Writing And Thinking Exercises

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These workshop exercises are partly mine and partly taken from Mitchell Thomashow's Book, Ecological Identity.

1. Describe a meaningful experience in nature from your childhood.
2. What are the difficulties in your current lifestyle, if any, with maintaining a relationship with nature? Or, if not, describe your satisfaction with your interactions with natural place.
3. List everything you own, by category. Then, make a summary statement evaluating your perspective on what you own. Do you own more than you use? Is everything necessary? Do you share any of it? The point is not to feel guilt about possessions, but to reflect on our purchases and consumption. "Simple in means, rich in ends" means that the quality of possessions and the joy they spread is more important than the number.
4. Map your community or communities. Is your community connected to physical place or is it virtual, etc. Most people find they belong to overlapping communities: family, school, work, sports, interests, computer friends. Reflect: how does your community involvement place you on the earth? How does it connect you to places, people, traditions?
5. Forgiveness exercise (adapted from Radical Forgiveness Worksheet).
   1. Make a statement about the ecological wrong you have done (such as waste, overconsumption, etc), or your family, or your nation, and the feelings you have about that.
   2. This reaction indicates something in us needs to be healed and that whether or not we intended it, the wrong represents something collectively denied, repressed, or projected onto nature. It is a precise mirror of our awareness about nature, or how we see ourselves in the world, or was at that time. Comment on this in detail.
   3. We realize now that this behavior was at its basis a cry for love and well being and the ignorance of how to get what we needed without harm to ourselves or the environment. Comment on this in detail.
   4. We realize that what we experienced was a reflection of how we were perceiving the earth and our surroundings. We are willing to forgive ourselves for any wrongdoing, change our perception, and make amends as much as possible by...(comment in detail).
6. Arcadian and ecotopian fiction help us picture possibilities. Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1974) was a utopian vision set 25 years in the future to imagine a different, sustainable and renewable community. Write a scene, dialogue, or visually sketch such an Arcadian or ecotopian community the way you would like it.
7. Getting ready for your eco-identity statement, write short paragraphs sketching out a) my eco values; b)my eco goals, short or longterm; c) my eco skills that support my values and goals.
8. Start with a concrete memory of Big Green Summer. Starting from what that moment meant, zoom out to the larger picture of what you have learned. Write a one page eco-identity statement that gives your position on environmental issues and your involvement. Summarize what you've gained from your Big Green Summer that you will take with you. (See Kyle's finished statement on first page)