Salaam Dunya / Hello World
To begin again, in earnest.
Earlier this week, I was at a gathering focusing on grief in Hamilton (Ontario). The conveners were the Pamoja Collective. It was my third group activity with ‘em this calendar year, each of them incredible.
I responded honestly to the question of what sorrow I’m holding lately. The traffic-congested drive there, the nourishing evening, and the late night drive back home was also a reminder of this newsletter’s title!
Solastalgia means environmental grief or distress because of what is happening to this planet. A shifting baseline and what that means. (about page)
I’ve had a growing sense the time is now (again & always) for this mode of communication to be actively tended to.
It has been more than five years since a failure to launch this newsletter. It has been closer to two decades of environmental work, and more than a decade of percolating about a climate + grief driven inquiry.
I’m very thrilled to be back in newsrooms as a journalist. I believe that was the missing ingredient.
Ze Frank has this video on beginnings. Frank says lots of useful things:
“There’s no need to sharpen my pencils anymore. My pencils are sharp enough. Even the dull ones will make a mark.”
In the seasons since, it dawned on me, I’ve been looking for words. To linger upon. Words to hold as principles akin to stepping stones to operate from.
Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for A New Millennium provides a good blue print:
Leggerezza (Lightness),
Rapidità (Quickness),
Precisione (Exactitude),
Visibilità (Visibility),
Molteplicità (Multiplicity),
Coerenza (Consistency).
Several other words have been feeling right lately and one of them is Rigour (or Rigor)!
I have simple hopes of this e-newsletter, chief among them to share both my work, some play and to be a filter to what is happening in the ecosystem and industry which is journalism.
Okay! Back to grief.
The invitation by the Pamoja Collective reminded of a specific excerpt from a beautifully crafted book called Son of Elsewhere (see image below). It also reminded me of a poem. Yes, the world is fire, flood, hurricanes, and more. But there is still work to be done! Our responsibilities don’t end because the despair is oceanic.
It may be by Adam Sol It may be too late to complete the vessel that might save you anyhow set the saw to the wet wood or are you saying you will be one born in a flood time who did not strive to build boats?
That is it, this is the introductory post. It may be a few sputters and stutters till we sink into a groove. This is very okay and allowed.
Yours sincerely and, hopefully, coherently,
Asad Chishti
ps. Oh, the extract from the book below:
pps. A photo of me at downtown camera for the algorithm etc:
