Orland Bishop in Conversation with Charles Eisenstein

My name is Vaike and I am a 46 year old woman, living in Sydney Australia with my husband and my 19 year old son. In the first half of my adult life I was devoted to theatre-making, in view of cultivating the human spirit. In later life I have sought this same impulse off the stage, through education, activism and now through spiritual community. I have always been progressive and left-leaning in my politics, and my 'green consciousness' has grown organically and steadily. COP21, Paris in 2015 was a turning point, and since then I have taken on board that it is 'too late' to 'save the earth', in the sense of coming back to any 'normal'. The crisis this catalysed in me led me to Deep Ecology, and to taking my environmental consciousness inward. Happening on the original PDA paper by Jem, on the back of the emergence of Greta Thunberg's voice reignited a sense of panic in me, and for the first couple of weeks after this time I was just about incapacitated. I would describe it best as shock at the realisation of how fragile the framework on which I base my existence is, but this soon grew to being most wary of how human nature will reveal itself, under such pressure eg. even more terrifying that famine or fire could be my own next door neighbour, in a situation of resource scarcity. A further layer then, beyond my personal situation, would be the tragedy of human nature itself, falling so far from what it is it its most beautiful truth. Dedication to this beauty, through my outer and inner life, is now my area of work and my solace.