Thank You Michael for All That You Were
Michael Dowd enabled me to truly ‘get’ Collapse and understand Ecological Overshoot, in a short space of time, due to the incredible body of scholarly work he condensed into a cohesive and compelling teaching.
This teaching helps me find peace, happiness, and meaning while living in a dying world. He always showed up with such rambunctious joy and enthusiasm – he was a charismatic presence that drew us all in to form this post-doom community.
I was lucky enough to have a one-on-one chat with Michael just a few months before his passing. He reached out to me after I published an essay on Medium responding to a Guardian article of ‘hopium’ from Rebecca Solnit. I got to tell Michael that everything I wrote was gleaned from his teaching and we had a lovely hour of laughter and connection together. He was exactly the same in this context as all others, what you saw was what you got in every sense with Michael, he shared his curiosity and larger-than-life joyous personality with everyone.
I listened to many of his audio book recordings and especially loved the personal nature of these; I remember a couple of times he would have some tears while reading some passages and then some loud outbursts of laughter at other times. I also enjoyed the interjections from Connie in the background, where she would correct his pronunciation or provide some additional information, they were a dynamic duo on a mission of discovery together and they shared their learning in this public way.
Thank you Michael for all that you were – for your ecological worldview, for your understanding of being in-right-relationship-with-reality, and for leaning into the wisdom of giants who went before you.
