I spent some of the final days of the summer in a cabin on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, in a wild and beautiful place where I’ve been blessed to be able to spend time during many summers over the past thirty years. It was early September, and the light had a distinctive almost-autumn cast, its shimmer imparting a feel of transition and mystery to quiet moments sitting on rocky points or walking through forested glades with osprey calling overhead. Back in the city as winter looms, I’ve done my best to hold on to the peace I experienced in that interlude—but its fragility is really less about returning to urban life or colder temperatures than it is about the precariousness of life on earth itself. I find myself hearkening back to words that touched me deeply while reading a powerful essay entitled “Loving a Vanishing World” by the climate activist Emily N. Johnston:

It’s a constant question for me every time I’m entranced by the beauty of the world: What does it mean to love this place? What does it mean to love anyone or anything in a world whose vanishing is accelerating, perhaps beyond our capacity to save the things we love the most?

Elena Stone, Preserve and Protect, watercolor and oil pastel on paper, 12”x12”

What it means to love this place is a question that has been preoccupying me lately. I recently retired from a career that consisted of a series of positions as a social justice communicator, activist and educator, working in nonprofit and academic realms. The work was satisfying, I was always learning, I knew I was contributing in important ways. But always, always, the desire to create, to make a life as an artist who brings beauty into the world and whose voice comes not from reacting to problems but from the joy of perception and expression, from the blessed interaction of the outer and inner landscapes to make something new exist, was bubbling up within me, pursued around the margins but prevented by the imperatives of making a living from coming to rest at the center.

Now, with newfound freedom I never thought I would get to have, I come face to face with a truth: Making art is how I show my love for this place: this planet, this earth, this world. And loving the world means engaging not only with its beauty but its endangerment, and with the myriad questions, stories, emotions, ideas and challenges that entails. It’s easy to be overwhelmed, to feel like retreating in the face of it. That’s why I’m grateful to be back at the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights (CWHHR) at Suffolk University in the role of Artist in Residence—where I’ve chosen to use my time to explore how art, feminism and passion for the natural world can intersect and inform each other in a time of environmental and societal upheaval. This blog, Big Planet Love, is a vehicle for that exploration. My goals are to create, explore, share art, ideas and stories, and see what happens– finding points along the way to engage the CWHHR community and beyond in the process.

My immediate inspiration for this project is the excitement that has crystallized around the book where I found Emily Johnston’s words — All We Can Save, Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson (Penguin, 2020). With contributions by a diverse gathering of women—journalists, poets, artists and activists in the climate and environmental justice movements–All We Can Save (AWCS) explicitly uses the term “climate feminism” to highlight the idea that feminist values, perspectives and ways of working for change are essential to protecting the planet and its denizens in the face of climate change.

Addressing the climate crisis and promoting gender equality and justice are inextricably linked, the editors note. The ethic of dominance and exploitation that is a hallmark of patriarchal systems also fuels the destruction of the planet, with environmental devastation deepening the risk for women and girls, as well as non-binary people, already struggling due to poverty, racism, gender-based violence and other vulnerabilities. At the same time, in no small part because of their proximity to the dangers, women and girls are at the forefront of “a renaissance blooming in the climate movement”–a phenomenon the book amply documents.

Elena Stone, Bloom (detail), watercolor and mixed media on paper, 9″x12″

There is such richness of thought, imagery and emotion in all of these writings, and it’s very much an intersectional and intergenerational effort, with contributions reflecting the critical role of young women in today’s movements to save the planet and powerful perspectives from women’s varied experiences of race, ethnicity, culture, geography and class. But perhaps the most poignant gift of the collection is the way it communicates what it means to walk the edge between despair and hope, choosing the latter with eyes open both to searing devastation and the gifts of living in a time of transformative upheaval.

Contributor Geneen Marie Haugen conveys this tension through haunting imagery:

In our time of disturbance and radical change, we are crossing a threshold, a portal, or an unseen bridge from one world to another. It could be said that the bridge is either collapsing beneath us, or being made as we walk together, in the long twilight hours when one civilization gives way to another.

  Elena Stone, A Bridge Unseen, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 16″ x 20″

Big Planet Love is a small step joining many on that bridge–fueled by art, informed by intersectional feminist wisdom, welcoming connection on a journey both precarious and beautiful. Let the conversation begin.