Earth Equity News

Starhawk Talks about Grief, Activism, Permaculture and More. By Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture, July 25, 2008. "The day after Starhawk's talk in Totnes [California], she visited my house so that we could do a short interview... [which] ranged across Transition work, managing grief, activism, permaculture and much more… RH: You spoke last night about the need to create a space for people to grieve for the loss of their cars, for the loss of their luxuries and so on, what do you think that facilitating the expression of that grief would look like on a broader societal scale? ... Starhawk: ...Often, as environmentalists, we tend to be extremely judgmental about people -- 'Oh they're just attached to their cars' -- and to be able to acknowledge that it is a loss, it's a loss of our dreams, of our expectations, a loss of a certain kind of personal comfort, freedom and convenience, for some people it will be a real hardship. Once we leave space for that grief, we can go through it... On previous trips to Britain I have rented a car to get around, and this time I thought 'I can't do that, y'know?'... The state of the world, I just can't really justify it, so I've been taking the train and going OK, it is a loss in the sense that I can't drive along listening to BBC Radio 4 and stopping at little teashops here and there, but in another sense there are also gains I didn't expect. It is actually much more pleasant to sit on the train and not have to worry about driving... So, once we move through the grief, you start to see there are other benefits... but if we are just lecturing to people... they are probably going to cling [more] tightly to the things they have and... know."