Deep Adaptation | Contemplative Inquiry

August 26, 2025

BOOK REVIEW: BOURNEBRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS

Highly recommended, especially for readers interested in local initiatives to address the climate crisis. Bournebridge over Troubled Waters (1) is a sequel to Tony Emerson’s Unlikely Alliances, which I reviewed in October 2022 – (https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2022/10/27/book-review-unlikely-alliances/). Although the new book stands on its own, I think it works best after reading Unlikely Alliances, now republished as Creating Hope in the Valley of the Bourne. The setting continues to be a fictional community on England’s south coast.

In the new book, we have reached the year 2030. The publisher’s blurb describes it as ‘a story of love and friendship’ as well as commitment to climate action. On my reading, the ways in which people do ‘love and friendship’ are integral to the action itself.

This is shown in a group of leading characters who gradually assemble together in an old rectory building. This is less by design than the need for decent housing and a belief that larger dwellings should be fully occupied. But the rectory evolves into a strong base for its residents’ flourishing.

In many ways they are a diverse group. But they all, sometimes with a little tlc, reveal themselves as naturally affectionate and ethically grounded. The culture of the house nurtures these co-operative qualities. It is a creative and supportive place to live. As part of the life of the house, the residents develop a system of peer mentoring for their work in the wider world. There’s also a concern, for some of them, about a progressive Christianity that honours the world and the flesh and is ecologically aware. I am reminded of Matthew Fox’s use of the term ‘original blessing’.

As was the case in Unlikely Alliances, the government is committed to climate action. The earlier book describes their Climate Action Plan, which has put serious wealth taxes in place, rationed fuel and food (especially meat), placed restrictions on air travel, created a Civilian Community Service Corps to provide training and jobs for the unemployed and 2 years national service for school and college leavers. Housing policy is not all about new build, but also addresses better use of existing resources.

The fields covered by our band of rectory activists and their colleagues include agriculture, hospitality, renewable energy, relevant university research, transport, housing, trades union development, clothing (new and renewed), second hand shops, and renovation, repair and maintenance services of various kinds. These are practical needs and also model a cultural shift away from throwaway consumerism. All of this work is depicted as dynamic and gaining momentum.

Temperatures are continuing to rise, and there is an unprecedented level of flooding to contend with. At the same time, vested interests and violent climate deniers, branded as ‘True Britannia’, continue to undermine the Climate Action Plan. Life goes on. Lovers get together. Children are born. Older people die and are lovingly remembered. Music is made. Rugby is played. Hospitality is exchanged. Events are organised and enjoyed. People maintain contact with family members further away, travelling throughout Britain and Ireland, though rarely further than that. It is not clear what the future will hold, but there are some grounds for optimism.

When I finished reading Bournebridge over Troubled Waters I felt as if pitched back into my own timeline. It’s as though my 2025 couldn’t be the one that led to their 2029-2034. I didn’t feel that way even when I read Unlikely Alliances in 2022. My reading of books like this seems to depend not only on who I am but when I am. If I become timeless, I can respond to these books as parables reminding us that we have the power to be better than we are. We just don’t use it enough. That’s a call to respond to whatever the outward circumstances or likely outcomes.

(1) Tony Emerson Bournebridge over Troubled Waters UK: The Conrad Press, 2O24 (www.the conradpress com)

February 16, 2024

‘SACRED AGNOSTICISM’

In the later stages of a post mostly about the spiritual benefits of ‘deep adaptation’ (1), Jem Bendell discusses “sacred agnosticism, where the mystery of consciousness is surrendered”. I wish that I had come up with ‘sacred agnosticism’ myself, and the use of ‘surrendered’ in that context. I see it as a highly skilful use of language, that tricky medium, and resonant in the present stage of my own life and practice.

Describing his journey to this position, Bendall says: “for many years, I’d ditched religious stories of a soul that exists, like my current consciousness, in an afterlife. I’d also realised that aspects of reality and consciousness are ineffable. Meaning, once we use concept and language to describe the ultimate truth, we are moving away from reality.”

However, he goes on to acknowledge that: “I still had part of me that wanted to know. Will I still be conscious after death? Will I merge, will I reincarnate, will I experience nothing? Will I leave no trace in the universal information field or akashic record? Did I even exist much in the first place?”

Through reflection and meditation Bendall discovered that any narrative of this kind would, for him, “have originated in fear, where the ego needs to map, order and control reality and assert that to others”. In the absence of such stories he suggests that “the mystery itself is an invitation to transcend the ego.” So he decided that: “I wanted to cultivate a way of being where I will actually celebrate that ‘not-knowingness’ and would naturally feel that way at the time of dying”.

The content of the reflections isn’t new to me. Yet I do strongly feel that I’ve been gifted the right words at the right time. I am grateful to Jem Bendall for his post.

(1) https://jembendell.com/2024/02/13/major-life-changes-become-the-least-risky-option/

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September 14, 2023

DEEP ADAPTATION AND CRITICAL WISDOM

In recent months I have felt an increasing pull towards better understanding our current ecological, cultural and political crises. From a Druid perspective, I am mindful of my commitments to nature and all beings, and accountability to all our ancestors and descendants. From a contemplative perspective, I am bearing witness to the world in which I breathe: any ‘beyond’ is accessible only from within. From an inquiry perspective there is much to inquire about.

So Jem Bendall’s new book, Breaking Together: a Freedom Loving Response to Collapse (1), is important for me both to learn from and to write about. In this post I describe two concepts that I see as driving the book: ‘deep adaptation’ and ‘critical wisdom’. Bendall explains these concepts in a way that gives me questions to ask and tools to use. Boiled down, they are not complicated. The words that follow are his, not mine.

Deep Adaptation

“Deep Adaptation refers to the personal and collective changes that might help us to prepare for – and live with – a collapse of the societies we live within. Unlike mainstream work on adaptation to ecological and climate change, it doesn’t assume that our current economic, social and political systems can be resilient in the face of rapid climate change. The ethos is one of curious and compassionate engagement with this new reality, seeking to reduce harm and learn from the process, rather than turn away from the suffering of others and nature.

“There is an emphasis on dialogue, with four questions to help people explore how to be and what to do if they have this deep outlook on the future.

“What do we want to keep and how is a question of resilience.

“What do we need to let go of, so as not to make matters worse, is a question of relinquishment.

“What could we bring back to help us with these difficult times, is a question of restoration.

“With what and who shall we make peace as we awaken to our mutual mortality, is a question of reconciliation.”

Critical Wisdom

“What I term ‘critical wisdom’ is the elusive capability for understanding oneself in the world that combines insight from mindfulness, rationality, critical literacy, and intuition.

“A capability for mindfulness involves our awareness of the motivations for our thought, including our mind states, emotional reactions and why we might want to ‘know’ about phenomena.

“A capability for rationality involves an awareness of logic, logical fallacies and forms of bias.

“A capability for critical literacy involves awareness of how the tools by which we think, including linguistically constructed concepts and stories, are derived from, and reproduce, culture, including relationships of power.

“A capability for intuition involves awareness of insights from non-conceptual experiences including epiphanies and insights from non-ordinary states of consciousness.”

For me, Jem Bendall provides an invaluable set of questions to ask and tools to use under the headings of Deep Adaptation and Critical Wisdom. The questions refine my understanding of Deep Adaptation. The combination of understandings that lead to wisdom are, as a set, new to me, though I was already aware of the individual elements. ‘Critical Wisdom’ reframes my sense of wisdom, more clearly experienced as a dynamic processes of wise-ing.

(1) Jem Bendell Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse Bristol: Good Works, 2023 (Good Works is an imprint of the Schumacher Institute – see also https://www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk). I can certainly recommend this book now, on the grounds of both its wide knowledge and deep wisdom. I may write a full review in future.

NB: Jem Bendell is a world-renowned scholar on the break-down of modern societies due to environmental change. A full Professor with the University of Columbia, he is a sociologist specialising in critical integrative interdisciplinary research analysis on topics of major social concern. His Deep Adaptation paper influenced the growth of the EXtinction Rebellion movement in 2018, and he created a global network to reduce harm in the face of societal collapse (the Deep Adaptation Forum). Although recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012, Bendell has been increasingly critical of the globalist agenda on sustainable development.”

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September 6, 2023

BOOK REVIEW: FORGIVING HUMANITY

Forgiving Humanity (1) is an extended essay rather than a book. I found it easy to read and hard to work with. Author Peter Russell is highly skilled at distilling data and making his case. His conclusion is that the near term extinction of the human species is inevitable, and not unnatural or to be faulted. “We are coming to the end of our species’ journey, spinning faster and faster into the center of an evolutionary spiral.”

Russell points to what he sees as our our natural-born drive for exponential growth and development. A dance of genetic and behavioural change led us to an enhanced brain, bi-pedal walking, manual dexterity, and a shift in the position of the larynx to enable complex speech. Cultural evolution then led to organised hunting with the throwing spear and, later, the bow. Later still, at an increasing rate of change, came agriculture, metallurgy, the industrial revolution (from steam to atomic power in not much more than a century) and, most recently, the accelerating information revolution now leading to the rise of AI. Quantum computing is on the horizon.

The problem according to Russell is that exponential growth is inherently predestined to run out of control. This is “the curse of exponential change.” Exponential growth is not like the linear growth that we can more comfortably imagine. In the domain of economics, for example, 3% annual growth rate in the world’s GDP, compounded over 100 years, would lead to a consumption of energy and resources at 20 times today’s rate. Russell started thinking about this problem as a young and gifted mathematician at the end of the 1960s. On his analysis, we would be fatally fouling our own nest even without the specific problem of the climate crisis. Climate change simply exacerbates and dramatises our predicament, hastening the process of breakdown.

Russell is aware of systemic injustices in our socio-economic system, but this book does not explore political mitigations. He expects major breakdown in this century. A remnant population in reduced circumstances will carry on for a while longer. But this human triggered extinction event, which has already claimed many other species, will still be rapid in planetary terms. In the immediate future, Russell sees a likelihood of continuing technological breakthroughs for some decades, in the midst of extensive cultural breakdown and a diminishing global population. I am not certain that he is right, but I fear that he may be. And I find him hard to read, trying to imagine what it would be like for different people in different places, and stepping into their boots down here in the trenches where embodied human life is lived until it’s gone.

Whilst the earlier sections of Forgiving Humanity are presented as if from the perspective of a distant cosmic scientist, there is a later turn to human experience and how to live in the new conditions. Peter Russell becomes one of us and shares his long-held view of consciousness and its possibilities, especially the affirmation that: “beneath our day-to-day experience lies a deeper sense of being, unperturbed by the goings on in the world, and our hopes and fears about them … meditative and self-enquiry processes … lead to greater calm and self-awareness, and … the more in touch we are with our inner being, the more considerate, compassionate, and caring we become – qualities that could prove invaluable in meeting the challenges ahead.” I also like his idea of remaining in service to the earth whenever we can, continuing to do our best for it even when knowing that our species is waning and likely to wink out. The notion of persevering with restorative efforts allows for limited local successes, seems like a healing process in itself and preserves a sense of positive agency in hard times. I am sure that people will continue to work in these ways whenever given half a chance.

For Russell, psycho-spiritual practices and communities are a key resiliency factor for navigating through heart-breaking conditions. We need to “find the acceptance that allows us to move into the unknown with courage and an open heart”. Russell says that facing our collective extinction is like facing our personal deaths, only more so because we are looking at the end of our kind. He borrows from a well-known map of how to work through five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining and depression – to a final acceptance. I have to note some reservations about schemes based on normative ideas about how we work through distress. People are very different – though many, it is true, are reassured by maps of this kind. I would also not want these suggestions to be misunderstood as an injunction to put on a mask of serenity when something else is going on in our body/mind. For me, the deeper acceptance is to recognise and accept our confusion and turbulence, if confusion and turbulence are what is happening. The spaciousness of deep acceptance then keeps company with them, avoiding both the false mask of serenity on the one hand, and immersed identification with our distress on the other. Nothing is denied.

I am not sure about the suggestion of ‘forgiving humanity’. If I take ‘humanity’ as simply the name of a species, I don’t feel that it’s my place either to forgive or withhold forgiveness from a species of which I am a member. If I take ‘Humanity’ as an idealised abstraction, or construct, then there’s no-one there to forgive outside my own imagination. For me, working as best as I can at deep acceptance and loving kindness, accepting with self-compassion that I will likely be wayward and inconsistent in my endeavours, is the better way to go. It keeps me in the world of lived interactions with other sentient beings and feels like a more engaged and grounded aspiration.

Despite some reservations, I value this work highly and recommend it to anyone concerned with the issues raised in it. We need voices like this, who move beyond deep adaptation to face into the possibility of no adaptation. Forgiving Humanity offers a distinctive lens on the crisis we are in, and it does so in a concise, readable and sadly persuasive way.

(1) Peter Russell Forgiving Humanity: How the Most Innovative Became the Most Dangerous Las Vegas, NV: Elf Rock Productions, 2023

NB Peter Russell studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge but later changed to experimental psychology. After learning transcendental meditation (TM) with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India, he took up the first academic post ever offered in Britain on the psychology of meditation. He also has a postgraduate degree in computer science. In the 1970s he pioneered senior corporate management courses on meditation, creativity, stress management and sustainable development. Later he coined the term ‘global brain’ with the 1980’s best seller of that name in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have on humanity. I have reviewed a more recent book Letting Go of Nothing at:

BOOK REVIEW: LETTING GO OF NOTHING

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Tag: Deep Adaptation