It's a complicated time to be grieving. Or even to be living. As if personal loss were not enough - as if having to let go of someone you loved isn't the most painful thing you've ever done - now there is this: the gorgeous and complex and life-sustaining world, this fragile and beleagured world, is at risk. No matter where we stand on the question of climate change, we are all ultimately co-participating in dramatic and often life-altering changes in the natural world. 

     How could we ever have imagined doubting the very ground upon which we stand - the backdrop of every human and non-human life? So many people are grieving what we use to be - as individuals tucked into a familiar web of relationships - and as members of a country and society whose values and commitments we took for granted - and as citizens of the only planet we know.

     In Maine, everyone is noticing the lakes are warmer this year - we are happy for ourselves, have an easier time getting into water that is usually pretty cold - but we all wonder about the fish, the loons who depend on cooler water for their food, and what the future will bring. In Louisiana, there are roads down the bayou that can’t be traveled lately due to recent floods. In my home garden, weeds are more out of control than usual. In the Spring when I normally mulch the lanes with straw, the local hardware store didn’t have any available. Mid-west deluges had wiped out hay crops, and rivers were so high they couldn’t transport what was stored in the barns. 

     I recently heard a psychologist talk about what she called “climate grief.” Apparently, so many people are reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression and hopelessness over all the bad news about the environment that this new category of mental struggles has been suggested. Young people especially are struggling.

     Therapists are witnessing so many troubled emotions over the state of the world. Fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, exhaustion, despair. And the emotions can’t be dismissed. Dr. Janet Lewis, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester in New York noted, “Most of the kinds of pathologies that we’re accustomed to treating in psychiatry…tend to be out of proportion to whatever is going on. But with climate change, this is not inappropriate.” Psychiatrist Lise van Susteren remarked, “For a long time we were able to hold ourselves in a distance, listening to data and not being affected emotionally. But it’s not just a science abstraction anymore. I’m increasingly seeing people who are in despair, and even panic.”

     As with other forms of grief, one of the remedies recommended is to share the sadness, anxiety, loss, and the hope. One group, Good Grief, offers a 10-step program “to help people deal with collective grief — issues that affect a whole society, like racism, mass shootings and climate grief.” The program runs online, as well as in Salt Lake City. 

     Dr. Janet Lewis, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester in New York, recommends building relationships within a like-minded group. “The goal is not to get rid of the anxiety. The goal is to transform it into what is bearable and useful and motivating.” 
                                                              
     In the same way that we deal with our personal losses - through finding the meaning in what seems unbearable - we can make our way through the grief over the planet. Stay in touch. Stay informed. Talk with each other. Take small steps. We are all loving and mourning and holding up the world. Together.