Every day as I look for content to "tweet", I come across tons of articles on what's going on with ecology, climate change, environment, collapse of species. Last week I attended the ecological film fest in Nevada City, CA, and must have seen 20 documentaries about ecology and the environment over 3 days. It all gets to be a bit much when I let my defenses down and really consider and let it sink in.

However, I am continually buoyed up by the opinion/advice of Jerome Bernstein (Jungian analyst, author of "Living in the Borderlands") who suggests we humans are critical to the earth and we need to be in reciprocal relationship with nature rather than simply feeling shame and guilt for what humanity as a whole is doing.

The day I really heard him say that, something shifted in me and I began to believe it. It was then that the symptoms which I believe were manifesting through me about what's happening to the earth (Bernstein says Borderlanders don't feel ABOUT what's happening to the earth, they FEEL it!) began to have real meaning and became something new and significant.

I have, for years, been especially affected by "collapse"--that is, the total devastation and loss of cultures, traditions, heritage, language, or species. I have done fieldwork on the Classic Maya whose advanced culture vanished over the course of about 50 years after flourishing for well over a thousand--maybe even two thousand. I wrote my master's thesis on the symbolism of Colony Collapse Disorder, the mass vanishing of the bees.Now bats and birds are following, along with many other species.I spent much of last summer in New Mexico learning much about how colonization devastated many of the earth-based First peoples there. I have been personally horrified by what's happening at Tar Sands in Canada and the loss of forest/land in that area. The oil spill in the Gulf has ensured that regions will probably never recover in our lifetime. Ah, I could go on.

All this to say, I suspect many of you who have joined this group are similarly affected. I wonder--what particular issues have most affected YOU? Would you be willing to take a few minutes and just write a paragraph or two about what affects your psyche the most? I think it would do us all good to feel we are in good company in our grieving and allow us to better hold and witness what is happening to our beautiful planet.