Dearest Friends,

Thank you for your presences and your participation in our most recent gathering.

In our last session, we began a short series of explorations on the emotions that constitute our experiences of ecological grief. Like I shared in the reflections that I gave, three emotions that are particularly prominent in people who are grieving ecological losses are anger, anxiety and guilt. We then spent the remainder of our time together focusing on anger, drawing on the work of the American emotions researcher Karla McLaren.

According to Ms. McLaren, anger is not the inherently destructive emotion that many people take it to be. The role it plays in our lives is to help us protect what we value and establish and maintain boundaries. When we work skillfully with our anger, it becomes a powerfully ally for preventing or correcting harm; maintaining social justice and harmony; and upholding personal dignity and integrity.

Hence, from Ms. McLaren’s perspective, the anger, the fury and the rage we feel over ecological and social injustices are energies that we can marshal in service of the things that we value most. Rather than fearing, suppressing or vilifying our anger, we can ask ourselves these questions in its presence instead: What is it that I value? What is that needs to be protected right now?

SUGGESTED PRACTICE:

Sit quietly and take a few moments to attend to your breath. Then recall an instance when you acted unskillfully out of anger. With tenderness and compassion towards yourself, reflect on how your words and actions caused hurt, harm or injury in that situation.

Then recall another instance when you acted skillfully on behalf of your anger. With interest and curiosity, reflect on how your words and actions averted, corrected or reduced hurt, harm or injury in that situation.

Holding both situations in spacious awareness, reflect on the differences between them. What helped you act skillfully in the second situation? Moving forward, what teachings, practices and resources can support you in working with your anger as a powerful ally?

RECOMMENDED POEM:

Marge Piercy’s A Just Anger

REFLECTION PROMPTS:

1. In what ways have you expressed your anger unskillfully in relation to what you value? How has the lack of skill here caused suffering for you and others?
2. In what ways have you expressed your anger skillfully in relation to what you value? How has the skill here alleviated your suffering and those of others?
3. How can you lean on your anger as a powerful ally to protect what you cherish most about our precious world?