What Now, With All We Know?

We are not starved for information. We are drowning in it.
What we lack is integration. Truth. Embodiment. We know too much—and yet, somehow, we’ve changed too little.

We tinker. Swap lightbulbs. Buy the EV. Carry the keep-cup.
These gestures feel good. And sure. they do good.
But often, they are the comfort snacks of change—just enough to stave off guilt, not enough to shift the story. 

If we’re honest, they allow the current pattern to continue.

It’s been over 25 years since climate change hit the mainstream. I remember that first tidal wave of awareness. I was a young professional, idealistic and eager. The sustainability movement washed over me like a truth too big to hold.
And I almost didn’t survive it.

That knowledge—not just of the crisis, but of our inability to to create system change—triggered the deepest mental health crisis of my life. Fortunately, I lived to see that my best years were still ahead of me.

Yes, we’ve changed. Solar panels. Plant-based milks. New metrics. New pledges. More conferences. But mostly, these changes helped the already-advantaged live a bit cleaner, a bit longer—while others still fight wars for oil and drink from poisoned rivers.

Strawberries still sit in supermarket shelves in the middle of winter.
The world remains abstracted. Globalised. Extractive.

So I ask:

We never stopped to ask—at the deepest level—what broke our bond with the natural world in the first place. What fracture in us created this outcome?

And more importantly:
Who could we become if we returned to relationship—with each other, and with Earth? What kind of future could we love, without shame or complicity?

In the absence of that kind of deep inquiry, our hope withered.
But here’s where I’ve landed:
Right at the fertile edge where despair meets possibility.

We can’t single-handedly dismantle the dominant systems.
But we can build something beside them.
A parallel world. A worldview rooted in connection, humility, and care.

This parallel world already lives in us—in our longing, our grief, our awe.
We’re not starting from scratch. We’re starting from remembering.

Lately, I’ve been trying to see my food with reverence.
This chilli oil? A marvel. A miracle. A warning.
In the world I’m imagining, chillies will be grown in my community garden—or not at all.

My beloved morning coffee ritual? I’m preparing my mind to let it go.
Because coffee, like cocoa and rice and sugar, doesn’t grow in my country’s climate. Not yet, not at scale, and not without harmful consequence.

The real work isn’t just cutting carbon.
It’s restoring connection.

Start there, and yes—emissions fall. But more than that, our deep, innate intelligence for relationship awakens. And that changes everything.

We are cultivating a living hope—not based on predictions, but on what our hearts most ache to make real.

And guess what?
It’s already growing.
We’re not late. We’re right on time.
Right on time to tend the flame.

I’m loosening my grip on the things that have pulled me out of relationship.
Because many Indigenous, and land-connected cultures never let go in the first place.
In Aotearoa, Māori practices like whakapapa, kaitiakitanga, and utu hold a living relational logic that has been generously shared with me, and I’m listening.

I’m enjoying the shift from seeing this as a “sustainability crisis” to naming it for what it really is:
A relationship crisis.

And relationships?
Friends, we can heal those.

Not all of us can grow our own food—but we can rebuild a felt sense of kinship with it.
This weekend, I prepped food for my family ahead of a busy week. I decided to treat it as a small ceremony.
I baked bread from scratch, kneading it by hand—tracing the lineage of this ancient practice, from flour to fingers to flame.
It took ages. It grounded me. It was my meditation practice for the day.
And I looked around at the modern tools on my bench with new eyes: astonished. Grateful.

This is the season of reconnection.
To our bodies.
To each other.
To Earth.
There’s no single path in. But there are good questions to ask and important stories to share.

We do this out of love. Love for place. For people. For futures not yet born.

There are people who have been tending this path for years—decades—waiting for us to arrive. They’ve feathered the nest with fierce devotion. They’re here to welcome us, walk with us, and remind us: we don’t have to do this alone.

Together, we are divesting from the mess of the outer world—and reinvesting in the inner one. We are gathering to listen, to learn, to give what we can, and receive what we need. We are cultivating a living hope—not based on predictions, but on what our hearts most ache to make real.

And guess what?
It’s already growing.
We’re not late. We’re right on time.
Right on time to tend the flame.

If you're feeling the stirrings of this too, you might enjoy these podcasts:

• Dougald Hine, At Work in the Ruins

• Vanessa Andriotti - Composting our WEIRD shit

• Molly Young Brown - The Great Turning 

This civilisation we long for—it’s already seeded in us.
We are the soil. Let’s tend it, together, courageously.

X Megan

P.S I’m currently pulling together a mega-list of standout humans, projects, books, and communities to support this turning. Want to add your favourites? I’d love to hear them. I will share this with you when it is complete.