This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
John O’Donohue
The Climate Coaching Alliance Global Festival starts this Thursday with a KEYNOTE Festival (8 speakers from 3/2 to 3/5) followed by a FRINGE Festival (with over 50 presentations from the Climate Coaching Alliance community from 3/06 to 3/31).
I would like to invite you to join me and the Climate Coaching Alliance community for this one-of-a-kind free festival of coaching. I am not presenting this year - I did last year.
There is a plethora of interesting presentations on the themes that are close to my heart: indigenous wisdom, nature practices, poetry, climate feminism, regenerative leadership, and many more.
The intention for this festival is to build coaches’ confidence and competence, knowledge, capacity, mobilisation and empowerment for climate coaching and action through:
Giving knowledge for guidance, best practice, inspiration, information, awareness and engagement
Empowering/developing coaches through, skills, tools support, engagement, eco cycle
Providing space for community and collaboration, partnerships, exploration and reflective conversations
I hope to see you there. All details on the Climate Coaching Alliance website.
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.
A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
its marvelous lute and drum.
Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?
I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,
To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within
In celebration of Love's Victory!
Zenmai is the Japanese name for the Asian Royal Fern or Osmunda japonica. It’s an edible fern that has also been proven to purify air indoors. This is a practice of unfoldment to be done in Nature. It’s inspired by my studying with Steve March (Aletheia) for coaching and Mark Coleman (Awake In the Wild) for mindfulness in Nature. I am grateful for their wisdom and teachings.
Start by taking a long walk in nature where you can be mostly undisturbed. Refrain from talking to people and using your phone. Pay attention to all examples of zenmai or unfurling of leaves, ferns or other plants that you are encountering. Notice the life potential that is unfolding itself naturally in this process.
When you are ready, sit down for a meditation. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Gently close your eyes and turn your awareness to your breath. Once you feel settled and present, allow yourself to just be, let yourself unfold.
What are you feeling? What are you sensing in your body? What are you observing in this moment? Can you sense into your innate wholeness? Bringing back to mind one example of zenmai that you encountered during your walk, remember how beautiful it was in its own unfolding. Can you feel the same about yourself?
Trust that the life you want will unfold from where you are now. As you become more aware of the natural process of unfoldment, the one of the fern or leaves that you observed or your own that you are now experiencing, your trust in it will deepen. Accept, love, and value yourself exactly as you are.
When you are ready to end this practice, gently open your eyes and stretch.
With the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passing the senate this past week-end, there will be many opportunities and new incentives for us to electrify our homes. In this newsletter, I want to share my experience of installing a heat pump to replace an aging, -actually ancient, central furnace. Even though this is a departure from my usual writing about life and climate coaching, I am hoping that you will find it of use and interest.
About a year ago, I embarked in this project of replacing our 1950s natural gas guzzling heater that was at best 60% efficient, extremely noisy and expensive to run, just to keep the house barely warm. This was an item on my personal climate punch list to reduce my personal carbon footprint (read more about climate actions and climate punch lists in my blog post of January 2022).
Living in San Francisco Bay Area (California), I started my journey with a call to the Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN). BayREN is a coalition of the Bay Area’s nine counties — a network of local governments partnering to promote resource efficiency at the regional level, focusing on energy, water and greenhouse gas reduction. I had heard about the coalition on climate podcast and collective My Climate Journey. On BayREN’s website I found extensive resources on how to be more energy savvy, and I got in touch with an energy advisor who guided me on my options for replacing our furnace. BayREN also provides a list of participating energy professionals who know about the rebates. I selected three contractors in my county from that list to start scoping the project.
Retrofitting an older house with a new, more energy efficient HVAC system is not as simple as it may seem. There are many options to review and consider to size the system properly: one system or multi mini-split systems, heating only or heating and cooling, whole house fan or A/C, etc... And once you think you have selected what you want at a cost you can afford, you may be faced with the need to remove asbestos, upgrade your electric panel and either insulate or replace ductwork. Some of these upgrades are rebate eligible, some are not.
I was lucky in selecting an amazing contractor (whose name I am happy to share if you email me): the work was flawlessly completed in two weeks, last May. Working with BayREN and this contractor was instrumental in getting an all-electrical system that now heats and cools the house silently and efficiently, and which renders the house so much more comfortable. But it took 10 months from start to finish, and was expensive despite the rebates.
With the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s likely that more incentives in the form of rebates will be available. I am hopeful that as a result, more of us will take advantage of these to electrify our homes whether for a cooktop, a water heater or central heating. All these efforts will collectively reduce our green house gas emissions which is critical on this warming planet. In my house, we are still using natural gas for heating water and for cooking: electrifying these will be top of list for my next climate actions list. In the mean time, by replacing our central heating system with a heat pump, we are not only reducing our fossil fuel consumption, but we are also gaining the extra comfort of having a cooling system which may prove necessary as the planet continues to heat up. I am looking forward to comparing our year-to-year energy costs in May 2023.
Whether or not you live in San Francisco Bay Area, my recommendation is to look for organizations like BayREN that can guide you in your electrification project. You also need to make sure your electricity is clean. Ours is provided by Peninsula Clean Energy, (a Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) and the official electricity provider for San Mateo County) who is on an agressive path to provide 100% renewable energy 24/7 by 2025. (Read how they plan to do that in this fascinating whitepaper).
If you want to know more about my journey to electrification or if you would like to share yours, please email me.
