3rd Thursdays Belonging Circle: Stillness of Listening in a climate of urgency and uncertainty
You belong here if you —
you're an empathetic or highly sensitive person (HSP)
you're having trouble adjusting to the authoritarian regime
you are angry about the climate crisis and social injustices
you are an environmental studies professional or student
your climate activism is burning you out
your daily life is busy, that you don't have time to think about the climate / poly crisis
you hate meditating
Belonging Circles for Resilience are a warm feeling of comfort, usually cathartic, people are honest, and yet, we find gratitude and joy.
Special Event
In person, amongst a distracting environment, in public. Practice your stillness of focus and connection at Cascadia Stack's fundraising night at Burgerville for our May event called Cascadia Day. Get some food and a shake, then join us in the parking lot with your camping chair and pretend like the disruptions of a drive thru parking lot represents the chaos and uncertainty of our current times.
Experience Connection
Focus on a poem, resonate with an article you've read that communicates the realities of 2026, but yet revive hope and connecting with people. Despite the feelings of urgency and fear, the constant shock, instability now and the immediate future — experience in person, attuned gratitude for worried people just like you.
Foster the Stillness of Listening
Slow down. Pause. Notice where your breath is coming from. What do you see in this photo? The act of noticing details is helpful to calm overwhelm.
What to expect
Establish group agreements and safety
Hear about building personal resilience
Practice our personal resilience skills
A volunteer reads mood setting introduction
Individual sharing, everyone has an opportunity
Afterwards, go around the circle for individual follow-up reflections to add to what you originally shared (double-dips are time dependent)
Practice skills again
Closing reading or additional facilitator input
Resource sharing by the Circle members to build hope. Share your announcements about protests, resistance trainings, mutual aid networks, etc.
A peer support circle, share or just observe.
"The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has--even if we don't quite know it yet." Bill McKibben, founder of 350 .org and Third Act.
The Big Picture. Why should we acknowledge our feelings about the myriad social threats and the changing climate?
_The short answer: To avoid burnout. To find our strength. To put on our oxygen mask before attempting to help others._
What is the texture of the objects in this image?
Belonging Circles
A safe space to process feelings about the uncertainties we face here in the Cascadian Pacific Northwest in the age of the climate crisis.
This section contains some important additional notes about what to expect during our time together.
Belonging Circles are intended to be a casual and relaxed setting for each participant to share their unique perspective, experiences, thoughts, and feelings about the climate crisis and the overall state of the world as the poly crisis becomes apparent. This is a space free of educating or persuading to any particular view or course of action. We will take turns deeply listening to one other and allow moments of silence for deepening as it naturally arises.
In order to hold a space where everyone can feel as safe as possible to share deeply, it’s useful to listen without any cross talking. Cross talking can be understood as a back and forth dialogue, answering questions, opinion or advice-giving, and commenting of any kind upon what has been previously shared.
The pause between shares can be used as an opportunity to notice if thoughts arise around a shared experience. Our natural impulses to give advice, opinions, share a resource, to comfort or console, etc. is highly discouraged and not what we are going for here, we should strive to refrain from these habitual impulses.
For immediate distress, the number to text or call is 9 8 8.
We hope to see you. Subscribe to this calendar to be informed of other Belonging Circles, facilitated by other Climate Moxies.
Renee Lertzman
A drop in Circle sample.
Normally, Belonging Circles are held in a private space or online. This special event location is really a metaphor for the constant, shocking news cycle right now. We consider this a sample Belonging Circle, due to its outdoor, distracting location.
See more about Cascadia Stack here: https://cascadisastack.org