I'm speaking for myself, which is why I haven't really been writing for the most part now for quite a while at least not publicly. And it's because these are such unprecedented times for us as a species. And, because it's on a global level, looking at and asking these existential questions and really being in this time where so much is ending and so much is upon us all at once that it makes sense, even this interview and our feelings coming into it, are kind of the micro, or the macro, in that way. So this kind of came to me, listening to you outline this.
But, so with me, I went to Iraq, about five months, no, six months after the invasion was launched in 2003. And I was not a journalist. I went because I was watching the propaganda domestically of the selling of the war, which we all know, was based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and all of this nonsense and just gross, blatant, baseless propaganda. And I went because I was seeing the corporate media selling this while I read international media, which was actually telling the truth about what the UN weapons inspectors were finding, which was nothing. I was flabbergasted and outraged. And, in just decided to deploy myself, it was something that I could do responsibly as a citizen of Empire to go and actually report on how this disaster was going to impact the Iraqi people. So I threw myself into the fray.
I went over there, from Anchorage, Alaska, where I was living at the time with a laptop, a camera, some notepads and pens, and a whole lot of gumption and not a lot of knowhow and pretty much just hit the ground running and started working as a journalist. And then within a couple of weeks — I was basically blogging even though I didn't even know to call it that at the time — but then I started getting picked up to do some freelancing for BBC World Service and realized, oh, I could actually work as a journalist. And so that’s how it started. And that was back in 2003. and then I just stepped out of the journalism saddle just this past fall.
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I do want to ask about this detail, which is that you were, from my understanding, one of the very few unembedded journalists covering that war in Iraq. Could you explain what that means to be embedded and what it means to be unembedded as a journalist?
Dahr Jamail: Right. It is a very important thing and it applies not just for war, but specifically to Iraq. It's always been possible to embed with the military in their previous excursions around the world, at least in modern times, but the Pentagon decided, well, we can use this as a means of information control.
So, they grossly expanded the embed program for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and to the point where it's very easy to find video of this, where most corporate reporters decided to embed with the military, which means you go and you kind of run through a little indoctrination process that they set up. They put a flack jacket on you and they give you a helmet and, and you kind of learn their way of doing things. Then you're completely reliant upon them for your security, but also you give them total control over what you're going to see, when you're going to see it, how you're going to see it, and if you're going to see it, and that is how most of the war was covered by the corporate media in the United States.
Hence, it was so easy for the Bush administration to sell the occupation. And remember, the early days of the occupation. Oh, things are going so well — Bush's little stage landing on the aircraft carrier, anchored off the coast of San Diego in May of 2003, declaring "mission accomplished" when things hadn't even really started yet.
So that's, that's how effective the embed program was, where for those first few months, even, people back here were thinking, oh, this was a cake walk, we’ve brought freedom to the Iraqi people, versus an unembedded journalist, which is — I include that term in the title of my first book — someone who just went out with an Iraqi interpreter if you didn't speak Arabic such as mysel,f and went out on the streets and just talk directly to Iraqis. And so in that way, I was going into the hospitals and the morgues and Fallujah and places like this, where if you're embedded, you're usually not going to go to those places, or if you do, it's going to be in a completely controlled manner.
And so you're going to get a completely different reality reading what I wrote from Iraq versus someone riding in a Humvee with soldiers. So that's, that's the key difference. And bottom line is if you're embedded. those folks were essentially basically working as journalists for the US military, that's the easiest way to break it down. And if you're unembedded, then most of those folks were actually writing about reality.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. So I guess the difference was that you had a real interest in the perspective of Iraqis and what they were experiencing, in their day to day lives. I mean, as the occupation was unfolding, you were there, you were like, oh, I want to actually hear what they have to say, versus this sort of filter that's put there by being an embedded journalist, right?
Dahr Jamail: I took it very personally that the way that the government of the country where I live illegally, blatantly, brazenly, contravening international law, launched an invasion and occupation against a country, in the grossest propagandistic cover. I took it very personally and I was outraged and that's why I decided, well, what can I do?
Because protests aren't doing the job. I was going to protests in Anchorage. I was doing civil disobedience. I was writing letters to senators. I was doing all these things that the dominant culture tells us that we are supposed to do if we want to affect change in a so-called democracy. And of course it was early on in my politicization process, so I naively still thought that that stuff was going to make a difference. Of course it did nothing. And I became even more angry and I said, okay, fuck it. I'm going to just go. This is an information war and people are being fed garbage, and so I'm going to go myself and do what I can to provide people with a clear picture of what's actually happening.
It was also naive because I actually believed that if enough people had that information, that it would make a difference. And I say naive because I underestimated the effects of what we're living in now, which is really the end stage of a multi-decade deliberate dumbing down of the population, with the corporatization of the media, the cutting of education, and the ensuing lack of moral and civic responsibility in the average person in the United States, not even to talk about morality or spirituality or spiritual obligation, but basically a population now that closely resembles that of Orwell's 1984, rather than a civically engaged population that actually understands that democracy rest upon each of our shoulders and that we do not abdicate that responsibility to said elected officials. That, lest we forget, if we don't like what's happening, it's our job to get them the fuck out of office.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. Well, I'm curious about this. I remember I was 13 when 9/11 happened, and it's one of those moments that everybody that was alive can kind of remember, whether you were there in Manhattan or not, of course. And I remember, obviously, the war in Iraq began shortly after that attack, and of course the war in Afghanistan started shortly before the war in Iraq began. But I remember that feeling, that I think everybody was tapped into, was a sense of nationalism or a sense of patriotism, a sense of connection with this national community that's mostly fabricated, but that was hijacked in order to further the aims of the military-industrial complex, of the aims of Empire.
And, I remember leading up to the Iraq war — I was pretty young, but I remember that feeling. It was in the air. It was palpable that there needed to be retribution. That there needed to be something done with these people that were going to attack us again. And I'm curious, that feeling, I don't know if it ever fully dissipated in this country, but I felt it in waves and I'm feeling something like, I don't know what it is, but there's a feeling that I'm feeling right now with this mass denial of even how to deal with COVID-19 as a pandemic, as a public health crisis. I'm seeing this level of denial in that, but also in the buildup to the war in Iraq, where you have — like you were saying, you were reading international news, you were reading reporters that were outside the United States that had a clearer understanding and perspective on what was happening. And then comparing that to what was going on in the United States and how people were generally feeling, it's like these two realities that we're bumping up against each other. And that compelled you to find out for yourself what the hell was going on and do your part in imparting that information to whoever would listen.
So, that was kind of the focus of what we wanted to go with with this interview was to compare how you felt, not only when you were in Iraq itself, like when you were in that country you were experiencing what it was like to be in an occupied country that was under siege from an empire of the United States, but also how that's manifesting here right now.
But also I was thinking about this sort of feeling in the air of misinformation, propaganda, the dumbing down of the population. I imagine there was maybe a similar thing going on in the buildup to the war in Iraq. I was just curious what your thoughts were on that.
Dahr Jamail: That's yeah, there there's a tremendous amount there to unpack, but one thing that comes up, that — and I know that we had wanted to cover this as well — history has always shown us that what empires do abroad when they invade other countries and try to establish other colonies, as the US it did exactly that in Iraq, and has done in so many other places. That the tactics used there (and this goes way beyond the US empire) that what those empires do out in the field, as they're pushing the frontiers outwards and trying to subjugate others, colonize, settle, and all of the horrendous tactics of empire used abroad eventually come back home. The chickens always come back home to roost.
In Iraq, for example, I remember I interviewed a man multiple times in the town of Baqubah just outside of Baghdad, a religious Shaykh Adnan. One of the first things the Americans did — the invasion took place in March ’03, by early April, Baghdad was sacked. And he said later that month, we had military people come to Baqubah. They showed up and they set up two big tents. And they said, okay, “we want all the Sunni to go to one tent and all the Shia to go to another tent.” And he said, we just looked at each other because we've never behaved this way as Iraqis. We never saw each other as Sunni and Shia. It'd be the equivalent of walking down your street here in the United States and figuring out your different sects of Christianity or whatever other religion that your neighbors are. It's just not something that's done. You don't know, you don't care. It's none of your business and it doesn't matter, right?
And so he was really flabbergasted that first step that the Americans did was to come in and start dividing the population and then pitting different groups against each other. And this happened as they set up the coalition provisional authority government, where it was set up strictly along sectarian and ethnic lines, and not in a democratic way whatsoever. This was the tactic divide and conquer, which the Americans got from the Brits, as they did in Iraq when they were there in the 1920s — as empires do through history, as I said.
Divide and conquer tactics: giving a lot of arms and money more to one group than the other, causing problems to cause internecine fighting within groups and then between the groups. We saw this happen and be exploited all through the occupation to where they literally created sectarian war amongst the Iraqi people very effectively within just a couple of years of the occupation. So, divide and conquer works.
And so look, what did I just say? Could you apply here? Keep the population divided each at other's throats, we are seeing that played out in real time in the most blatant, obvious way with a so-called president, who's just daily stoking racial fires, going after people for their sexual orientation or their gender or the color of their skin, just every emotional hot button issue in society is being stoked. It's because it keeps all of us fighting against each other while literally what is left of this country is being looted blatantly right in front of us, except now it's in the form of these trillion dollar bailouts to corporate powers and already rich individuals, while the rest of us are basically fighting against each other for various issues. So, divide and conquer is obvious.
But another thing that I know that I wanted to talk about with you today, that this became very much to the fore for me since Trump took power, but especially in basically the last several months, is that working in Iraq as a journalist — so working in essentially what was, it varied on the day or where I went, from a low grade to a very hot war zone — was you get PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and there’s certain behaviors and feelings that come with that. I want to just talk about that because I think that now we live in a country where anybody that's even halfway paying attention to what's happening is suffering from PTSD. Robert Jay Lifton, the great psychologist, has written extensively about this (especially in the wake of 9/11), that we live in a deeply, deeply traumatized country. And this goes all the way back from the original genocide and the unhealed trauma, from both the perpetrator and those who were impacted by the actions ( i.e. the Native Americans), that goes on up. And then bring in slavery and then everything that's happened since then. So we live in a country that’s steeped in untreated PTSD.
But this has come to the fore more recently with the barbarism in the streets — police vehicles or vehicles of white nationalists run through crowds of demonstrators. Now they're being shot in broad daylight sometimes, or at night in these demonstrations, as we've seen in recent days from when we're talking right now.
So, operating in a war zone, which I chose to go into and could leave when I wanted to — and that's an important distinction because Iraqi people could not, did not, have that choice. Most of them, and most Americans now, don't have that choice, especially now with COVID-19. Try going into the border of Canada right now and see how far you get. So, we can't leave and that's an important thing to understand psychically. That's not being talked about. So when you're living in a war zone, you have a kind of anxiety riding shotgun with you every day. It’s there. You're not going to sleep as well. Your diet, your health gets affected. I remember having eyes in the back of my head. You go out, you have kind of this hypervigilance. What is this person? What sect are they? We go down the road and come upon a checkpoint and there's guys wearing police uniforms, but are they really police? Or maybe they're wearing fatigues, but are they really Iraqi military? Who knows?
Just like, look at what happened in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, where these guys show up, they look just like US military, but oh, they're white nationalist, militia men, and they're there to threaten to kill people. And it was just like that in Iraq, right? There would be demonstrations in Iraq, for example, of one group protesting a certain part of the government and then a different militia would show up and start sniping them, or maybe run a car bomb through them, or have someone just go attack them.
So see, we're seeing that kind of thing now happen here in the United States. Again, it's the chickens come home to roost phenomena, but what I really wanted to kind of unpack was working in a war zone and getting PTSD, which, part of that is survival, like you need eyes in the back of your head. You need to live with a certain amount of anxiety. You need to be on edge. You need to be sharp. You need to be paying attention to what's happening and kind of waiting for the next thing to go down so that you can react to it as a means of survival. Now, who here feels that way on a daily basis, where it takes nerves of steel just to read the news on a daily basis? Well, probably just about everybody listening to this, and it's because we are now living in a war, a low grade war zone in this country, or you go to any of these Black Lives Matter protests on any given day. At least subconsciously, [you know] you could die — a white nationalist could show up and drive a car through that demonstration or show up with an AR-15 and go off. You could get COVID-19. I mean, there are multiple threats to our health right now in this country. And, for anybody living in a city, just if you decide to go to a store, let alone going to a demonstration.
So, that's one thing that I think is important for people now to really understand. The psychic trauma and the psychic stress that we're all under living in this country at this time, while the empire is essentially in its last stage. This is where it eats itself and starts attacking its own citizens.
Patrick Farnsworth: Well, I remember we would have these discussions about — you've done a lot of great work to work with (I don't know if work through is the right way to say it) your trauma and your PTSD. I imagine that you've come to a much healthier place with yourself and your relationships, but it's something that you're going to have to deal with for the rest of your life.
And I think what I — for instance, I've never been in a war zone, of course. I've never done that. I don't know what it's like to have that experience, but we were talking about this and we had a similar thing where we're like, okay, going out in public feels like, even just going to a grocery store to pick up some supplies where I live right now, if I wear a face mask in public I get dirty looks for it. You know what I mean? It's become so politicized. So, I do feel a very low version of what you're explaining. But the sense — like I have people labeling me, they're putting me in a particular category and I am disliked for it very much, and I can't even imagine what it's like to be a worker right now in some of these places I've seen videos of, of people freaking out at the very idea that they would have to wear a mask in these stores.
But anyway, my point is, especially now with these protests and I mean, this is more than just people yelling at you. This is people brandishing guns, they're actually waving guns and shooting you, for just even participating in these protests. That's the level that we're at. And you described, like going out in public, seeing people driving around with Trump flags — I don't know if you have people flying Confederate flags where you're at, I know I do here where I'm at — but there's this real feeling in the air that like, we are in a war zone right now, we have, factions of our society that are willing to go to war and engage in armed conflict with whole segments of the population. And when you have the Trump campaign posting ads on Facebook, for instance, dog-whistling to white nationalists and white supremacists, I know exactly what's going on and it's still too hard to believe.
It's really intense. And so we were just discussing that feeling, like I'm feeling and what you're feeling, but you're more able to clearly define it because you have seen exactly where this leads because of your experience as a journalist in Iraq. And, I don't know. I don't know if there's a question in there.
I just wanted to kind of talk about how you're providing this experience here that I think people should really listen to. I mean, I don't feel as crazy when I talk to you. I'll just say that.
Dahr Jamail: I’m not sure what that says about you, Patrick. [laughing]
Patrick Farnsworth: I know. [laughing]
Dahr Jamail: But all joking aside, you brought up some good points.
So, I see there's a certain kind of, usually it's a pickup truck, either a grossly oversized one or a rather beat up one, flying an oversized American flag in the back of it. Oftentimes there's been some adaptation, so there's either no muffler or a louder muffler installed and sometimes you can even see their weapon in the back of it, or not, maybe it's a concealed. But yeah, these types of things happening, I'm seeing it here. They're basically these kinds of intentional show of force, not that every one of these people are in a militia, but odds are, they are. And so in Iraq, this was a very common tactic, just as the US military would run patrols all around Baghdad and other cities. It's basically letting people be aware that you are under occupation and we are the ones in control now. And so that is a military tactic, as I just said, with the US military. And it's a tactic adopted by these militias. So, it's not an accident. I know for me to see where I live on the Olympic Peninsula, a pretty dramatic increase of the number of these people driving around on the roads, especially in the small town where I live, which is largely progressive politically. That's not by accident, that’s by design, because it's a tactic. Or if you're hearing more and more gunfire, that's also a tactic. These things are not by accident.
So, I saw a lot of the same stuff over in Iraq. And then another point that I wanted to draw a parallel to is, certain militias were aligned with the government over there. So for example, when Al Maliki became Prime Minister, we started referred to him, as journalists, the Shia Saddam. The US did away with Saddam and his minority Sunni support in the government, and took them out of the picture. And then within about a year and a half later, Al Maliki was installed into power, Shia aligned with Shia militias.
And so, for example, when the US, in the aftermath of the November 2004 siege of Fallujah, the Iraqi government came in and had rolled a lot of the Badr army, an Iranian backed Shia militia, into the Iraqi military, and then brought them into Fallujah, a staunchly Sunni, very, very conservative city. [They] brought in essentially Badr brigade militia men to do the dirty cleanup work and subjugate the Sunni population there. And this was kind of akin to here where we see far-right, white nationalists-bent militias that are responding to these Trump dog-whistles, doing things now, like driving vehicles through Black Lives Matter demonstrations and protests, or sometimes just blatantly opening fire on them. And we're seeing just literally within the last week an increase in these incidences. So this was happening abroad. The US was supporting it, directly and indirectly within the Iraqi government and their use of various militias to put down parts of the population there that were not in alignment and supportive of the government.
And now we see Trump employ — or not him, but his administration — employing the same tactics here. Let's blow the dog-whistle. Let's tweet out another white power tweet as Trump did this past Sunday and then of course take it down. It doesn't matter that he takes it down.
The messages sent, he just keeps showing his staunch core supporters of his base, I'm with you, I've got your back, keep supporting me, and they are, and keep showing this by going out into the demonstrations and disrupting them and causing them to be more dangerous for anybody engaged in them. So these types of tactics are what we're seeing.
What all of this boils down to is, that back to the information topic is it is so critical now that people in this country especially really understand where we are and what we're seeing that, the veil has completely dropped at this point, that this never really has been a democracy, but now less so than ever. And we have to really accept that even the illusion of a democracy, or that there's opportunity, real opportunity in this country [for it] is absolutely gone. It's never really been there, but the illusion of it now is gone.
And so, are we really going to see clearly that we live in an autocratic state? Are we going to really accept now that there's not going to be a legitimate election in November? Even if there's a farce of an illegitimate election, maybe that won't even happen, but are we going to really accept that elections are really done in this country and behave accordingly? Are we going to really accept that we have a government that is out to get us? Are we going to really accept that their response to a global pandemic is that they want all people to die? They want People of Color to die. They want people that are not rich to die. Don't go by what they're saying, just look at what they're doing. And are we going to accept these truths that, whatever illusions that we may have had that made it comfortable for a lot of us to live in this country, and think that there was opportunity and freedom and such?
But, those illusions have ended. This is a time of endings, not just in this country, but globally now also, when we expand out and look at the climate crisis and the global pandemic and the end of this runaway capitalist economy, as we've known it, that all these things are ending. And there are some silver linings to some of this, but it also means that we are entering in an extremely darkening age, where whatever stress and chaos and loss that we see today, this is really just a prelude of what's coming, I think in just a handful of months from now, not even talking about years.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. It's all moving very quickly. I want to tie this [together] — what you're explaining that this is the time of endings.
I know that you and I, in previous interviews and also in our interview with Barbara, we talked about denial. We frame that specifically within this discussion around climate disruption and the ecological crisis, that we are witnessing a really unprecedented change, that there's maybe a few things that could be done to maybe mitigate some of the worst impacts of it. But I mean, we're way past the point of return on this, when it comes to the climate crisis in particular, and how we all, when we come to that information in our own way, in our own lives, we have to confront our own denial. And it comes in waves. It's not like you just come to this place of complete acceptance and you just [say], all right, I'm good. It's something that comes in waves. And I've seen in myself, not only with the climate crisis and seeing how it's unfolding just in the past few months even, but also with these social crises, in this public health crisi, that we're in the midst of, in the United States specifically and globally. But seeing all these crises play out, it's just like, is this really happening? And there is this part of me that's very real that I have to speak with. I'm learning to speak to these different parts of myself and accept them for what they are.
But there's part of me that's like, I really just want it to go back to the way it was, whatever that was. Even if it was shit. I wish it wasn't like this. And I know a deeper part of me knows that that's not ever going to come back. We're never going to have that. And if you frame this pandemic and the social crises within the broader crisis of the climate crisis and the ecological crisis, this is just a dress rehearsal. This is just getting us ready. I mean, if you could say that, getting us ready for even deeper, more disruptive events that are on the horizon, and we can see them playing out right now.
And so I guess to speak to this thing where I think a lot of people that are in our field of discussion, our circles, where we're talking about denial and accepting climate disruption, I think even these people that are wanting to have those discussions about climate disruption are having a hard time even accepting what's happening right in front of their faces, very, very close to them, which is happening on a social cultural level and in a public health level as well. I'm just curious if you see those parallels of the denial of what's happening, people are seeing people get shot at these protests. They're seeing a lot of disruption happening right now. They're seeing a president, like you pointed to, that's just blatantly dog-whistling to white supremacists in this country right now. People think that an election and getting him out of office is going to bring us back to some sense of normalcy, and to me that just reeks of denialism.
So I guess to ask and frame that for you, which is: what parallels do you see in the discussions around climate disruption and acceptance of that reality and an acceptance of the reality of where we are socially and culturally right now?
Dahr Jamail: Right. Yeah, you made, I mean, several really good points and articulated a lot of it really well. And I, for a long time, have been really critical of how much denial there is in this country, and not just on the right regarding the climate crisis and other crises — racism and xenophobia and sexism, and all these things. It's so blatantly obvious that the right does, but even on the left, things like the Green New Deal — there’s this softer denialism on the left with these crises. And I think that includes even how we look at this upcoming so-called election, like that people are still behaving as though that's going to be some kind of agent in change this far along in the death of the Empire.
But regarding the climate crisis in all of this is, I think it's very, very important, again, that we talk about the right way to do endings. And I understand that denial, no matter how hardened we've become, none of us as human beings psychologically can sit there and just stare at the unraveling and the fire every day. I mean, it would be our psychological undoing, it would be the unraveling of our mental health. This is why I've struggled with depression a lot, just because of what I've stared at in my work. It's another part of why I've stepped out of journalism, for my own spiritual wellbeing. So I have a certain amount of empathy for people who don't want to really look at how far along we are regarding the climate crisis and the fact that we are living in a fascistic country at this point. And it's because it's terrifying to look at, and it's terrifying to think about the implications. And it scares me. I mean, I look out at what's happening and what's coming and what I saw in Iraq and seeing these parallels happening here, and understanding that when things start to unravel to a point here — we have organized militia attacks in different cities — on a broader scale happening, probably in the coming months, and a lot more death and a lot more insecurity and a lot more chaos. Who wants to live in a world like that? I mean, that's very, very frightening. So I have empathy for people that don't really want to see that.
And I think it's easier for me to see because I've worked a substantial part of my life in war zones, not just in Iraq, and seen what happens when societies unravel. And the vast majority of the people are very humanitarian and look out for each other and care for each other. And I've seen some of the most beautiful, selfless acts of humanity in those situations. And I've also seen utter barbarism where there's a smaller minority group that will take advantage of the situation, and kill and loot and basically turn really, really barbaric. And we're seeing that here too, which I talked about.
But I think the thing, when I look out, I’m so baffled at how still people won't really understand how far along we are politically in this country, as well as how far along we are in the climate crisis. That people can look at the amount of disinformation is so intense, and denialism — that people can't see the fact that right now, in Siberia 2.85 million acres of forest and Tundra have burned in wildfires. That climate disruption fuels wildfires, and the amount of CO2 being released as we speak from that permafrost is so great that, by the end of this year going into next year, we could see a quarter to a half a centigrade increase in global temperature, just in this one year. And this is despite the lower CO2 emissions that happened from the economic shutdown globally, at least temporarily, from the pandemic crisis.
And people will be surprised, even though we're seeing this happen right now in front of our face, that somehow in November when we don't have a legitimate election or don't have one at all, even despite seeing all the writing on the wall and all the moves being made by this administration and the Justice Department right now — that somehow people are going to be surprised. And I think that's really a direct result of how this is a culture that won't and can't do endings. When you and Barbara and I had that conversation last summer for your podcast, and we talked about that, how this is a culture of the denial of death, that we are in the death process of whatever semblance of democracy that may have ever existed in this country is gone now. We are in an ending and a death process of huge swaths of the planet.
I mean, let me put it this way to make it more personal. I have two aging parents, both with pretty intense preexisting health conditions who live down in Houston, and I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. Houston right now, as we speak, is one of the epicenters of the virus. It's just exploding thanks to a right wing governor who insisted on opening everything up, despite being in a global pandemic. My parents, they're too afraid to travel. They're stuck there. My sister, brother, and I have all taken efforts to try to him and tell them and urge them to leave. And they could, they could come up here or they could go stay at my sister's in the Northeast where she lives on a small farm and be a lot safer at least, and have a good chance of making it through this without catching this dreaded disease, and they're too afraid to leave.
And so I've had to accept that. I got to see them in early March, and that might well be the last time that I get to see my aging parents, because if they end up getting this disease, of course. I understand that it would be foolhardy of me to fly during a global pandemic, because then I might get it. And if they did go into a hospital, I wouldn't be allowed in to see them anyway. So it's quite likely that I have seen my parents alive for the last time. And now, how many other people in this country are having that experience? If you really think about it, it's probably millions of people. And I have to accept that, right? So that's a very personal acceptance that I have to make. And I've had to get there just in the last week. All this came to the fore over the last week for me, and it's that same process now with the country, with the planet, with the climate.
Look, I'm never going to see a polar bear, because I've never seen one. I'm not going to be able to travel for a long time, nor do I even want to. And, if in 10 years or 15 years from now that changes, they may well already be gone by then anyway. And how many other people are going to have to say that right now? Or say that about ever getting to see the Great Barrier Reef?
I mean, go down the list, Patrick — how many things right now do we have to let go of, because we're in a time of endings? And this calls on us to be so present in our own personal process. This is why I've not been writing, because I don't even know what to write, because this it's like sitting in hospice or sitting at the bedside of someone that you love as they die.
That my full focus on now is just being very, very present with my own personal experience of what's going on and then understanding what's really, really important. And then how can I still find ways to serve during this time? And for me, what that has boiled down to is I have a small community of people that are living on and are tied directly to this little piece of land where I live up here on the Olympic peninsula. We're growing food. We take care of each other. We talk together about what's happening on the planet and in this country right now. My job — it’s been made very clear to me is it's not to go try to stop an occupation of another country. It's not to try to stop the climate crisis. It's how can I serve my immediate community. Because that's one thing that I can do right now. And I feel, like in a crisis situation, in a survival situation — which we are in now, and it's grossly obvious to me that we are all in that — then each one of us has to, I think, get really quiet and figure out how can I really serve now because we are morally obliged to keep serving.
And I think realistically, it's going to be starting with how I take care of my immediate community where I live.
Patrick Farnsworth: Right. What I'm feeling right now, when you say all that — I was thinking about this, it feels like a time crunch. It feels like the windows of possibility are narrowing. And what I mean by that is, even when we would have these discussions about climate disruption, there was always this feeling like, well, we have some time to work with here. We have some time to prepare, and whatever that means for you personally, and on a community level, what does it mean to prepare for such a thing? And I feel especially this year, because things have been moving so quickly, we don't have really any time afforded to us anymore. I mean, we kind of do. We have a little bit of time, things are kind of stable. Sort of, but not really. And we know it's not going to stay like this. It's just going to continue to deteriorate. If you're paying attention at all, you have any understanding of what's happening right now, that it's not going to hold together for too much longer, and whatever it means to be held together is fucking terrifying. What does it mean to hold together a country like this right now?
I remember when I visited you last year and, again, you were transitioning out of journalism. You said something and it stuck with me, which was what does it mean to be a journalist in an authoritarian state? That was something you were really grappling with. And that was part of, I think, one of the questions that led you to the conclusion that you needed to step away, for at least some time, from doing the work you're doing. And I'm thinking not just that, but what does it mean to be a semi-conscious, aware person right now? What does it mean to be alive right now, and particularly within the belly of the Empire? Ss you've pointed to, the chickens are coming home to roost. The things that have been extended and imposed on other populations around the world, including what you mentioned with the people in Iraq that had been on the blunt end of this empire's attempt to control everything, is now coming back home.
And so the people who have been insulated in privilege and entitlement — like kind of an invisible thing, kind of like being a fish water, you don't even know you're in it. And that's now being made very apparent. Now everybody is being forced in this country to look at what this country is and what it is becoming.
And, and I feel like we don't have any time anymore. You know what I mean? That's really the point I'm trying to get at is like, whatever time we have left, we have to make the best of that. And so people right now that are listening that are feeling what's happening right now — I think it's like that pressure, there feels like there's a weight that's being pressed on me when I speak about this. It's like, you don't have a lot of time. You need to start making really important decisions right now, and they need to come from a grounded place of love for your family, your friends, for yourself, and for the earth. And, I think that that's a huge decision or a series of decisions that have to be made right now by a whole lot of people.
What I see in the face of those that are resisting that question, resisting even addressing that question at all, is this terrified denial. I'm seeing that in the face of all these people that are refusing to wear face masks in public, honestly. I'm seeing it in people who don't even want to address that we live in a systemically racist society. All of these things, right. And I imagine that denial that maybe you faced when you made the decision to go to Iraq and be a journalist, which was like, I'm going to look at this thing in the face, and everybody's like, why would you do that? We're doing it for all the right reasons! That gross denialism — it’s coming out in this violent way right now.
I don't know what my point is, I'm just trying to articulate the feeling that there isn't a lot of time left and we need to really — like all the things we've been talking about over these few years we've known each other, Dahr, is happening right now. This isn't some future tense thing. This is present. And it just, I really feel that right now.
Dahr Jamail: Right. The gift of crisis to me is it gives you an opportunity to be very, very real, Going back to when the last podcast I did with you, which was with Barbara when you were visiting last summer, it was right in the immediate aftermath of me having just lost my best friend, Duane, and sitting with him when he took his last breath. And it feels like that's what this time is, that we're having to say goodbye to and let go of a lot of things. We're in a world where it's a time of endings and, and it's how are we going to use that time, this time that we have right now.
And one of the things you said earlier reminded me of the saying I heard Iraqis saying in Baghdad in the early days of the occupation, which was today is better than tomorrow. That things are degrading rapidly. We know it's all going to get worse. But we're still here today. So how do we want to use today and how am I going to comport myself, now. Like using my own example of my parents, which I discussed earlier that, okay I can't go see them. They don't feel safe going anywhere. So I've possibly seen them the last time. But they're still here and I'm still here. So how do I want to behave? I still want to tell them that I love them. I still want to have conversations with them. I still want to talk with them about different things. And it's like, what kind of a son do I want to be? And what kind of a member of my own community do I want to be? That's what I'm looking at personally. And I think that this is a very, very personal time because things are so intense, of looking at the endings that are upon us.
I think that that's why I've been reticent to write anything publicly, because it feels like a really, really sacred time where each person is given this opportunity to really look inside. And I've been doing this and really cut away, all the bullshit in anything that's left undone that needs to be attended to and put to sleep, that it's time to do that now and get right with things as though we're preparing for our own death, which I've also recently updated my will because who knows what's coming. I think it's a good time for folks to do things like that too. And anything that's left undone, anything that's left unsaid now is the time to do it. Because we're still here and we have today, because we don't know what's coming. That's going to better prepare us, to really clear away all that stuff so that we can show up and be ready for whatever tomorrow might bring. And I'm not talking just about the negative and catastrophic, but also about the gifts that come with that, like when I, and anyone who's listening to this, who's sat with someone that they care about who's dying — you get to say and have said some amazing things, what are often the most incredible exchanges you'll ever have with that person right there at the end. It's also that time. It’s a very, very charged time energetically. There's a lot of growth and beauty and love that is happening, and that can happen alongside getting ready for the darkness that it is upon us. It’s intensifying by the day, and getting as ready as we can for what might happen with that.
And so for some people it means it's time to throw caution to the wind and go protest against police brutality and racism and put my ass on the line. And we're seeing millions of people doing that, courageous valiant efforts around the country and around the world. And for other people it's going and getting all their personal things in order, with their own relations with other people and cleaning things up in that regard, or with their parents or, things along those lines and other, other people who knows what it's going to be.
And so my point is, your days are numbered and our days in this world are numbered. I mean, the existing world of global capitalism, and the earth being in somewhat of a state today that next year it won't be in because of the climate crisis. That all these worlds are changing and ending before our eyes then, how do we comport ourselves and how do we get ourselves ready? And what do we feel most served to do? Because it comes down to, normal methods of organizing don't work anymore. We do not have any kind of coherent organization in this country to bring about a type of deep rooted revolution that would have to occur to really change things. But what I think is necessary is if each one of us really, really looks inward deeply at this time, gets our affairs in order, and then really listens to what we feel most called to do in that way — the earth herself is going to organize what needs to happen through each one of us. So my point is, it's not going to come from a person, it's going to come from deep, deep within (i.e. it's going to come from the earth).
And I think that's the moment where we are. I think that's the biggest gift of this time.
Patrick Farnsworth: Something clicked, because in previous discussions you have talked about grounding yourself, listening deeply, and the earth herself will speak to you in some way. There'll be some message received. It may not come at once. It may come over several years, or whatever the process is for you specifically, but you will get, as you said, your marching orders. You will know what to do because it'll become clearer over time, with the right intention and the right awareness. And then just saying what you said is like, giving yourself over to that is an act of faith in a in a way. You're acknowledging something that's very real, but you're also just trusting that the earth herself will organize everything for — not for you. You're going to have to make important decisions in your part of the process.
But it's a co-creative thing, I guess is what I'm trying to say. It requires your decision making abilities, your awareness, as well as this larger organizing intelligence that is the earth herself. And that's not just a metaphorical or a figurative thing, I guess. It's quite real. It's a quite real thing. And I see, like, you talk about the silver linings. Right now doing my work specifically, I am seeing a lot of terrible things happening, of course, which we've laid out pretty thoroughly in this interview, but I'm also seeing people that are being activated in a way that I've never, well, I've never seen (I’m not that old anyway), but I have seen people activated in such a way where they're like, I have a mission and it's good. And they know it's good and they feel it deeply and they're willing to take risks and make important decisions, and work together and organize. I'm seeing it all across the board right now.
So I think when we enter into these states especially of crisis, as global, as large as the ones that we are in the midst of right now, we're seeing what feels — I think one of the jarring things is it feels like a paradox. It feels like a bunch of contradictions clashing up against one another. You have white supremacists in the streets, shooting protesters. You have people tearing down colonialist representations and statues and symbols. You have people demanding that we address our legacy of racism and white supremacy in this country. We're also seeing the climate — the Arctic is releasing methane as you expressed earlier. We're seeing a lot of things right now and it's feels like just a giant knot of paradoxes, but there is something there to kind of appreciate about this process, humbling ourselves before it.
And knowing that we're not really in control and giving ourselves over to something bigger than us is a big part of, I think, accepting where we are right now.
Dahr Jamail: That's right. And I think that's an extremely individual act. And not that we can't do it with other people, but at the end of the day, that very inner and personal work is ours to be done at this time, as crisis always forces upon us now and always has through history. A reckoning is another way to put that.
I've had this experience, because I've had some near death experiences, your life does flash in front of your eyes. You do have a lot of memories, and anything that's been undone that needs to be corrected or amended comes to the fore. That is the time that's upon us. And I think since it is so personal, I think that's caused me to really loath and distrust anyone that's out there talking and writing about things as though they alone know how to interpret what's happening, or they can tell you what to do or how to be or how to think. I don't think it's anyone's place at this stage of the game to do that. I think it's grossly disrespectful, and anyone doing it at this point is a charlatan. You see these people putting out these 9,000 word essays about, oh, this is how we should interpret this time of the pandemic. These are charlatans and these are to be avoided because they would just simply contaminate our ability to use this very, very charged time to really, really go deep and ask the really important personal questions of ourselves, and then come through that to change into, okay, what is life demanding of me now at this time? And, I don't mean like go isolate in a hole and do this in a cave in the mountains or something, but I mean, do it internally.
And then for a whole lot of us, it might mean going out and taking the most radical action I've ever taken in my entire life in service to the earth, whatever that may be.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. We have to have our wits about us right now, for sure. There are people that will take advantage of our confusion.
And it's also finding that — this has been hard for me personally, and this thing I've been working with just on a very personal level, knowing my truth. Knowing myself well enough, trusting my intuition. That's something that I've had to learn, how to develop and grow. It's like a muscle that has to be developed. And I think now is the time for people to really develop that muscle, to develop that ability, because there's going to be a lot of things that are going to come in that are going to distress you, traumatize you, confuse you ,gaslight you. That's kind of the nature of these times that we're in.
I have to tell you — I know we're getting kind of close to the end here — but, the eeriness of how this is all very predictable. Specifically with this pandemic, I watched a documentary about the 1918 influenza pandemic. And while certainly it was a different time — World War I was happening and it was different — but, the way people reacted to that pandemic is very eerily similar to what people are doing right now, during this one.
So I just want to make that point, which is that we are living in unprecedented times, but in a sense, this has happened numerous times throughout human history in some form or the other. And we could have, if we were to maybe take ourselves out of this panic that we might be in, we might be able to learn something by drawing on other people's past experiences, drawing on maybe your experiences that you had in Iraq. And there are many, many people that I would trust to express perspectives that can help ground us and know that we're not crazy for feeling what we're feeling right now. That's, I think, an important step that we have to take in being able to really ask ourselves and trust ourselves and trust our feelings right now. Because I think people are waking up and they want to know, how do we proceed? And I think, that advice that you gave there of listening to yourself, listening to the earth, knowing how to proceed, that's going to be an increasingly important question that more and more people are going to have to really honestly ask themselves as we move forward.
Dahr Jamail: That is so well put Patrick. I mean, no, exactly what you just said is actually a really great way to kind of draw this to a close. Because I think ,just to kind of say it similarly, but in my own way, that when in a crisis situation, those are exactly the senses internally that we have to rely upon. It's like, okay, this is a crisis and my life's at stake and all of our lives are at stake. And so what's really important? And, it's a first things first, what needs to be done situation.
I used to work as a mountain guide and I took a wilderness first responder course as part of that. And what we learned in that course, in what probably emergency responders everywhere are taugh,t is that when stuff goes down, when there's an emergency, say you're in the back country and someone breaks their leg and is bleeding internally. The saying is, don't just do something, stand there.
So the point is, don't panic. We'll just start doing things, but sit there. Take a deep breath. Assess. Okay, what's the most important thing that has to happen first, and start acting in that way. And that is the moment where we are. And, for other people, like People of Color who have been brutalized by the police their entire lives, or Native Americans who barely survived a genocide and have been living in erasure their entire lives, they've been living in this place for a long time. But those of us in the dominant culture in this country who have had a bit more privilege and haven't had to live that way, we're now in that world. And it’s very important for us to be allies and listen to those folks, which is why now my work is focusing on Indigenous voices and bringing attention and amplification to those voices, because these are the people now that are, I think, carrying a wisdom and a fortitude and, really, stick-with-it-ness that is being called upon all of us now deeper than ever. So, this is where we are.
It’s trusting that deeper stuff in our own deeper senses and our own intuition, that's what we have now as things spiral further and further out of control. And if we think things are intense now, wait until this fall. You just don't even know what to believe anymore, because things are getting so intense and so insane, especially in this country. Then all we're going to have to rely on is those inner senses and our immediate communities wherever we might live.
And so right now, those of us fortunate enough to have these few moments to kind of think about what that is and how do I really solidify that and bring that to the fore in my own life, now is that time. Because, I can assure you, by fall, if you haven't kind of girded yourself for that, you'll certainly wish that you had, and not to try to instill fear, but really just it's like what I did in The End of Ice, it's like pointing at this climate crisis, how far along we are.
But also there is this storm on the very, very near horizon, and me and a lot of other people have been pointing at it for a long time. Some of these people a lot longer than I have, and here it is. And so, are you going to pay attention to that and heed that, and then really look deeply internally about what you need to do to prepare and how you're going to behave once that hits? Now is that time.
And so I think that that's something for all of us to really get really quiet and just kind of sit with and consider really deeply. Because it's a very, very personal situation. And these are very personal questions that only each of us can answer for ourselves individually. We cannot get that answer outside of ourselves.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. Well, it just as a side note, I think you mentioned in one of our conversations that The End of Ice — it's now been, what, almost a year and a half since it was published, released January, 2019? I remember I met you at the book release in Portland, you did a speech and, I mean, even a year and a half after that, I think you've said that your book is even a little too conservative, based on what we're seeing now. And I'm just like, damn, even if your book is too conservative, I mean, I dunno. I just think about that. I think about the comment you made, where you're just like, yeah, it wasn't dire enough.
Oh, man.
Dahr Jamail: I know, and that's just indicative of how fast everything's changing.
And we can talk about that in regards to the climate or, the spread of fascism in this country, or COVID-19, or the economic crisis, the racial crisis in this country. I mean everything now is going at warp speed. That's another part of the new reality that we live in as collapses is upon us.
Patrick Farnsworth: Yeah. Well, I just want to say, I think we touched on everything I wanted to get at and more.These conversations, they tend to go this way with you, Dahr. It's like, you start off, we're going to have this sort of information, build up with this a set of information and get into that. And then it always sinks in deeper, and what I really love and appreciate about our relationship and in our conversations.
Yeah, Dahr I really thank you so much for taking time to speak with me for the podcast again.
Dahr Jamail: Well, it's always a pleasure, Patrick. And thanks so much again for having me on.
#245 | Prayer For The Earth: Traditional Knowledge & An Indigenous Response w/ Stan Rushworth
Intro: 7:13 | Book Pre-sale
In this episode, I speak with Indigenous elder, author, and teacher Stan Rushworth. We discuss Traditional Ecological Knowledge and his upcoming book project ’The Changing Earth: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island,’ made in collaboration with journalist and author Dahr Jamail. Stan is featured in Ian MacKenzie's recently released short film ‘Prayer for the Earth: An Indigenous Response to These Times.’
Our planet is undergoing massive ecological, climatological, and cultural shifts, with the consequences of these crises playing out in the near and distant future. In our attempt to reattain a harmonious balance with the life systems of the planet, certain traditions of knowledge and wisdom come to the forefront, namely Indigenous or Traditional Ecological Knowledge. But what is attached to these traditional forms of knowledge is something that is often overlooked, whether on purpose or not: the hundreds of years of genocide that nearly erased Indigenous peoples from Turtle Island. This erasure is just as much physical and is it cultural and spiritual. For those that carry the values and perspectives of the dominant culture, to respectfully and humbly embrace traditional Indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and perspectives requires taking a hard look at the what has brought us collectively to this moment. This includes listening and full acknowledging Indigenous people and their history, including all the pain, sorrow, and beauty that comes with it.
Stan Rushworth was born in 1944 and raised on the banks of the Stanislaus River in the East San Joaquin Valley in California by his grandfather, who was of Cherokee descent. He has taught Native American Literature at Cabrillo College, in Aptos, California for the last twenty-eight years, including similar work at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a lecturer, and worked for eighteen years at Cabrillo’s Watsonville Center teaching basic skills and critical thinking surrounding Indigenous peoples’ issues, including six years as Director/Instructor of the Puente Program, centered in the Chicano community. He authored 'Sam Woods: American Healing' (Station Hill Press, New York) in 1992, and 'Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain' (Talking Leaves Press, Freedom, CA) in 2014. As a tenured faculty emeritus, he currently teaches Native American Literature at Cabrillo College, and works as an activist and advocate for Indigenous people as a teacher, writer and speaker. He is an enrolled citizen of the Chiricahua Apache Nation, and is also a member of the Santa Cruz Indian Council, where he is an Advising Cultural Elder. He is currently the Attending Elder (school year 19-20) for the American Indian Resource Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is married, with two sons and one grandson.
Episode Notes:
- Learn more about Stan and Dahr Jamail’s upcoming book ’The Changing Earth: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island’: https://www.thechangingearth.net
- Support Stan and Dahr through their GoFundMe campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-changing-earth
- Watch Ian MacKenzie’s short film ‘Prayer for the Earth: An Indigenous Response to These Times’: https://uplift.tv/2020/prayer-for-the-earth
- Learn more about Stan and his work: http://stanrushworth.com
- The title card features a photo taken by Dahr Jamail, used with his permission. The sampled audio featured in this episode is from Ian MacKenzie’s short film, used with his permission. Learn more about Dahr and Ian’s work: http://www.dahrjamail.net / https://www.ianmack.com
#215 | Transitions: There Is Infinite Hope, But Not For Us w/ Barbara Cecil & Dahr Jamail
Intro: 2:50
In this episode, I speak with Barbara Cecil and Dahr Jamail, co-authors of the How Then Shall We Live? series published at Truthout.
An excerpt:
What I've learned is when you really listen, and I mean go really quiet — put all the mental jargon aside and just get really quiet and really, really humble and really listen to the Earth — then I believe that each one of us is going to get our own personal marching orders of “here's what you're going to do, here's what I need you to do.” That's where I've gotten my messages to go to Iraq, to do the book that I did with 'The End of Ice,’ and so many other big decisions in my life — and small ones. When I go out there, I listen and I get this clear message, and I always know what to do. And I really believe that now is that time for people to — don't run around and panic. Don't light your hair on fire. Don't go out and see what other ten more things you can do, or how many articles you can forward and all this. But just stop and get really, really quiet and touch down into the Earth and really listen and see what comes up into your heart. When you ask: “What is it that I need to do to really serve this planet?" — because I think if we do that, and in the proper context of understanding that it is too late….
You're not going to get all that heat out of the oceans. The oceans have absorbed ninety-three percent of the heat we've put into the atmosphere. That heat is staying there and it's increasing and it's not going to go away. We're not going to turn this thing around.
In the context of knowing the great loss that's now upon us what is the most important thing for me to do? And for some people it might be "I need to play music,” and that's great because God knows we need music right now. And for some people it might mean "I'm going to write a book.” Barbara and my good friend Colin MacIntosh just went and got arrested, and he's in Extinction Rebellion. All power to him. To other people it might mean we're going to go shut this fucking shit down once and for all. Great. Please do.
But my point is that if you really listen in closely and get that call for what you need to do, and understand that it's in the context that we really have nothing left to lose — I would argue that that's going to generate an activism and actions taken from love that could never happen in the context of "oh do this because this book tells you to do it,” or "go to this march because we're organizing it,” and "we have a permit on this date we're going to do this….”
I'm talking about doing things way more radical and way further outside of the box than a lot of this stuff that we see happening right now. I'm talking about real risk.
Barbara Cecil is the author of Coming Into Your Own: A Woman's Guide Through Life Transitions. Barbara Cecil’s Master’s degree in speech communication and human relations has supported her in her calling to assist individuals, groups, teams, and organizations toward the full manifestation of their creative potential.
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning journalist who (formerly) reported on climate disruption and environmental issues for the online publication Truthout. Dahr is the author of multiple books, including The End Of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.
Episode Notes:
- Read Barbara and Dahr's 'How Then Shall We Live?' series: http://bit.ly/2M2g9Ek
- Barbara's work: http://endingsandbeginnings.com
- Dahr's work: http://www.dahrjamail.net
- The song featured is “Wolves” by Down Like Silver from their self-titled EP.
Transcript:
Patrick Farnsworth: First, I want to thank both of you for being with me. I've been up here [ in northern Washington state] for a couple of weeks, and I’ve come to know Barbara quite a bit. And of course Dahr, your generosity has been incredible. So I sit here in gratitude for having the opportunity to sit with both of you and have this interview. Thank you both for allowing me to inhabit your space. Thank you.
Dahr, this is our fifth interview. You're definitely at the top next to one other person that I've had on the podcast, so I was thinking it's kind of funny, but you and I have developed a relationship. So it makes sense to keep on doing these updates with the podcast.
We've swung back and forth with interviews where we're talking more about the data of climate change, climate disruption, and then going back to how do we be in this time, the awareness, the grief that comes up and all that comes in when you start to really take in the science of it. The last interview we did was only a couple months ago. In that, we discussed more of the data, I think.
So, this is appropriate. We're swinging back to the other side, and of course now we have Barbara — this is your first time on the podcast. So I think we're going to have a really good, dynamic group discussion.
I know both of you have collaborated quite a bit. You have a series that you've been doing together for Truthout, the How Then Shall We Live? series.
I’d like to start with Dahr first because this has been a year, at least for me, of transitions. And of course Barbara you're kind of an expert in transitions, life transitions. Dahr, if you could comment, in whatever amount of detail you feel comfortable, about some of the transitions you've experienced with your work in journalism and maybe other personal experiences. That would set the tone for the interview, I think.
Dahr Jamail: Thanks Patrick. And I'll just add it's been lovely having you here and you feel like family. It's been a real joy and a very settling experience. I'm grateful that what started as a lone interview on your podcast has turned into not just a good strong series of production of work, but a friendship. So I'll also preface this on a lighter note that Barbara's dog Koa is sitting right here. If people hear a little heavy breathing in the background, it’s just our emotional support dog, Koa, snoring.
Patrick: The last time we spoke in-person in January, our support dog was Rob's dog Sage in the interview with us.
Dahr: That's the theme. We can't do in-person interviews without an emotional support dog.
Patrick: We need a cute animal to keep it in focus.
Dahr: Keep it real.
Patrick: Keep it centered.
Dahr: So changing the tone dramatically on a dime, I've been working as a journalist for 16 years. I got into it passionately, with reckless abandon, throwing myself into the Iraq occupation and reported on that for a long time. And then I’ve been on the climate beat now for a solid nine years. For a long time I've really felt done and felt I've covered this from so many different angles. And what I realized was…
Well, I'll back up by contextualizing it with what happened to me in Iraq and why I knew it was time for me to leave. My coverage of that was… I'd covered it so extensively from every imaginable angle and then started noticing that I was doing the same stories over and over and the only thing that was changing was adjusting upwards the body counts. And that takes an emotional toll, as well as feeling my contributions are done. I'd covered it from every way I know, repeatedly, and knew it was time for me to do something else. So I moved on. Plus, I always knew the climate story was one that I really wanted to cover.
And so, I've had a similar experience with the climate beat, where I've covered it from every possible angle that I can, culminating after five years of climate dispatches for Truthout and then this book The End of Ice, which Barbara edited. I feel everything I have to contribute on this topic is in the book. The only way I could improve upon the book would be to go back in and update some of the figures as time goes by. It's a strong collection of work and I don't have anything else to add. That's where I was coming into this time, and knew it was time for me to move on as a journalist. I'm finished being a journalist. I don't feel like I can contribute more in that way. It's time for me to do something else.
This was already in motion and I had actually given Truthout one month notice a few weeks ago, and so as we speak I'm officially finished as a journalist. By the time this airs, it will be made public to our readers, but it hasn't been made so public yet while we're talking.
Barbara and I will continue our column, however, but I'm going into something else.
Literally in this last week of my work as a journalist, my best friend of 23 years, Duane French, passed away. I had the honor of sitting with him by his bedside when he took his last breath after his long battle with cancer.
Both of these things happening, overlapping, have been a huge transition in my life. That was a friendship of 23 years — and a journalism career of 16 years. And so I've had a lot of direct, personal, visceral experience in loss and death and letting go. It's extremely poignant and I do not question the timing, and it's perfect practice for me in these times.
And, my joke since Barbara and I came up with the title of our column [How Then Shall We Live?], I'm getting to really walk my talk and I'm being forced to practice that now, and it's hard as hell because you've been here with me and I have times when I just don't want to get out of bed, and I’ve been in some pretty dark places at times inside. And it's all against the backdrop of the global apocalypse, of the climate apocalypse, of the political apocalypse, of all of this… massive loss. It is the age of loss.
And so, that's the context I'm bringing in personally to this conversation today.
Patrick: Okay, thank you for sharing that. And Barbara I think this dynamic of transition on the personal level, whether it's endings with death, or maybe the ending of a relationship, or the ending of a career, or all the transitions human beings inevitably go through… that are happening on the micro level, on the individual level. But there’s something happening globally right now that’s also asking us to accept endings. In your perspective, how can we learn from the personal side of this and then integrate that into a deeper understanding of what's happening to our biosphere?
Barbara Cecil: I do a lot of coaching work with people who are in the process of changing and shifting from one thing to another at thresholds in their life, and that usually is triggered by an ending. And I like how you've described the parallels at a giant ending of capitalism, of Western civilization. What I notice in my mind when I read about all this, I know that it’s going on and I actually accept that, and sometimes I'm rather excited by that, and I know it's right because the seeds were planted along the way and it is inevitable. But I think the things I feel most intensely are the endings that happen in close, and they all get melded into one thing.
What I'm noticing… a couple of years ago I could not live in the town I’d lived in for 20 years. I needed to be on different ground. I couldn’t explain it. There was a need for me, at this stage of my life, to connect to the Earth. And that was not my Earth. I had a lot of justification for leaving that had to do with smoke and fires in the area, climate related things. But deeper down, underneath, I knew I needed a new setting and a new place to have a real, reciprocal, deep relationship with the Earth. And that's how I got here to Port Townsend.
So, I think many people are being moved to end things that no longer serve, that don't feel right, that were initiated on a wrong basis that serves ego, that serves who we used to be and not who we are becoming. So there's the need to make changes. Whether they make sense or not. And I think part of my job is to be holding that perspective where there is a multi-level transition going on, that will have deep personal impact, when we need the ability to put our arms around it for what it is. And listen underneath the chaos and the deep angst for actually what's trying to come through, or to be born, to manifest — in this particular time.
Patrick: Thank you Barbara.
Dahr, when you talked about being at your friend's side as he's dying, you had a choice that you told me about. It's the choice that many people have when their loved one is dying and they have to make decisions, or the person — if they're able to make decisions themselves as they're dying — of whether they should do all the extremely intense procedures, surgeries, whatever sort of treatments are thrown at them by the modern medical system — to give them more time. And then the choice of living in it. It can be denial of what's happening. That's how it can manifest often, even if it's just a few more days of life. People will go through incredible pain and stress and difficulty just to give that person just a few more days of life, regardless of the quality of those last days.
This is not even acknowledged or brought into the discussion, because if you bring it up, then what is more time really going to bring to us? Is it going to be quality [time]? Is it going to be serving that person ultimately through the transition into death? Or is it serving something else? That was something you said that really struck me when you were talking about being there with your friend, and that you had to make a decision for yourself: Am I going to be present, totally present, with this person as they pass? And in that work you've done for so long on the climate and seeing it for what it really is, what are the parallels there?
Dahr: Right. So what happened with Duane was he had stage-four bladder cancer and he went through chemo. He was told if the chemo worked they could go in and essentially remove the bladder and several other organs with cancer. It would require reconstructive surgery.
And, this is a guy who's been a quadriplegic for 51 years. He went into this surgery weighing 75 pounds. So this is a really big deal, right? To call him a tenacious individual was to put it lightly. I've seen this guy literally resurrect himself from the dead before. And so it seemed like a bleak prospect to begin with, but if anyone was going to make it through this, it was going to be him.
So he goes through the surgery, and the surgery was successful. However, when [the doctors] were in there, they found a whole new cancer that hadn't shown up on the scans; it was squamous cell and impervious to chemo. So they sew him back up and give us this news.
They said things like, “Well, you know we're very concerned but the next step is: he recovers from the surgery, and then he goes home, and then we look at possible clinical trials, or immunotherapy, etc., etc.” Basically they start throwing Hail Marys at it. And then it comes down to what you mentioned — a question of quality of life. But before it got to the point of having to make those kinds of decisions, Duane wasn’t recovering from the surgery and had to wear a breathing mask. And then literally a decision was made by Duane himself. So, with myself and his partner and the doctor present, we took off the breathing mask which was essentially what was keeping him alive.
Although he was suffering mightily, he said, “No more mask, no more mask.”
And we all knew exactly what that meant. And so, then it was just make him comfortable and sit with him. And so that's what we did. And it was absolutely profound for me to just be there and be present for my friend.
Then it hit a point where the doctors said, “Well, he's gone now. He can't hear you. This is just his body.” But I knew he could hear me and I kept talking to him, and there were several things that happened which confirmed to me without a doubt he heard me. I kept telling him, “It's okay, you're finished here. You've done everything you came to do. You can go anytime you want. Now feel free to go. We're gonna be okay.” You know? And I kept telling him, and I kept telling him that — and when the time of his choosing came, and it was without a doubt to his choosing, he went.
However, I should tell the whole story because it's pretty remarkable… in that he was moved up to another room, essentially a transition room, for hospice, and we were hoping to get him home the next day so he could die in his own bed. We got him up into his room. And then his partner [Kelly], Kelly’s daughter, and son-in-law, were flying in. As this was happening, I kept telling him, “We're getting you up to this room. Kelly's gonna go get the kids and bring them up, and all y'all are going to have some time together. And then they're going to take her home because we’re all exhausted. I'm going to be with you until 9 PM at which time your other friend, Sukum, is going to come and sit with you through the night. And then tomorrow we're all going to be back up here, and we're going to get you home.”
That’s how I kept him abreast. They came up, they had their visit, they left. I updated him: “Okay, they're heading home and I'm with you now. Sukum's going to show up at 9 PM and then she'll be with you through the night, and we'll all be here tomorrow.” Again, I told him, “It's okay to go anytime you want.” About two hours after Kelly and the kids left, he went into apneic breathing. As I sat with him and told him again, “It's okay to go. I love you. It's okay to go.” And, he went.
The next day, when I got down there, I learned: they all had got home, Kelly did a couple of things and got comfortable and then they all met in the living room — and right when they sat down, like that minute, was when I called Kelly to let her know that Duane had passed.
No coincidences. And you know, it was a great honor for me to do that. It was also very clearly the time to let go. It was time. To help him let go.
And, I feel there was a deep, very personal experience for me of where we are on the planet. It really brought down the climate crisis for me to a level that made it that much more real. Right now we're losing 200 species a day, and this is only going to accelerate. The report which came out earlier this week said the US has lost something like a third of its bird population.
Patrick: Nearly three billion birds have disappeared in the past several decades.
Dahr: Right. So we're staring it in the face, you know? These reports are coming out every other day now.
So, I got to do that with my best friend. But if we're going to be less human supremacists and look at these other species, then we're getting to do this every day. If we really look closely enough and take in what this means, from where things are looking today, with all my analyses and everything I've learned from my climate reporting, it's really hard to see how humans make it through this. I'm not saying that's a guarantee, but it's really hard to see humans making it through this. That's the kind of stuff we all have to get our head around.
And so it comes down to: How then shall we live? How are we going to use this time we're still here? We all still have work to do. How are we going to use that time? To me now, that is more in focus than it's ever been in my entire life. How am I going to use this time, how am I going to employ the things I've learned from my friend and from that experience of helping him die?
Patrick: Thank you for sharing that. Barbara did you have any thoughts on that? Anything that came up when Dahr shared that?
Barbara: I think I'm into listening. I can appreciate really deeply where I've had the privilege of walking with Dahr in this particular passage, and I appreciate the depths to which he's dropped in himself and the wisdom that's rising in the space of the grief.
Patrick: Can I ask something? Because I think people are afraid of the wisdom that can arise from the grief. Do you think there is something about the denial of accepting the grieving process, and letting it come in? That does tie to the climate movement or the sort of activism that sprung up around climate change. In a sense there isn't room for grief. It's all about action. Right?
Barbara: Yes. Underneath there is a fear that if you go into the grief you're going to get stuck. That there's nothing on the other side of it.
I think it's really important, probably the greatest service many of us can provide at this time, those who have a rich experience of life and having actually gone through endings and let themselves feel them, and feel the phase after that — they provide reassurance to others terrified of admitting where we are, because they're terrified of the feelings.
I feel like my service at this particular time is being a basket, or a place of sanctuary and reassurance for people who are out there doing every possible thing they can with their lives on the line, knowing they're going to hit a wall and the realization that this is too little, too late. Incremental change isn't going to do it. Political action in the way they’re seeing it, isn't going to do it. And when you hit the reality of that, there's usually some level of depression, and that's when we really need one another. That's when our spiritual fiber is needed. And that's where there’s some level of real living and everything that's not important drops away. There is a quality of intimacy and love between people with the Earth that begins to show itself amidst the the waves of realization and as the news comes in. And it's not like you go through grief once, it’s an iterative process.
If you pay attention at all, there is a kindness and an understanding and a beauty in the intimacy that's possible here. And strangely enough, there is some level of fulfillment because instead of doing this and fixing that and flexing our muscles — there is a quality of listening and being that starts coming into the picture where some deeper part of our nature begins to come out. And I believe part of our nature rests more easily in the web of life, where our mental supremacy begins to fade as we realize that we can't think our way out of this or act our way out of this. A humility begins to set in. And then there's some sense of a new kind of belonging. And a new sense of time and a new sense of connection to ancestors, and a new experience of what it means to be human.
Patrick: So there's something on the other side of grief. There's something that comes out of it, that’s extremely necessary and valuable in the time we're in.
Barbara: That's my experience.
Patrick: It's your experience, okay. Have either of you seen the film, My Dinner with André?
Barbara: Yes, I remember it very well.
Patrick: It's a film [showing] two old friends sitting, having dinner in a restaurant in New York. And they're talking about their life experiences and it's really profound. One of the characters, André, is grieving at this point in his life and he is explaining it [to his friend, Wally]. I think it's a similar thing, where his mother is in hospital and she’s dying, and he describes the doctor coming in and looking at her and saying, “Oh yeah, [her arm] is healing up just fine.” But the doctor wasn't able to see the patient as somebody who was dying, and it was so obvious to the family — that everybody who was really seeing, really listening, really present, could see this person was dying. And André said something like, “That doctor is a kind of butcher,” a murderer — because he came in and tried to impose a false world-view on everybody, that everything is fine and everything's going according to plan, and this person is healing up when it was so apparent and obvious to everybody in the room that was not the case.
And in that part of the film when André is speaking, he's viscerally angry thinking about it. He talks about going out and the world being very raw, and everyone wants to chit-chat with him and they're not seeing him as he really is. Until finally somebody sees him and says, “My God, what happened?” And he tells them his grandparent died or however it was; and he says she was the only person who could really see me because she herself was also in a state of grief for some other reason and had experienced that.
And so, I think I want to talk a bit about this today. There've been massive climate marches and climate strikes happening today. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands… millions around the world in various cities are protesting, demanding some sort of change. Whatever that is.
And I would like Dahr, if you could, to speak to that. It's beautiful in a certain way, but in there is something like a denial. And what I wanted to bring up, however much you wanted to express this side of yourself — coming out against the hopers. Coming out against the people who are really trying, like I described that doctor as the butcher, to put a veil over everything and say, “We still have time. Keep on pushing harder. Keep on pushing and we'll save the world.”
Dahr: I have a lot of thoughts about that. What you shared about My Dinner With André is extremely poignant because that's what I just experienced. There was a point when it was clear my friend Duane was gone and it was just a matter of time, and helping his body let go. And yet, the doctor would walk into the ICU, “Okay we're gonna do this now.” And I had a sudden realization, looking at [my friend], knowing he had cancer all through his body and had just come out of an intensely traumatic surgery, and [the doctor] coming in and treating him saying, “Okay. We're going to do this now, and then we're gonna do this. And then tomorrow if that doesn't work out, we can do this.”
And I had suddenly realized they're treating him like a piece of meat — not like he's human, not factoring in his age and what he's already been through and what this means. And what this means for the people who love him. It was all about keep him alive no matter what even if it's just for another day, without really appreciating the magnitude of the situation, which is — this is his last stage.
This is a rare, precious time, where we're going to have these experiences and come out with a new wisdom that Barbara just talked about. And they’re just missing that whole thing because we're all hell-bent; we're going to use Western medicine, and we're going to do this technique next and then this drug. And, it felt like — you missed the whole thing, you missed the whole point.
For me, having just hung up really my journalism saddle and knowing that I've contributed what I can with this book [The End of Ice], and I feel like it's a book that will become even more pertinent with time — but that I have nothing left to say. I understand deeply in my body what it means to be on a planet where the life-support systems of the planet are dying. And while they're dying, what's left of them are being killed off as fast as possible by global governments.
Then we have, I think, the majority of the people, even in the climate movement, who don't really understand that, and don't really get what it means. Because for those who don't really get it and still think, “Oh, the Green New Deal.”
You know Naomi Klein's book just came out [On Fire: The (Burning) Case for the Green New Deal], and you still see the lingo, save the planet, or we still have 10 years or 11 years — and that you have to have hope.
In my conversations with people who understand what's going on, they say, “No, you can't just give people this hard information — because they'll lose hope.” To me as a journalist and as a writer and as a truth-teller, that's the antithesis of everything that I'm about. It's completely unethical and immoral. To me, it would be like going up to my friend Duane, saying, “No, you don't… well, okay, you might have stage-four cancer but there's this and this, and you're going to be just fine.” Or, in the analogy I used with some of the folks in the climate movement, not even telling them they have stage-four cancer. You know? If you were a doctor you'd be buried in lawsuits. You wouldn't be a doctor for long if that was your approach.
And yet we have people in the climate movement making a killing selling hope, and I think it's the worst kind of snake oil at this point and it's robbing people of the deep experience to really understand the gravity of the moment and let that inform whatever actions they're going to take — because if it was done in the proper context, these marches and the climate strike, and the students and what they're doing today, is magnificent and it's beautiful and it's powerful. Then, it's, “Hey, these kids, these people, are wanting to go out on their feet!” You know? They're going to be able to look back at this and say, “Yeah, we knew this was going on and this is what we did. And we did it though we knew things were probably already all lost, and we did it anyway. Because it's the right thing to do.” That is the height of morality. That is the height of dignity and integrity.
Instead, how many of these kids are doing it because they think there's still 10 years because Naomi Klein said so, or there's still the Green New Deal and there's still hope when the Green New Deal is just capitalism with a green leaf on it — which is still the system that's brought us to this point of extinction. So there's a huge divergence, really a philosophical and perceptual difference. It’s amazing to be on one side of it and looking at the other side of it — and they might feel as amazed. And so I get accused of being a doomer when all I've done is tell the truth. There's 21 pages of citations in my book, but how many times has the kill the messenger onslaught been at my doorstep when all I'm doing is citing scientists and scientific studies. That's the reaction that one gets when trying to tell the truth amidst a political climate in this country on the left, of a soft denialism. I think what's at stake is literally, are you going to be honest with people and let them have the experience and make the choices that we each get to make — staring death in the face, and then deciding from that point, honestly, how we want to live our lives.
Another analogy that I’ve used: I've worked as a guide up on Denali [formerly known as Mount McKinley, Alaska], and I’m responsible for a crew of people at High Camp at 17,200 feet. So, I’m getting the nightly weather report from NOAA [US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration] that says we've got the biggest storm in history ever coming, we've never seen a storm like this, it's coming so fast — and you guys can't descend. So you're there, and you do whatever you need to do. And then, I get a choice — if I'm going to be peddling snake oil and false hope, maybe I wouldn't tell people this big storm is coming, or maybe I would say, “Hey this storm's coming, but I think we're going to be okay if we do X, Y and Z, and if we change a few things, or we do a few things differently…”
Or, would it be more responsible for me to say, point blank, “Okay, here's what I know. NOAA just said the biggest storm ever, off all the charts, is coming — so here's what we're gonna do. I don't know about you guys, but let's give it a go and see if we can make it through this. So Patrick, you're going to start reinforcing snow walls. Barbara, you're going to double pull the tents. So and so over here is going to check our provisions. And we're going to hunker in and get really dialed in, and then we're going to sit and enjoy and appreciate each other's company and get ready for what's coming.”
That's what I hope would be the scenario that everybody would take.
I think that’s what's upon us. And I could keep going on and on. This is a very important question, but I think I've spoken long enough.
Patrick: Barbara, we were talking earlier about an article published in The New Yorker by novelist Jonathan Franzen, What If We Stop Pretending? It's about the climate apocalypse. We talked about it [earlier] and didn't find much fault in the article and its conclusions. But speaking of those who peddle hope, their reaction was immediate and it was fierce. They asked, “How dare you use your huge platform to tell us that we have no hope?” In that, we're already in this runaway climate change situation — and the clampdown, or the reaction, was massive and very fast.
What did that speak to you about the state of, maybe not just activism’s, but the general population's softer denialism that Dahr spoke to? It's on the left, where they accept the science of climate change up to a point. Right? You see many of the major climate activists out there, Naomi Klein or whomever, say trust the science. And trust the science always brings that point up. And I think, practice what you preach. Science is showing, and Dahr said this in an interview just the other day — we have three degrees [C] of warming baked-in right now. What kind of planet is there going to be for us as a species? Or other life on this planet? That's going to happen regardless of what we do.
So, the responsibility, ff you want to speak to that. Some of these people have to be honest and speak to the truth of it.
Barbara: Speaking about that article and the reactions, I was more interested in the intensity and the timing of the reactions than the content of the reactions because it was like a microcosm of what happens. Some kind of terror about actually taking in what the guy said and listening to what was underneath it. There was very little space to consider it, to reflect on why it pushed my buttons so badly. Like, what is it in me that just went crazy listening to this thing?
So, the space to actually digest and consider and to be open to something was foreclosed so bloody fast by most people. And many people who were peddling hope as Dahr's described so articulately, I think it's a way of being that refuses to live in the spaces, that is so addicted to taking action and fixing things. There isn't any space to let go, to release a lot of the beliefs we have and a lot of the assumptions that we have about living. To go down. To appreciate the dark. To encounter uncertainty. To grow up.
Patrick: Grow up. Yeah.
Barbara: And live from a different place in ourselves.
Patrick: Yeah, I agree. And I think that speaks to how quickly the reactions were. It speaks to what you're saying about finding those spaces in between, analyzing or trying to really feel what's being triggered in people. What is that speaking to?
Barbara: Well, I know what I'm craving right now is space to feel and think together. I just know that I have a great, big aversion to words right now. And sometimes I can't find my own.
Patrick: And here you are, talking with us.
Barbara: Yeah I know, and I had some resistance to even doing this…
Patrick: I had to twist your arm a little bit.
Barbara: Because I get sick of this big long spew of people's opinions. Okay here's your opinion, and here's your opinion, and it’s dizzy making! A lot of it is just about ego, and a lot of it is about winning.
I want to sit down at the dinner table and pray together. I want to give thanks together. I want to go quiet. I want to hear what's going on in the depths of your heart. I want to make space for me to change, for me to be wrong, for me to feel — and all of that requires a different kind of pacing. And serial sound bites, the onslaught of news —we’re trained into a loss of personal authority.
The very worst of the whole thing… we have this fascist authoritarian wave running through the world. And for me the question really comes… we're going to be subject to everything on the outside of us unless we hit our own authority. Unless these kind of spaces are opened in our conversations and our spiritual practices, in the way we live our lives, where a different level of knowing comes. And that's the opportunity of this time.
Patrick: Sometimes I try to not give what we're going through collectively an intelligence. That’s to say climate catastrophe, ecological disintegration, social unrest, everything that's coming and is currently manifesting. I don't want to give it some sort of life in-and-of itself, as if this force is asking something of us. Because I think we are a meaning-generating species and we use narratives to explain ourselves.
But if this were to speak to something, if we were to find meaning… as the subtitle of your book, Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, Dahr, what is that meaning? What is it really speaking to, here? To me, it can be framed in a very cynical or negative way which may serve a certain purpose up to a point, but I think as you're saying Barbara, getting to that deep place — it's asking us to accept something. In your explorations in the subject what are these crises asking of us?
Dahr: That's a huge question, and it's a great question. I'll bring it back to what I just went through with my friend Duane, which is, at the end of the day, when all is lost and there's nothing left, it comes down to: I love this guy and I'm going to be there and be as present with him as I know how to be. It’s in the intensity of presence that I experienced in how much I loved him in those last days — and I'm still recovering. I’d slept 11 hours last night and I'm still tired. The intensity of presence I had bestowed upon him, just being there with him and for him, was a real gift. And I've never experienced anything like that.
And it comes down to love… I love him. He'll be gone any minute now. And so I am going to just be there with him as fully with every cell of my being as I can. It comes down to love and service.
And it’s that way now with the planet. In the wake of his passing, I already knew this intellectually before that happened, but now I know in my heart that’s why — why I have a compulsion to be out in the mountains as much as I can. It’s because I love it. That's my favorite part of nature and I love it and I want to be out in it as much as I can, because I know the glaciers that I see when I go into the Olympics or the Cascades are going to be gone, many of them within my lifetime. All of them probably before 2100. But they're still here, so I want to go and appreciate them, and be with them, and marvel at them, and have awe when I look at them. It's because I love them and I love that part of the Earth.
The bearing witness part of my subtitle comes from: it is our moral responsibility to bear witness to these things as they're going away, because that's a way to love them. Then the finding meaning part comes in, “How can I still be of service while they're still here?” And after they're gone, “How can I still be of service?”
I've had different things come up for me in the wake of my friend's death and I've struggled with a couple of them, some regrets, and what I might have done differently. I've had some great conversations with Barbara that have helped a lot, and with some other friends.
Our mutual friend, Stan Rushworth, who you're definitely going to have on this podcast, he’s an elder of Cherokee descent, and he affirmed for me: “You were there. You gave [Duane] your utter, complete and perfect presence, and there's nothing else you can do beyond that.”
The other thing Stan said that really helped a lot was all this other stuff, and he wasn't talking just about Duane, but about all this other stuff that people do and everything else that we do in our lives and the fights we get into, and the disagreements and the opinions and all that — and he said, “Man, that's all just a bunch of fucking horseshit.” Because when you get all the way down to it, the only thing that matters is how we're going to treat each other. Are we going to treat each other well, are we going to be kind to each other and love each other, or not? All that other stuff is just bullshit and digressions and a complete and utter waste of time — because if you're living your life the right way, it's all going to come down to: how can I be a better person, and that means how can I treat other people better.
Patrick: That reminds me of a line from Joanna Macy. What did she say about that?
Dahr: Yeah, she was asked in a really poignant interview, quite a ways back: “So Joanna, why do you keep doing this work?” And she said, “I’m doing this work so that when things fall apart, we will not turn on each other.”
Patrick: Do you have anything Barbara? You write notes while Dahr is talking. I feel like you're going to have something to say, but not necessarily. [laughing]
Barbara: I think Dahr is cutting to the chase. There are some things to do in this time, in this window. When you ask about meaning, I think each person will find, if they're really listening, for what's theirs to heal. To restore. To remember… so they can get down to the core truth of themselves.
For me, of late, I'm glad that Dahr brought up Stan, because there's something to reckon with about how we got here. There is some need in me to take some ownership of what's happened in the past, where a deep separation from the true, deep and real self, that Dahr's talking about.
And I think that's part of the work of this time. I don't believe we're at the apex of civilization, I think we've fallen to this level. I think a lot of this is a big mistake, not some wondrous manifestation of great human accomplishment. What's happening now is because of the seeds that were planted historically, and the work and the muscle that's needed from some people to look — square in the face — at what happened in this country.
This country was built on genocide. In the history of California, 16,000 Native Americans were deliberately killed because they were in the way of the gold rush and the settlement by white people who wanted to come in and claim the paradise that had been there for [tens of] thousands of years under the care of the Native Americans.
So something went awry. And part of bringing something back into balance in ourselves, and in our relationship to this Earth, is to see what we did and to understand how the greed and the control and the need for security is endemic. In my own thinking, I learned it in my own education, it’s everywhere and beginning to find some perspective. All of that feels really important when you ask: “Where's the meaning in this time?”
Patrick: Yeah, I feel that completely as well, and I've tried my best to explore that in my own way. Did you want to say something, Dahr?
Dahr: Continuing on the track Barbara was just on, I concluded my book by talking about this — and it's something that I was reminded of, from Stan the elder — the importance of listening. And the three of us have been taught this, and it’s been one of the themes of conversation we've all been having since you've been up here Patrick, and that I learned through working with Stan, that the reason I have always gone into the mountains is because that's where I go to listen. That's where I go to get quiet, and I get humbled and I have awe of what's around me. To know my place in the world. And then I'm able to listen. Because when I'm up there, it's very easy for me to comport myself the right way. It's like, you're going to have proper respect or you're going to pay for it dearly, really quick, if you go out ill-prepared, if you try to go up and you're not prepared for it… in the mountains. And so I listen…
One of the things I've been talking about in my book talks, and sometimes in interviews, is that people ask, “What do we do? What should we do?” And, it's one part of the whole climate mobilization, I think… part of the dinosaur that Barbara just alluded to… part of an hierarchical, patriarchal system of having someone else tell us what to do. Needing to have a leader, when right now all systems have failed. All systems have failed. All systems being settler-colonial, global capitalist, control-over… are being separated from the Earth's systems. I mean, just the hubris and the sheer arrogance in that statement, how we can still save the Earth. It’s repulsive.
Patrick: And I think what they're saying isn't the Earth. They're talking about our civilization and capitalism.
Dahr: They are, to be more specific, yes. And so, what I've learned is when you really listen, and I mean go really quiet, put all the mental jargon aside and just get really quiet and really humble and really listen to the Earth, then I believe that each one of us is going to get our own personal marching orders of, “Okay, here's what you're going to do. Here's what I need you to do.”
That's where I've gotten my messages: to go to Iraq, to do the book that I did with The End of Ice, and so many other big decisions in my life, and the small ones. When I go out there, I listen and I get this clear message and I always know what to do. And I really believe that now is that time for people to not run around and panic. Don't light your hair on fire. Don't go out and see what other ten more things you can do, or how many articles you can forward in all this. But just stop, and get really, really quiet and touch down into the Earth and really listen and see what comes up into your heart — when you ask, “What is it that I need to do, to really serve this planet?”
Because, if we do that, and in the proper context of understanding that it is too late — you're not going to get all that heat out of the oceans. The oceans absorb 93 percent of the heat we've put into the atmosphere. That heat is staying there and it's increasing and it's not going to go away. We're not going to turn this thing around. And so, in the context of knowing the great loss that's now upon us — what is the most important thing for me to do? And for some people it might be, I need to play music, and that's great, because God knows we need music right now. And for some people it might mean, I'm going to write a book, and for some people it might mean… You know, Barbara’s and my good friend Colin McIntosh just went and got arrested, and he's in Extinction Rebellion — all the power to him. To other people it might mean we're going to go shut this fucking shit down once and for all. Great, please do.
My point is, if you really listen closely and get that call, and understand that it's in the context that we really have nothing left to lose, I would argue that it’s going to generate an activism and actions taken from love that could never happen in the context of — do this because this book tells you to do it, or go to this march because we're organizing it and we have a permit on the date we're going to do this. I'm talking about doing things way more radical and way further outside of the box than a lot of stuff we see happening right now. I'm talking about real risk.
Patrick: I am on board.
Barbara: Yes, and just to say, the other day we were talking and the one liner we came up with that “hope is fundamentally an avoidance of an essential risk that needs to be taken,” and that risk is different for every person. But that hope occludes the radical act of love, of choice, of being sourced from within, to do something that may not fit at all. And in that case, I think the sum total of a lot of radical acts of risk is pretty spectacular. Could be.
Dahr: I think this is an idea that's going to be pretty different and new for a lot of people. Can you maybe talk a bit more about how does having hope occludes risk, or how does it stand in the way? Can you just unpack that a little bit?
Patrick: Yeah it seems like a foreign idea for many people. They see hope as being a facilitator for right action and from a good place. And having optimism is always the right way to go. How does it occlude what you're discussing now?
Barbara: Okay now I have to think for a second…
Patrick: So I think the theme of this has been pauses and taking moments to listen. So take as long as you need.
Barbara: I know that we're onto something because I'm sweating and I can tell you that right off the bat my hands are just absolutely soaked and freezing.
Patrick: If we were filming this you'd just see Barbara just drenched in sweat right now. It would just be pouring off of her.
Barbara: [laughing]
Dahr: She needs a sweat band. [laughing]
Patrick: This is a sport, yeah.
Barbara: Well, I'm looking out the window right now and aware there is a young man who has left his career as a librarian at Sonoma State University. He had a very good job. His mother was a librarian so he was really cool with his family.
He came to a point where it was unbearable: the politics in the situation and the fit for his spirit, and the misfit of focus for this time. And he picked up with his partner and moved up here and is living in a what looks like a Civil War tent that they have kitted out with a stove. They're going to weather the winter in it. And he is learning permaculture.
Not everybody needs to take this risk. Not everybody can take this risk. But I have a feeling there is a risk for everyone because business as usual has gotten us into the mess we're in. And if hope somehow relates in any way to the continuance of business as usual, we will not see the risks we need to take to change course; because where we are, I don't believe is an expression of the true human spirit. Somewhere we diverted and to get back on track means following some other kind of impulse.
That's what comes right now. There will probably be more here in a second but I'm waiting for it now.
Patrick: That’s good. Did you have anything else to add? You're very pensive.
Barbara: This happens to me a lot. There's something under the surface and I can feel it but my mind doesn't get it. So that's happening to me right now. I know it's time to listen, until it gets all the way up here. It's hard in these times to live in a void, when you don't know what to do and you don't know what to say because whatever it is, isn't all the way up on the surface yet. And that's a risk too, to not have the answer.
Patrick: Well, I think our culture is obsessed with having answers for everything. And we're very uncomfortable, in a general sense, [with not having answers]. We've had this conversation with numerous people throughout the week, of unlearning what we have learned. We spend, maybe, thirteen or more years in public schooling, in college, in that whole drawn-out education process, and then once you get into a space — like many people we're meeting who are wanting to take a risk, and who know deeply they have to. That risk includes deprogramming yourself from the cultural conditioning that we've been awashed in, and our media is reinforcing it constantly, constantly. So, it's no surprise that young people are, of course, acting from that place. Not that it is not beautiful or worth whatever, but they're acting from that place of action because there has to be a solution, and they're being told there is a solution. So there's never going to be a space open for them to really begin to ask those questions. Or most of them at least.
Barbara: So I have a member of my family who is 17-years-old. She's really smart and she's been set up to go to any college that she wants to, in the whole country. And she has had the gumption to say, “I'm taking a year off. That real education is going to take place for me in an entirely different way. I'm going the vocational route. I am going to learn practical skills that will help me to thrive and to help other people in the times that are coming.”
So she's learning about timber-frame building. She's learning about horticulture. She's learning about welding. She's learning about electrical whatever you call it. And that's her risk — to just be different and to follow a thread that's hers and that’s very different from the educational track most young people are on. Not all people are on the track to go to college. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying it takes a risk to go your own way.
Patrick: It does. Yeah.
Barbara: I think for young people right now that is a huge thing, because our institutions are not preparing people for what's to come and a lot of young people know that. And so there is a huge revolution needed here in supporting young people for what they're going to face. What we've landed them with.
Patrick: Yeah, in your last piece that you both did for Truthout, and Dahr, at the beginning you talk about and half joke with friends about living in the Apocalypse, which is very true. You do half joke about living in the Apocalypse quite often. But really, what you're saying here is that you're kind of harkening to the Greek root of that word which means literally, uncovering, disclosure and revelation, and this is, to me, what this crisis has always presented. To me, this is the truth. This was always going to happen. If we were going to live in this way, this is what inevitably would come from that.
And you've talked about people who have encountered the white people for the first time, and white men, seeing how rapacious they are, how greedy and unyielding they are, and they're just swallowing up the Earth. We were talking about Indigenous prophecies and how you don't have to be a prophet or have some mystical skill to see into the future where this is going to lead. You don't have to be a scientist. You could just look at the way people were landing on this land and say, “Okay, this is the inevitable conclusion of this.” And they were already sensing that, because they were listening and seeing it for what it was, even before it became to a tipping point — which we've already crossed.
Dahr: That's exactly right. One of the things we've been talking about [lately] is Native American scholar Jack Forbes, who wrote a book called Columbus and Other Cannibals which should be mandatory reading especially in this country.
He talks about Wetiko Disease which is essentially settler-colonialism. And if you have it, it's a psychosis. And it means, you think it's okay to take another person's resources or life for your own benefit. That's what settler-colonialism / global capitalism is, even capitalism with a green leaf [on it], because it means you're taking things from the Earth. Of course, people like to call those resources, but you're taking things from the Earth, you're killing parts of the Earth for your own benefit — and somehow that's okay.
And so, from an Indigenous perspective of, “Oh hey, all these white folks showed up and they're completely insane because they think they can do all this, and it's okay… and they have the biggest guns and they're gonna get away with it, and they're going to just keep doing it and probably figure out faster ways to do it, more efficient ways to do it.”
How is this going to end? Hence, as you said — the prophecies are just logic. You know, let's run this out to its logical conclusion. So now, we are. The “we” being people living in the end of industrial-growth culture where the reckoning is now upon us, not just Indigenous people, but everyone — even those who have caused it — the reckoning is upon all of us. Even the rich people. Your money is not going to protect you.
Patrick: Yeah, it's funny. I interviewed Douglas Rushkoff last year. He had a piece come out called Survival of the Richest, and he talked about a huge disconnect the wealthy have — where they think that they can build elaborate, very expensive bunkers in some part of the world, and that somehow, through the wealth and power they have right now, they're going to somehow weather the storm, and they're going to have all the supplies they need.
Dahr: It's just another form of denialism. We've spoken a lot during this program about all the different forms of denialism, and we don't even need to waste a breath on the denialism of the right, and the fossil fuel industry. But then the soft denialism on the left and all the iterations, and all of it comes down to some form of hope. There's some form of hope that's consistent in all of those, that's going to prevent all of those people from taking the real risk, which is ultimately looking deep, deep inside each of ourselves and then trying to decide, “Okay, what is it now that I most need to do more than anything else in the world, given that we have this extremely finite amount of time left?”
And it means, yes, considering our own deaths. Honestly.
This transcript was generated by Descript, and fact-checked and edited for clarity and length by Trish Reader.