Climate Change, Grief, and the Rise of the Feminine: A Depth Psychology Apprach
There is a grief so vast we barely know how to name it. A slow, suffocating sorrow that creeps into our bones, whispering of rising seas, vanishing species, and a planet in distress. Climate change is not just a crisis of science and policy; it is a soul-deep rupture, an unraveling that leaves us grasping for meaning in the face of what feels like unstoppable destruction.
Many of us carry this grief silently, not knowing where to place it. We scroll through the latest environmental catastrophes, feel the gut-punch of helplessness, and then move on because—what else can we do? The weight of ecological loss is too much to hold alone, and so we shove it down, let it harden into anxiety or numbness.
But depth psychology tells us that what is repressed does not disappear. It finds its way into our dreams, our relationships, our bodies. The grief of the Earth is no different. It surfaces as burnout, as rage, as an unnamed longing. It speaks through the wildfires and floods, through the eerie warmth of a February afternoon. The unconscious, as Jung taught us, will always find a way to be known.
And so, we must listen.
The Myth of Demeter and Persephone: A Map for Our Grief
In Greek mythology, Demeter, the great Earth mother, loses her daughter Persephone to the underworld. Her grief is not quiet; it is cataclysmic. She refuses to let the crops grow, plunging the world into a deadly famine. It is only when she is granted the chance to reunite, however fleetingly, that the seasons can turn again.
This is not just an old story—it is our story. Demeter is the wounded feminine, the archetypal mother whose loss is also the planet’s loss. And Persephone? She is all that has been taken, all that we have let slip into the underworld of unconscious neglect. We live in an age of endless extraction—of oil, of forests, of animals—and we wonder why the world feels barren, why life feels so precarious.
But myths do not exist to tell us what is lost; they show us how to find our way back.
The Rise of the Feminine: A Different Way Forward
The loss we feel is not just about climate change. It is about the failure of a system built on domination, on control, on the illusion that we can conquer nature without consequence. The rise of the feminine does not mean the fall of the masculine—it means the rebalancing of what has been lost. It calls us back to an ancient knowing: that the Earth is alive, that we are part of it, that grief is not meant to be carried alone but shared, ritualized, made sacred.
Depth psychology urges us to move beyond surface solutions and into the deeper work of integration. This is not just about policy—it is about psyche. Can we face the loss without turning away? Can we honor our grief without collapsing into despair? Can we, like Demeter, hold our sorrow long enough to transform it into something fertile?
To grieve consciously is an act of resistance. It is a refusal to be numbed by the speed of modern life, a commitment to feeling in a culture that tells us to keep moving. And from that grief, something new can emerge—perhaps not a return to what was, but a different kind of presence, a different way of being in relationship with the Earth.
Perhaps this is the true initiation of our time: to descend into the underworld of climate grief and return not with easy answers, but with a deeper capacity to love what remains.
And from there—who knows what could bloom?
If you live in California and are interested in exploring grief counseling and spiritual depth psychotherapy with me, contact me today. I look forward to hearing from you!