#renaturalization

-adding a bird bath or bee bath

-learn about the native plants in your area and how people used to use them (for lighting fires, cooking/baking, weaving or rope making, etc) so you feel more connected to your environment and have a good incentive to restore it

-ask your neighbors for cuttings of any native plants established in their garden and use those

-make a brush pile somewhere full of old foliage, mulch, wood chips, rocks, sticks, dead plant matter, etc etc for wild animal shelter

-you dont even need to plant native plants in the ground you can hang them up or keep them in pots too and its still beneficial

-use a rainwater barrel for your watering needs

-make a compost bin and throw in organic matter that can then be used to add more nutrients to your garden

-make piece with the idea of having creatures in and around your garden, dont put out traps or use bug sprays, humanely remove them from your house if you see them and dont plant things poisonous to native creatures

-add stickers or some sort of decoration to your windows so birds dont fly into them and call animal rescue services if they do

-buying or building a bat or bird roost and adding it to your backyard/windowsill/balcony

-you could even just stop maintaining your yard/lawn, see what noninvasive plants pop up and let them grow

-consider replacing your lawn with a native moss which doesn't need mowing and will need less fertilization/watering/interference

The Isarauen (Courtesy of Jan Antonin Kolar via Unsplash) By Daniel Dumas and Carolin Maertens 22 January 2021 The Urban Environments Initiative (UEI) held its third workshop entitled Re:Thinking the Urban on 22 January 2021. The online workshop brought UEI members from across the globe together for an in-depth analysis and discussion regarding two case studies of “spaces of living in…

It’s popular belief that facing unbearable information risks spreading absolute hopelessness. Not only is this (mostly) untrue, it protects the lifestyles and power structures of those who benefit most from our toxic systems.

While there may be a period of denial, grief, shame, or panic that comes with facing terrible truths and deep discomforts (about climate, about culture, about racism, about gender, about loss, about death), remember that these are just stops on the way to acceptance. Time continues, feelings and associations change, and eventually our worldview adjusts. From there, we can finally operate with different priorities. That’s where real change becomes possible. Not perfection, not guaranteed accuracy, not even necessarily survival. But facing the existential dread allows us to realign with life, which paves the way for changes in the future.

(Besides, when our identities open up beyond our tiny concepts of an individual self, “survival” also becomes a completely different possibility.)

BUT, in order to face the darkness (particularly while surrounded by so many voices and algorithms vying for our reactionary attention), it’s more important than ever to have support in those moments. Not comfort, but space, with some bumpers to help keep us out of the gutter.

Processing takes time, and making it through that time also requires being rooted in something deeper and bigger than our little individual selves in that moment. Our wider relationships extend our nervous system and help us process so much more, which makes our sense of separation from the living world extremely relevant.

When we’re vulnerable and shaken, it’s easy for someone to redirect our energy or for us to shy away from an honest response or introspection because it feels at odds with how we see ourselves, or how we may think others see us, or whatever feels “normal” to do.

This is our collective existential crisis. Whether we choose to bury our heads in the sand (business-as-usual); throw up our hands in disgust with our own “hopeless” species (apocalyptic thinking, which usually underestimates or completely ignores the role of colonization); or participate in an effortful and shift into a totally different way of engaging with the living world (realigning with life), we’re guaranteed discomfort. Every path forward will be deeply challenging and won’t reflect what most of us thought life would be when we were kids. It certainly isn’t reflected in the lives our current systems are telling us to live. The messages our bodies are giving us don’t align with the things our economy and politics are telling us to prioritize.

So if none of it feels good, there’s no reason not to choose the discomfort that aligns with life.

I call the process of leaning into these adjustments “re-naturalization,” and it will take lifetimes. That’s how you know it’s the real deal. No false promises, no shortcuts, just The Work. And again, when our identities open up beyond our tiny concepts of an individual self, the idea of only making choices based on the personal effects in our very limited lifetime is truly absurd.

...Criminal, even. Violent. Irresponsible. And so, so sad.

Re:Thinking the Urban: UEI Workshop Report

The Isarauen (Courtesy of Jan Antonin Kolar via Unsplash) By Daniel Dumas and Carolin Maertens 22 January 2021 The Urban Environments Initiative (UEI) held its third workshop entitled Re:Thinking the Urban on 22 January 2021. The online workshop brought UEI members from across the globe together for an in-depth analysis and discussion regarding two case studies of “spaces of living in…

Paris, Billancourt Park, Agence Ter, 2017