What does it mean to cultivate freedom for future generations? • Autumn Brown + Nicole Diroff

In this episode of Climate Changed, Autumn Brown and Rev. Nicole Diroff continue reflecting on Autumn’s conversation with Francis Weller about grief, ritual, imagination, and “the long dark.”

Nicole shares stories from a recent BTS Center retreat, Climate Advocacy and the Sacred Wild, where faith and climate leaders were invited to slow down, step away from project-making, and deepen their relationship with the natural world and one another.

Autumn reflects on her work around fugitive practice, drawing from Black liberation and Black feminist thought. She explores freedom not only as something we do, but as something we are — even inside systems that deny freedom.

Together, Autumn and Nicole ask what it means to work for a freedom we may not live to see. Autumn reminds us that we are part of a much bigger story of freedom, one that includes future generations whose lives we may never directly know.

In this episode:

• Francis Weller on “the long dark”

• Seeing differently in a climate-changed world

• Friendship and spiritual leadership

• Margaret Wheatley’s question: “Who do we choose to be?”

• Receiving wisdom with humility and care

• Autumn Brown on fugitive practice

• Freedom as a way of being

• Ritual, conflict, community, and imagination

Next Steps

Name the hazards and gifts in your place. What are the real hazards where you live? What gifts do you, your neighbors, or your community already carry that could help when crisis comes?

Ask who your friends are. Who can help you slow down, tell the truth, and remember that you are not alone?

Practice imagination. Make space for dreams, images, and the imaginal. Lie down, cover your eyes, begin with a simple image, and let it unfold.

Rest. Francis Weller names rest as a rebellious practice in a culture of productivity.

Gather a listening circle. Invite three to five people to sit together for an hour. Turn off your phones. Take turns naming one thing that is weighing on your heart. Do not solve. Just listen.

Use shared quiet. At the beginning or end of a meeting, try two or three minutes of silence. Notice what changes when the room slows down together.

Resources

Francis Weller: https://www.francisweller.net/

Lament with Earth: https://thebtscenter.org/lamentwithearth

Climate Changed Podcast: https://climatechangedpodcast.org/

The BTS Center: https://thebtscenter.org/

Contact: podcast@thebtscenter.org