RESEARCH-RELATED: 

 

💡I am looking forward to presenting at the International Conference on Environmental Mindfulness in Rome in September.

Currently thinking about this study on Environmental Behavior.

Title: Does Mindfulness Mediate the Relationship Between Emotion Regulation and Pro-Environmental Behaviors? (2024) 

SPOILER: Yes, but there are gender differences.

 

💡(Re)reading the anthopological perspective of Tim Ingold. (I have always loved his ¨wayfarer¨ concept and his famous quote: ¨Anthropology is philosophy with the people in.¨) 

 

💡Reading recent environmental psychology papers, including some intriguing research by Dr. Eleanor Ratcliffe, who asks, ¨How do environments help people recover, restore, and flourish?¨  

 

💡Revisiting the decades-old ideas of Rachel & Stephen Kaplan´s Attention Restoration Theory (ART) regarding environments that restore directed attention, and some updated perspectives on it.

 

💡Cheering the Radical Attention Movement and their concepts of human fracking, attention sanctuaries, cognitive liberty, and attention activism to ¨re-enchant a distracted world¨...YES. 

 

💡Exploring more deeply the subjects of solastalgia (the distress of environmental impacts, or ¨feeling homesick while still at home¨) and anticipatory nostalgia (the emotional experience of missing aspects of the present before they are lost) through the work of Glenn Albrecht, Krystine Batcho and Simran Shikh, as well as Constantine Sedikides and Tim Wildschut.

 

💡Considering this research about imaginaries and imagination by Natàlia Cantó-Milà and Swen Seebach.

 

💡Learning more about Lisa Suckert´s work related to sociological perspectives on imagined futures. 

 

RIGHT HERE IN THE NETHERLANDS: 

 

💡 Intrigued by the possibilities when including Global South imaginaries as described by Dr. Joost Vervoort (et al) at Utrecht University. 

 

💡Diving into everything related to longing, including the work of Dutch organizational psychologist Susanne Scheibe of University of Groningen. Especially intrigued by this take on Sehnsucht or ¨life longings¨

 

💡Talking about contemplative ecology with my new friend (and thoughtful researcher) Evanne Nowak. When we learned we will both be speaking at the International Conference on Environmental Mindfulness in Rome in September, we met for coffee here in Amsterdam. We´re excited for the conference!

 

💡Enjoyed an inspiring meet-up with transformation design leader Carola Verschoor, talking about Transforming Worlds, all things transformational, and our shared birthday.

 

💡Spending time with my brother-in-law and his lovely wife, Noriko from Japan. They are visiting for several weeks and exploring The Netherlands. He was the one who hired me to come to Japan to teach English at his school in 1983 when I was a new college grad searching for a job in Oregon during the recession. And he introduced me to his brother, now my husband, who grew up just ten miles from my tiny hometown! 

 

READING: 

 

💡Richard Powers´ sweeping and wonder-full novel, Playground

I loved his book, The Overstory, about forests. This one makes an absolute star of our oceans.

This NPR podcast interview of Powers by Ari Shapiro is excellent.

 

💡The free online courses and resources available on All Things Urban.

I just missed the first community meet-up here in Amsterdam, but look forward to getting involved and participating in the next one!

 

💡Celebrating this post by group-hang guru Priya Parker called 50 Ways To Gather Without Breaking the Bank.

Her forthcoming book, The Art of Fighting, is about how to practice disagreeing with each other in low-stakes ways. 

 

💡 The themed-reading list on the Rebel Library website offers both fiction and non-fiction in a range of genres related to our predicament. I have been scanning the categories to find the books I missed.

 

💡This Substack post by Dr. Jean Renouf titled Urban Collapse: What Cities Teach Us When Systems Fail. I especially appreciate the inclusion of Sarajevo and the unflagging determination of the people to meet in basements to continue with education, music, and theater despite the very real risk of being hit by snipers.

 

💡One of the best things about speaking at the World Adaptation Forum in Budapest in April was swapping asides during the presentations as I sat next to triple-scientist, fabulous gardener, and provocatively insightful author George Tsakraklides. 

I feel like I am sitting next to him again as I read his latest book, The Biology of Collapse: Lessons From Nature On Growth, Power, Extinction, and Rebirth. It is not for those brand new to the concept of collapse, but what a riveting and unblinking assessment written in a science-informed but delightfully George-y voice. Brilliant!

 

💡 Currently reading: The Power of Nature: Archaeology and Human-Environmental Dynamics, edited by Monica L. Smith. Pretty dense reading, but great for context.

 

WATCHING/VIEWING:

 

💡Christopher Nolan's masterful film, The Odyssey. The final two sentences keep coming back to me:  "Civilization will rise again. Our mistakes will be forgotten."

 

💡This video from Plantist.org shook me by the shoulders. and made me re-commit to a vegan diet. (If we all did this, we could free up land around the world matching the true size of Africa for growing food.) 

 

💡I was mesmerized by this exhibition of the work of the notoriously rebellious Dutch painter Jan Cremer at the Museum de Fundatie in the utterly charming small city of Zwolle, Netherlands (an hour by train from Amsterdam). I loved reading his bodacious claims, seeing into his quirky creative process, and being delighted by the surprisingly playful pieces among the darker, more brooding examples of his work.

 

💡At the Kunsthal in Rotterdam I loved the Flowers Forever exhibit. There was also a delightful black-and-white photo series of New York in the 30s-70s by photographer Helen Leavitt and a colorful collection of Japanese kites called Mr. Goodman, The Kiteman 

That gives you a general idea of what´s swirling in my brain. 

What´s going on in yours?  

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