Stories Sustain Us #25 – Jess Serrante and We Are the Great Turning

Summary
In this conversation, Jess Serrante shares her journey from a supportive childhood in New Jersey to discovering her passion for environmental activism during college. She discusses her early experiences with environmental studies, her work with organizations like Greenpeace, and her transformative relationship with Joanna Macy. The conversation culminates in the creation of her podcast, “We Are the Great Turning,” which explores themes of personal growth, activism, and the work of reconnecting with the earth and each other. Jess discusses the themes of gratitude, pain, and the interconnectedness of humanity in the face of the climate crisis. She emphasizes the importance of emotional alchemy, the interplay between gratitude and pain, and the necessity of taking action to create a better future. The discussion highlights the significance of community and personal relationships in fostering resilience and hope amidst challenging times.

About the Guest
Jessica Serrante is a coach, facilitator, and trainer who has been supporting activists in the climate movement since 2007. She has served on staff at organizations like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network and worked with groups like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. Her first encounter with Joanna’s work a decade ago changed her life, transformed her burnout, and led to a deep, abiding friendship. Jess is 35 and lives in Oakland, California.

Show Notes
We Are the Great Turning podcast: wearethegreaturning.com
Jess Serrante website: jessserrante.com
Instagram: Jess_Serrante
Joanna Macy website: joannamacy.net/
Joanna Macy’s memoir: Widening Circles, A Memoir

Takeaways
Jess grew up in a loving Italian American family.
Her passion for environmental work ignited in college.
She became a vegetarian after learning about factory farming.
Jess's early career was marked by successful campaigns.
She found coaching during a period of uncertainty.
Joanna Macy's work profoundly influenced Jess's path.
The podcast was born from a desire to share meaningful conversations.
The work of reconnecting is essential for activists.
Jess emphasizes the importance of vulnerability in activism.
The podcast explores the framework of the work that reconnects. The journey of gratitude and pain is essential for understanding our emotional landscape.
Deep time and love for the world can guide our actions in the climate crisis.
Committing to improbable causes can be both challenging and rewarding.
Gratitude serves as a foundation for honoring our pain.
Emotional alchemy transforms our feelings into action and clarity.
Seeing with new eyes allows us to understand our interconnectedness.
Taking action is a natural progression from recognizing our shared humanity.
Isolation is a significant barrier to effective activism and personal well-being.
Restoration of the planet can happen quickly with collective effort.
The spiral of hope encourages continuous growth and actio

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Transcript

Steven
Hello and welcome back to Stories Sustain Us. I'm your host, Steven Schauer, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be kicking off the new year with all of you. After a well-deserved break for the holidays, we're diving straight into 2025 with an episode that sets the tone for an inspiring year ahead. Today we're joined by Jess Serrante, whose journey will leave you both moved and motivated. From her loving Italian American upbringing,

finding her voice as an environmental advocate in college, Jess has charted an extraordinary path. Her story is one of passion, transformation, and deep connection, not just to the planet, but to the people and causes she holds dear. In this episode, Jess shares the lessons that shaped her work, including how Joanna Macy's profound teachings on the work that reconnects became a guiding framework in her life.

Together we'll explore themes of gratitude, vulnerability, and the emotional alchemy that turns pain into clarity and action. Jess also reminds us of the power of collective hope and how restoration can happen faster than we think when we all come together. Whether you're an activist, a dreamer, or someone seeking purpose in our interconnected world, this conversation will leave you with tools and inspiration to take action in service of what you love.

Let me tell you a bit more about Jess before jumping into episode 25 of Stories Sustain Us. Jessica Serrante is a coach, facilitator, and trainer who has been supporting activists in the climate movement since 2007. She has served on staff at organizations like Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network, and worked with groups like Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. Her first encounter with Joanna Macy's work a decade ago

changed her life, transformed her own burnout, and led to a deep abiding friendship with Joanna, which we'll hear much more about during this episode. So grab a cup of something warm and settle in. And let's start 2025 with a story that will no doubt leave you inspired. Welcome back and let's get started here on Stories Sustain Us, where we are inspiring action through the power of storytelling.

Steven 
Well, welcome, Jess. Welcome to Story Sustain Us. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you doing?

Jess Serrante 
I'm good, thank you so much for having me.

Steven 
I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to speak with you about your show, We Are The Great Turning. It is one of the best podcasts I've listened to in a long time. And I'm so very grateful that you've taken time to join me today to speak about yourself and your life, but I've been also about all of the wonderful lessons that are all wrapped up into your show, The We Are The Great Turning. So thank you very much for being here.

Jess Serrante 
Thank you. It's so nice of you to say.

Steven 
Well, it's the truth. It's the truth. before we jump into your podcast, let's jump into your life. Tell me a little bit about your childhood, your upbringing. How did you get to be where you are? So what's your story, Jess?

Jess Serrante 
Okay, so I was born in Brooklyn, New York to a big Italian American family. Grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and had a really just sweet, family life. I was really, really blessed in that way. I'm the oldest of three kids. And...

very just very lucky lucky to have some beautiful people who raised me and who I grew up with and in terms of my work I went to college in Vermont so when I was 18 moved to the moved to Burlington Vermont to go to the University of Vermont and as a freshman I had my I went to an environmental studies one lecture actually what happened was I was supposed to take an Italian class because I had big

aspirations to learn my family language. And my Italian program in my high school was so terrible that I couldn't understand a damn thing. When I got into Italian, I had to drop out. It was devastating. I was really looking forward to becoming more fluent in the language. But what happened was I had an open space in my calendar. I couldn't find another Italian class. And some girl in the hall in my dorm was like, you should take this Environmental Studies 1 class. We go on hikes and stuff.

Steven 
Yeah.

you

Jess Serrante 
and know, freshmen in college, that was enough for me. I signed up and that was the beginning of my entire career of my, that was like where I discovered my passion. So I had no idea until that moment. And then enrolling in that class, learning about the environmental crises that we faced for the first time was enlivened and heartbroken. Yeah.

Steven 
Right on.

Yeah.

Sure, sure, sure.

Jess Serrante 
And then a year later, I also, it's funny to talk about, it's not like it was very planned. was just like I was a teenager. I wanted to hang out with my friends. People were like, we're going down to DC for this conference called Power Shift, which was the first ever US youth climate conference. And so I went down to DC with a group of friends in 2007.

Steven 
Okay.

Jess Serrante 
and I learned about organizing for the first time. And it was just like my whole mind was blown open and that sort of catalyzed me into a path of organizing jobs and environmental work that has led me to this moment. Yeah.

Steven 
Right on.

Let me take you back a little bit further and ask you a couple questions about growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey. So you didn't find the environmental bug, it sounds like, during your childhood, but what were the interests? What was life like for you growing up as the oldest of three in this big, lovely Italian family?

Jess Serrante 
Okay.

No.

Steven 
What were your interests? Like kind of what got you going in your middle school, high school years? What was the, besides just being a teenager?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, well I was definitely the kind of kid who was very, very social. Like just being with my friends and playing was the center of my world. I was very lucky to grow up next door to my two best friends. So when we moved from Brooklyn to Jersey.

into this new development in the suburbs are the family that moved in next door had two little girls that were my age and a year younger. And so I grew up with my best friends. We met when we were two or three. And so I spent my time, I spent my years like running back and forth between, I had two houses.

Steven 
Yeah.

Nice. Wow, yeah.

Jess Serrante 
and two families. And that was such a huge, huge part of my life. And I did everything with those girls. We were Girl Scouts together. And so, you do all the badges and the hikes and all those, and the crafts and all those adventures together. And another big part of my childhood was that I was a martial artist. So when I was seven years old, like...

Steven 
Yeah.

No kidding.

Jess Serrante 
you're cutting out a little, Steven. can't see you or hear you.

Steven 
Yeah, that'll be okay in the final as we get to. So yeah, we can just keep on going. Yeah, but thank you for letting me know. yeah, as long as you can hear me, then we're gonna be all good. But yeah, that'll work out just fine. let me know if you can't hear me, then we'll have a technical issue to deal with.

Jess Serrante
As long as I can hear you. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, you did kind of cut out for a moment, but I can hear you now. So yeah, when I was seven years old, I went to like some state fair thing with my dad and there was a martial arts demonstration.

Steven 
Great.

Jess Serrante 
And my dad was like, do you want to do that? And I was so excited about it. And so what happened was my entire family trained together. So from seven to 17, I trained at a martial arts studio. It was the primary sport of my childhood. And as is often the case with kids in martial arts or just people in martial arts, it was so much more than that. It was like how I stayed strong and how I learned how to my body, but it was also where my confidence came from.

Steven 
Yeah.

Sure. Yeah.

Sure.

Jess Serrante 
You know, I I learned from very early age to like stand firmly in myself, to stand my ground, to not that bullying was a part of my childhood, but nonetheless, that confidence and that like, I can take care of myself, and this was a very important thing. And also I think my feminism, to be honest, you know, being a girl in a sport that's dominated by bullying.

Steven 
Sure.

Right on, tell me more about that.

Jess Serrante 
I have a memory of a boy kind of taking cheap shots at me and me going to my sensei to complain about it. And he was like, basically like, I could take care of this for you, but actually I think you need to take care of this for yourself and you just need to be better than him. And it was an important lesson that I be self-sufficient in that way and strong in that way. So that was a really essential part of growing up.

Steven 
Great lesson, yeah.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that because yeah, that discipline and that, you know, focus. What a great way to kind of mature from a child into a young adult, having that experience. That's wonderful. Yeah, I'm sure the lessons that you learned there are still part of your makeup today, undoubtedly.

Jess Serrante 
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. it was a huge blessing.

Steven 
Do you still practice at all? you still active? Yeah, there you go. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that.

Jess Serrante 
Absolutely, absolutely. And I stole the love words,

Yeah, it took a long long break,

I now do Muay Thai at a gym here in Bay Area.

Steven 
geez,

you're in it.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, I mean, it's, North Side is hardcore.

Steven 
Yeah, no joke.

I interviewed someone several episodes ago. He was a Muay Thai fighter as well, kind of, you know, on the side when he wasn't working on, you know, environmental issues and, you know, sustainable finance issues. He was in the Muay Thai ring. And yeah, I appreciate that discipline and that taking care of your physical self and your spiritual self, how that

can help you then do this hard work. I because it is hard work, which what you're doing, absolutely.

Jess Serrante 
Exit.

Exactly. It was actually I took a long long break I didn't touch for the most part didn't do anything from when I graduated high school until I started the podcast

and I needed, and I was looking around for a sport that would help me take care of myself while I was working so hard on it. And I was addicted because it was so important to finish my days of thinking about all of these things and making art and pouring myself into something to have something to really bring me back into my body.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. So I want to also go back then to your early college experience. Now we kind of got through some of your childhood there. Something that you had mentioned in your early experience kind of resonated with me and similar to my early college experience of kind of having your eyes open to the environmental challenges and tragedies of the world.

was when I was a freshman, sophomore in college, different generation, but was the Exxon Valdez accident. Prior to that, was a chemistry major and I was pre-med and that was kind of the path I was gonna go down. And for me, the Exxon Valdez and the initial 1992 Rio Summit were the things that kind of opened my eyes to, there's...

There's some other work to be done here. There's enough people going into surgery. You know, I can go focus my time and energy on environmental issues and I changed to an environmental science undergrad from chemistry. So that was kind of resonated with me that you said you had some experiences. Can you tell me a little bit about what were some of those eye-opening things that you learned in that freshman class that kind of struck you out on this new path that you're on?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, I mean every week of that class was like looking at a different aspect. was like I remember like learning about the Great Pacific Gyre, the plastic continent in the middle of the ocean and being horrified. And I remember learning about industrial agriculture and factory farming. I became a vegetarian that year.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
actually, I think it was the year after reading the omnivores dilemma. But yeah, think I've always had a sort of, it wasn't a huge part of, my family was Catholic growing up. And around the time that I left.

Steven 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
for college, my dad converted to evangelical Christianity and my family has since moved in that direction spiritually. But we always spent a lot of time, like we went on trips where we would camp and my 16th birthday present was that I got scuba certified. And it was very cool.

Steven 
I don't.

Jess Serrante 
So I might like, I mean, snowboarded. like being, adventuring with my family on the earth was such a part of the way that I lived. I was very privileged to get to do all of those things as a kid.

So learn, and I was a snowboarder in college. went to, I was on the snowboard team at the University of Vermont. So like learning that the planet was warming and we were getting less snow and that the oceans were like, the reefs were dying. Like all of that was such a shock because I had really had such, you know, just love and didn't know. I didn't know what we were doing until then.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, these are eye-opening things when we learn they should be eye-opening things, I think, when you're first exposed to those things. So moving your story through college and you had that experience in DC learning about youth organizing and kind of, again, striking out on that path.

Tell me a little bit more. I know from your bio and what I shared with folks at the opening here that you spent some time with Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. Tell me a little bit about your career path that I think eventually gets you to meeting Joanna Macy, which ties into your podcast. What was that journey like to get from college then to the podcast?

Jess Serrante 
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so at that conference I was there with a group of students from my school and we got enrolled in a Greenpeace student campaign. So I don't know if they're still doing this, but one of the things Greenpeace used to do is they ran a student network.

and they would mobilize students to run campaigns on their campuses to like support their larger campaigns. So at the time it was this responsible paper procurement policy that was trying to stop the deforestation of Canadian old growth forests. And particularly it was focusing on Kimberly Clark Corporation.

Steven 
Okay,

yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And so we ended up running what was my first campaign ever that was trying to get our university to cut its contract with Kimberly Clark. And we were successful in doing that. And we got to like do all sorts of, I mean, meetings, the boring stuff, but all sorts of antics to try to like, we dropped a banner off of a student building. We did an action where we like got like, I don't know, five or six toilets, just like from an old like reuse recycle center. And we like placed them around campus and did

goofy performance art stuff around them to just bring awareness to it.

Steven 
Yeah,

draw attention, right?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, totally. was really, was really so much fun to organize like that with my friends and gather with them every week. So, and then eventually enough college student, college campuses won those campaigns that was able to tip Greenpeace's leverage with Kimberly Clark, which was a huge win for all of us.

But so that was my first campaign. And then a year later, I got my first job with Greenpeace while I was still in college because there was a nuclear plant in Southern Central Vermont called the Vermont Yankee that was like 40 years past when it was supposed to be running and it was leaking radiation to Connecticut River and measurable radiation in the like elementary school schoolyard across the street. It was just a horrific.

Steven 
Jeez.

Jeez, yeah.

Jess Serrante 
in this messed up corporation, Entergy, who I later in my life had to pay electric bills to, which was quite a blow when I lived in Louisiana. So worked on that campaign and also had a victory. Got to be in the Vermont Senate House or in the the state building when the state Senate voted to decommission that plant.

Steven 
you

Mm-hmm.

Jess Serrante 
as a result of the campaign that we had run with our ally, the coalition that we were working with. So I had some, it was, it's funny to think back on because my early career was colored by these really sweet campaign successes. I didn't know that it wasn't always gonna be like that. It was intoxicating.

Steven 
Yeah, there's not always the case for...

Sure, sure, sure, sure. So how did you find out?

Jess Serrante 
Man. I mean...

It's funny, I feel like I didn't find out or I found out not through, like oftentimes when we run these campaigns, we run things that we know are winnable. And if you play them, if you do it long enough.

You know, the job I had before I met Joanna at Rainforest Action Network was also a campaigning job. And we were trying to transform the palm oil industry. And I left that job at four years. And I think it was another two or three before that campaign was won. was kind of the thing that wore me down. So to like kind of finish that line of my history, it was all corporate accountability campaigning for the most part.

Taking on campaign at a time taking on different industry polluting industries and corporations And then at some point While I was at ran and I say this in the podcast

I remember turning to a friend at the Irish bar downstairs from the ran office and being like, can my life really be about a better PepsiCo? Like I had spent four, you know, three, four years of my life pushing against this big corporation, just feeling like, you know, just like, I was going to, the image that came to mind was sort of like a fly. It's just like, we're like just buzzing around this like,

Steven 
Sure. Yeah, big giant multinational company,

Jess Serrante 
massive, massive entity just

trying to just like find the tiny leverage point that could tip them. And eventually we did because the people who run those organizations, who run those campaigns at RAN and Greenpeace are people who I respect.

endlessly and I wanted to be a campaigner. But at some point it dawned on me that my work was different and it was really scary because I had gone from 2007 until I don't know what that was, 2013 or 14, thinking that that was what my life was supposed to be. And then when I realized that that wasn't actually what my path was, I didn't know.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
what it was to do work in service of a better world. was like, if it's not this, what is it? Because that had been my universe.

Steven 
Yeah, that uncertainty, I appreciate you naming it as scary. That uncertainty is hard to kind of come to that realization. yeah, so this is as you're in the midst of this uncertainty and difficult time and scary time, that's kind of when your path's crossed with Joanna. Is that kind of how it worked out?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

So yeah, so what happened was in the midst of that, I found coaching. So I got coached for the first time.

Steven 
Okay.

Jess Serrante 
Through that, made the decision to take a leave of absence from my job at Rand. So I took a three month sabbatical. I backpacked through Indonesia for a month alone, which was one of my favorite moments of just my 20s. It was an amazing experience to have. Did some traveling with my sister. And then that sabbatical ended with a 10 day intensive with Joanna.

Steven 
Yeah.

Okay. So.

Jess Serrante 
So that

was my first dive into her work.

Steven 
Can I ask you at this point to tell the audience a bit about Joanna Macy? You gotta go listen to the show and you'll people, know, as you go listen to We Are the Great Turning, you'll experience the great Joanna Macy. But could you tell the audience who may not be familiar with her and her work just a little bit about her? Because she seems like just such a wonderful human being.

Jess Serrante 
soon.

you

Ugh, yeah. To those of you who don't know who she is, congratulations that you're now about to know about Joanna Macy and her brilliant work. So Joanna is a Buddhist teacher, an eco-philosopher, a deep ecologist. She is 95 years old and she has spent her life doing

studying Buddhism.

and activism. was a nuclear, anti-nuclear activist in the 70s and developing an incredible body of work that is the like some of her studies and her experience. Her life is so interesting. There's a memoir that folks can read called Widening Circles that I recommend. I won't get into telling the story that's not mine, but her life is fascinating.

Steven 
Sure.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
But the body of work she created, the work that reconnects, is the best tool set that I know for people who are committed to creating a better world. It is a tool set and a framework for spiritual sustenance and for reconnection.

and it's incredibly enlivening and it builds beautiful community. like, you know, I've been, I've been doing this kind of work for 18 years now, and it's still the best that I've found in terms of what can help people sustain themselves in this work. And she's, she's, of course she's all of those things. And most importantly for me, she is my dear friend.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
and my mentor. And she

and I have had a friendship for the better part of the last decade. And my life has been changed in profound ways by her work, but most importantly by her friendship. I'm get teary just naming it because it's profound. I love her and we love her. Yeah. It's education.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah, no, thank you so much for your vulnerability. Yeah, the love you have for

her is so authentic and so real and thank you for sharing that and thank you for your vulnerability to allow us to see what love looks like, because you're demonstrating that right now. So thank you.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, well,

thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's that vulnerability. It's inherent to the work, right? It's the work that reconnects. One of the things that it does is it invites us to speak the truth of what we love about the world and what breaks our hearts about the world to oversimplify it.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
in order to act in service of what we love. so, yeah, so to get to love her and carry this work is just like an extension of the gifts that.

Steven 
Yeah, it's a

giant gift. Yeah. So this seems like a thank you for first before I transition. Thank you for giving a brief introduction into Joanna and I appreciate the recommendation and the recommendation of the book as well. I'll make sure that that gets in the show notes. So folks like myself and others, because I haven't read that yet, but that's now on my to read list. So

Jess Serrante 
Yay, great.

Steven 
but I'll make sure that we pass it on so folks can start to experience a bit more of Joanna's life as well. So thank you for sharing a little bit of her story. I appreciate you all for recognizing it's her story. You shouldn't go much deeper into it. So thank you for that as well. So you have this friendship with this amazing human being and...

how did the podcast come about? Whose idea was it and how did this kind of take shape? Because it is such a brilliant, brilliant podcast and I'm so grateful that the two of you made it because it's so helpful, it's so wonderful. So how did it come about and then maybe we can.

Jess Serrante 
Ugh.

Steven 
talk a little bit about it here to give people a flavor of it so that they go listen to it themselves, because it's so brilliant, it's so amazing. So how did it happen?

Jess Serrante 
Okay, well this is a fun story to tell. So, I think it was a little over two years ago. I was living in Brooklyn and I got struck with very clear...

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
or some big clarity that it was time for me to let go of my life there. And I had an amazing home and a great circle of friends and I was close to my family and I knew that life wasn't for me anymore. And so I took off, I packed my stuff up, not knowing where I was going and what I was heading into, but I had a lot of clarity.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
that it was gonna, like I just felt in my bones that it was gonna work out, that this was what I needed to do. And as a part of that stepping out into the world to just travel for a while, I, or before I left Brooklyn, I started having dreams about waves. So I had this, one of the most, probably the most vivid dream of my life in which I was out in the ocean.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
and way out but I could see the coastline and a wave was coming and I thought if I don't start paddling this thing's gonna break on me. It's really gonna hurt and so started paddling and paddling and paddling and paddling and the wave comes behind me and I'm about to push up I know it's time to push up and I'm on a boogie board and I just have to hold on and let it push me all the way into shore.

Steven 
Mm. Yeah.

You

Jess Serrante 
and it pushes me to a group of friends on the beach. And was very, the imagery of it was very potent. And so one of the things that happened was I decided that I was gonna learn how to surf. I had surfed before, but like a few days in there, I was like, I'm gonna go learn how to surf. So I went to Costa Rica.

Steven 
Wow.

Okay. I was going to ask you have you ever surfed before, but you answered that before I could get the question in. Okay.

Jess Serrante 
And I every day I had a what I tried to teach myself how to surf in my early 20s and the board I got smashed. I didn't know anything. I got smashed in the face with the board. So I had a lot of fear. Yeah, I a little scar here that I carry around from it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Some lady came up to me and was like, hired a teacher while my face was all bloody.

Steven 
Oof. Yeah, sure, Oof. Good reminder.

Jess Serrante 
But anyway, so I'm in Costa Rica and all that's coming back and I'm experiencing big fear of these like little waves.

two footers, know, they're not, they're nothing, nothing major, but I was really freaked out. And as I'm, as I'm confronting this fear every single day, I called Joanna and she was so fascinated by the journey that I was on. Our friendship has always been sort of weaving our shared passion for the work that she created and the stories of our lives. So, what?

Steven 
Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, that's a true friendship.

That's great. Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, totally. Like a total intellect, totally intellectual partnership, but also very intimate and personal. And so as I would come back from these surf lessons, she would be like, call me immediately. Let me know how it went. And so our, our tempo of calls had been like once a month while I was living in New York, but it was like, then it was every single day. Call me tomorrow. Let me know how it goes. And we were talking at every, every day for about a week.

And at some point the podcast idea, like we were just delighting in our conversation so much. I remember like I was laying in a hammock outside of the apartment I was living in and I said, we should really record these conversations. Like people might like to listen in on these. Like some good stuff comes up when we talk.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And

we had attempted on several occasions to collaborate on projects, but it was never the right time or the right project. But for some reason, this one, I mean, not for some reason, we know why, because this needed to happen, but this was the one that stuck. So.

Steven 
Yeah, it clicked.

Jess Serrante 
And it just sort of spired, like, moved, mobilized into action very quickly. She called Tammy Simon within a day or two. I wrote a proposal. Tammy Simon's, I think she's no longer, I think she stepped down, but she was the CEO of Sounds True Publishing Company. And they said yes. And I, you know, I thought we were going to create this little scrappy three hour thing that I edited myself.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
and it turned into something so much bigger, One Sounds True was in.

Steven 
Yeah, it's a lovely program and it's 10 episodes and most of the episodes have bonus material for deeper dives and lessons and practices that people can do. So tell us, you

I shouldn't be telling this. You should be telling this. Tell us a little bit about what this podcast is. then I want to talk a little bit about some of the episodes, things that have personally struck me and would like to just, while I got you, dig a little deeper. So yeah. So tell us a little bit about what it is and then yeah, and then I'll, then I get to ask you my questions.

Jess Serrante 
I'm excited to hear that.

Great, great. So, We Are the Great Turning is a 10 episode series that carries us through one of the main aspects of the framework of the work that reconnects is something called the spiral. So it's the sort of structure that we travel in the work.

taking us from gratitude to honoring our pain for the world, to seeing with new eyes, to going forth. And maybe we'll talk more about the details of that later. So we travel that arc over 10 episodes and we talk about the time that we're living in and the stories we can tell to make sense of this moment.

Steven 
Yeah, I hope so.

Jess Serrante 
And we talk about gratitude and heartbreak. And there's two episodes where you hear Juliana and I really reckoning with our pain about the world. Some moments particularly where we're talking about, where we're feeling the impact of what's happening in Gaza because we were recording at the beginning of all of this.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
that's still unfolding. And also when the Biden administration approved the Willow drilling project in the Arctic.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And we also talk about things like deep time, and we talk about Eros and like love for the world and action and how do we find our place in the movement. So the way we do it is through these kitchen table conversations. So I spent months visiting Joanna a couple days a week, putting the mics down on the table and seeing what I wanted to merge from us in those conversations. And then I cut those into

Sometimes the easy way to explain it to folks is I'll say like a This American Life radio style. So it's like you hear this table and then you hear me in the studio narrating. So it's.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a great

totally for those familiar with this American Live. I can, I didn't kind of put that together when I was listening to it the first time, but totally, yeah, that's a...

Jess Serrante 
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, there might be there might be a name in the podcasting world for that style, but it's just an easy way to explain. It's not just us at the table because people are really used to these kinds of come just conversation podcasts. So it was a lot more than there was a lot of writing involved anyway. And like you said, there's we're doing our best in the show to bring people into Joanna's body of work experientially. And so.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah. it's. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
Accompanying each of these episodes for eight of them, there are bonuses that are exercises from the work that reconnects that you might do if you were to do a Work That Reconnects workshop that you can do with a friend. You can hit record with someone and you can have a conversation or do a facilitated exercise that gives you the experience of the work.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah. So.

and I guess one more important thing to say about the show is, and this might be inherent in or assumed, but it's about how do we live with our hearts intact in these times. So we're taking a very personal relational entry point into the planetary crisis. And...

you know, not so much talking politics, even though it's, I think, quite inherently political, but talking about the spiritual, emotional, interpersonal lenses into it, which was one of the clearest intentions that we had for the project from the beginning. We felt like...

in loving the conversations that Joanna and I had so much, felt like, wow, what it is to talk about the state of the world with someone that you love and trust, you know, to have that intimate entry point into what is beautiful and hard about this time. And we wanted to invite people to the table with us. And we also wanted to invite people to...

cultivate those kinds of conversations in their own life. I think if there was one outcome from this podcast that we wanted the most is that people felt like they had an entry point to begin to have those kinds of conversations with the people in their lives.

Steven 
Right. Well, it's so well done. Congratulations. mean, it is such a wonderful show in that idea of inviting people to sit at the table with you. I I felt that way. I mean, I felt that I was there with the two of you during those conversations. I laughed with you. I cried with you. It was...

Jess Serrante 
Thank you.

Steven 
so well done and your kind of narration that helped set things up or explain things was just so delicately interwoven and so important to the flow of the learning that was happening. So really, mean, what an amazing piece of work and I'm so grateful that you created it because, you know, it's, I think,

the entry point for conversations as you wanted it to be. think it's going to do that for people, is doing that for people. And I came across it, listened to Outrage and Optimism, another podcast and the number of shows that I listened to just try to stay educated and informed and entertained. So kind of the endorsement that...

you received from that show and got my foot in the door to listen to that first episode. And I'm like, I got to listen to all of this. Like, what is this? Where did this come from? And that was just so perfect. It was just really, really wonderful. I listened to it earlier this summer, which is what triggered my clarity of, I got to reach out to Jess. I really want to talk to this person. Because I felt like I knew you both after.

Jess Serrante 
Mm.

Steven 
listening to this. felt like I on some level knew you already because it's so intimate and personal what the two of you share and the courage that you both had to put that intimacy out into the world. I it's really wonderful. mean, just thank you for that. So can I pepper you now with a few questions?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah.

Wherever you want to go, let's go there.

Steven 
So one of the things, I got a little list here of, I don't know that I'm to get to them all because I could talk to you all day about this, but I'll try to pick a few out of my list here that really struck me and would like to have you explain a little bit more, dig a little bit deeper on your perspective on some of these things. You and Joanna don't shy away from talking about how hard this is.

And I think it was an episode to, I think you said this and it kind of struck Joanne and it struck me, but this idea of living your life committed to something so improbable. Like how hard that is, but how rewarding and important it is. It's what I like that juxtaposition of this is so hard to care about the world and see it kind of.

collapsing in many ways and seeing evidence of tipping points coming that might be, as the point of a tipping point, irreversible and the damage that's being done. Are we going to be able, we collectively, humanity, are we going to be able to fix this, to right this ship? It's hard, hard work. That just struck me of living your life committed to something so improbable.

Why, why do we do this? Why? But I, for myself, don't, I know don't have to, but I want to. I want to be committed to this thing that seems so improbable. So tell me more about that if you can, because this is, if you remember that even saying that, but it was, it just struck me as like, that's it. I've never articulated that before, but that's it, that's it. So.

Jess Serrante 
I think you're in good shape.

Steven 
Tell me more about that if you can.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah.

I mean, I think simply put, it just comes from my own, my own impulse. Like what else am I gonna do? know, something else you probably, you heard me say at one point is that before I met Joanna, my, I think I call my activism like an angsty middle finger. Like I was just, I was just like, everybody's effing everything up. And,

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
I'm so small, but I'm throw myself against this because that is what feels in integrity. I'll say that like integrity was a huge value in my family growing up. This is like the thing that I got particularly from my grandfather is like...

how important being in alignment with what matters to us is. And that like when we have nothing else, because he came from a really rough background, but he came out of that, his life, his early life with was if I have nothing else, the thing that I have is my own alignment with what I love and what matters to me.

Steven 
Yeah.

with what your values are, yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And that was like really instilled into me through my parents and my grandparents around. was very lucky for that. So in that sense, it's just my most natural impulse of like, well, what's in integrity for me is a world with clean air and clean water and intact ecosystems and...

sane, humane social systems and rich community. And so if I have nothing else, all I have is my dedication to that. doesn't, you know, and we, and Joanna and I talked about this also later in the series in the episode about hope, where we talked about,

Steven 
Yeah, it's beautiful.

Jess Serrante 
you know, that like even if the chances are slim to none, what I'm gonna do, because it's what I need to live my life knowing. Like, I believe that, you know, can, my power is limited in this world, but it is also much greater than I often believe it to be. And...

that I can die satisfied with my existence if I believe that I've offered myself wholly to the outcome for the future that I see we all deserve.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Thank you. That's beautiful. I share a very similar sentiment for my life path that I want to know on my last breath that I lived a full life and I lived a life that I did the best I could to make it better for present moment, but make it

better for future generations as well. So I appreciate that. You talk in the show and you mentioned it earlier, a couple episodes, I think it was three and four. There's a lot of pain and heartbreak that's very visceral, like real. I think it was the beginning of episode

Jess Serrante 
Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Steven 
three where Joanna talked about, you know, not being able to not wanting to do it anymore. think she said something, our fate is no better than that of a captain on a sinking ship. that was so hard to listen to that pain and I could relate, right? Because I felt like that before.

don't want to do this anymore. Cause what's the point? and I'm so grateful that you guys talked about, and it's, and it's part of the program, you know, it's the four steps of the spiral, this honoring your pain, starting with gratitude, I appreciated the time out you all took and to be recognizing some things to be grateful for, to reground yourselves, but then to honor.

the pain. Can you talk a little bit about the interaction between gratitude and honoring the pain, those first two steps of the spiral?

Jess Serrante 
Yeah. I think the way that she arranged the spiral is genius. And I have come to deeply trust it over the years that I've known her and practice this work and especially through the creation of this podcast to just get that one of the easiest ways that I could describe the spiral is emotional alchemy.

Steven 
Agreed.

Jess Serrante 
Like it's just the natural way that our emotions fully expressed transform. So we start with gratitude, because we have to start somewhere. it matters. We step into the spiral because we have work to do in the world, because we have a vision for some.

alternate future that we long for and

And gratitude, being present to the gifts of our lives, to why we're so grateful to be alive on earth today. You know, we've the people that we love, the animals that we love, the places that have fortified us, the fact that I've got, you know, two functional hands and eyes and feet that carry me through my day, like that there's still so much to be grateful for. And you can feel it, right? Even just like in vocational

those simple things. I felt this warmth come through my body. It's fortifying. You remember how much we have. And how much we have to love and how much we have to fight for. And Joanna often says that love is the other side of the coin of our pain for the world. So it's because we love so much that we have so much heartbreak.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, gratitude's a superpower. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
So it's this beautiful interplay where gratitude and what it creates in us together and also what it creates in community, right? Like the energetic space that it creates when we're with others, buoys us and makes it possible for us to go into the heartbreaking depth of our pain for the world. And also they're an interplay because

we agree, we pain for what we love, right?

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

So as I gathered from the show and from personal experience, I'm a big believer in everything that I heard on the show about the importance of having a safe space and someone that you can trust to talk with about the things that are painful in your life, the fears and the anxieties and the things that make you angry. Those are human emotions that we're going to experience. to be able to honor them,

as a gift of the human experience. And then, you know, going into step three of the spiral, if I'm understanding it right then, is through this honoring of this grief or loss or whatever the discomfort or the uncomfortable feeling may be, through honoring it and acknowledging it, then some clarity comes. It seems like that's where you get these new eyes. tell us a little bit about

that that's kind of an you know the next step of the process of the spiral.

Jess Serrante 
Yeah. So first, let me plug my computer in. sorry. Just noticed that bar going down in the corner. No. So.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, we don't want you to end too soon.

Jess Serrante 
Our pain, oftentimes when people talk about pain and climate, they talk about grief. But I think it's also important for us to talk about rage and for us to about fear, as well as emptiness and numbness. So.

Steven 
Mm-hmm.

Jess Serrante 
And I talk about numbness a lot because I think in this particular moment in time, or for my, I don't know if this is true for everybody, but it's definitely true for a lot of my friends that being of a social media generation and so bombarded with information all the time that we unplug, just pull, disassociate.

disassociation, think for a lot of us is one of the ways that we cope with this. But so honoring all pain is about speaking the truth of those feelings and, you know, and just letting them be, like not needing to change them, which was a huge lesson for me because I also, like come from, like get shit done people.

Steven 
Right. Right.

Jess Serrante 
You know, like there's a problem, you take a deep breath and you get in and you start solving. And I'm so grateful to come from that. And one of the things that I've had to learn is to slow down enough to actually be with the pain before problem solving when possible. Because there's a lot of wisdom to be found in those feelings.

But so to answer your question, when we slow down and we really be with it and we really honor those feelings, the alchemical thing that tends to happen is that it brings us back around to a sense of our interbeing. Like I can feel that like I'm in, I'm so heartbroken about what's happening.

and like, wow, isn't it extraordinary to be here? isn't this happening in my body because I belong to this community? Because that person who is oppressed or harmed in whatever way is not separate from me, right? If I'm heartbreaking for someone else.

And another thing that the grieving does or that happens in seeing with new eyes that I think is really important in this time is also seeing the dominant systems for what they are. That, you know, for example, only through grieving my heartbreak at houselessness in the Bay Area, let's say.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
you know, the people that I have conversations with or that I see outside my grocery store every time I go buy food who are asking for help and just the pain that I feel that anyone needs to do that to have the dignity of something to eat.

that through grieving that when I come out into new eyes I also see how broken our housing system is. I see how global corporate capitalism and the way that it functions in my country creates systemic poverty. Right? And

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And that's been so important to me because I'm and it's so radical in a way because it's liberating myself from my, you know, the training I got coming up in this country, especially as a privileged white person that I believed in the systems of this country. And that was what I was what I was told to do. And I did it.

And so I'm pulling away my loyalty and my trust in those systems as I come to understand how broken they are and how much they don't, not only do they not serve those people who are marginalized and most hurt by the system, but also they don't serve me, even though I look like a beneficiary, you know?

So that's a big, those are the two parts of seeing with new eyes, peeling away our understanding of those dominant systems and coming into our extraordinary belonging.

Steven 
Yeah.

And then from there is action. It's the, I think you talked about it as active hope. It's like there's work to be done now that you've had this clarity.

Jess Serrante 
action.

Yeah.

I mean, once you come through all that, what else are you going to do other than go out and act in service of what you love?

Steven 
Yeah, go

be of service, right. And then the spiral can continue. It can start with gratitude again and honor of pain as it arrives.

Jess Serrante 
And then, right, part of me.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
Say the

last thing again, I'm sorry, you cut off.

Steven 
I was just saying that the spiral kind of starts over again where it is never ending. That's hence a spiral. you just, from the work, you can find new things to be grateful for and new sorrows to honor and new clarity to discover and new work to be done. So it just kind of keeps going. But you were going to say, please, that's what, what's your thoughts about that?

Jess Serrante 
Right.

I

think you said it. mean, it was just that from action, from being out in the world, pushing for change, inviting people into new possibilities and the triumphs and losses that that brings necessitates yet another journey around from the spiral. And so the spiral journey is something that we do to sustain ourselves.

to make it possible for us to stay in action and to stay connected and to deepen the ways, the like, wisdom and connection from which we connect.

Steven 
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think you talk about it in the kind of the summing up of the series and episode 10 described as this idea to act with compassion and insight into the radical independence of all things that the spiral is what helps us do that is to stay acting with compassion and service for the connection that we have with each other and with the planet we live on and the creatures and everything we share this.

Jess Serrante 
Yes.

Steven 
are only home with. So did I capture that correctly in my understanding of? Yeah. Wonderful. Well, Jess, thank you so much. I know it was kind of a crash course on your amazing podcast, We Are the Great Turning. And my call to action for listeners or viewers of this podcast is to go to

Jess Serrante 
Thank you.

Steven 
Jess's podcast and dive deep into it, listen to it with an open mind and an open heart and just absorb all of the wisdom that is in those 10 episodes and the eight extra episodes, because it's just packed full of it. So that's my call to action is go listen to We Are The Great Turning. Jess, what's your call to action for folks?

It can be the same call to action, by the way.

Jess Serrante 
Well, similar but different. So if you go to wearethegreatturning.com, there's a toolkit. And we basically designed a self-guided course so that you can listen to every episode. There are bonuses that you can do with friends. And then there are also extra resources, conversation prompts, and a guide for creating what we call a podcast club.

Steven 
Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
So that, you know, it's like the way I think about it is like, it's one thing to just to listen to this show. And I think what we made is beautiful and it will have an impact if all you do is listen. And if you're moved by it, be in community with other people with these tools, because it's the conversation and it's the community that you can build.

that is the thing that can really transform your offering in the world. So I would encourage people to find someone to listen with to do a podcast club session for even just one episode, or I'll do it for all 10. If you're moved, that would be great. And if I had to simplify it down into just one invitation.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yes.

Jess Serrante
It would be to listen to the bonus for episode nine called callings and resources and do that exercise with a friend.

Steven 
Well, I've already turned the show on to a few of my friends. So I hope to do personally some of the podcast clubbing kind of activity with my lovely wife and a few other friends that I've turned on to this show because it moved me and I'm so grateful that...

Jess Serrante 
Yay.

Steven 
You accepted my invitation, you know, out of the blue. Just like, hey, I heard your show and you got to come on my show to talk about it. So thank you so much for your willingness to do that. And I'm so grateful for you and Joanna for putting this together. So we we end every episode. And by the way, obviously, we'll put on on the show notes all of the information, the website and everything that folks can track that down as well.

Jess Serrante 
Thank

Mm.

Steven 
to do that, listen to it and do the podcast show and do everything you just, the call to action you just made will be available on the show notes page. We end every episode of this particular program, Stories Sustain Us, by asking, I asked my guests three questions about hope. And looking at kind of hope from the,

kind of clinical studied perspective of hope being that hope is someone can have a clear vision for a better future. They have a plan of action to get to that better future and they feel they have a sense of agency that they have something that they can do to implement that plan of action. Doesn't mean you're get there. Doesn't mean there's not gonna be hardship and setbacks and failures and difficulties. We have a...

Vision, a plan, and a sense of agency is kind of what those who study these things say that's what hope is.

Jess Serrante 
Cool. Okay.

Steven 
Yeah, so I'm going to ask you three questions. Kind of ask you then not to think too much about your answer. Just kind of give your answer if you can. So the first question, Jess, about hope is what's your vision for a better future? And it can be for you personally, professionally, or for the world. What's your vision for a better future?

Jess Serrante
yeah.

I see a world where we all know that we belong to each other, where we've moved, we've healed and moved beyond the individualism and separation that currently colors the political climate of our country, that we remember that we are not separate. And we act from that.

And there's a lot I could say about what that could look like. But I think at the heart of it, it's remembering that oneness and building a society that reflects our understanding of that and building communities and homes. You can sort of nested systems that are a reflection of our understanding of our interdependence.

Steven 
Nice. Tell me a little bit more if you can about why that's your vision.

Jess Serrante 
Mm.

I think because...

The more I do the work that I do, in addition to doing the work that reconnects in this podcast, I'm a coach. And I'm leadership coach for climate leaders in particular. And the thing that I have found over years of doing this is that isolation is one of the root pains at the heart of so many people's lives.

that like for activists that I work with who are burnt out, they're often burnt out because they feel like they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. And they're not leaning on people because they believe they need to be strong or they need to be professional or whatever. And so you're not asking for, or they don't even have a sense that they deserve that kind of camaraderie.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
And I also another piece of it, so that's like a interpersonal piece. But another thing is that I think I see the root cause of the crises that I see separation as the root cause of the crises that we're in. It's the fact that we don't understand yet that we have no life. have.

We don't get the things that mean the most to us, connection and the like basic tools of survival, food and shelter, nevermind joy, right? Without a healthy planet. That we don't believe, like without believing that we are one with our planet, we're gonna keep destroying her. And she wants to be healed and she's ready.

for us to change our minds, right? Like think about what happened in the pandemic, like flights stopped, we stopped flying so much and like how, or people stopped visiting certain places, right? And how ecosystems just came teeming back to life immediately, you know? So it can happen quickly.

Steven 
Yeah, restoration, yeah, restoration can happen quickly when we focus on doing it.

Yeah, yeah.

Jess Serrante
Yeah, so should we remember that that we need her healthy for us to be healthy? I think a lot would change. Fast.

Steven 
Wonderful.

Last question about hope, Jess. So imagine now that your vision for a better future where we're understanding the oneness and the interconnectedness of it all and we're collectively working together with that spirit of oneness in the world that you're envisioning now. Imagine that it is now.

How does that make you feel?

Jess Serrante 
Is it cheating to say whole?

Steven 
No, there is no wrong answer. Your feelings are valid for you to have them. there is no wrong answer. is beautiful answer.

Jess Serrante 
And grateful. Grateful. I think another feeling that comes imagining it's true is when I feel tears coming to my eyes as I say it is relief. You know, I just got a flash of... I've got so many babies in my life. All my friends and my siblings have just so many children under the age of four who I adore right now. And...

Steven 
Mm, yeah. Yeah.

Jess Serrante 
the relief that they might inherit something better than what we're currently on course to pass on to them. Yeah.

Steven
I love that. I love that.

Well, Jess, thank you so much for sharing your story with me and thank you so much for sharing the We Are the Great Turning podcast with all of us. I'm so grateful and I will leave you with the last word today.

Jess Serrante 
Great, just thank you so much for having me. This has been such a sweet conversation and I just feel really honored to get to talk about this great labor of love and yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah. one last thing. I suppose is just if anyone is interested in learning more about me and my work.

Steven 
Yes, please. Yes.

Yes.

Jess Serrante 
You can go to my website, it's jessserrante.com. I have a newsletter, so it's jessserrante.com slash subscribe. And you can also follow me on Instagram at Jess underscore Serrante. And that's a good place to learn more about the coaching offerings and workshops and retreats and perhaps future plan costs and that kind of thing.

Steven 
Perfect.

Wonderful. Thank you for adding that in. Absolutely. I'll make sure that's in the show notes too. So I will be following you on Instagram for certain. if there's anything I can, yeah, anything I can do to support you and your important work, you have a follower and a friend here. So thank you for all that you're doing to make the world a better place.

Jess Serrante 
Great, thank you. Thank you. I'm not super-ugly, but we're working on it.

be here with you.

Steven 
All right, goodbye.

Steven
As we wrap up episode 25 of Stories Sustain Us, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Jess Serrante for sharing her incredible journey with us. Her story of growing up in a supportive community, discovering a passion for environmental activism, and embracing the transformative work of Joanna Macy has been nothing short of inspiring. Jess's reflections on gratitude, pain, and interconnectedness

remind us all of the profound strength that comes from facing challenges with courage and love. Through her podcast, We Are the Great Turning, and her own journey, Jess has shown us how personal growth, meaningful action, and the power of community can create hope and resilience, even in the face of the climate crisis. I wanna thank Jess for helping us see the beauty in emotional alchemy.

the ability to transform gratitude and pain into clarity and action. Her words have left me with a renewed sense of purpose and the understanding that together we can build a better future. I hope you've been equally moved by Jess's story. Now let's take the inspiration from this episode and turn it into meaningful action in our own lives. With that in mind, I also wanna thank you for joining us today. If Jess's story resonated with you,

please don't forget to check out her podcast, We Are the Great Turning. It's an amazing program and by listening to it, you'll be able to continue exploring the themes Jess and I discussed today. I highly, highly recommend it. I first listened to her podcast last summer and I cranked through all the episodes and was so moved by it. I knew I had to reach out to her and ask her to come on my show and I'm so grateful.

that Jess said yes and came on to be interviewed today. I've listened to her show, We Are the Great Turning, several episodes, multiple times, because it's just packed with amazing information. I laughed with Jess and Joanna, I cried with them, and I was inspired by them. And I'm sure you will be too. So be sure to check out We Are the Great Turning.

And if you enjoyed this episode of Stories Sustain Us, please share it with your family and friends and be sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. As always, I appreciate all your support. Finally, be sure to join me on January 21st for the next inspiring episode of Stories Sustain Us. My guest is one of the professional leaders of an incredible community-driven restoration project in Scotland. You're not going to want to miss this episode.

Episode 26 will be available at storiessustainus.com, wherever you listen to podcasts, and on YouTube again on January 21st. So, until next time, I'm Steven Schauer. Please take care of yourself and each other. Take care.