How do I find my Climate Magic? With Sarah Jaquette Ray

How do I find my Climate Magic? With Sarah Jaquette Ray

You may be used to hearing Sarah Jaquette Ray as the one asking questions on her own podcast, Climate Magic. But this time we get to turn the microphone the other direction and learn about her climate journey. One of the most frequently asked questions I hear from community members is how they can effectively contribute and really make a difference. On this episode of Burning Questions, Sarah helps us reframe the questions from "what should I be doing about climate change" to "what am I actually good at, and how does that serve this moment." Sarah Jaquette Ray, author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety and professor of environmental studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, shares how she personally navigated that shift, and arrived at her own "climate magic."" She describes climate magic as the specific, sometimes unglamorous contribution that only you are positioned to make, and that becomes powerful precisely because it's embedded in something larger than you. We talked about why individualism is such a trap in climate work — the pressure to personally solve an unsolvable problem, the guilt that follows when we can't — and why the answer isn't doing more alone but understanding our efforts as amplified by social and political context. But our actions, connected to community and movement, means something else entirely. Ways to connect with Sarah: Website: https://sarahjaquetteray.com/ [https://sarahjaquetteray.com/] Climate Magic: https://www.khsu.org/show/climate-magic [https://www.khsu.org/show/climate-magic] LinkedIn: / sarahjaquetteray [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbjI0OXh0VTI3UVYyM3g4U1RTTUQ1TDJUZTNzZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttWlpwZjhzMmxJQmxxNkpYQjVYVElEZ3J2WVNfbUxfQjh3dU5JZFJ0ZnVMRmZIa1FWOWMybWd5Z3hXVFFIamVQUFlEVndRcmhnWU5nNEJBdExLc3ktNmFHSEs5VjNLTWVTeU9FQjlpb09FNm84SVQzQQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fsarahjaquetteray%2F&v=7_jg9_DZwo8] Subscribe to this channel to hear all the episodes and join our growing community. Because we're always better together.

Jennifer Uchendu: When the People Rise Together, Can Anything Stop Us?

I'm excited to share my conversation with Jennifer Uchendu Kalu: When the People Rise Together, Can Anything Stop Us? What does it look like when people refuse to wait for permission to act on climate? In this episode, I sits down with Jennifer Uchendu — Nigerian climate advocate, eco-anxiety researcher at Utrecht University, founder of SustyVibes, and one of BBC's 100 Most Influential Women of 2023 — to explore what it really means to reclaim our power in the face of the climate crisis. Together we dig into the ripple effects of everyday influence: how parents shape the next generation's relationship to the Earth, why keeping the conversation going matters even when it's hard, and what collective courage looks like when it rises from the ground up. Jennifer's work reminds us that people power is here! Learn more about Jennifer: Website: jenniferuchendu.com/ [https://www.jenniferuchendu.com/] LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dzennypha/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dzennypha/] Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Uchendu [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Uchendu] Subscribe to this channel and become part of the growing community!

The Psychospiritual Roots of the Climate Crisis

What are the psychological and spiritual roots of the climate crisis, and what might healing actually look like? In this episode, Leslie Davenport speaks with Adrián Villaseñor Galarza, PhD, and integral/transpersonal ecopsychologist, international facilitator, ritualist, author, and contemplative practitioner passionate about human transformation in service to the living Earth. Adrián is Associate Professor in the Department of East-West Psychology at CIIS, founder of the Bioalchemy Institute, and founder of the Work That Reconnects Latin America. His work weaves together Eastern and Western liberation teachings, systemic-transpersonal developments, Earth wisdom, and ecopsychology into an elemental framework for self-discovery, healing, and regenerative action. Together, Leslie and Adrián explore the inner dimensions of our ecological moment — how disconnection from the living world runs deeper than behavior or belief, and what it takes to move from breakdown toward regenerative action by exploring the psychospiritual roots. 🌿 Learn more about Adrián's work: living-flames.com [http://living-flames.com] | bioalkimia.org [http://bioalkimia.org] | eltrabajoquereconecta.org [http://eltrabajoquereconecta.org]

The Emergence of a New Culture

Isabel Cavelier Adarve is a writer, speaker, language and poetry wanderer, lawyer, former diplomat, advocate for planetary transition & creator of eco-social initiatives for cultural transformation. She co-founded mundo común [https://mundocomun.org/] in 2023 as an initiative dedicated to seeding and nurturing a culture of care, rooted in interdependence, in response to the contemporary planetary challenges. In this episode, she shares with us some of the foundations of mundo común, a speculative practice of the future in the present, and a collective design lab for a new relationality between the human and the more than human worlds. Isabel’s current work combines the co-creation of immersive somatic-narrative interspecies activations, biomimetic design of gathering spaces, and the amplification of re-worlding stories. The challenges posed by the climate crisis call us to review the ways in which we respond to the urgency. It is necessary but insufficient to address the visible symptoms of the current socio-environmental degradation that has deprived humanity of a sense of the open, loving and plural yet-to-come. The root causes of this crisis are related to our sense of identity and spiritual belonging. Check out their resources: mundo común’s website [https://mundocomun.org/] mundo común’s youtube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@mundocom%25C3%25BAn] mundo común on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/mundo.comun/]

The Polycrisis Is the Opening: Multisolving Our Way Forward

What if the most powerful response to compounding crises isn't doing more, but doing things that work on multiple levels at once? Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, founder of the Multisolving Institute and co-founder of Climate Interactive, has spent her career mapping the places where climate action, health equity, and community wellbeing converge. She calls this "multisolving," and it changes not just what we do, but how we understand leverage, hope, and what's actually possible right now. In this conversation, we explore how the living web of relationships we inhabit — ecological, social, political — becomes the very ground of transformation. Beth offers a framework that meets people across many entry points, inviting action on every scale, each choice a seed planted for a future of cohesion and justice. This is climate work that doesn't ask you to bracket your humanity to show up. It asks you to bring all of it. Learn more about Beth and her work through the Multisolving Institute [https://www.multisolving.org/about-us/elizabeth-sawin-phd/].