Thoughts for those who feel and care deeply, who often think they aren’t doing enough, who want to change things for the better but feel they are too small and insignificant. I wrote this for you.
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I wrote this essay at the end of the hottest summer on record here in the UK, pregnant with my second child and sensing the despair and grief for what is happening to the living world due to human-induced environmental crises. It has taken me a while to publish it yet here we sit bracing ourselves for a climate change and El Niño-induced turbulent, stormy autumn and winter. Just because it has cooled (thank goodness), these issues haven’t disappeared. So I wrote you this essay in hope and love. This essay is for those who feel and care deeply, who often think they aren’t doing enough, who want to change things for the better but feel they are too small and insignificant. I hope it helps.
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In July 2026, a friend of mine posted in a Mum’s WhatsApp group I’m part of about how the heatwaves we’re experiencing in the UK are really bringing home climate change to her, especially when she thinks about her children.
Having spent a lot of time processing what’s happening to our beautiful earth as a result of climate change and what I can do about it as part of my work I replied in the group with the suggestions below (I’ve also added a few extra thoughts here).
What was telling was the near radio silence on the WhatsApp group after I posted my thoughts. And I understand - climate change is such a big thing to sit with... And yet ignoring what is happening won’t make it go away.
If my relationship with nature has taught me anything it’s that we are all connected for better or worse. And we are not alone in seeking change. We are in the messy place all together. Many of us doing what we can, imperfectly.
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Here are my thoughts. Please know, I don’t have all the answers and I am walking alongside you all with it:
1. Acknowledge grief
We must acknowledge our grief and sadness about what is happening to our planet as a consequence of human action (or inaction). Grief is a way of rooting into love. It shows how much we love the world and the animals and people living here. If we don’t allow ourselves to feel it we either sink into despair and apathy or denial, both unhelpful but understandable responses.
Allowing ourselves to witness what is happening and feel the sadness isn’t us “not coping” but a normal response. I find it worrying when people see what is happening and are somehow NOT moved by it.
I wish there were more spaces for us to process our grief; a process Western Society is notoriously bad at. I recently read about a public funeral held in Iceland for the Okjokull glacier in 2019, killed by climate change. Closer to home, I haven’t come across these public spaces to hold our grief, though the plight of our rivers are flowing more and more into public consciousness with ceremonies like Meg Avon marrying the River Avon in 2023 to protest against the river’s suffering.
In the absence of collective spaces to hold and process our collective grief, I find it most helpful to process these emotions in nature, often through ritual, as I find the land can hold my feelings better than when I am in a small room staring at my phone screen.
AND through grief will always walk alongside us, we can’t stay stuck in there, spiralling into despair - that place hurts us and therefore the earth too.
2. Imagine a more loving world
“We must be able to envision a future we actually want to the extent that we muster the will to do what needs to be done in order to make that vision a reality - the the degree that it becomes our magnificent new North Star and we can’t imagine doing anything else.”
- Rob Hopkins, How to Fall in Love with the Future
“What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.”
- Bell Hooks, philosopher and writer
We are constantly being given dystopian narratives about the consequences of climate change. While maybe these help to wake people up to what is happening I personally don’t find them helpful. We also need to use our imaginations to envision a more loving, just world and what that might look like. I LOVE the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Professor of Botany and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation (indigenous peoples), for this.
In her latest book, Serviceberry, she writes about the gift economy, inspired by the maternal gift economy. Rather than individual gain, the common good is what the gift economy centres around: “Mothers do not sell their milk to their babies, it is pure gift, so that life can continue” (you could exchange ‘milk’ with cuddles and love) . I’ll post a screenshot from her book here in a moment. The shift from seeing everything as a resource for individual gain to a gift for the common good has really helped me. And again I personally find being with nature teaches me such a lot about these interconnected ways of being. We need to hold close positive visions of what could be possible as well as witnessing what is happening. It’s a dance between these two.
Rob Hopkins has a great number of resources that I’ll be drawing on to support my fellow adventures in my year-long programme, Rewild Your Soul.
A more loving world might be things like community gardens, equitable healthcare, renewable energy, more time with loved ones less time working yourself to burnout....I’m sure you have lots of ideas!
3. Take action using your natural gifts
“If we work for the causes around which we have passion - especially if we do it in a spirit of caring, courage, and generosity - joy may naturally follow.”
- Karon Walrond, The Lightmaker’s Manifesto
“Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath”
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Next, take action towards that more loving world using the gifts you have, rather than feeling like you need to become the next Greta Thunberg in order to have any impact.
For me that is helping people to remember their relationship with the living world and how utterly precious their lives on this planet are, as well as making artwork that celebrates the aliveness of nature. I also try to tend to my local community when I have capacity and am learning about my local non-human kin so I can understand them and they can teach me too. It’s a radical act to pay attention to nature when our society is constantly pulling our attention elsewhere.
So for you perhaps there’s an environmental initiative at work you’re involved with or you teach your children about the beauty of nature or you join the Green Party etc etc.
One thing that have direct impact that we can all do is check which of our banks fund fossil fuels and move our money elsewhere (I still need to do that with one of my banks, unfortunately stuck with the mortgage one).
Do the next right thing.
4. Let your love for the living world guide you
“Joy is profound and long-lasting. Often, joy finds itself rooted in much deeper things, like meaning and purpose.”
- Karon Walrond, The Lightmaker’s Manifesto
Fear, guilt and rage will eventually burn you up. While useful to light the fire and start your journey into climate or social justice action, these feelings are not sustainable and will eventually consume you through overwork and exhaustion.
My work at We Are Stardust is essentially about tending to a relationship of love with the living world through wonder and joy and allowing love to be the deep, enduring force that sustains your actions. Of course, fear, guilt and rage will always return - it is so hard to witness what is happening to our Earth - and they are part of love too yet the core, underlying force must be love.
Walking into the wild with a lens of wonder and joy will leave you open to moments of magic and enchantment that will deepen your love for life on earth. To keep asking ourselves to give more and more and more RIGHT NOW without rest and rejuvenation is exactly the paradigm of urgent over-consumption and extraction from the earth that has got us into this mess in the first place.
When the news feels overwhelming, tending to a love of the living world through wonder and curiosity always rejuvenates me and reignites the flame of joy for me. I go for a walk and notice the beautiful colours of the leaves and marvel at the skill and wisdom of the trees, feel the sunshine on my face and am in awe of the light that has travelled through space from the Sun, smell the scent of the forest floor and feel rooted to the ancient earth beneath my feet which has existed for eons in comparison to the latest news headline.
Research has shown that frequent experiences of joy improves our intelligence, creativity and energy levels. Similarly, experiences of wild awe (or wonder) have shown to decrease the sense of ego-centric Self and increase the sense of eco-centric self, to improve behaviours of altruism and creativity and to reduce stress by decreasing heart and breathing rates.
We NEED a deep relationship with the living world to sustain our activism or actions towards creating a more loving world.
And it doesn’t all have to lie on your shoulders to “fix” and “save” the planet. We are dealing with forces much bigger than one human.
Again, a relationship with the earth helps us to sink into remembering we are one life in a long history of ancestors and future of generations to come. Deep Time - the concept that our universe is incredibly ancient - helps us to connect with a less pressured, urgent, burnt out way of experiencing time (one day I’ll do a podcast on my difficult relationship with clock time). It reminds us we have the power of our bright and well ancestors in our DNA and hold gifts to be passed on to the next generation.
And there are people all around you right now who also care, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Part of the reason I created We Are Stardust was to find people who love this living world as much as I do. Go and find your community - online or in your local area - and start building something beautiful together. Be they a group of people opposing a local development project, a group of crafts people wanting their work to make a difference, a group of people like you who usually feel excluded from the outdoors and are ready to reclaim their right to roam these lands.
What seeds can we plant in our short lifetime to create a more loving world for future generations of humans and non-humans to come?
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Let us imagine and then create more loving worlds starting with ourselves, the land, our loved ones and our local communities. Let us see where it takes us, what will evolve and sprout from healing creation upon the destruction.
