Date/Time
Date(s): Jan. 26 - Feb. 23
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm (Thursdays)
**This is an online (Zoom) class**
“Sorrow is a sustained note in the song of being alive. To be human is to know loss in its many forms … Acknowledging this reality enables us to find our way into the grace that lies hidden in sorrow.” — Francis Weller
We’ve all seen the documentary that shows us the world is ending.
On good days, it seems like there is a growing vocabulary of concern, a global response to meet the unprecedented reality of climate collapse. From the promising glow of new technologies to the resounding wake up call of international youth movements, there are resilient pockets of hope if you look for them.
And yet on bad days, even in the wide availability of creative solutions and collective efforts, there is a sharp undercurrent of grief – a foreboding sense of uncertainty and despair … Is it enough? Will we survive this?
As opposed to investigating what else there is for us to do about climate collapse or searching for the next frontline of eco-justice, this 4-week series invites participants to slow down and simply tend to the experience of grief — to listen to it and learn from it.
Can we discover grief as an ally? As a wild edge of activism? As a complete answer to the question of “what to do?” Can we relate to grief as a generative territory of imagination? Can we even find playfulness in grief?
What if grief is a gateway that reveals an entirely different set of questions about climate collapse?
Join us as we gently begin to explore some of these questions in a practice of deep listening. Weaving mindfulness, creative storytelling, group discussion, and self-compassion practices, we’ll co-create a space dedicated to honoring and processing grief, while lifting up some of the questions that often go unattended in a rush for solutions to climate collapse.
In slowing down, we might discover that sites of creative wellness grow in the wilds just beyond our deepest sorrow.
Let’s practice together.
Teacher Bio
Nico Cary (he/him) is a dharma and medicine path practitioner, mindfulness teacher, writer and interdisciplinary artist. He received his BA from UC Berkeley’s Interdisciplinary Studies Field School, specializing in cognitive linguistics. He is currently a Garrison Institute Fellow, and his multimedia installations on collective grieving processes have been featured at the Smithsonian and can now be seen as a part of The Healing Project at Yerba Center for the Arts in San Francisco. While engaged in a deeply fulfilling artistic career, Nico also proudly serves as a mindfulness facilitator for InsightLA and a teacher at Mindful USC. He is interested in the many different vocabularies of healing and the holding capacity of mindfulness, particularly as it relates to embodied activism and creative ecosystems.
