Dear friends,

At one point, I worked in a large residential center. Groups of people would come and go regularly: a crowd of 20, a crowd of 50. The kitchen — where I sometimes worked — was an industrial operation run by a chef from Egypt who taught me everything I know about patience and planning. 

One particular day, one of the other employees arrived, sheepishly. “There are 70 young people arriving,” he said. Then he added, “Today.” He’d forgotten to tell anyone in the kitchen. The chef, always an advocate for communication, also always had a plan B. “We have possibilities,” she said. 

That phrase, “We have possibilities,” never seemed to be far from her mind. It seemed to have the quality of a prayer for her. She was always thinking ahead. The hordes of young people were fed well. The chef held a meeting so that such mistakes would be harder in the future. But she always kept “We have possibilities” as an option for response in the face of unexpected demand. Through years of group work, program planning, residential and retreat work, it’s her words that I hear often as things — and they always do — turn out differently than expected. 

Our On Being guest this week is Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist with a lifelong love of the ocean, and of people. She is co-creator and former co-host of the How to Save a Planet podcast, and works across a number of channels at putting forward possibilities for what it means to love the earth, love ourselves as inhabitants of the earth, and love the ocean. Facing climate change, with the effect on seas and melting ice caps, her scientific practice leads her to be a realist, which leads her to say, “while I’m not a fan of hope as a guiding principle, because it by definition assumes that the outcome will be good, which I know is not a given, I am completely enamored with the amount of possibility that’s available to us. So that’s the word that I try to embrace when I think about what if we get it right, is how much possibility remains.”

The working title to her next book is What If We Get It Right? — an approach that addresses despair in the face of climate change and highlights the amount of change that is possible now. She quotes Dr. Jeremy Jackson (her PhD advisor) and Dr. Nancy Knowlton (who helped start the Ocean Optimism project). With them she was inspired to speak about loving the future: “the vibe that I’ve tried to take into my work as it’s broadened from oceans to climate more generally, is we have most of the solutions we need at our fingertips for all of these climate challenges, whether it’s agriculture or green building retrofits or bike lanes or composting or wind energy in the ocean or farming seaweed or whatever. We know how to do this stuff. We just have to do it.” 

This hour honors collaboration: Ayana mentions many others, especially women, who have been her instructors in science and possibility: Dr. Nancy Knowlton, Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888) — credited as being the first climate scientist — Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, and Ayisha Siddiqa, whose poem, “ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM,” Ayana quotes in full. 

Amplifying the message and voices of brilliant people like Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is what moves us deeply at On Being. We believe in telling the truth: about what nurtures and concerns us, and about the possibilities that we have at our hands. As we mark 20 years of On Being, we are excited to share time with you next Wednesday to honor some of the hundreds of voices brought to the airwaves through two decades of Krista’s magnificent and generous work. Do sign up, and do join us — it’ll be a lovely celebration. 

Friends, may we all be gathered into possibility; knowing what our part of the great work is, and calling our leaders to respond to this inherent call to action, collaboration, recognition, and enhancement.