Right Story, Wrong Story: Visioning for a Better World in 2026

A group of women sit in a circle by a crackling fire, meditating to the beat of a drum. We have done a range of ceremonies this day, including protecting the delicate ecosystems of our mountains that are threatened by fracking. Here, at the end of our time together, we hold space in quiet company, each of us powerfully envisioning the future we want to create rather than the future that is currently being constructed for us. Right outside of where we sit, one mountain has already been destroyed with over 80 fracking wells. We are consciously choosing to reject the dystopian reality that we are now all living. This fossil fuel extraction nightmare is not what we want for our present and future. The drumbeat ends, and we open our eyes. We pass around a rattle, and each of us takes a moment to share our vision and shake the rattle. A vision that people in our state will begin protecting the earth and turn away from over three centuries of fossil fuel extraction. A vision of herb boxes and free healing herbs on every street in a local town. A vision of the end to fracking and resource extraction across the US. A vision to save the mountains we have been working magic for this very day. A vision of a children’s camp, children playing in a clean river, and learning how to be connected with nature. The visions kept coming, and as we share, we build upon each other’s vision. When we are done, we release the container of our sacred circle, and as we do, we send the energy of all of our visioning out into the world. Right Story, Wrong Story , where he argues that the stories that we tell ourselves deeply shape the reality that we live in, our relationship to the land, and our relationship to each other. Right stories, as he writes, are not about a single objective truth but rather about cultivating right relationships. Right story comes from groups living in right relationship with each other and the entire landscape around them, shaping a relational narrative with the land. The wrong story is propaganda; it is arguing for a single truth, it is in the language of greed and profit, and it separates the people from both land and spirit. Wrong stories are how we’ve gotten here, and are pretty much the cause of the Anthropocene and this dystopia we all find ourselves living in. There is no single right story (as there is no single right truth), but there certainly are plenty of wrong stories making their rounds right now. Consider a wrong story and a right story for where I live in Western Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania contains the Allegheney plateau, a geological formation that allowed for the development of extensive and profitable fossil fuel reserves, including coal, oil, and gas from the Marcellus shale, Utica shale deposits. This makes Pennsylvania a fossil fuel powerhouse, allowing a range of extractive...

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