Changing the Story, Changing the Future: The Inner Shift That Makes the Great Turning Possible

Part 1: The Story in Our Heads Is Shaping the World

How our interpretations fuel despair—or possibility

Not long ago I was outside in the yard with my grandson Logan, who had discovered something that instantly captured his five-year-old imagination. It was nothing particularly dramatic—just a small worm wriggling through the soil after a rainstorm. But to Logan, it might as well have been a dragon. He crouched down, studying it carefully, narrating what he thought the worm might be thinking and where it might be going. Piper, his little sister, soon joined us, equally fascinated.

Watching them, I was reminded of something I think many of us lose as adults. Children don’t just see the world—they relate to it. The worm isn’t an object. It’s a character in the unfolding drama of life. The tree in the yard isn’t scenery; it’s a companion in the landscape of their play. Everything feels alive, meaningful, connected.

This moment with my grandchildren reminded me of something we don’t learn from books… we remember it by being alive.

How our interpretations fuel despair—or possibility

Over the years I’ve developed a little morning ritual. Coffee in hand and a bowl of fruit in front of me for a few quiet minutes before my wife, Ann, wakes up. Often Rascal—my loyal canine companion—is curled up nearby. The early mountain light filtering through the trees here in the mountains of North Carolina. And if I’m honest, sometimes my mind wanders through the headlines of the world we’re living in: climate disruption, political turmoil, economic uncertainty, wildfires, floods, storms. Many of us feel it now—that sense that something larger than a typical “rough patch in history” is unfolding. I often refer to it as the polycrisis—a convergence of ecological, economic, social, and spiritual disruptions all happening at once.

It can be a lot to take in. Some mornings, if I’m not careful, my mind can start telling a story about it all. A story that has become all too familiar. To borrow a phrase from my own childhood: Our world is going to hell in a handbasket. Maybe you’ve heard versions of those stories in your own mind as well.

Recently, two articles I happened to read on the same morning stopped me in my tracks. Something about them felt deeply connected—not just to each other, but to the work many of us are trying to do in this time of planetary transition. And it dawned on me that the climate crisis—and the broader polycrisis—may not just be a technological or political