In a world that feels like it’s unraveling, we often feel a desperate urge to "fix" our grief or solve the climate crisis single-handedly. But what if the work of this moment isn't about fixing, but about naming?

In this episode, Autumn Brown sits down with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner, a climate change chaplain who specializes in accompanying people through the "unfixable." Together, they explore the sacred power of naming our feelings, the importance of moving through endings, and how spiritual leadership is less about providing answers and more about the courage to hold one another through uncertainty.

GROUNDING PRACTICE (Starts at 01:45)

We begin with a reading of the poem "Anthropocene Pastoral" by Catherine Pierce, read by the poet herself. This grounding practice invites us to look directly at the changing world and find our breath amid beauty and loss.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Power of Naming: Naming our climate grief is not a wall; it is a door. When we name what is true, we move from isolation into a shared reality.
• Survival as Legacy: We are all here because our ancestors survived "the end of the world" in various ways. We carry the capacity to move through endings and emerge changed but whole.
• Tending vs. Yelling: Moving away from "telling, yelling, and selling" climate alarmism toward "tending, mending, and befriending" our communities.
• Accompanying vs. Fixing: Spiritual leadership involves "walking with" people in their distress rather than trying to resolve the distress for them.

NEXT STEPS & PRACTICES

• Radical Honesty: Identify one climate-related grief you’ve been carrying. Share it with a friend or write it down. Notice how naming it shifts your relationship to the feeling.
• Ancestral Resilience: Reflect on an "ending" your ancestors survived. What qualities allowed them to come out on the other side?
• Ministry of Presence: Practice the sacred act of accompaniment. Listen to someone’s climate fears without offering solutions or "silver linings."

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• The BTS Center: https://thebtscenter.org
• Exploring Apocolypse with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner: exploringapocalypse.com
• Catherine Pierce (Poet): https://catherinepiercepoet.com
• "Anthropocene Pastoral" (Poem): https://poets.org/poem/anthropocene-pastoral
• Anthropocene Pastoral Film (Clare Börsch): https://vimeo.com/1059000753
• How to Survive the End of the World Podcast: https://endoftheworldshow.org

CONNECT WITH US

What reflections are surfacing for you? We’d love to hear from you.

• Email: podcast@thebtscenter.org
• Voice Message: 207-200-6986
• Video Episodes: Search "The BTS Center" on YouTube.com

BLESSING

May you know that you are loved, that you are worthy of love, just as you are. And may you know that you are capable of great love.