Ruth Rosenheck's guest appearances

Ruth Rosenheck

Steppin' Out of Babylon: Radio Interviews

Bruce Lipton

James Howard Kunstler

David Cobb

Laura Wells

Daniel Pinchbeck

Michael Ruppert

Paul Stamets

Michio Kaku

Antonia Juhasz

Robert Bowman

Brian Wilson

Jim Marrs

Leonard Horowitz

Ramona Africa

Kathy Kelly

OwlTail

Ruth Rosenheck is a Canadian who has been living for some time in Australia where she is Co- Dir. with John Seed of the Rainforest Information Center. They work on issues of the environment and environmental justice and one aspect of their work is leading workshops, based on the work of Joanna Macy as well. They are called by different names-- The Work that Reconnects, Deep Ecology, Despair and Empowerment. This interview was conducted during a workshop in S. Oregon and includes interviews with a few of the participants as well. Ruth led, in order to train us to lead ourselves, a workshop she calls “deep ecology” because it focuses on how we’re part of the earth and when we destroy the web of life we’re destroying our own home—ie, when we toxify the water, cause the extinction of other species, etc. we’re weakening the fabric of life, the biological web that we depend upon. Ecological collapse is looming before us in ways we have no idea about. It is normal to feel anxious or afraid or sad or angry about the injustices that occur in the world. There’s a strong taboo in this society about showing feelings so by the time we’re adults we are likely to push the feelings down and judge ourselves for having them. We’re so numbed we don’t even notice we have feelings. If we do we may think we’re weird and feel isolated and self-doubting, wonder what’s wrong with us, go to therapist who may make it a “personal” problem and we leave with anti-depressants. Rather it could be seen that these feelings are a natural and healthy reaction to what’s going on with the destruction of our earth that we love,. These feelings can be seen as part of our ancient intelligence of instinct and intuition that enabled us to survive time and time again. We could walk out of therapist’s office inspired to work instead of depressed and trying to adjust to a dysfunctional society. The work of Despair and empowerment is to be present and witness these feelings of fear and sadness about the earth in ourselves and each other and acknowledge them as part of our wisdom and vision and, in fact, they can bring us great inspiration and vision to act. Joanna Macy says we can lose our intuition if we don’t let ourselves feel. We’re discouraged from feeling strongly and considered insane if we’re either too sad or too happy. In fact, it is healthy, crucial and revolutionary to feel and not push it away—and if you feel it it’ll move right on along and out. Joanna’s book on this work is entitled “Coming Back to Life”. We are wrong to think we can necessarily “solve” everything but we can do the best that we can—both inner and outer work—with love is the best that we can do.Rosenheck has also produced a film, “Earth, Spirit, Action”, which she describes as a 15 minute prayer for the earth that asks for a radical change to occur planetary-wide. It includes herself, Starhawk, Vandana Shiva, Mathew Fox and John Seed and herself speaking on Deep Ecology, Living Democracy and Revolution in Consciousness.Toward the end of the show Lilith Rogers speaks of how happy she was during the weekend to be able to talk about and perform her one woman play about Rachel Carson, who wrote in the early ‘60’s and is often referred to as the mother of the environmental movement. Carson is the author of Silent Spring, The World Around Us, and the breakthrough book called “The Sea Around Us. She talked about the dangers of pesticides, particularly DDT and it got the public focused on those dangers and their use and DDT banned. Tina talks about We Moon--a calender produced at this land and a must have book for many women who want the ecofeminist voice. Another woman talks about making a cob studio on their land as self-sustaining as it can be.Recorded September 2008To hear/see Joanna Macy speaking about her book, Coming Back to Life, &amp; her specific group work go to http://www.turntowardlife.tv/ and/or get the book.

Ruth Rosenheck is a Canadian who has been living for some time in Australia where she is Co- Dir. with John Seed of the Rainforest Information Center. They work on issues of the environment and environmental justice and one aspect of their work is leading workshops, based on the work of Joanna Macy as well. They are called by different names-- The Work that Reconnects, Deep Ecology, Despair and Empowerment. This interview was conducted during a workshop in S. Oregon and includes interviews with a few of the participants as well. Ruth led, in order to train us to lead ourselves, a workshop she calls “deep ecology” because it focuses on how we’re part of the earth and when we destroy the web of life we’re destroying our own home—ie, when we toxify the water, cause the extinction of other species, etc. we’re weakening the fabric of life, the biological web that we depend upon. Ecological collapse is looming before us in ways we have no idea about. It is normal to feel anxious or afraid or sad or angry about the injustices that occur in the world. There’s a strong taboo in this society about showing feelings so by the time we’re adults we are likely to push the feelings down and judge ourselves for having them. We’re so numbed we don’t even notice we have feelings. If we do we may think we’re weird and feel isolated and self-doubting, wonder what’s wrong with us, go to therapist who may make it a “personal” problem and we leave with anti-depressants. Rather it could be seen that these feelings are a natural and healthy reaction to what’s going on with the destruction of our earth that we love,. These feelings can be seen as part of our ancient intelligence of instinct and intuition that enabled us to survive time and time again. We could walk out of therapist’s office inspired to work instead of depressed and trying to adjust to a dysfunctional society. The work of Despair and empowerment is to be present and witness these feelings of fear and sadness about the earth in ourselves and each other and acknowledge them as part of our wisdom and vision and, in fact, they can bring us great inspiration and vision to act. Joanna Macy says we can lose our intuition if we don’t let ourselves feel. We’re discouraged from feeling strongly and considered insane if we’re either too sad or too happy. In fact, it is healthy, crucial and revolutionary to feel and not push it away—and if you feel it it’ll move right on along and out. Joanna’s book on this work is entitled “Coming Back to Life”. We are wrong to think we can necessarily “solve” everything but we can do the best that we can—both inner and outer work—with love is the best that we can do.Rosenheck has also produced a film, “Earth, Spirit, Action”, which she describes as a 15 minute prayer for the earth that asks for a radical change to occur planetary-wide. It includes herself, Starhawk, Vandana Shiva, Mathew Fox and John Seed and herself speaking on Deep Ecology, Living Democracy and Revolution in Consciousness.Toward the end of the show Lilith Rogers speaks of how happy she was during the weekend to be able to talk about and perform her one woman play about Rachel Carson, who wrote in the early ‘60’s and is often referred to as the mother of the environmental movement. Carson is the author of Silent Spring, The World Around Us, and the breakthrough book called “The Sea Around Us. She talked about the dangers of pesticides, particularly DDT and it got the public focused on those dangers and their use and DDT banned. Tina talks about We Moon--a calender produced at this land and a must have book for many women who want the ecofeminist voice. Another woman talks about making a cob studio on their land as self-sustaining as it can be.Recorded September 2008To hear/see Joanna Macy speaking about her book, Coming Back to Life, &amp; her specific group work go to <a href="http://www.turntowardlife.tv/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.turntowardlife.tv/</a> and/or get the book.