Loving and Grieving the Bayou: Josh LaJaunie on Navigating Climate Change
Channel: Sick to Fit | Plant Yourself Podcast
Date: 2022-04-15

In April 2022, Josh took me riding "down the bayou," to the marshes, swamps, inlets, and camps of his youth. 
Much of the land that was his primary recreation area is now gone - literally claimed by the Gulf of Mexico.
Areas that were thriving natural ecosystems, rich with live oaks, are now represented by dead trunks and branches as the once mighty trees died of thirst in the midst of a salt water invasion.
And entire communities were devastated by last August's Hurricane Ida, which destroyed more than 75% of the homes and businesses in parts of Grand Isle, Louisiana.
Seeing the place through Josh's eyes and narrated through his personal history helped me view the southern tip of the bayou as a living place that's also a dying place, rather than just an impersonal example of the costs of climate change.
But I also felt separate from Josh, unable to fully share his grief - like he had lost a beloved grandparent whom I had never met. 
I don't know if you have a place like that in your life, in your history, in your heart. 
I don't, not really. 
While the suburbs of northern New Jersey were fine, in their way, they didn't invite me into a deep and reciprocal relationship with the mysteries of nature. To this day I feel like I missed out on something crucial, something epic, something that came naturally to our indigenous ancestors and eludes most of us today. 
And not only that, but those of us mesmerized by civilization into thinking that the natural world is separate from ourselves, and mostly irrelevant until it floods or quakes or overheats, don't even recognize that we're missing something.
Josh recognizes the loss. 
And for a decade now he's been an increasingly clear and articulate spokesperson for humans to reconnect with our bodies, and through them, with the larger-than-human world that we belong to.
In this conversation, we describe the dying bayou and explore how to live fully and authentically into deep grief, and how to find the love on the other side.