Same Ol' Shit. Different Day.
grief as a climate crisis intervention
I woke up on the other side of a new year feeling the sweet relief of another day “off” and the gradually pounding angst of needing to make something of this transition.
I read that there is really no deep ancestral significance to declaring January first the first day of a new revolution around the sun for all of us. And while my April birthday and my Chinese friend’s traditions reign supreme when it comes to my personal new year celebrations, I’ve decided to make the first day of January less about a reset and more about letting go.
2025 stretched my heart and my capacity. It showed me that even though I’ve fought for stability and financial security my whole life, one more season of lack wouldn’t actually kill me. It showed me who my real friends are. Who I can trust and who I absolutely cannot. It cracked open the groundwork I laid and helped me excavate past lovers and trauma from my womb. It showed me that I can emerge from battles both scathed and whole.
I learned how to meditate last year after a 10‑day Vipassana sit, which honestly was the highlight of my year because it encapsulated everything I needed to eke out from a year that was so tightly packed. It was the high‑pitched sound of air leaving my spiritual body so that I could contain myself and my lessons more securely. Last year made me more dense. And I don’t resent that. There is this general wellness aspiration to be light, but how can I float among the rubble that this concentrated amount of time has produced…and the carnage it has left in its wake? I am honored to be heavy during uncertain times. I am honored by my humanity.
If one short year can hold this much death and rebirth, what does it mean to live in an era where whole ecosystems, cities, and futures are dying in real time? When I say I am honored to be heavy, I mean I am honored to feel any of this at all—my own losses, and the slow, public death of the only home we have. Climate grief is not a metaphor for me; it sits in my chest right next to the rent, the restlessness, the clients, the deadlines.
In December, I picked up a love and set it down two weeks later. It felt like a pure love. One I’ve honestly never known. Spending hours on the phone admiring the spark in our eyes: sparks we were convinced had faded with age and time and just getting by. This love humored me and satiated me. This love scared me and revealed how much healing I’ve amassed and how much more healing I have yet to attain. I set the love down because the circumstances and timing were not right. And I’m proud of myself for not clinging to a fantasy or settling into a relationship that didn’t serve my full reality and potential. I miss it though. And so I grieve it.
I’m grieving a lot these days and sometimes that grief bleeds into itself, creating different hues of black. I’m reminded of Betye Saar and Kerry James Marshall and Kara Walker and Amy Sherald and the ways they employ this grayscale to mold universes of us within their works. I think of grief in that way: by itself it is a uniform color. But with support, it comes from behind canvases showing us new possibilities of beauty and the sublime. How lucky are we then to be the vessels through which this grief experience comes to life? How lucky are we to experience deaths?
We are not just losing people and relationships. We are losing coastlines, languages, burial grounds, salmon runs, snow seasons—entire ways of knowing the world that Indigenous communities have tended for generations. For many peoples, when the land is hurting or changed, it is not just “nature loss”; it is cultural mourning, like watching pages of a family history burn in a fire you cannot put out. That is the scale of grief I feel humming under my little life updates.
We are in the dead of winter. The light is slowly coming back. The days are reminding us that we will see, eventually, everything that has been incubating beneath us and around us. I am looking forward to receiving the blessings that are long overdue for me and my communities. I am looking forward to leaving my 30s behind. I am looking forward to not‑so‑mundane things like my son growing in confidence, intelligence, hilarity, wit, and height. I’m looking forward to growing the McGuire Consulting Group and securing more long‑term contracts. I am looking forward to being transformed again and again no matter how painful the alchemical process may be.
As we enter the subsequent days of this refreshingly new year, let us continue to honor the grief that is required to move forward collectively. Let us continue to honor ourselves and our loved ones in the process of fucking up and getting things right. Let us continue to extend grace and double down on fighting authoritarian oppression, which only plans to get worse. How original.
If last year taught me anything, it’s that grief is not just an emotion to survive; it is infrastructure. It is how we remember who we are to each other and to this planet, and how we decide which systems we’re willing to live inside of and which ones we’re willing to let die. Indigenous teachers and organizers have been saying this forever: healing is ceremony, ceremony is relationship, and relationship is the only real climate solution we’ve ever had.
So this year, instead of pretending we can manifestation‑journal our way out of collapse, I want to build grief infrastructure with you. Below are three very simple practices—rooted in basic ancestral logic like circles, offerings, and reciprocity—that you can try on your own, with your people, or inside your organization. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t, and adapt everything to your own lineages and local Indigenous leadership where you live.
Practice 1: Two‑Line Grief & Climate Check‑In
This is a tiny, repeatable ritual. Think of it as a text‑length offering to your own ancestors and to the land.
Once a day, or once a week, finish these two lines:
“Today I am grieving…”
One thing close in (a relationship, a body change, a money fear).
One thing more‑than‑human (a season that feels off, an animal you see less, a neighborhood tree that came down).
“Because I feel this, I will…”
One small action in your sphere (rest, call a friend, cook real food, say no).
One small action for your place (pick up trash on your block, learn the original nation whose land you’re on, send $5 to a frontline group).
That’s it. No long essay. No perfect plan. Just noticing, naming, and a tiny bit of movement. In a lot of Indigenous teachings, grief is allowed to be spoken out loud, witnessed, and carried together—not privatized or pathologized. This is a way of refusing to carry it alone.
Practice 2: One Habit Withdrawal, One Substitution
Every system we are trying to survive—fossil fuels, policing, extraction, grind culture—runs on our habits and our attention. Think of this as climate harm reduction through grief literacy.
Pick one habit that feels out of alignment with the world you want your people to inherit. It could be:
Ordering from a company that treats workers like they are disposable.
Saying yes to flights you don’t actually need.
Staying silent in rooms where decisions about land, air, or water are being made.
Then walk through three simple questions:
If I “set this habit down,” what will I grieve?
Convenience? Status? Numbing? Feeling included?
Say it out loud or write it down. That’s your grief.
What is one soft substitute I can try for one month?
Carpool or public transit once a week instead of every ride alone.
Spend one evening at a local community or climate event instead of doom‑scrolling.
Redirect a tiny slice of your budget toward Indigenous or EJ organizers where you live.
Who will witness me trying?
Text a friend: “I am experimenting with not doing X for a month. Ask me about it.”
Or, if you pray or speak to ancestors, tell them instead.
Many Indigenous ceremonies make space to “give something to the fire” or to the river—offerings that mark a shift in relationship and responsibility. You can do a very small version at home: light a candle, name the habit you’re releasing for now, and thank it for how it kept you alive before you knew better.
Practice 3: Small Circle, Small Promise
Grief is not meant to be a solo sport. People across cultures have sat in circles to sing, cry, tell stories, and remember the dead—including the more‑than‑human dead—for as long as we’ve been people. You do not need a grant or a facilitator to try this.
Invite 2–6 people you trust (or want to trust more). In person or on video. Ninety minutes max.
Opening:
Go around once. Each person answers: “What land are you on, and what part of that land feels closest to your heart right now?” This could be a park, a tree, a body of water, a rooftop, a block.
Naming:
Second round. Each person names one grief and sets it in the center of the circle (literally or metaphorically):
“I am grieving…” (a person, a relationship, a diagnosis, a dried‑up river, a summer that felt like fire).
Listening:
No cross‑talk. No advice. Just breathing and witnessing. Think of it as the least complicated ceremony: you let sound and silence do the work.
Small promise:
Last round. Each person names one promise to their people and their place for the next month.
It should be tiny: attend one hearing, plant one native plant, show up once for a local Indigenous‑led or EJ‑led effort, or simply learn the story of one species around you.
Close however feels natural: a deep breath together, a song if someone offers one, a moment of silence. Many Indigenous frameworks remind us that ceremony is just structured relationship: with the land, with spirit, with each other. This circle is one way to remember you’re not doing any of this alone.
As we move through this year, my intention is not to become lighter. It is to become more faithful to what my density is telling me—to stay in right relationship with my own body, with my child, with my communities, and with this wild, wounded planet that is still, somehow, choosing us.
If any of these practices land for you, let me know what shifts. If they don’t, bless them and send them back to the compost heap. We’re all just experimenting with how to be good ancestors on a dying, living, changing earth.
 | A guest post by
|
Very powerful. I felt this one! 💯
So many things about this post resonates, especially, “I am honored to be heavy during uncertain times.” There is something dissociative about lightness. I appreciate the exercises, thank you!