Gathering to channel our care

20 Mar Gathering to channel our care

Wednesday night, March 12, 2025, FreeportCAN held our third Town Forum on climate action. The question before us was: Where amidst all this chaos are we to find footing, not only for our work to preserve a livable planet but for our well-being and the well-being of our neighbors?

It was hard enough before this time of the fracturing of democracy’s values and institutions to face the growing peril of the climate crisis. The cruelty and suffering wrought by the government’s unlawful actions this week breaks our hearts.

As does the announcement that the government intends to “drive a dagger into the heart of climate change religion” and scrap the landmark finding that planet-heating gases pose a threat to human health.

What are we to do with our broken hearts and all the worry, sadness and anger these hearts hold?

Care.  Care for our planet, care for each other.

Grassroots actions and organizations like ours are vehicles for channeling our care while fortifying and uplifting our spirits.

From the very beginning, FreeportCAN has been motivated by these words: action is the antidote to despair, words inspired by the great Joanna Macy, an environmental activist, Buddhist scholar, and writer.  Joanna not only understood the need for action, she understood the importance of connection, of the energy and solace that comes from collective action. She calls it The Work of Reconnection.

Join us for this work of care and solidarity.

Other speakers at the forum were Suzanna Hancock who spoke about National and International efforts to combat global warming, Brian Ambrette from the State Office of Maine Won’t Wait and Valy Steverlynck from the Freeport Sustainability Advisory Board and myself. Our comments are beautifully summarized in this piece in the Portland Press Herald by their environmental reporter, Laura Sitterly.