Reflections from Berlin
Revisiting pivotal moments and embracing transformative visions for our future
Dear Friends,
I write to you from Berlin, which as you may know has had a pivotal place in my life. This is the first time I’ve been back since the summer of 2022, when I started a practice of conversational reading and journaling, about which I wrote here. That summer I also communed with my younger self who spent most of the 80s, the last decade of the Berlin Wall, in this city which was then split into two.
To be alive in those years was to experience the unraveling of civilizational tangles and traumas that had felt like the shape of forever. No one saw the demise of the Wall coming, even amidst unprecedented chaos, risk, daring, and danger. I was deeply imprinted by the clarity I felt afterwards, that there is more happening at any given moment that we do not see, and more change possible than we can begin to imagine. Our imaginations, this powerful capacity we humans have to literally summon new realities into being, did not reach far enough for what was within our grasp.
The tangles and traumas of our time are existential in deep ways. Yet even as I write, I’m thrilling to two new books I’ve been waiting to see released into the world for years. They look the gravity of what is before us full in the face — one with regard to our near-global civic and political fracture, the other on the distress of our beautiful natural world. And they reveal agency that is in fact close at hand if we choose to see and claim it, redemptive and life-giving.
John Paul Lederach has released A Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War. He is, as you may know, a treasured teacher and dear friend to me and On Being. He has long been a legend in the field of global conflict transformation and a singular presence as societies have transitioned away from violence — in Northern Ireland, Colombia, Nepal, South Africa. This little book is a singular mix of wise and poetic and pragmatic and potent.
Meanwhile the visionary marine biologist and esteemed On Being friend Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, has published What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. As a scientist Ayana knows the full dimensions of what we’re facing. But/And she would infuse our well-told narrative of climate catastrophe with a muscular hope and courage. This is, in my mind, the reset we need — and that we owe to coming generations of humanity and to our magnificent natural world.
More in October from me.
Sending love until then,
Krista
A Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War, by John Paul Lederach, is available digitally as an ebook via Amazon Kindle or a free PDF download on John Paul's website.
Join Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on her joyful tour celebrating her newly published book What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures. getitright.earth/tour.
In the World
For Listening and Watching
Today: When We Love, We Win: Compassionate Activism for November and Beyond. Saturday, September 21, 10 am PDT/1 pm EDT.
Krista joins a beautiful group of Buddhist, mindfulness, and civic leaders in a 90-minute online exploration of how we can move our divided country forward with love and compassion towards the true democracy that is possible. Krista will offer remarks, as will Tara Brach, Van Jones, Valerie Kaur, Jack Kornfield, Lyla June Johnston, and more. The event is free to attend; register at bit.ly/WeLoveWeWin
October ….if you’re in Chicago: Krista talks life and poetry live with the great Joan Baez at the Chicago Humanities Festival.
In Production: Poetry Unbound!
A new season is underway AND a new Poetry Unbound book (pre-order here) is on its way in the New Year. Stay tuned to this space and subscribe to Padraig’s Substack newsletter
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You help keep me grounded
Thank you for your words and durable hope.