Season 1, Episode 17: Journeys and Rites of Passage

Episode 17 features some intimate sharing between Panu and Thomas about their travels and adventures as young men and how this influenced their environmental identities. They looked back at their efforts as “apprentices” and “artisans” in their work on eco- and climate emotions, referencing the Soulcentric Developmental Model of US Depth Psychologist Bill Plotkin. Thomas recognized some key developmental journeys in his life: “going off to the big city,” finding his ancestral and natural place roots in Ireland, traveling “west” in the US to places like Alaska and Grand Canyon. Panu similarly reminisced about his formative youthful hiking experiences in Finland and Iceland. They discussed the process of wilderness therapy and rites of passage, and recognized the “pride of living outside of the culture” and being more attuned to wildness in people who do that work the world-over (as captured in journey narratives like “Into the Wild”). Panu discussed the ideals of spiritual pilgrimage and “slow travel” and Thomas echoed the Henry David Thoreau maxim, “The swiftest traveler goes afoot.” Panu also noted that “the innocence of traveling is strongly challenged” in our era of “flight shame,” now that we need to be aware of the carbon footprint of our life journeys. This adds a unique challenge for young people. Panu mused: Can there be intergenerational justice about travel, and could young people have carbon credits to partake of the same youthful travels that their forebears took for granted? Or can cleaner travel systems like rail be expanded? We can reasonably think of the global climate emergency as a multi-generational planetary rite of passage with numerous opportunities for personal and collective quests, heroic acts, and dealing with the dark side of human nature and the shadow sides of our societies and industrial economies. Our listeners are invited to consider their own life journeys, young adult migrations, current quests, and what pace is most healthy for them at this point in their lives.