I am moved by your brilliance, tenderness and broad vision of life on this planet and beyond. I also feel I know you much more deeply, and feel a kindred connection with you.
Many years ago in San Diego, we did a large public gathering in San Diego, members of the Center facilitating some 300 people, based on Joanna Macy's book on the nuclear threat, as anxiety levels were so high about nuclear winter, etc.. I believe that the process of looking at the worst, and moving from despair to hope and action gave some sense of agency to people.
To see your interlacing of Joanna's principles today in your book, with what the world is now dealing with from multiple overlapping catastrophies, war, disease, inequity, and most profoundly, climate change, makes me realize again that we need people to face this together with courage and commitment to each other. The "Great Grief" as you so beautifully term it is already here, and the darker days are clearly coming, so that when we face this era on an even more global level than is already starting to appear at an alarmingly increased pace, even beyond conservative predictions, we will need to be more immersed in kindness and mutual support. Particularly those of us so seemingly protected by apparent opulence and well-being, cannot even imagine the shifts ahead. I believe your ending chapters have helped us face all this with more grace, less denial, and a sense of inevitability, without despair.
I am also touched as well how much Carl was integrated into your Buddhism, your social consciousness, your psychological perspectives and practices, and I am grateful for your voice in the world...and for your developing friendship. As a recently graduates student said to me last week, working now in the field, "I think Carl would be proud of many of us, Gay."
- Gay Barfield, (formerly general secretary of the Carl Rogers Peace Fellowship)
