I recently had a thoughtful and fun conversation with poet and climate justice champion Eben E. B. Bein on the topic of staying sane without giving up the fight. Here’s a video of Eben reading their poem This Body It is For, and highlights from the interview are below.
ROB: Eben and I have worked together on all kinds of interesting climate-related advocacy. We also share a lot of interests which show up in what we write. I was happy to see they were doing a poetry reading nearby and I went down to check it out. I really love what they write, and it is relevant to this blog, Forgiving Nature. So, I asked Eben to do an interview.
Welcome here, Eben.
EBEN: Thank you for having me.
ROB: I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if it’s possible to be sane and pay attention to what’s going on in the world, and be engaged and fight for the things I care about. The people I care about. Have you thought about this?
EBEN: First, I want to say I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be connected with people who think about climate change and climate justice and our connection to the natural world and also turn to art for some sense making. I think that’s such an important part of staying sane and certainly a big part of how I do that.
There’s a sort of a gripping energy sort of in my soul and my hands and my mind as if reality is something that humans can touch and hold on to. A lot of us have been sold a way of thinking that life on earth is something we could have a grip on and control. I think the culture that I grew up grew up in is misled in this. So, sanity to me, means making sense of being, you know, small beings for a small amount of time on a small rock going around one of a zillion stars in this universe.
I’m white-bodied. and though gender queer, male-bodied, relatively able-bodied. and receive some of the privilege.I can’t ignore this but lots of systems were made to train me not to attend to that, to think that the systems that exist are working actually. I am no longer under that illusion.
One good way to stay sane is taking a break. To use my favorite writer Parker Palmer’s language, the heart can, if it’s brittle and grabbing, can shatter into a thousand pieces and if it’s supple and warm can break open to something emerging.
ROB: I’m really glad I invited you to participate in this blog because that’s the first time I have had someone say that maybe we ought to not worry too much about being sane or completely sane. I mean, we don’t want to be totally unhinged.
EBEN: Toni Cade Bambara said our job is to make the revolution irresistible. I do think that paying attention to what allows us to be grounded and in our bodies and full of joy is the blueprint for being irresistible. We have to incorporate our own nature into our vision of the future. I’m thinking of adrienne maree brown ‘s Pleasure Activism here. Finding pleasure is such an important part of staying irresistible. This is a slippery concept because some people can say, all right, let’s find pleasure in the newest iPhone or whatever. There are lots of places where capitalism and other systems can grab on to the idea of pleasure, but the pleasure I’m talking about is deep and embodied and communal and returns us to ourselves. Art does that.
Now I have Octavia Butler in my head. God is change. If we go in thinking that we can achieve sanity by grabbing on and making the world a particular way we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.
ROB: That leads to another question I had. Is pleasure, enjoying our lives, possible when we are engaged in fighting for justice and opening our eyes to some great suffering in the world? Some people think that to enjoy their lives, they can’t even look at that at all because it feels like it’s going to destroy them.
EBEN: A snarky part of me wants to turn to people who don’t want to see the suffering and ask, “And how’s that working for you? Especially as the suffering becomes less and less ignorable. I am not trying to be holier-than-thou. I’m as addicted to distraction as anyone—phone, food, sex., etc. Sometimes I even feel like my relationship with art can be sort of an indulgent distraction in a way. But there’s a difference between shutting the door on the world’s suffering and allowing both things to exist. And I don’t see people who really shut the door on the world’s suffering who really seem that deeply happy. That’s too hollow and we’re all too connected for anyone to successfully ignore suffering for long.
Meanwhile,working to reduce overall suffering for all beings is deeply satisfying. It’s not easy and I also need to be wary and make room for grieving. I come back to that image of a soft heart and a heart that can break open. But still I’d rather do that than shut suffering out.
The young people that I work with, young climate activists in the Massachusetts Youth Climate Coalition and in Clean Water Actions Program, the Youth Action Collaborative, get this. They have said to me, “Oh, we need to do this. We need to take the time to grieve. This is important.” And I see the young as less colonized than me. You know colonization being like a means of us dividing and categorizing our lives. The opposite of integration and wholeness.
ROB: I think a lot about this in part because I’ve become a Buddhist somehow. As many people know, suffering is a word associated with Buddhism and sometimes it scares them away. They assume it’s a Debbie Downer religion but actually it turns out to be healthier for me in the long run to allow myself to suffer some. To not try to distract myself from suffering every time it comes up. It’s a skill and I’m just a beginner. It’s not something I was taught. Somehow I got the message that we have so many amazing things in our privileged part of the world that we never have to suffer. It ties into what I’m trying to do with this blog, Forgiving Nature, which is in part forgiving my own struggle, my own ups and downs, my own fear of suffering, my own fear of other people’s suffering. This concept keeps evolving. Forgiving Nature is also that sometimes I need a break and it’s okay to have some me time or some quiet time. Writing is a great way for me to do this. Is it for you as well?
EBEN: My scientific and cultural education taught me, if I’m depressed or I’m anxious or if my back is hurting or whatever, to seek the solution by jumping into action. Go. Achieve. Solve.
I’m really excited to get free with you and for us to see suffering in others and in ourselves as a part of life and to try to have a better balance around that. I also don’t think that we need to spend all day on suffering and deny ourselves the joy of making art. Also letting ourselves make sad art, like integrating the suffering and the joy because the two things are connected actually, I think.
ROB: We could have another long conversation about the powers that control the messages we’re getting, about what is good and what we ought to be doing. But I will say that materialism hypnotizes us into thinking we don’t have to suffer if we have more stuff and maybe on some subconscious level we know that we have to be top dogs if we want to get the most stuff. And that stress is unlimited. It doesn’t lead to mental health. It leads to profound insecurity.
Something tells me now is the perfect time to hear one of your poems.
THIS BODY IT IS FOR
BY EBEN E. B. BEIN
Gyrinidae have unique, divided eyes and secrete a terpene-based chemical when disturbed.
Past edge grasses
in the reflection of the mountain
in the reflection of the beaver lodge
between jay cries and a miles-off motorcycle,
in that quiet—where each reed
is as sharp as its image
and autumn-orange leaves
fall and splay among lily pads,
the whirligig beetles
make their rounds.
On the shore, my body
has crossed its legs again
laid wrists to rest
like so, balanced
head atop its column
passed ribs back and deep
through their dimensions
and still the brain
ripples with beads of obsidian,
eyes for above and below
the surface and is it even failure
to shiver infinite circles
among the blades and lilies none
of us can stop
being who we are
even in the fall
precious turner
this body it is for joy
did you know,
if caught, a thought releases
the scent of green–
a freshly bitten apple?
ROB: Thanks, Eben. Beautiful. I wrote down brain ripples. Wow. You’ve reminded me again how this blog, Forgiving Nature, is better if it’s not all me and my ideas. I saw seen Eben read some of his poetry recently, I thought he would be a great person to bring in. And the poem you chose really helps with this idea of forgiving nature: forgiving both human nature and the ways of the natural world. My brain is definitely rippling! A person I knew some time ago said, life is such a rich banquet. Sometimes we eat, we just gobble it up and we want more and more and more and more and more and sometimes it makes us feel sick. That’s the challenge. There is so much and we can’t understand or appreciate it all at once or at least recognize it all at once. Enough from me, you were going to riff on the poem?
EBEN: I love that image from your friend about banquets and about pacing. I think for me, this poem is a little bit about remembering that I am a beaver lodge and I am a mountain and I am whirligig beetles and some things will always be moving for me.
It’s the Buddhist idea of interbeing. I am whirligig beetles and I am mountains. I am also Palestinian children and I am also Donald Trump and I am also … insert anything here. I’m also people scrabbling for minerals in the Congo in order to keep the American economy afloat.
I used to be a biology teacher before I got into climate activism. That’s such a deep part of who I am. My love of the miracle of the natural world and wanting to share that. Eventually in my biology teaching, I got the sense that I wasn’t necessarily giving young people the tools that they needed to be in right relationship with the natural world. And that’s why I left the traditional classroom for nonprofit spaces where I could help young climate advocates find their voice and speak that and build power with each other.
Working with kids brings back simple joys. Like how amazing that an insect evolved a second set of eyes. I encourage anybody who’s listening to just look up pictures of whirly gig beetle eyes. They’re fascinating. One set that looks up at the world in the air and another set that scans the water below as they skim along the surface. and when I was in undergrad, and I was studying aquatic insects and you know, one of my good friends was the most incredible bug nerd I’ve ever met in my life, James Hung. He caught one and just held it up to my nose and I smelled apple and I was like, how is this real?
ROB: I’m a Joni Mitchell nerd myself. She sang “we are stardust,” and it’s true. I’m like you, at times I can be very analytical. As a child, I thought I’d just figure this all out. I’m going to figure out what these religions are telling me, like how that’s possible. And it’s taken a lifetime to let go of, as you said, the illusion of control. Which means letting go of another idea – if I work hard enough, I can control everything. We are, no lie, made of stardust, and I’m never going to figure out exactly how that happened.
I’ve enjoyed our talk so much, I’ve lost track of time, but I’d like to know if there’s anything else you want to say about this project of Forgiving Nature. Staying engaged but also staying sane. Or at least not insane.
EBEN: Thank you so much for helping me remember that my art and art making is part of this. One of my big writing projects right now is a non-fiction book. I’m taking seven years in the classroom and seven years in organizing and set them next to each other and ask how I think differently in those two settings. I have a lot of guilt sometimes about taking the time to do that when so much in the world is so urgent. And this conversation helps me remember these sort of long arcs that we’re on … to land in the mystery of art, the mystery of nature and allow that.
ROB: You can find Eben’s poem published online in the Spring Volume Two issue of Crab Creek Review. The poem and more about Eben’s work and art can be found on their site ebenbein.com.
EBEN: Please come find me. And anybody who’s interested in this work, I love sharing and discussing and building community around art making including writing. Thank you so much for helping me remember that my art and art making is part of this.
ROB: Thank you for speaking with me and best of luck in your new book and see you around.
EBEN: Thank you, Rob.
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