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Ravens fly in circles above our heads. Coyote peers from the hedge but dares not. Kachinas have not danced. The awelos tried but youth went their own way

Conesa, George

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE) 
Volume 11 
Issue 1 Open Issue Article 13 
9-15-2025 
Postscript: A Historical Interlude 
George Conesa 
georgeconesa@rocketmail.com 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ije 
 Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, Life Sciences Commons, and the Psychology Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Conesa, George (2025) "Postscript: A Historical Interlude," The International Journal of Ecopsychology 
(IJE): Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 13. 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55671/2767-1380.1143 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ije/vol11/iss1/13 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE) by an authorized editor of 
Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. For more information, please contact press@humboldt.edu, or visit 
digitalcommons.humboldt.edu and press.humboldt.edu. 
Postscript: A Historical Interlude 
 
‘‘…celebrity culture plunges us into a moral void. No one 
has any worth beyond his or her appearance, usefulness, or ability to ‘succeed.’  
The highest achievements in a celebrity culture are wealth, sexual conquest, and fame.  
It does not matter how these are obtained’’ (Chris Hedges, 2009:32). 
 
“My familiarity with power is triple: I have observed it, I have abused it, I have suffered it”  
(Elias Canetti, 1982:63). 
 
The most recent aggregation of several veins of pro-Earth sentiments, sustainable thinking, 
Eastern-Neo-Pagan-Western syncretism, ill-interpreted psychodynamic affectations, and social 
equality movements that coalesced into “ecopsychology” in the late1960s and early-to-late 1970s, 
came and went without leaving a significant mark in mainstream psychology, ecology, or, 
strangely, mainstream culture: not even a comic strip or an exotic sounding cocktail. In all fairness, 
“ecopsychology” had barely had a chance of surviving within academic circles when institutions 
of higher learning settled on bottom-line solutions faced with diminishing funding. About this, 
Chris Hedges wrote (2009:35, 109, 112): 
 
We have bought hook, line and sinker into the idea that education is about training and ‘success,’ 
defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge […] most universities 
have become high-priced occupational training centers […] the single most important quality 
needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. As Immanuel Kant wrote, moral autonomy is possible only 
through reflection, self-determination, and the courage not to cooperate. Moral autonomy is what 
the corporate state, with all its coded attacks on liberal institutions and ‘‘leftist’’ professors, have 
really set out to destroy. 
 
Espousing “human-nature connections” in deontological language derived from Hindu, Buddhist, 
neo-pagan, neo-Amerindian, and Christian sources, “ecopsychology” too became a voice for moral 
autonomy. Today, instead, several dozens of informally collated practitioners adhering to multiple 
interpretations of human-nature “connections,” conducting seminars, workshops, and “therapies,” 
remain. These chimeras include a handful of certificate offerings, college and university courses 
and degrees that paint, at best, a feeble academic veneer of scholarly worth with dubious 
interdisciplinary respectability. Then came the 21st Century and two administrations bent on, 
shamelessly, undermining the rule of law, putting a stop to basic research and scientific 
understanding, undoing decades of hard-gotten environmental protections, and intent, so it seems, 
on assaulting the entire edifice of liberal education. Not even in the midst of the turmoil of the 
late1960s and early-to-late 1970s has such a concerted and radical demolition of society been 
witnessed in its present mindless and dark form. 
1
Conesa: Postscript: A Historical Interlude
Published by Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt, 2025
Astoundingly, but perhaps not surprising in the context of these unprecedented events, the 
American Psychological Association, to name just one institution, has also bowed to political 
pressure. Ellen Barry writing for the New York Times (March 27, 2025) reported: 
The American Psychological Association, which sets standards for professional training in mental 
health, has voted to suspend its requirement that postgraduate programs show a commitment to 
diversity in recruitment and hiring […] The concession by the A.P.A., a bastion of support for 
diversity programming, is a particular landmark. The association has made combating racism a 
central focus of its work in recent years, and in 2021 adopted a resolution apologizing for its role 
in perpetuating racism by, among other things, promulgating eugenic theories. 
Aaron Joyce, the A.P.A.’s senior director of accreditation, said the decision to suspend the diversity 
requirement was driven by “a large influx of concerns and inquiries” from programs concerned 
about running afoul of the president’s order. 
All this to say that an eyes-wide-open read of history, or of writers who have the intellectual 
nimbleness to accurately distill it for our understanding, is often a sobering if not depressing 
endeavor. But to look away or ignore what it might presage is folly--dangerous. To the extent that 
“ecopsychological” writings ignore the psycho-socio-political forces that have shaped present-day 
societies, preferring mythology, or cherry-picking some other reading of the past for what seems 
like self-serving reasons, then their contributions are nearly useless in informing conscientious 
citizens of their real choices—a so-perceived liberal elite pantomiming outdated messages.   
Much of this reluctance to face “facts,” or esoterize them in magical thinking terms, has to do with 
a pernicious eagerness to accept, off-the-self, psychological inchoate or ill-derived constructs and 
the admixture of personally satisfying other-worldly inspirational lore. Most of us are wholly 
unaware of how deep this indoctrination runs. But this much is true: Every yoga session represents 
time spent on a widespread “cult of self” conveniently removed from the anguish and desperation 
of immigrant families being ripped apart from loved ones. No perfect sun salutation with 
accompanying chaunts can undo such brutal and violent actions occurring in the light of day while 
a gymnosophist claims to be on a path toward “self-realization”: perfect apples in a rotten barrel.  
Because these historical events and dynamics have been in place for at least three generations, if 
not more, according to Chris Hedges (2010), “…mass culture, fostered through the consumer 
society the cult of the self,” has placed wool over the eyes of folks who think of themselves as 
progressive or liberal. Hedges’s succinct historical interpretation reads as follows: 
The liberal era effectively ended with World War I. The war, which shattered liberal optimism and 
the inevitability of human progress, also consolidated state and corporate control over economic, 
political, cultural, and social affairs. It created mass culture, fostered through the consumer society 
the cult of the self, led the nation into an era of permanent war, and used fear and mass propaganda 
to cow citizens and silence independent and radical voices within the liberal class (2010:7). 
Hedges’s prophetic words, written in 2010, have become, in hindsight, a blueprint for and 
description of the status quo at the time of this writing: 
2
The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE), Vol. 11, Iss. 1 [2025], Art. 13
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ije/vol11/iss1/13
DOI: 10.55671/2767-1380.1143
The belief that we can make things happen through positive thoughts, by visualizing, by wanting 
them, by tapping into our inner strength, or by understanding that we are truly exceptional, is 
peddled to us by all aspects of the culture, from Oprah to the Christian Right. It is magical thinking. 
We can always make more money, meet new quotas, consume more products, and advance our 
careers. This magical thinking, this idea that human and personal progress is somehow inevitable, 
leads to political passivity. It permits societies to transfer their emotional allegiance to the absurd—
whether embodied in professional sports or in celebrity culture—and ignore real problems. It 
exacerbates despair. It keeps us in a state of mass self-delusion. Once we are drawn into this form 
of magical thinking, the purpose, structure and goals of the corporate state are not questioned. To 
question, to engage in criticism of the corporate collective, is to be seen as obstructive and negative. 
And these cultural illusions have grossly perverted the way we view ourselves, our nation, and the 
natural world. This magical thinking, coupled with its bizarre ideology of limitless progress holds 
out the promise of an impossible, unachievable happiness. It has turned whole nations, such as the 
United States, into self-consuming machines of death (ibid., 200). 
According to Hedges, the futility of a “liberal class” to stave off the insidious and overreaching 
power of corporations’ influence into our political life is not due to conscious malfeasance, but as 
necessary for survival. For all these reasons, much of the promise of “ecopsychology” has been 
dead on arrival or barely progressing for quite some time. Also, cutting edge, or scientifically 
important psycho-social findings are swept under a proverbial dusty old rug in favor of flying 
carpets. 
Lastly, a review of media content from the last forty years and, specifically, from visual-
commercial media outlets, reveals a trend toward extreme levels of idiocy, a 24/7 commercial 
gurgling tap of dysfunctional pretend-living: chaotic family and sex lives, a malicious delight in 
making sensible and rational people appear stupid or out of fashion, and a hyperemotional fast-
drive toward the lowest levels of human expression. It is as if at least two generations grew up 
with the following message: it is one’s right to delve into the most base and crude forms of 
communication, eating, and intimacy. Elephant cows socialize their unruly teens more sternly and 
consistently than us, it seems.  
And it is these unruly crowds, or various sorts, that are now unleashed, once again, upon the world, 
bent on distorting or destroying all symbols associated with common sense and stability. About 
this Elias Canetti1 wrote: 
The destruction of representational images is the destruction of a hierarchy which is no longer 
recognized. It is the violation of generally established and universally visible and valid distances. 
The solidity of the images was the expression of their permanence. They seem to have existed for 
ever, upright and immovable; never before had it been possible to approach them with hostile intent. 
Now they are hauled down and broken to pieces (1962:19).  
 
1 See also Canetti. E. (1982). 
3
Conesa: Postscript: A Historical Interlude
Published by Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt, 2025
Faced with the overwhelming odds of widespread decadence and the weight of recent history 
crushing our collective merry-tales of “purity in the woods,” the better parts and “spirit” of 
“ecopsychology” ambles feebly as came-and-went wishful thinking; a terrapin pushed off a 
crowded path. However, today as in the past, when humanity was faced with the wantonly bleak 
threat and final blow of those who engaged in mayhem or in tyrannical forms of power, who 
selfishly hoarded wealth without second thoughts for human dignity, social justice, decency, and 
economic equity, people will find outlets and preserve a modicum of humanity when and where 
they can. In Hedges’s words:    
As those who retained their identity during slavery or the long night of twentieth-century fascism 
and communism discovered, resistance will be reduced to small, often imperceptible acts of 
defiance. Music, theater, art, poetry, journalism, literature, dance, and the humanities, including the 
study of philosophy and history, will be the bulwarks that separate those who remain human from 
those who become savages. 
We stand on the verge of one of the bleakest periods in human history, when the bright lights of 
civilizations will blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity 
(2010:196). 
To be fair, no form or manner of “ecopsychology” could have anticipated, mediated, or stopped, 
the almost unbeatable momentum of long-brewing complex and chaotic socio-psycho-politico-
environmental forces and factors coalescing into a rupturing of ALL-LIVES-ON-EARTH. 
G. Conesa, Editor-in-chief. August 27, Thunder Bay, CAN.  
֍    ֍    ֍    ֍ 
Works Consulted 
Canetti, E. (1962). Crowds and power. (Translated by Carol Stewart.)  NY: The Viking Press. 
Canetti. E. (1982). La provincia del hombre: Carnet de notas 1942-1972. (Traducción original de Eustaquio 
Barjau con cambios por G. Conesa). Madrid, España: Taurus Ediciones, S. A. 
Hedges, C. (2009). Empire of illusion: The end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle. NY: Nation Books 
(pgs. 32, 35, 109, 112). 
Hedges, C. (2010). Death of the liberal class. NY: Nation Books (pgs. 7, 196, 200). 
ↈ  ↈ  ↈ 
Disclaimer: The comments and analyses expressed in this postscript and the rest of the journal contents 
are solely those of the authors’ and do not reflect nor are they guided by the university’ institutional or 
departmental policies and views (e.g., The Press at CAL POLY Humboldt). All questions regarding 
content should be addressed directly to authors. 
۝ 
 
4
The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE), Vol. 11, Iss. 1 [2025], Art. 13
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ije/vol11/iss1/13
DOI: 10.55671/2767-1380.1143


Postscript: A Historical Interlude

This will be incomplete. You won’t find conclusions here, I have only questions. I am barely just beginning to understand. This is a becoming. How many days has it been now, of carrying your dead or dying children in my pocket..

Rae, Holly

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 
Volume 1 
Number 47 HJSR: Place-Based Digital Inquiry Article 7 
2025 
This Grief In My Pocket: Thoughts on Solidarity and 
Transformation During a Live-Streamed Genocide 
Holly Rae 
Cal Poly Humboldt 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr 
Recommended Citation 
Rae, Holly. 2025. "This Grief In My Pocket: Thoughts on Solidarity and Transformation During a Live-
Streamed Genocide." Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 1 (47): DOI: https://doi.org/10.55671/
0160-4341.1266 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in Humboldt Journal of Social Relations by an authorized editor of Digital 
Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. For more information, please contact press@humboldt.edu, or visit 
digitalcommons.humboldt.edu and press.humboldt.edu. 
H J S R
This Grief In My Pocket: Thoughts on 
Solidarity and Transformation During a 
Live-Streamed Genocide
Holly Rae
Cal Poly Humboldt
“Grief work is soul work. It requires courage to face the 
world as it is and not turn away, to not burrow into a hole 
of comfort and anesthetization. Grief deepens our connection 
with soul, taking us into territories of vulnerability, exposing 
the truth of our need for others in times of loss and suffering.”
- Francis Weller
This will be incomplete. You won’t find conclusions 
here, I have only questions. I am barely just beginning to 
understand. This is a becoming.
How many days has it been now, of carrying your 
dead or dying children in my pocket? What does it mean 
to carry this grief with me from meeting, to mundane task, 
to dinner, to bed, and then wake up to it again as my alarm 
each morning? A reminder that we are connected. Remind-
ing me how disconnected we have been. Making plain 
where connection remains unmade. 
“Are we going to talk about it?” I asked my professor 
on October 19th during class. “I really want to talk about 
what's going on.” I was barely a few weeks into my first year 
of grad school when this iteration of unfolding violence in 
Gaza began, and no one had said a word in class so far. I 
could barely breathe beneath the weight of it. Surely the 
dead and dying were in their pockets, too. How could they 
bear it? And what do we do with all this discomfort? With 
this ever-present evidence that is so difficult to evade this 
time? How is it we go to class and speak on oppression and 
colonialism when its beating heart is flooding our timelines 
in real time? I choked on its urgency. 
And what are we learning about solidarity? Is it 
always found in the streets? In the voting booth? Is it shout-
ed or shaped like a poppy pinned to a lapel? No. The call, 
“let this change you,” suggests something deeper. How can 
you attend nearly 200,000 funerals in 10 months and not 
be moved? I hold dying children in my hands every day, 
and, from this distance, I begin to understand the reso-
lute kinship in grief. The balance in living while refusing 
to look away from death. This is a shaking. I am shaken. I 
find threads from my limbs tethering anew, like dew-cov-
ered morning webs, delicate yet resilient, to others’ hearts 
daily. How many stranger/kin have I wept with in these 
many weeks? These tears have taught me something on the 
thresholds of grief. The possibilities in naming the most 
terrible realities and choosing to fight for something dif-
ferent. Of hope in the dark times. Grief has taught me to 
look. Look at it! See what we are capable of. Terror in the 
presence of unwavering faith in tomorrow. Both things. We 
are capable of both realities. 
Grief pulls us into tomorrow. This grief in my pocket 
is my daily reminder that while I am alive, I can forge pos-
sibility. While I can feel, I can imagine new worlds. This 
is not something I have come up with on my own. I have 
seen it. I have witnessed it through the determination of 
Palestinians who have shared their pain to move the world. 
Grief holds no instant fixes or catchy slogans. This is honest 
change work. I am learning to spit out the urgency and feel. 
This grief in my pocket shows me, I am not alone. I am 
not unique. This grief in my pocket is a compass through 
the murky airwaves of platitudes and media hot-takes. 
This grief is a truth teller. When I can converse with my 
own chest, I can more easily recognize the manipulation. 
It acquaints us with our own atrophied humanity. We are 
waking up with it. 
On the third day of the student encampment, I 
37
attended a call with other students across the country and 
Canada, sharing our grief, sharing our hope, building sol-
idarity and lines of communication. In the midst of that 
call, a photograph was posted of several children in Gaza 
holding a sign that read, “Thanks for your solidarity, Cal-
ifornia State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.” Connec-
tion. We wept together as a collective of students strung 
across a continent on the same devices that woke us up. 
I cannot type these lines without crying again. This grief 
defies time, these connections are not linear. Are those chil-
dren still alive today? Did they live through that night? This 
university is proudly an institution of place-based learning. 
From this place, I am learning how we replicate harm and 
call it policy. From this place, I am learning that unweaving 
the imperial begins in my own body. From this place, I am 
reminded, I am not alone. 
I sat in a coffee shop, quietly working, several weeks 
later. “Excuse me. Thank you for your stickers, it means a 
lot.” Our locked eyes quickly flooded with knowing. My 
child made them, I said. A homemade sticker reading, 
“Free Palestine,” on a Palestinian flag next to a watermelon 
stuck to my iPad cover. “I am Palestinian,” she said. “It has 
been wild to watch solidarity grow these past months.” I 
responded, “We have had much to learn about solidarity.” 
We spoke briefly of unending heartache, of raising children 
in these times. We talked about hope and creating joy in be-
tween moments of grief. We cried together. I cannot write 
these words without crying now. These connections defy 
location. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes in total, lives altered 
in shared grief. Another connection. We are not alone. 
I wonder at the shifts in reality taking place as we 
carry the dead and dying in our pockets each day. We 
cannot come out of this unchanged. I fear for those who 
refuse to look. From meetings to mundane tasks, to dinner, 
to bed at night, and over again. There is not a corner of the 
world or our lives that has not been visited by these funer-
als, and also by the resounding will to live, to see many to-
morrows, from the people of Gaza. And what is it teaching 
us about solidarity? How is it shaping our bodies toward 
the future? We are not alone. Are we not all connected? We 
are not unique. Do we not also want to live? This remains 
incomplete because it is ongoing. This grief in my pocket 
will continue into every room and every moment of each 
day. I hope to never part from it. I invite this change work 
within my own chest so as to root out the violence planted 
there from this location. This is the work. This, I think, 
is the shape of solidarity. Your future is my future. Your 
demise is my demise. Let this change us. Let this change 
us. Let this change us. This grief must be carried together. 
This Grief In My Pocket


This Grief In My Pocket: Thoughts on Solidarity and Transformation During a Live-Streamed Genocide

These images are part of a zine-like artifact called “Contaminate the Isolates” that I created as a final project for my class, “Radical Futures: Race, Environment, and Social Justice,” during the Fall semester of 2024. I had originally intended to make a zine..

Morrow, Maria

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 
Volume 1 
Number 47 HJSR: Place-Based Digital Inquiry Article 18 
2025 
Selections from Contaminate the Isolates 
Maria Morrow 
Cal Poly Humboldt 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr 
Recommended Citation 
Morrow, Maria. 2025. "Selections from Contaminate the Isolates." Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 1 
(47): DOI: https://doi.org/10.55671/0160-4341.1277 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Digital Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in Humboldt Journal of Social Relations by an authorized editor of Digital 
Commons @ Cal Poly Humboldt. For more information, please contact press@humboldt.edu, or visit 
digitalcommons.humboldt.edu and press.humboldt.edu. 
H J S R
Selections from Contaminate the Isolates
Maria Morrow
Cal Poly Humboldt
These images are part of a zine-like artifact called 
“Contaminate the Isolates” that I created as a final proj-
ect for my class, “Radical Futures: Race, Environment, and 
Social Justice,” during the Fall semester of 2024. I had orig-
inally intended to make a zine highlighting the awesome, 
otherwise femmes that I have had the great pleasure to get 
to know through our class materials, but I was having so 
much trouble getting started. I never write about people, so 
I started thinking-drawing stuff to see what came out, and 
of course, it was mushrooms.
I have been on a journey toward a community un-
derstanding of things. I’ve recently been teaching a general 
biology class where we explore the concept of individuali-
ty and systems-level thinking. This class has revealed some 
new places along that path and has brought up a lot of ques-
tions. In particular, our first and last segments addressed 
the avenues that I have been approaching understanding 
and interpreting life from: academics/science/mycology. I 
was drawn to two specific works: The Extractive Zone by 
Macarena Gómez-Barris (2017) and the essay “The Deco-
lonial For” by Catherine Walsh (2018). These two works 
addressed shortcomings or colonial thinking within aca-
demia and science. Many of the texts we read talked about 
the more-than-human community and the artificiality of 
separation. A theme that arose throughout the semester was 
the use of isolation/separation as a tool and/or strategy of 
colonialism: Palestinians separated from their olive trees, 
Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala isolated from each other, 
removal of Mexican peoples from their lands, Black and 
Indigenous folks being kept from foraging foods, incarcer-
ation ... it was and is everywhere.
The zine begins with a single, isolated mushroom. 
Originally, I had drawn this single mushroom as an invita-
tion to look deeper because that is what I feel mushrooms 
say to me. I wanted to convey how science has been pre-
sented to me. I wanted to demonstrate a feeling of picking 
apart or dissecting, something sterile but with curiosity. 
Towards the end of the zine, I wanted to look at some of 
the community around the actual mushroom in the wild. 
I wanted to probe deeper into who else might be involved. 
I used a quote from Anna Tsing’s (2015) The Mushroom at 
the End of the World about contamination. Tsing wrote that 
purity is a mythology. Isolation is artificial. I added a quote 
from Gómez-Barris that brings in the concept of “undif-
ferentiation” and its relationship to Indigenous thinking. I 
also bring back our solo mushroom, now aware of another 
thing it is saying to me. I didn’t know where to go from 
here. I wanted to talk more about different ways of know-
ing. It feels a bit unfinished as an idea, but I guess that is 
the point. To continue to explore otherwise.
Mushroom graphic from page 1 of the zine Containate the 
Isolates.
 Humboldt Journal of Social Relations84
Page 2 of the zine Containate the Isolates.
Page 3 of the zine Contaminate the Isolates.
85Selections from Contaminate the Isolates
Page 4 of the zine Contaminate the Isolates.
Final page of the zine Contaminate the Isolates.


Selections from Contaminate the Isolates

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/10670/thumbnail.jp

HU19-03A

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/10712/thumbnail.jp

HU19-44

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/11430/thumbnail.jp

HU28-49

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/11689/thumbnail.jp

HU29-03

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/11693/thumbnail.jp

HU29-07

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/9972/thumbnail.jp

HU13-74a

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hcapc_aerial/9980/thumbnail.jp

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