Episode 43: Beauty as Ballast, Grief as Guide, Body as Sacred Land (with Erin Geesaman Rabke and Leilani Navar)

I’m so happy to share this conversation with you. It’s between me and my dear friend, Erin Geesaman Rabke, about sustaining our tender hearts and our dedication to showing up for the web of life on Earth, through all the heartbreak, overwhelm, and discouragement that can happen when we care deeply about our world.
We talk about taking beauty as ballast, turning to our grief as a guide, and attending to our bodies as sacred landscapes. We share the “five vows of the great turning,” or the “five commitments of active hope,” and how they help us orient, steer, stay steady, and keep wholeheartedly, imperfectly carrying on.



Read more about our upcoming workshops on 3 Sundays in November: Beauty as Ballast, Grief as Guide, and Body as Sacred Land.
These workshops will offer a nourishing refuge of deep care, exquisite experiential support, and potent practices for like-hearted companions who care deeply about our world.
You can join us for 1, 2, or all 3!
Click Play below to hear our conversation:
The Five Vows of the Great Turning
(this is one version we like, feel free to adapt them to your truest commitments)
I vow to myself and each of you:
To commit myself daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings.
To live on Earth more lightly, less violently, and more lovingly in the food, products and energy I consume, and my relationships with myself and with others.
To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future beings, and my siblings of all species.
To support you in your work for the world and to ask for help when I need it.
To pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.
More links to explore:
Connect with Erin Geesaman Rabke and her husband, Carl Rabke, here: Embodiment Matters
Heather Wylie’s op-ed about kayaking the LA River: LA Times Op-Ed
Beloved, award-winning author Kathleen Dean Moore: River Walking
Leilani’s conversation with Joe Brewer, of the Design School for Regenerating Earth: Turning Season Episode 33
Some poetry by Wendell Berry: The Poetry Foundation
Dr. Rick Hanson on “Velcro for the Bad, Teflon for the Good”: Dr. Rick Hanson
Joanna Macy and the Work that Reconnects: workthatreconnects.org