Damaris Zehner

Damaris Zehner is an associate professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana. She is the
author of The Between Time, a collection of essays, and a contributor to blogs such as resilience.org and
internetmonk.com. She has lived and worked on four continents, equipping educators, translators, and
gardeners with training and supplies. Her blog, Integrity of Life (https://www.damariszehner.com/)
focuses on sane living in the present and in the coming post-industrial world.

Society

Panic at the Disco, Peace among the Bombs

All of this reinforces what I wrote in those two earlier essays, that ultimately our species is happier when challenged to behave in the ways we evolved to behave: to protect ourselves and others, to struggle for our survival, to live in community, to eat less and “relax” less and instead feel that surviving each day is a triumph.

February 28, 2020

low water living

Barrels, Buckets, and Bottles: Adventures in Low-Water Living

If our water systems collapse, or if we decide to simplify voluntarily, individuals and households may be surprised at the lifestyle changes that will be necessary. What we own, how we use it, and even our domestic architecture will be affected.

February 21, 2020

garden

My Vegetable Love

But as I sit in the dirt, smelling the thyme and tomatoes and basil, hearing the bumble bees in the oregano flowers, I am humbled and grateful to be a witness to the power of life.

February 7, 2020

Permaculture as Philosophy

Permaculture, I’ve learned, is not only a method but a philosophy, one that emphasizes the relationships among all the elements of the environment rather than its individual parts in isolation. The opposite is big-farm monoculture.

January 30, 2020

Apocalypse Fatigue, Selective Inattention, and Fatalism: The Psychology of Climate Change

Connie Barlow, a climate activist, writer, and film maker, dislikes the word “apathy” used to describe people’s response to climate change. She says, “I now bristle at that word. In my view, what looks like apathy, especially when it comes to climate disruption, is actually a variety of psychological protections.”

January 27, 2020

Society

Anticipating Collapse

Collapse can’t happen soon enough, as far as I’m concerned. By collapse, I mean the breakdown of the complexities of our current society. It’s not that I long for the feral world, red in tooth and claw, portrayed in collapse fiction, although I know there are those who fantasize about mastering a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

January 16, 2020

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