Shodo Spring is the author of the new book Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together with All Beings. She is an educator and a retired psychotherapist.
Q: What inspired you to write Open Reality?
A: I watched people going into despair about the environmental crisis, and noticed some things they were missing. Specifically, some people thought that only technology would save us, some thought it was necessary to maintain our current extravagant lifestyle - having grown up in the 1950s, I knew this wasn't correct. And even those who skipped those two errors tended to think that only human work could help.
But history and anthropology is full of documented stories that there is help beyond the human realm (consider how trees help each other, for instance, and stories of what ordinary people call magic). I wanted to offer encouragement, and to dispel the despair that is being promoted by corporate media. To oppose helplessness.
At the beginning, I was just thinking about climate change. But that changed with Covid, and the George Floyd murder, and various extreme political events.
Q: For those who are not familiar with the term, how would you define the “polycrisis” mentioned in the subtitle of your book?
A: Polycrisis refers to a confluence of difficult events, which work together to multiply the difficulty to create more serious crisis.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Several ways.
I looked for good references for topics that I already had opinions on, to clarify and substantiate so people could check references and so I would be credible. For example, to find something I remembered from Jane Jacobs, I had to re-read all of her books. Same for Ivan Illich.
I followed threads from one author to the next, to clarify and enhance. Sometimes I found a fascinating book on the shelf in a library, and included that in my topics (Davi Kopenawi).
As I heard and read comments or descriptions of interesting books, I would get them from the library and then buy them if necessary. (Two examples: Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything and Patel and Moore's History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. )
I also looked up well-respected authors (example Karen Armstrong) to see what they said about topics of interest.
Surprises? Well, that so much creative and exciting work is being done. That human history and pre-history contain so much creativity in living well together - a very big deal, and I think people need to know this is who we are.
I finally had to stop new intake and finish the book. Thus Nate Hagens isn't in my references - I just hadn't discovered him yet.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: Encouragement first. Excitement, and willingness to look at the world in a new and different way. And commitment.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Right now, talking, organizing, trying to do the thing mentioned near the very end of the book: creating a wide web of people in relationship with the beyond-human beings, who are committed to changing the world and revitalizing it.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I'm looking forward to a break, resting in my Zen practice within community.
I hope the book will help people unfold their deep connection with each other and the whole world. Methods might include college classes, adult study groups, community gatherings, and of course reaching out through publications of every kind.
I am reaching first for the people who are already committed to a more peaceful and joyful world, and/or people who share the spiritual sense but may not have thoughts about how to come into action.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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