Come Together with David Baum

As the site manager for a tiny-house village in Seattle, Andrew Constantino is responsible for the welfare of 65 homeless people. Now, the pandemic has shut down many of the services that homeless people rely on for their survival.

Alexandra Grace Derwen (aka Alexandra Wilson) caught the coronavirus disease on a pilgrimage in Spain. She was then seriously ill for five days, during which she felt she might die. Listen to her recount her conversation with the virus.

In the face of global cataclysm, Peter Wicks combines a sharp intellect, deep feelings, and a philosophical outlook to discuss how grief leads to compassion.

Dr. Aimee Maxwell gives specific and useful advice about how to sleep well, by restoring the body's natural harmony with the rhythms of the day.

André S. Clements is a visual artist who gives his creative energy to Extinction Rebellion (XR), in South Africa. XR is famous for civil disobedience, but at a deeper level it's about creating new ways to distribute power in society.

From Australia, Aimee Maxwell – a practicing psychologist and a Deep Adaptation moderator – provides professional tips to cope with stress, and personal contemplations on the meaning of the catastrophic bushfires in her country.

Phoebe Barnard is a conservation scientist, fully aware of the dangers posed by climate change and biodiversity loss. In this interview, she shares her optimism that human beings can act fearlessly to save the world.

Jane Dwinell is a fountain of wisdom about living independently, in harmony with nature. She has been living off the grid since the 1970s. In this interview, she shares her wisdom about homesteading and her thoughts about Deep Adaptation.

As the leader of a homeless encampment in Seattle, Andrew Constantino has a front-row seat in the "underworld" which accompanies our fossil-fueled "golden shining empire."

When I first saw the phrase "Ok, boomer!" pop up on the Positive Deep Adaptation Facebook group, I admit I was offended. I felt like I was being blamed for something I didn't do, and that my entire life experience was being dismissed with a snarky epithet.

As a moderator of the group, I concluded that to call someone a "boomer" like that was an insult, and thus forbidden by the rules. I ended comments on the thread, and muted the writer for a day. (Spoiler: That didn't solve the problem!)

It was Ben Zolno who contacted me privately to say he was leaving the group, with this message:

"No one is putting responsibility on a single age cohort. That's your emotions fogging you. The post was saying that kids see a huge portion of it is on the boomer generation. That's just factually true. And they're in pain, and the response of this group was, 'Shut up, you're hurting my ears,' and it was rewarded."

My eyes were opened! "Ok, boomer" is not rational statement (or not only so), it is an emotional expression. The question is not: How can we older people justify our actions in the face of sarcastic criticism? The question is: How can we, as compassionate elders, respond with empathy to this expression of pain and suffering from our younger kindred spirits?

I felt the need to learn more about how younger people actually think and feel about the catastrophe we face, and about how the Deep Adaptation group is handling it. This interview with Ben Zolno and his partner Alina Huff is my first attempt to begin that conversation.

(Further spoiler: Ben rejoined the group!)