Stories from Past Participants
People often come to Climate Wayfinding because they find themselves at a crossroads of some kind — a moment of seeking clarity or new approaches, community or renewal of purpose. Here, five Climate Wayfinding alumni reflect on their own climate crossroads, their experiences in the program, and its continued reverberations through their lives. These are stories of how we find our way.
Anya Gandavadi
she/her • undergrad studying environmental science, The University of Texas at Austin • 2023 Climate Wayfinding online alum • Austin, TX
“Even though I had the climate knowledge and the passion, I realized something was still holding me back from taking the climate action I wanted to take: fear, and the inner work I needed to do to actually sit with that fear and understand it. Climate Wayfinding gave me the space, tools, and supportive community to do this work. I feel a new steadiness. Steady in myself and in how I can best be of use in the climate movement.”
By her second year as an environmental science major at UT Austin, Anya Gandavadi had already acquired a lot of technical climate knowledge through her academic work and on-campus engagement in carbon accounting and emissions reduction efforts. Yet, though she was pursuing the issue she cared most about, she often felt depleted and stuck in “climate doom,” with little to refill her cup. “I was looking for a way to steady myself, to connect with kindred spirits, and to rediscover joy in climate work. I knew I needed to learn how and where to do this movement self-care if I wanted to sustain my climate action for the long-term.”
Enter Climate Wayfinding. Anya joined the virtual summer 2023 cohort alongside other undergraduate and graduate students. “Before Climate Wayfinding, I would cycle through periods of hyper-involvement, followed by burnout. I felt like I was doing a lot, but I wasn’t necessarily working in harmony with my own skills.” With her cohort, Anya was able to identify and align her unique skill set with both the climate action needed in this moment and what brings her joy. Supporting others as they did the same helped her forge new personal connections.
“After completing the program, I feel more tethered to myself. I am less afraid of my feelings around this work — the positive and the negative. I feel more connected to other people and Earth. I trust my intuition more. I also feel a lot more generous with my expressions of joy over our collective achievements. Feeling all of this actually makes me want to keep going in a way that is authentic, not a relentless grind.”
Centered in her purpose and fortified by her newfound climate community, Anya has renewed energy to take climate action. After learning the role major banks play in lending money to the fossil fuel industry, Anya moved her personal bank accounts to an institution that instead funds clean energy — an individual decision with structural impact. She continues to network on campus and in the Austin community, widening her circles to link up with others working on fossil fuel divestment. And, she knows that she can call on her Climate Wayfinding practices, tools, and community anytime she needs a boost or an ally.
Where did you grow the most from participating in Climate Wayfinding?
“I have clarity around my contribution, while embracing its evolution”
(from The AWCS Project’s 8 dynamics of climate engagement)
Meghan Chapple
she/her • VP of sustainability, Georgetown University • 2023 Climate Wayfinding @ Omega alum • Silver Spring, MD
“I think so many of us — even when we aren’t talking about it — have this anxious part inside saying, ‘Get to net-zero by 2030. Fight all the wildfires. Do everything good for the climate, alone, right now… go!’ And we don’t know how to admit this to each other, much less how to unpack it so that it doesn’t freeze us in fear, in inaction, in isolation. We miss the ‘nourishment’ piece — making connections, playing to your strengths, and feeling the joy that comes from that. Climate Wayfinding gave me that nourishment and the skills to bring it into my own work.”
As vice president of sustainability for Georgetown, Meghan Chapple is deeply involved in climate work. She strategizes with colleagues to embed tangible climate good into every level of the university, mentors students looking to find their role in climate, and builds partnerships across higher ed to share best practices in sustainability. Meghan has spent three decades working in the sector; still, she knew she had more she wanted to learn and do.
In 2020, Meghan began to reflect on her climate journey in new ways. “I realized I needed to look to more diverse voices for both answers and inspiration. My mental models started to change.” She discovered All We Can Save, the anthology of writings by 60 women at the forefront of the climate movement. “The anthology was a balm and an invitation, full of generative, creative, and reciprocal ways of addressing the climate crisis.” After reading the book, Meghan held a weighty question that would come to define her approach to climate work: How do we face the truth of the climate emergency, summon the courage to act on proven solutions, and show up as our whole selves — feelings and all?
Unpacking that question alone is…a lot. Meghan yearned for a kindred community of people grappling with the same thing. She wondered whether a space existed where she didn’t have to explain away or justify her climate emotions. Where no one would give her a funny look for crying if she felt tears arise. She sought out Climate Wayfinding, offered in spring 2023 as a retreat-style workshop at the Omega Institute in New York’s Hudson Valley. “At Climate Wayfinding, I found the time, supportive space, and heart-forward approach to really connect with other people who are on their own climate journeys. I remember thinking, ‘I can let it out here. I’m not alone.’”
Through the program, Meghan learned how to weave space for connection into her work at Georgetown. Using Climate Wayfinding approaches, she now grounds all of her team’s large-scale institutional projects — expanding mass transit options for students, for example — in the relational aspects of the work, carving out time on meeting agendas for personal connection and reflection. She has even brought Climate Wayfinding concepts like “generous questions” and “authentic power and deep joy” into conversations with her friends and family members, deepening their relationships in the process. “What it comes down to for me is this: We don’t know what the future holds. We could be holding hands while the world burns, or holding hands while the world thrives. But no matter what, we are all going to be standing, holding hands.”
Where did you grow the most from participating in Climate Wayfinding?
“I am able to work with climate emotions and access healing / rest”
(from The AWCS Project’s 8 dynamics of climate engagement)
Belinda Ramírez
they/them • lecturer in civic, global, and liberal education, Stanford University • 2023 Climate Wayfinding @ Omega alum • Palo Alto, CA
“Educators like me need the tools of Climate Wayfinding to navigate the feelings side of climate work, for ourselves and for our students. So many students are flailing in the midst of the knowledge that we are in a climate emergency and yet many in power are not doing anything about it. How can we feel our way through those feelings together and keep going? Because the world needs us.”
After teaching the All We Can Save anthology in their environmental sustainability class at Stanford, Belinda Ramírez got curious about how fellow educators were navigating the practical and emotional realities of teaching in a changing climate. In pursuit of a like-minded climate community, they applied to the spring 2023 Climate Wayfinding workshop at the Omega Institute. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the retreat. I think I was initially just hoping for tangible tools I could use in my teaching. It was much bigger and more personal than that. We created a wonderful community together with a lot of opportunities to be vulnerable. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to see and to feel that community is core to this work. I left feeling supported and inspired.”
Belinda found a new model of possibility through Climate Wayfinding — one that makes space for people simply to spend time connecting, even in activist spaces where the work is urgent and challenges abound. “Following the workshop at Omega, I have become intentional about cultivating personal connections in the classroom and within my coalitions on campus. I create space for people to just be people together, and not to only reach out when we need to get work done. It’s hard for a bunch of busy-bee type folk to do, but really nurtures us as people and it enriches the work.”
Belinda’s circles are ever-widening, and the kindred community they found at Climate Wayfinding endures. They already have climate collaborations in the works with other alums across the country. “My cohort helps me feel rooted within a larger system, a larger web of people who care about the climate and care about bringing this way of approaching the work into higher education spaces.”
Where did you grow the most from participating in Climate Wayfinding?
“I feel connected to Earth & kindred community”
(from The AWCS Project’s 8 dynamics of climate engagement)
Grey Kenna
she/her • master’s candidate in community development & action, Vanderbilt University • 2022 Climate Wayfinding online alum • Nashville, TN
“Climate Wayfinding taught me how to go where the energy is — to be honest with myself about what I actually enjoy and find energizing. And then to go and do that in service of the planet. I am an artist and a photographer. I no longer see that as separate from ‘more serious’ climate work. My contributions matter. It all matters.”
Grey Kenna came to Climate Wayfinding the summer before her senior year of undergrad at Sewanee: The University of the South. She was looking for a guidepost as she traversed the vast landscape of post-graduate possibilities. “A lot of my friends already had firm plans for after graduation. I had a lot of ideas, but felt up in the air about what I really wanted. I saw a post about Climate Wayfinding on Instagram and it looked like a supportive place to explore this big question around ‘what’s next?’”
Grey wasn’t sure what to expect, but hoped that Climate Wayfinding would connect her with others who were curious about how to best be of use to a planet in crisis. As Grey describes her experience: “My [online] cohort had people from literally all over the world. We had people from every time zone and every possible background, career, and personality. It was such a gift to hear their stories, their questions, and how they saw themselves in the work that needs to be done. We learned about climate solutions and hard facts. We also learned how to be in community with one another, how to sit still and listen deeply.”
The vulnerability of her cohort created space for Grey to let go of the “shoulds” that often plague college students and to get curious about the alignment between her interests, her skills, and proven climate solutions. “I started actually thinking, ‘Well, what would it look like if I took my photography and art seriously? What climate good could I do with that?’ I gave myself permission to bring different aspects of my life together.”
Grey credits Climate Wayfinding with recalibrating her internal compass so that her natural curiosity and creativity could inform her next steps. Now she’s a graduate student at Vanderbilt pursuing a master’s in community development and action. She weaves her seemingly disparate interests into a rich tapestry of climate engagement. With her camera at the ready as she moves through grassroots organizing spaces at the intersections of climate, education, and religion, Grey uses the power of visual storytelling to create a common language for fellow activists: our struggles are interconnected, as are our possibilities.
Where did you grow the most from participating in Climate Wayfinding?
“I have clarity around my contribution, while embracing its evolution”
(from The AWCS Project’s 8 dynamics of climate engagement)
Francisco Gallegos
he/him • assistant professor of philosophy, Wake Forest University • 2022 Climate Wayfinding @ Omega alum • Winston-Salem, NC
“When I found Climate Wayfinding, I was really struggling with the disconnect between the urgency of the climate emergency we are in and my inability to talk about it in social spaces without being labeled ‘a really big bummer.’ I needed help learning how to talk about these emotions in productive and nourishing ways, without being naive or dismissive. Otherwise, I feared that every conversation would keep ending with, ‘We are all doomed,’ which is actually not what the science says. The solutions are out there. That’s the good news. But people need the emotional tools to even have the energy and clarity to act on them.”
Sometimes an email can feel like a smile from the universe. That’s how Francisco felt when, during a period of deep discouragement at the enormity of the climate crisis and his own ability to make a difference, he opened The All We Can Save Project’s monthly newsletter and saw that applications were open for the 2022 Climate Wayfinding workshop at the Omega Institute. He initially wasn’t sure if the retreat environment – complete with movement and energetic practices like yoga and reiki – was for him. But, finding a space apart from the busyness and obligations of daily life where he could work through climate emotions alongside others asking the same questions felt rare and precious. He applied with an open mind, hoping to gain tangible how-tos to navigate climate emotions with his students at Wake Forest, where he teaches philosophy.
“The workshop really showed me that big feelings are best held in relationships with others. Deep emotional work is actually a very social thing, if you can learn how to move through feelings with other people and be honest and vulnerable. A lot of my academic work is around the power of moods, and how important they are in shaping what human beings view as possible in the world. Thanks to the structure of the workshop, I was able to receive the benefits of the environment, and learn how to create those social containers myself – for my students, my personal relationships, and myself.” He realized how much he missed his yoga practice, too.
Franscisco’s participation was timely; that semester, he was teaching a course in environmental ethics, which included a unit on climate emotions. He now had a framework to use – an antidote to ward off the “hide under the covers” gloom he was accustomed to feeling when he approached the topic. He started having class outside more, tinkering with the format of his classes to inject more nourishment. He has also found his partnerships with colleagues to be more generative after using strategies from Climate Wayfinding. For example, identifying “accelerators” – tackling a big, complex problem by starting with actions that can have the greatest structural impact, rather than just barreling forward – helped his colleagues stay focused and energized rather than slipping into overwhelm.
And, he’s having fun. “This experience showed me that I am my most impactful when I lean in on the climate solutions that exist in that sweet spot where my interests, skills, and joy overlap. And that joy actually attracts other people to the work, and now I’m doing good for the climate in community with others. This approach has unlocked energy I was previously wasting on ‘should-ing.’ It feels so much more sustainable.”
Where did you grow the most from participating in Climate Wayfinding?
“I find footholds for meaningful action & collaboration”
(from The AWCS Project’s 8 dynamics of climate engagement)