20th April. Interviews: Vivien Langford    Podcast: Andy Britt

HOLDING A BRAVE SPACE and EMPATHY CAFE

GUESTS

Rita Gyorrfy- The Empathy Cafe. 

Raven Karin Steiniger - Deep Ecology and XR Regenerative Culture

Rev Glen Loughry - Indigenous leader, minister and artist.

Professor Helen Berry- Expert in public mental health during climate catastrophe

Dr Sebastian Rosenberg - ANU Centre for Mental Health Research

Kavisha Mazzella - Italian songs

The pandemic has shown that a crisis can bring us together or push us apart. These interviews were recorded when the bushfires were still front of mind. At the people's climate assembly in Canberra with bushfire smoke billowing on the horizon, we heard about the  mental suffering of victims and firefighters as well as how resilience was sustained and supported.

Helen Berry talks about community building as the foundation for Mental health.She says "people need to be encouraged in preparation for what is actually happening " not in denial. Checkout her article about how it can be done: The pearl in the oyster: climate change as a mental health opportunity.

Sebastian Rosenberg says that pro active outreach to vulnerable people is essential. He describes the Christchurch Earthquake response as his shining example of reaching out effectively.

Rev Glen Loughry is a Wiradjeri man and artist. He says we live in a reciprocal relationship with the land. If songlines are interrupted by a mine for example, indigenous knowledge transmission is ruptured. We cut the lands capacity to talk to us leading to dysfunction. He was speaking at an ARRCC forum on the Bushfires and the Climate Crisis at St Michael's Uniting church in Melbourne.

Extinction Rebellion understands that activism is tough.People burn out, but in a regenerative culture emotional support is there for the asking.

Raven learned about Deep Ecology from Joanna Macy and John Seed. I was moved in her workshop at how many young people were particularly grief stricken by the death of so many animals in the fires. You can't just move on from that. Raven talks about creating a sacred space where we can confront our fears,anger and grief to build a stronger community. The Shambhala  Warrior story  shows how we can dismantle the mind made weapons that are destroying our biosphere just as we can dismantle the fossil fuelled infrastructure.The tools are insight and compassion.

Joanna Macy writes in Active Hope,  " There is no such thing as a self made person. When floods or fires sweep away our illusions of self sufficiency we are reminded how much we need each other. How much we depend not only on people but on the web of life......we treat the rest of life with a different kind of respect when we consider that without it, we wouldn't be here at all." The pandemic has only made these ideas more dramatic.

Rita Gyorrfy tells us about non violent communication. When exhausted fire fighters or people who have lost everything cannot reach out, she gives us ideas about how to reach in.

Her empathy cafes have gone on line since we spoke and she is building Eco resilient communities wherever she goes. She says " hearing the story of the " other" affects and heals our own story. 

Martin Luther King's comment from prison in BirminghamAlabama, only has more resonance today as Corona Consciousness touches us all.

" We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one affects all directly".