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Author Q&A: Open Reality by Shodo Spring — Meeting the Polycrisis Together With All Beings
- Sea Crow Press
- Jul 12
- 10 min read
In this exclusive Author Q&A, Shodo Spring shares the inspiration and vision behind Open Reality, a powerful non-fiction book exploring how humanity can navigate today’s complex polycrisis by reconnecting with nature and all beings. Learn about Shodo’s unique philosophy, spiritual insights, and practical steps for personal and societal transformation.
About the Author
Shodo Spring is a Zen teacher, environmentalist, and founder of Mountains and Waters Alliance. Her work blends spirituality, ecological awareness, and activism to inspire meaningful change.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Q: What inspired you to write this book and explore these big, transformative questions?
A: As an environmentalist and Zen teacher, I noticed that many discussions about climate change missed a crucial perspective: recognizing that humans are not the only conscious beings shaping our world. Open Reality reflects this understanding, inviting readers to see nature as family and partner. I was watching people discuss solutions as things (climate change) got worse and worse. One branch of people was criticizing the commitment to saving industrial civilization, pointing out that saving human life was a better priority. Another group criticized them, saying that human life was not more important than other life. All of them assumed that humans were the only actors, the only ones with intelligence, agency, power, and consciousness. This just seemed ridiculous to me.
I’m not sure how long I’ve understood that. It certainly is rooted in my Buddhist understanding, but it might go back to my childhood. I grew up running half-wild in the woods and fields behind my home, which were somewhat mysterious and magical. Then, I had a belief system that wouldn’t have allowed me to consciously think of the wild iris as conscious beings, but somewhere in my journeys in Sufism, paganism, and Zen Buddhism, it became clear.
Q: You challenge the idea that industrial civilization is the best humanity can do. What led you to that perspective?
A: It seems obvious to me, actually. We spend our days indoors, in places with poor air quality and lots of rules, following rigid schedules, worried about assaults or thefts from “criminals,” while some of us worry about assaults or thefts from various parts of the government. This is not fun. People distract themselves with alcohol, drugs, or various addictive habits because they are not happy. We replace living things (trees, grasses, all plants and animals) with pavement, which requires enormous energy to build, traps heat, and brings convenience without happiness.
A fairly simple exploration of history and prehistory leads to the harm done by industrial civilization: poor health, poverty, and inequality,
Probably I’m influenced by Daniel Quinn’s work, which points out how our civilization is the result of a strange story that places industrial humans at the top of the heap, and claims that there actually are other ways to live.
Q: This book invites readers to see nature as family and as a working partner. How did that worldview take shape for you?
A: Well, nature as family has been the attitude of many societies other than our own. Indigenous voices these days are pretty clear about that, and there’s tons of literature observing how many “civilized” individuals opted for the earth-based cultures when they could. At the same time, almost none chose industrial or agricultural civilization. They generally had to be forced. I’ve also been influenced by various utopian movements, none of which made sense for me except the commune movement of the 1970s.
In addition, in my permaculture training, I learned what can be done when you work with nature instead of trying to control her. I had learned about “peak oil” and “climate change” a few years before I started that training, and at the end, I knew we could do it. All we needed was a consciousness change. I said to myself, “I’m a Zen teacher, consciousness change is my business. I’m in the right profession.” Unfortunately, there are powerful forces opposing that consciousness change, because the short-term profits for a few wealthy people lie elsewhere, and they have too much material power. I still hold to the thought that there is more power in masses of people than in a few guns (long nonviolence training) and that “Nature Bats Last” as Guy McPherson used to say. During the past 5-10 years, I’ve watched an explosion of books, teachers, courses, podcasts, and movements that involve working WITH nature, usually as a junior partner.
Q: What kind of shift in consciousness or awareness do you hope this book encourages?
A: I hope to encourage an awareness of the world as an essentially friendly and cooperative place that has welcomed humans for millennia, absorbed the results of our mistakes, and perhaps sent us a few warnings. I want people to recognize ourselves as the younger siblings in this family, and be willing to learn, cooperate, and help support the world as it protects and heals itself. This would replace the dominant story of ourselves as masters of the world, including various stories of particular groups as destined to rule the world.
There’s a story. I had bought a bit of land, 17 acres, next to some state land and 25 acres of wild private land. It felt like a safe and generous place to be with wilderness. Then someone bought the 25 acres, clearly planning to build on it. I was distraught. I thought about leaving. A friend who was a healer suggested asking the land to help. On the last day of a 5-day silent meditation retreat, I walked in that space. I asked it to protect itself. I spoke to every being: plants, waters, soils, rocks, sky, everyone I could think of. And by a few hours later, I felt safe again. (There’s a sequel, but that’s not needed now.) As I walked, I could feel the responses of the natural beings. As I said later, even the buckthorn supported me, and they know I plan to pull them out (invasive problematic plants). I don’t literally hear voices or see pictures, but I could feel how the energy was moving. That was the beginning of my organization, Mountains and Waters Alliance, in 2015.
Q: How do you define a ‘shared, flexible culture,’ and why is it crucial now?
A: Well, sharing is essential, and rigidity is the way of death. So a shared, flexible culture means one where work, decision-making, and everything happens cooperatively, not by orders from above. With decades of experience in consensus decision-making, I know this works, and it works better than the alternatives. (Not that consensus is the only specific way, it’s the one I know best.) It’s crucial now because we are on the edge of destroying ourselves and the world we know. A quick look at Gaza tells you that we are failing as a civilization. Change is urgent.
ON PHILOSOPHY & SPIRITUALITY
Q: You describe a universe filled with conscious, intentional beings. What does that mean for how we live our lives?
A: First, it means that we can relax a bit, because we are not alone and the world is not out to hurt us.
This is rather impersonal, different from the sense of being special or being important that some religions offer. But we are welcome here; we belong here. That’s enormous, particularly for those of us who have spent our lives trying to earn acceptance, which is a lot of people, and it’s the way our society is organized. (Some people succeed in that earning, others don’t, and some have a level of emotional security that lessens the damage of that need to earn.) I recall a line from Native American poet Chrystos: “No rock scorns me as whore.” Without knowing what triggered that statement, I could tell that she found safety in the natural world, as I did, for my own reasons. The natural world never ridiculed or rejected me, even if there were mosquito bites, wasp stings, scratches, sunburn, and all the rest.
Q: How do spirituality and ecological awareness intersect in your work?
A: Even in childhood in an evangelical church, my experience of holiness came mostly from the natural world: iris in springtime, thunderstorms and lightning, the beach (Lake Erie) in calm and in storm, wandering in the woods. I was fortunate to have parents with enough trust to allow me such explorations. I couldn’t have talked about these experiences, but I would read the same from others. Nature as the true holy place.
Now I’m in a religion with a monastic tradition, involving long periods of silent meditation, and also including long walking and wild spaces. The learnings of ecologists, foresters, and scientists match the teachings of Buddhism very strongly, so both feel like a match.
In my teens, I wanted to understand everything, so I went into theoretical physics for the beauty of its understanding. Years later, in Buddhism, I find that the teachings match what I learned in quantum mechanics, and include human life as well as the natural world.
Q: What role do you see for personal healing in collective transformation?
A: Until we can build a society that grows healthy children and healthy adults, personal healing will be needed. There are social and cultural methods for maintaining well-being (speaking emotionally in particular), and they should be part of a healthy culture. (Of course, there is no perfection, and personal healing will always be needed. Massive institutionalizations for mental illness are particularly a feature of industrial civilization, and are absent in several modern cultures.
Q: Can you describe a moment or experience that deeply shaped your understanding of interconnection?
A: There is a teaching about how the world works: everything creates every other thing; we are created by everything around us, and we mutually create all of them, in an instantaneous, ongoing way. When I slow down, I can feel this. When I’m rushing or worrying, I don’t see it.
Once, in 2001, in my first 3-month training period at Tassajara (a Zen monastery in the Ventana wilderness of California), after many days of silent meditation, teachings, and simply being in the wilderness without electronics at all, I recall a moment walking down the path and feeling incredible peace, belonging. At that time, the acceptance of the universe felt like love, because I was accustomed to a non-accepting society. It was wonderful. I haven’t forgotten. (The non-accepting wasn’t from my parents, but from school and later. I was an odd child, and was not particularly welcomed.)
PRACTICAL POSSIBILITIES
Q: What are some practical steps readers can take to begin shifting their perspective and actions?
A: Go outdoors, into wood, meadows, or anywhere that feels natural and beautiful, without electronics of any kind. Stop to look, listen, smell, and touch one natural thing, whether a flower, tree, rock, bit of soil, or look up at the sky – clouds or stars. Breathe, wonder what it’s like to be that being. You might listen for its song, or its rhythm; feel it inside you; perhaps sing in response, or move in response. Make an offering: song, movement, or a small object that symbolizes goodwill (natural or handmade object). I’ve built altars from stones and sticks nearby, I’ve sung songs or chants from my tradition or made up, I’ve brought an offering of food or incense, I’ve listened and done pruning, weeding, or something to help a plant or stream be more healthy. Apprentice yourself to a single being or a patch of earth or water; listen and follow. (I’ve held events called “Earth Apprentice Training.”
If you go with one or a few others in this way, you can also talk with each other about what you felt, any messages you received, and what gifts you might offer these beings.
Q: How do we start creating a more compassionate, flexible culture in our communities?
A: We begin on a small, local level, even within our families, or in classrooms, scout troops, clubs, churches, schools. The method for each would be different, and there are so many ways already being enacted that I can’t name them all.
Q: What are some examples of how people or groups are already living out this worldview?
A: This is a hard question. People who are doing it are probably not spending their time publicizing themselves. I would point to what looks like a revival among the Lakota people; to the Design School for Regenerating Earth (Joe Brewer and Penny Heiple founders), to the growth of a kind of agriculture that respects earth and animals, with Regi Haslett-Marroquin and Regenerative Agriculture Alliance. I do my best, but can’t claim to be living with a community in the way I envision.
Q: How does this book serve as a guide for both personal and societal change?
A: Mostly, I hope to inspire people to recognize that the world is Open. We’ve been offered a pretty depressing view of human nature and human possibility. Albert Einstein once said, “The most important question is this: is the world a friendly place or not?” I want to help people experience that friendly place and to be empowered to take action with it. Once we know that cruelty and brutality, including war, genocide, and economic oppression, are NOT normal ways to be human, we should be more able to act as humans in connection and love, and with courage where needed. The move from a lonely member of a destructive species to a full participant in the whole family of life changes us personally and societally. I intend that people who have made this move will find each other and act together to build whole lives and communities, and to refuse destruction.
Macy’s three methods make sense to me: stop the destruction, build the new society, and hold a strong spiritual base. My focus in the book has been on spirituality, because so much good work is already happening in the other two realms.
VISION & FUTURE
Q: What do you see as the most hopeful signs of change in the world today?
A: (1) The way that environmentalists are following indigenous leadership, along with the way indigenous peoples standing up and reclaiming the strongest and best parts of their culture, inspiring us all.
(2) The flood of books, programs, retreats, and opportunities to restore humanity’s connection with the natural world.
Q: What’s the most important message you hope readers walk away with?
A: We are not alone or hopeless as we face the possible end of human existence. This can be a rebirth and renewal, if we are willing to allow ourselves to be reborn, to emerge from the chrysalis, and then to act.
Q: Are you working on any follow-up projects or companion works?
A: Mountains and Waters Alliance is the project that inspired the book and will continue. This year’s book tour will also serve as a chance to offer the practices described in the latter part of the book, hopefully encouraging a network of sacred activist communities, each of which develops its own culture and way of creating spiritual activist community.
Companion works might include a study guide for groups or classes, as needed.
I admit to dreaming of another long walk, including both time with the natural world and connecting with humans. I also envision fostering a local group here in Minnesota, perhaps residential, that enacts the values and practices described here.
I will write again. Since I only do one thing at a time, I simply hope to continue participating in the great conversation of our time.
Q: What other thinkers, writers, or traditions have deeply influenced this book?
A. Eihei Dogen, Daniel Quinn, Joseph Campbell, David Abram, Lyla June Johnston, Bayo Akolomafe, David Abram, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Morris Berman, David Graeber & David Wengrow, Rutger Bregman, Richard Heinberg, Alan Savory, Joanna Macy, Jack Forbes, Monica Gagliano, Ivan Illich, Jane Jacobs, Derrick Jensen, Timothy Snyder, Joseph Tainter, Martin Prechtel, Anna Tsing, Karen Armstrong,
And Zen Buddhism, eco-feminism, Permaculture, Aikido, anarchism,, Kincentric Leadership, plus I’m deeply influenced by watching the processes of indigenous leadership, particularly the Lakota and Dakota people.
