• All We Can Save Chapter: “Reciprocity” - Benyus reflects on how, during her training in natural resource management, the dominant ecological thinking on tree growth focused on competition and domination, but Benyus noticed, and the science has since backed up, that cooperation and collaboration actually do a much better job of explaining how plant ecosystems work. I love this, and I see how this can apply to my training in physics. More often than not, I felt the strain of individualism in trying to prove myself in my classes, and it wore me down. The times I've been in community, especially with women, I have found more thriving, inspiration, and curiosity that feels more in line with how science is actually supposed to work. 

• Image Source - I wanted to amplify the presence of the trees from the reference image, and bring them from the background into the foreground, weaving around Benyus and indicating reciprocity. 

• Learn more from the Biomimicry Institute.

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Calling In” -- Xiye Bastida is a powerful leader in the youth climate movement. She was raised with roots in the Indigenous Mexican Otomi people. I love that the editors of All We Can Save chose to feature Bastida’s contribution first in the anthology. It sets the stage for a rising energy coming with the next generation, a generation that won’t stand for corruption and platitudes. In reading and listening to Bastida’s words, I am impressed by her passion and poise, which has both a calmness and urgency about it, which I think is captured in this image. I wish I had had the wherewithal and courage to engage in climate change when I was younger, but I’m here now. Better late than never.

• Image Source (Vogue)

• Audio References: Xiye Bastida’s TED Talks

• Learn more about Bastida at her website: www.xiyebeara.com

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Harnessing Cultural Power”

• Favianna's Website: https://favianna.com/ 

• Image Source from Grist.org

• I liked the graphic background of the Grist reference image and wanted to replicate that in the painting. Rodriguez is an artist herself, and I tried to keep this colorful and expressive feel in my painting. While painting, I listened to the Latina to Latina podcast episode: “Pleasure is Political” and Forever 35 interview with Rodriguez (starts around the 24min mark). I also started following Rodriguez on Instagram to get a sense of her art, which is also very graphic. On her website, I noticed she write passionately about each piece and what inspired her, often with themes of healing ourselves and our climate. These narratives helped me to connect to the artwork more and inspired me to write about my own thinking and emotional connection to my art. 

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Buildings Designed for Life”

• Amanda Sturgeon's Website: https://amandasturgeon.com.au/

• Built By Nature: https://builtbn.org/ 

• I appreciate Sturgeon’s connection between building design and climate change as being more than about efficiency and cost saving. She says the “root cause of our energy addiction [is] separation from nature,” and that biophilic design “is an essential opportunity to change our relationship to one another and to all of life on Earth.”  

• I read this chapter as I sat outside in my backyard in a shady patch from a tree, with my dog investigating all the smells (and barking at noises to try and protect me). I was working inside my home office earlier. It’s also cozy, with a colorful wallpaper, pink couch, plants, and artwork that inspires me. But the air conditioner is running. We have a huge south facing roof but no solar panels. I hope Sturgeon is right that, “the buildings of the future will remove the line between inside and outside, and zero carbon will be the norm rather than the exception.” I would love to feel that flow between my inside office and my backyard. I am so ready for this transition! 

• Picture reference from TEDMED and Audio Reference from TEDMED 

• All We Can Save Chapter: “To Be Of Use” -- A poem giving love to the people and things that do what they are called to do. I underlined “The work of the world is common as mud.” and the last 2 lines: “The pitcher cries for water to carry / and a person for work that is real.” I feel that. “Real” is the right word. I want to be able to engage in the climate crisis in ways that feel real. 

• Image Reference: Marge Piercy (Photo Ira Wood) via The Provincetown Independent

• Audio Reference: Marge Piercy | Tiferet Talk with Melissa Studdard: During this interview, Piercy talks about having more freedom to write (and less financial security) since she left academia. I feel that about painting and all the other things I want/need time for in my life that always felt like they were too distant when I was a professor.

• Piercy's Website: https://margepiercy.com/ 

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Indigenous Prophecy and Mother Earth." I read this chapter almost a year ago and it has stuck with me since. Mitchell articulates the "ecological necessity" of valuing and learning from Indigenous wisdom, protecting Indigenous rights, and amplifying Indigenous voices. She speaks of living according to "Sacred Instructions" and mending human beings' relationship with life. I was most struck learning about the 1877 prophecy of Crazy Horse, which said there would be a time when, "the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom," and the Seven Fires Anishanaabe prophecy that, "if the new people learned to trust the ways of the circle and trained themselves to hear their inner voice, wisdom would return to them in waking and sleeping dreams." This reminds me of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing in Braiding Sweetgrass about how "becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it." I hold this with me during my regular walking in the woods with my dog, Daphne. I try to notice. I watch the trees and learn how they sway. I see the leaves waving to me. I touch the ground beneath my feet. And this has been incredibly healing for my spirit. Anytime I am lost and confused, the woods hold me. I didn't have this when I was younger; it's something I've learned as an adult from Indigenous leaders. I can see how much more I need to learn, but that doesn't feel overwhelming, it feels hopeful. 

• After painting Mitchell and starting to follow her, I was also inspired to participate in Emergence Magazine's Seeds of Radical Renewal (abridged) leadership course, for which she served as a guest teacher, and where I could deepen my learning from her. I will continue to read and listen to her words moving forward. 

• Mitchell's website: https://sacredinstructions.life/; includes a link to purchase her newest book, Sacred Instructions. 

• Image Reference Source: Hurry Slowly

• Audio Reference: Love (and revolution) Radio episode “Sacred Instruction: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change” 

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Truth Be Told." Atkin is a journalist and this chapter is about her journey to report about the climate crisis honestly, i.e. with alarm and urgency and by calling out the people and institutions that turn a blind eye. Using an “objective” lens does not mean giving airtime to climate deniers; it means challenging them and reporting on climate change often, in service of educating and mobilizing the public to take the climate crisis as seriously as it is. Atkin writes about how angry she became at the lack of climate action and the lack of climate change in reporting. This spurred her to start her own newsletter and podcast called HEATED, where she harnesses her passion to advance climate change reporting and give it the urgency it needs. 

• Website: https://www.emilyatkin.com/ 

• Reference Image: theopennotebook.com 

• HEATED: https://heated.world/ 

• Additional Audio Reference: Stand Up! Daily with Pete Dominick Episode 801 - On this podcast, Emily talks about journalism's purpose being to inform citizens. When the national news is politicizing an environmental issue and missing the connections to climate, it's indicative of our culture missing something.

• Leah Penniman is the Co-ED and Farm Director of Soul Fire Farm in New York. She describes herself as a "Black Kreyol farmer, mother, soil nerd, author, and food justice activist." 

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Black Gold." This was in the “Nourish” section of readings, and it was so eye-opening and nourishing to read. Penniman describes the profound and complicated history of Afro-Indigenous peoples’ relationships to earth, soil, and seed, and she links their practices to urgently needed solutions to climate change, from the practical matters of carbon sequestration, to the spiritual matters of healing and health. She cites several examples of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples leading the way throughout history. For example, Penniman shares that Cleopatra declared earthworms sacred and therefore protected from farmers, which likely helped the Nile River Valley become the fertile area that it was. She also writes, “Our ancestral grandmothers braided seeds and hope into their hair before being forced to board transatlantic slave ships, believing against odds in a future on soil,” and, “One of the projects of colonization, capitalism, and White supremacy has been to make us forget this sacred connection to soil. Only when that happened could we rationalize exploiting it for profit.” Penniman quotes Wendell Berry and “The Hidden Wound,” to highlight that, in forcing agricultural labor onto Black and Brown laborers, white people have cut themselves off from the very connections that could help sustain the soil and support nature. She summarizes her chapter by saying, “In healing our relationship with soil, we heal the climate, and we heal ourselves,” and closes by quoting a student who visited Soul Fire Farm: “‘Connection with soil was the awakening of my sovereignty.” Penniman’s words will continue to inspire me to get to know and love the soil around my house, hold it in high esteem, and touch it, put my hands in and breathe in the earthy smell. 

• Image reference from Bon Appetit and photographer Jamel Mosely

• Listening reference: For the Wild, DeeplyRooted episode 188 "Honoring our Ancestors and the Earth with LEAH MENNIMAN"

• All We Can Save Chapter: “Under the Weather. "This chapter is under the “Feel” section of the All We Can Save anthology, a powerful acknowledgement that feeling, in and of itself, is important. In this chapter, Sanders describes a friend who “tried to tread lightly on Earth, to be almost invisible, in order to cause as little harm as possible,” and the resulting conflict this caused, with those around him describing it as a mental illness, when, shouldn’t we all be so deeply troubled by our harmful societal practices that degrade our environment and cause the extinctions of countless species? I’ve heard the analogy: “when the house is on fire, panicking is a reasonable response.” Sanders notes that it feels that we sometimes have to pretend to ignore the climate to ever try to feel happy. She explores the nuances of the mental health crisis caused by climate change, and the new ideas and new language we need. For example: pre-traumatic distress syndrome, to describe the fear for destruction yet to unfold; solastalgia, to describe the yearning for a different reality; ennuipocalypse, to describe the idea that the world may not degrade in a flashy way but through our slow and mundane inaction; and, in the words of her friend, “ignore-ance,” to describe, “returning from a state of consciousness to a willed state of not knowing.” Sanders points out that, those of us who feel “sick” with anxiety and fear, may have nothing wrong with us at all other than living in a sick world, so our "prescriptions" should help to cure the world. 

• Read more about Ash Sanders on her website www.ashsanders.com, and sign up for her newsletter "Head Snakes."

• This is Michelle Wooten, an astronomy educator at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where she empowers students to learn with art and lead stargazing nights at the local observatory for the public. She is President of StarrySkies South, a DarkSkies International chapter that raises awareness about the detrimental effects of light pollution. The loss of a dark night sky has serious implications for Earthlings, our environment, and our health. Light pollution disrupts pollinators, bird migrations, and our own sleep patterns, and powering the lights generally uses a lot of fossil fuels. Fixing this issue is honestly very simple, by just adhering to 5 basic guidelines - only installing light fixtures where needed, directing it to where it needs to be, keeping the light levels only as bright as needed, controlling timing and only using light when needed, and keeping the color warmer where possible. Michelle has forged partnerships with the Audubon Society, educators at state parks, and Riverkeepers. 

• Michelle thinks deeply about her role in the world, and has been vegan for over a decade. She is powerful, creative, and humble.  She listens and feels and is willing to learn and change. I know because I know Michelle personally; I’ve only known her for a year, yet she has become one of my closest friends. 

• I’m including her in my “Climate Women” series as a departure from the previous women, who have all been authors in the book, “All We Can Save,” whom I don’t know personally. I continue to paint women authors from that book, but I’ve increasingly been wanting to also draw attention to all the amazing women climate activists I know who aren’t famous published authors in best-selling books (although Michelle has written plenty of thought-provoking academic articles, such as this one, and puts her thoughts “out there” in a variety of ways). I want to also highlight and celebrate the women I know personally who are connecting the dots and doing the hard work of climate action. 

• Follow Michelle’s lead, learn more about Starry Skies South: www.starryskiessouth.org, and join the DarkSky Advocate Network: darksky.org/who-we-are/advocates. 

• This is Sandra Fallon, a community activist in West Virginia engaged in public education, outreach, and advocacy for environmental and climate solutions. 

• I met Sandra in 2016 when I joined Citizens Climate Lobby. She led the Morgantown CCL group, and we joined the Citizens’ Climate Lobby WV cohort for the national annual lobby day in Washington, D.C. to advocate for a carbon fee and dividend policy. Sandra is also a board member of the WV Environmental Council. 

• We worked together to co-found West Virginia Climate Action in 2019, and to develop a "Public Service Announcement" competition for the West Virginia Climate Change Professional Development (WVCCPD) project from 2021-2023. When I moved away, Sandra ensured WVCCPD continued, volunteering many hours to recruit teachers and manage grants and communications.

• To me, Sandra's steady persistence and humble dedication embodies how real change happens in the world. She knows how much work it takes, and how rare the wins come, yet she keeps going, step by step. When I think of Sandra, I think of Margaret Mead's quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

I am fangirling over here! I am so grateful to adrienne maree brown for permission to share this painting I did of her as part of my Climate Women series. 

Her chapter in the “All We Can Save” anthology is called, “What is Emergent Strategy?” She describes emergence as a fractal way of existing, so that when we pay attention to the small and live into our true relationship with the immediate things in our world, it will have rippling effects to help create the larger world we want to see. That we can trust ourselves to allow our deepest longings to guide us, that we can trust our interconnections with the world to hold us when times are hard. To adapt to and mitigate the climate crisis, we will have to lean into what actually comes naturally as part of evolution, mutuality and community. She asks, “How can we, future ancestors, align ourselves with the most resilient practices of emergence as a species?” 

amb also references Octavia Butler, a science fiction writer inspired by the Black Power movement. Since originally reading this essay, the universe has brought me into contact with a variety of other works by amb, including, “We Will Not Cancel Us,” and I’m currently reading “Pleasure Activism.” I’ve listened to her interviews on We Can Do Hard Things and On Being, and I can see the ways that Octavia Butler inspires amb and many other climate activists and futurists. In her On Being interview, amb quotes Butler: “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” I was particularly struck by this quote, as I had just witnessed the birth of my friend's baby boy, Aster, which means, “star,” a new sun in the cosmos. 

I continue to be inspired by adrienne maree brown and the many thinkers who inspire her. I believe she is helping to guide us into a joyful and sustainable future. 

This is Claire Datnow, a former teacher and novelist who writes eco-adventure young adult books, whom I met at the Environmental Education Association of Alabama (EEAA) meeting this past February. Claire helped me learn more about the power of writing and storytelling. I know all too well how “the science alone is not enough” in helping people understand or act on climate change. Stories, with relatable characters and meaningful plots, can help us to understand climate at a personal level. Stories can provide us a roadmap for solutions and a vision for a better future. I realized I wanted to paint Claire as part of my “Climate Women” series, and I asked her to send me some reference photos. 

I finished the painting just in time for the June EEAA Board meeting. I called Claire the day before and said I’d like to buy one of her books, too, “The Grey Whale’s Lament,” and asked her to bring a copy. Since this is the second book in her Four Elements Trilogy, Claire said she’d also bring the first book, “Red Flag Warning.” When we saw each other in person at the Oak Mountain Interpretive Center, a perfect place to walk among the trees and breathe in the fresh humidity at the beginning of the southern summer, Claire signed her books for me. I showed her and her husband, Boris, the painting. She exclaimed, “Wow, no one’s ever painted my portrait before!” and, “I’m not quite sure it looks like me,” but Boris said he can see the resemblance. 

Since then, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading “Red Flag Warning." The characters are so endearing; I feel like I’m right there with them as they navigate fire from habitat destruction and excessive heat, deal with burns and injuries, bond with the animals in their region, and ultimately band together to inspire real change. I’m so glad to know Claire’s books are being used in classrooms, as I think they can inspire youth to see themselves as leaders in addressing the climate crisis. Her websites provide links to purchase her books and teacher guides for educators looking to implement related lesson plans. I highly recommend checking them out!

https://clairedatnow.com/ 

https://mediamint.net/