Hope: A Lesson from the Birds
By Jess Beebe
Birds are wonderful ambassadors for the beauty of the world. As a member of the GGBA community, you are already charmed by the grace of flight, the miracle of migration, the curiosity in an avian eye. Yet, as with any great love, once we fall for birds, our hearts can be troubled and even broken. We hear how climate change and habitat loss are harming birds, and we feel a deep distress that we are losing something we love and are powerless to help. To protect ourselves, our psyche may throw a blanket of numbness over the anxiety, grief, or anger we feel. We focus on everyday tasks and ignore the rumble of unease.
The truth behind the fog of protective denial may feel too heavy to face. Any action we take may seem hopeless given the enormity of the problem. What are we to do? Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects offers us a way forward. Based in Buddhism, deep ecology, and systems theory, the work is arranged in a spiral of four stages: grounding in gratitude, honoring our pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and going forth. We can move through the spiral as often as we like to reconnect with what Macy calls “active hope”—a clear-eyed determination to engage in healing the world.
Grounding in gratitude
The first time I grasped what Macy means by gratitude, I was listening to the dawn chorus on an April morning in Point Reyes. Birdsong burst from every tree, and in an instant, I understood gladness to be the animating force of the universe: life loving life. It is our birthright as humans to feel this joy and vitality too.
Our experience of gladness helps us notice what is truly satisfying—not consuming luxuries, but enjoying the outdoors and relaxing with family and friends—and feel an easy gratitude that transcends the alienating transactionality of modern life and the accompanying sense that we are always in debt. It’s fortunate that we have birdsong to remind us every morning of what really matters: the elemental joy of belonging in the living world. We return to gratitude as the foundation of our resilience and commitment to life.
Honoring our pain
It’s painful to contemplate the loss of a species that defines home, as the Oak titmouse does for me. When I imagine springtime without that zerpeet, zerpeet, zerpeet, I want to crawl back under the blanket of denial. When I read that Pine siskins have moved their range north by about 250 miles in the past 40 years to keep up with their food sources, I feel a prickle of anxiety about the future availability of my own favorite foods, along with a painful awareness that in some parts of the world, climate change is already leading to crop failure and driving people off their land into an unwelcoming future. And while my fear and grief are easy for me to notice, I can barely access my rage at the people who have decided again and again to pursue profit even when it means destroying the places and creatures who awe me with their complexity and beauty.
According to Macy, any path to hope must pass through an honest reckoning with our painful emotions. If we allow ourselves to feel the emotions we fear most, we find that we are still alive on the other side; the birds are still singing, life is still loving life. Our pain does not destroy us, nor does it obliterate the gladness. The blanket of denial that numbs us to pain muffles our happiness, too; when we open ourselves to painful feelings, we can also feel a deeper joy. Our pain is no longer an obstacle to action, and we know we are strong enough to do what’s required.
Not only that, but when we acknowledge our grief, fear, and anger, we are less likely to unintentionally perpetuate harm by acting from unexamined emotions. When motivated by love and care rather than fear and anger, our efforts on behalf of birds and other living beings can be more effective in creating the future we desire.
The catch is, it’s not enough to read about or think about our pain; we must actually engage with it emotionally. Macy suggests writing in response to the prompt “When I see what is happening to the world, what concerns me most is….” We can also pair up with a friend and take turns listening to each other speak from that same prompt. “The Work That Reconnects” offers group practices in which we witness each other as we express our emotions about the state of the world, building a sense of community in the process.
Seeing with new eyes
Reckoning with our pain is a passage, and we emerge changed. We realize that a clearcut forest or a dead zone in the ocean is painful to us precisely because we are interconnected with all life on Earth. Harm to the living world is harm to us; we are not separate. With our new eyes, we can take a longer view of time and a more collaborative view of power.
It’s easy to get discouraged by an individualistic, heroic notion of change: If I’m not Bill McKibben or Greta Thunberg, what can I possibly do that will make a difference? The Work That Reconnects offers a nuanced theory of change based on the Buddhist notion of continuation. Every action has consequences that reverberate forever; reality is made up entirely of the echoes of all that has happened before. Every action we take in the present contributes to the emerging future. Everything we do makes a difference. This is true both for worse and for better.
One simple action can have effects far beyond what we imagine. The Oak Titmouse at the feeder today, might be the offspring of one who fledged from the nest box we put up several years ago when our neighbor took down an old tree that had been a titmouse favorite. We come to realize and accept that we will never know the consequences of most of our actions. Who knows how many descendants this lucky titmouse might have and how that might affect the resilience of the local population under the stresses of a changing climate? And we learn how getting out in the world and engaging with people (and birds!) creates more opportunities to collaborate and gives our actions a longer, wider echo.
Going forth
I’ve heard it said that the Earth would be better off without us humans. But the problem is not human nature, it’s our current unsustainable lifeways. Indigenous wisdom teaches us that sustainable living is possible and that humans belong in the landscape; our role is to be stewards. The goal is not to avoid having any impact at all; it is to leave a legacy of regeneration rather than one of destruction – that is, to practice reciprocity.
So, how do we find our place in the healing of the world? Each of us has a unique contribution to make, which will ripple outward into the ever-emerging future. All of us are needed. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson suggests that we draw our own climate action Venn diagram, looking for the intersection of what brings us joy, what we are good at, and what work needs doing. For those of us who love birds and enjoy being outdoors, habitat restoration is an appealing choice. Healthy ecosystems sequester more carbon, and their species are more resilient. As Corinna Gould, tribal spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan in the East Bay, pointed out in a 2023 Bioneers forum, gardening with native plants is one way to rematriate the land.
The climate action suggestions we hear most often – taking public transit, insulating the attic, eating less meat, writing to our elected representatives – are all steps in the right direction, yet they can strike us as inadequate to the challenges at hand. There’s an uncomfortable sense of invalidation that comes from being invited to respond to an existential threat by, say, recycling or changing our light bulbs. So it can be empowering to recognize that how we move through the world matters as much as what we do. When we act from our values of love and care, we know we are helping to heal the world, whatever we are doing in that moment.
Ultimately, our mindset may be what matters most. Despair is not inevitable; it’s the product of a particular understanding and interpretation. Climate scientist Michael Mann suggests despair may be promoted by the same fossil-fuel-funded strategists who brought us denial and delay, and it is no more rational than hope. We already know what to do to address climate change, and we have the knowledge and technologies required. Worldwide, the majority of people are concerned about climate change and want their government to do more about it. Cynicism may seem sophisticated, but it’s actually a defensive stance that dodges responsibility, squanders opportunities, and relinquishes power.
With so much at stake, why not practice Macy’s “active hope” or Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac’s “stubborn optimism”? We don’t have to feel hopeful before we can act. Often action comes first, and a feeling of hopefulness follows. As David Orr says, “hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” We act to protect the planet that is our only home and the birds who teach us to love it, and we reconnect with the gladness that powers it all.
Jess Beebe serves on the Golden Gate Bird Alliance Board of Directors and chairs the GGBA Climate Committee. She is a certified California Naturalist and Climate Steward. With Gwen Rino, Jess co-facilitates occasional study groups and workshops in the Work That Reconnects.