Hosts Nicole Diroff and Autumn Brown reflect on Autumn’s profound conversation with climate chaplain Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner. They explore why radical honesty about our ecological reality is not an act of despair, but the foundation of true hope and agency.

As we navigate a world that feels increasingly like an "extended apocalypse," Nicole and Autumn discuss the "ministry of presence"—the practice of sitting with grief rather than trying to fix it. Their conversation alights on parenting, martial arts, and caring for one another in a world hungry for freedoms. They also dive into the biological "fight or flight" responses triggered by the climate crisis and how we can look to our ancestors and the "more-than-human" world for models of resilience and survival.

• Tending, Mending, Befriending: Shifting away from urgency-based "yelling" toward spiritual care that acknowledges deep overwhelm .
• The More Than Human World: Exploring our identity as one species among millions and learning survival strategies from the ecological world.
• The Sacred Act of Naming: How being honest about our grief and naming the "unknowable" creates a path to communion and hope .
• Practicing Freedom: Insights from Autumn’s martial arts practice on how discipline and collaboration create the capacity for spontaneity and choice .
• Agency in Care: Reclaiming our biological and spiritual drive to both give and receive care as a fundamental tool for resilience .

Inspired by the conversation, Autumn and Nicole invite you to engage in these small acts of spiritual care this week:

• Name Your Emotion: Pause long enough to name one specific emotion that climate change brings up for you.
• Share Your Feeling: Take that named emotion and share it with someone you trust.
• Risk Honesty: Find a setting to let others know you are concerned—whether by leading a prayer in your faith community or by writing a letter to your local paper.
• Mini-Rituals: Create a simple line of acknowledgment or a "closing homily" during a daily task or gathering to ground your actions in a larger purpose.
• Connect with Us: Share your own message, reflections, or sparking ideas by emailing podcast@thebtscenter.org or leaving a voice message at 207-200-6986.

• Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner: Climate change chaplain and guest from the previous episode. https://www.exploringapocalypse.com/
• David Abram: American ecologist and philosopher who coined the term "more than human world". https://www.davidabram.org/
• Robin Wall Kimmerer: Author noted for the essay comparing monoculture corn to "enslavement". https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/
• Lament with Earth: A BTS Center program involving online gatherings for seasonal naming and grieving. https://thebtscenter.org/lament-with-earth-2025-2026/
• The Many: Liturgists and musicians who collaborated on the Lament with Earth offerings. https://www.themanyarehere.com/
• Frances Weller: Author and upcoming guest mentioned in relation to "longing for reciprocity." https://www.francisweller.net/
• How to Survive the End of the World: Autumn Brown’s podcast. https://endoftheworldshow.org/

Join us for our next episode, where we speak with Norma Wong (also known as Norma Ryuko Kawelokū Wong Roshi). Norma is a Native Hawaiian and Hakka Zen teacher, the abbot of Anko-in, and an 86th-generation Zen Master. We will explore how she applies Zen and Indigenous values to transformational change in a climate-changed world. Learn more about Norma Wong and her work: https://www.normawong.com/

In a world that feels like it’s unraveling, we often feel a desperate urge to "fix" our grief or solve the climate crisis single-handedly. But what if the work of this moment isn't about fixing, but about naming?

In this episode, Autumn Brown sits down with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner, a climate change chaplain who specializes in accompanying people through the "unfixable." Together, they explore the sacred power of naming our feelings, the importance of moving through endings, and how spiritual leadership is less about providing answers and more about the courage to hold one another through uncertainty.

GROUNDING PRACTICE (Starts at 01:45)

We begin with a reading of the poem "Anthropocene Pastoral" by Catherine Pierce, read by the poet herself. This grounding practice invites us to look directly at the changing world and find our breath amid beauty and loss.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Power of Naming: Naming our climate grief is not a wall; it is a door. When we name what is true, we move from isolation into a shared reality.
• Survival as Legacy: We are all here because our ancestors survived "the end of the world" in various ways. We carry the capacity to move through endings and emerge changed but whole.
• Tending vs. Yelling: Moving away from "telling, yelling, and selling" climate alarmism toward "tending, mending, and befriending" our communities.
• Accompanying vs. Fixing: Spiritual leadership involves "walking with" people in their distress rather than trying to resolve the distress for them.

NEXT STEPS & PRACTICES

• Radical Honesty: Identify one climate-related grief you’ve been carrying. Share it with a friend or write it down. Notice how naming it shifts your relationship to the feeling.
• Ancestral Resilience: Reflect on an "ending" your ancestors survived. What qualities allowed them to come out on the other side?
• Ministry of Presence: Practice the sacred act of accompaniment. Listen to someone’s climate fears without offering solutions or "silver linings."

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• The BTS Center: https://thebtscenter.org
• Exploring Apocolypse with Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner: exploringapocalypse.com
• Catherine Pierce (Poet): https://catherinepiercepoet.com
• "Anthropocene Pastoral" (Poem): https://poets.org/poem/anthropocene-pastoral
• Anthropocene Pastoral Film (Clare Börsch): https://vimeo.com/1059000753
• How to Survive the End of the World Podcast: https://endoftheworldshow.org

CONNECT WITH US

What reflections are surfacing for you? We’d love to hear from you.

• Email: podcast@thebtscenter.org
• Voice Message: 207-200-6986
• Video Episodes: Search "The BTS Center" on YouTube.com

BLESSING

May you know that you are loved, that you are worthy of love, just as you are. And may you know that you are capable of great love.

In our previous episode, Autumn spoke with Tory Stephens, a climate fiction editor and co-founder of Imagine 2200 at Grist, about the profound power of storytelling. If you haven't listened to that conversation yet, don't worry—you can dive right into this episode! In fact, hearing this reflection first will give you a completely different lens when you do go back to listen to the interview.

In this episode, co-hosts Autumn Brown and Rev. Nicole Diroff sit down to unpack the incredible themes Tory raised. They explore why the climate movement desperately needs more imagination and how we can practically incorporate that imagination into our spiritual leadership.

In this conversation, Autumn and Nicole discuss:

• The Concept of "Thrutopia": Why we need stories that navigate the messy, realistic middle ground between the world we have now and the better world we are trying to build.
• Prefigurative Fiction: How dreaming about and writing down the future we want actually serves as the first step to bringing that reality into existence.
• Hope as a Daily Practice: Why practicing hope and imagining positive futures needs to be a regular discipline—just like going to church or taking out the compost!

Next Steps: Where Imagination Meets Practice The change we need won't happen alone—it grows in community. Here are two invitations from today’s conversation to carry these ideas into your shared lives:

• Creating Your Story of Tomorrow: Visit The BTS Center's Leadership Commons to access Creating Your Story of Tomorrow. This is a beautifully crafted facilitator guide and video developed by renowned environmental artist Eve Moser. Designed for adult education facilitators and congregation leaders, this resource will guide you and your community through a collaborative workshop to envision the future together.
• Write Your Own Flash Fiction: Sit down—alone, with a friend, or with a group—and write a piece of "flash fiction" (a very short story with a beginning, middle, and end) about a future you would love to inhabit.

Share Your Visions With Us! We want to hear your flash fiction and find out what you are creating or discovering! Email us at podcast@thebtscenter.org or leave a voice message at 207-200-6986. Your insights might ripple out through future episodes.

Explore More:

• Learn more about The BTS Center: https://thebtscenter.org/
• Find transcripts, discussion guides, and full-length video episodes at www.climatechangedpodcast.org
• Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBTSCenter