Kira Walker
@kira-walker.bsky.social
Facilitator, ritualist & writer tending ecological grief. Chasing light, birds, beauty & awe. Read my newsletter Amor Mundi on Substack ✨🌿🕊️
https://kira-walker.com
https://kira-walker.com
"Your effort matters, even though it’s never going to be enough on its own — and you can carry that tension without letting it flatten you."
grist.org/culture/ask-...
grist.org/culture/ask-...
How to deal with burnout on a burning planet
Licensed therapist Leslie Davenport offers advice to two readers facing paralysis from different points in their climate journeys.
grist.org
August 31, 2026 at 1:55 PM
"Your effort matters, even though it’s never going to be enough on its own — and you can carry that tension without letting it flatten you."
grist.org/culture/ask-...
grist.org/culture/ask-...
“Grief is not here to take us hostage,” Weller writes in The Wild Edge of Sorrow, “but instead to reshape us in some fundamental way.”
kiraw.substack.com/p/my-apprent...
kiraw.substack.com/p/my-apprent...
My apprenticeship with sorrow
Turning towards grief, turning towards life
kiraw.substack.com
August 17, 2026 at 8:23 AM
“Grief is not here to take us hostage,” Weller writes in The Wild Edge of Sorrow, “but instead to reshape us in some fundamental way.”
kiraw.substack.com/p/my-apprent...
kiraw.substack.com/p/my-apprent...
"Planning for a future that feels unstable is a genuine challenge. Let yourself feel the weight of that before reaching for solutions...Feeling the loss is part of staying whole—neither turning away from what worries you, nor losing sight of what you can still shape."
thenarwhal.ca/ask-climate-...
thenarwhal.ca/ask-climate-...
Ask a climate therapist: Planning for an uncertain future | The Narwhal
Licensed therapist Leslie Davenport offers advice to a young reader staring down a world of uncertainty
thenarwhal.ca
July 17, 2026 at 7:39 AM
"Planning for a future that feels unstable is a genuine challenge. Let yourself feel the weight of that before reaching for solutions...Feeling the loss is part of staying whole—neither turning away from what worries you, nor losing sight of what you can still shape."
thenarwhal.ca/ask-climate-...
thenarwhal.ca/ask-climate-...
In my latest essay, I write about something that won't leave me alone: the grief-laden emptiness we experience as a "species out of context"
kiraw.substack.com/p/a-species-...
kiraw.substack.com/p/a-species-...
A species out of context
We aren't meant to live this way
kiraw.substack.com
June 27, 2026 at 10:24 AM
In my latest essay, I write about something that won't leave me alone: the grief-laden emptiness we experience as a "species out of context"
kiraw.substack.com/p/a-species-...
kiraw.substack.com/p/a-species-...
Reposted by Kira Walker
The last photo of third-grader Mikaeil Mirdoraghi, waving to his mom before he left for school. He was killed shortly after in the U.S./Israeli strike on a primary school in Minab.
March 5, 2026 at 9:10 PM
The last photo of third-grader Mikaeil Mirdoraghi, waving to his mom before he left for school. He was killed shortly after in the U.S./Israeli strike on a primary school in Minab.
In the wake of the relentless string of storms that lashed the Iberian Peninsula, I wrote about entanglement and the lives we consider worthy of mourning.
To mourn a tree
On entanglement and the lives we grieve
kiraw.substack.com
February 23, 2026 at 8:38 AM
In the wake of the relentless string of storms that lashed the Iberian Peninsula, I wrote about entanglement and the lives we consider worthy of mourning.
Reposted by Kira Walker
"This is Europe’s new reality: under water in winter, withered in summer. Yet even as the weather extremes worsen, the voices of denial have grown louder and more influential."
Excellent piece on the distance between lived realities and ideological denial.
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Excellent piece on the distance between lived realities and ideological denial.
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Under water, in denial: is Europe drowning out the climate crisis?
Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential
www.theguardian.com
February 21, 2026 at 8:52 AM
"This is Europe’s new reality: under water in winter, withered in summer. Yet even as the weather extremes worsen, the voices of denial have grown louder and more influential."
Excellent piece on the distance between lived realities and ideological denial.
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Excellent piece on the distance between lived realities and ideological denial.
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
"If we’re willing to welcome it, to not try to outrun it, push it away, numb it out, or distract ourselves from it, our grief is a compass towards what matters most to us, what we love, the world we long for."
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-world-...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-world-...
The world we long for
When your beliefs about life shatter, welcome the grief in
kiraw.substack.com
December 20, 2025 at 5:24 PM
"If we’re willing to welcome it, to not try to outrun it, push it away, numb it out, or distract ourselves from it, our grief is a compass towards what matters most to us, what we love, the world we long for."
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-world-...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-world-...
Reposted by Kira Walker
Ghosts of the Little Smoky
What do we lose when the caribou vanish?
kiraw.substack.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:17 PM
We’d be wise to heed the signals the caribou—and the land—are sending us, lest these creatures who have roamed Earth for over a million years, surviving the Ice Age, the assaults of colonization and over a century of industrial extraction, soon vanish into ghosts kiraw.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-...
Ghosts of the Little Smoky
What do we lose when the caribou vanish?
kiraw.substack.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM
We’d be wise to heed the signals the caribou—and the land—are sending us, lest these creatures who have roamed Earth for over a million years, surviving the Ice Age, the assaults of colonization and over a century of industrial extraction, soon vanish into ghosts kiraw.substack.com/p/ghosts-of-...
Some of my most cherished memories involve cities, but oh do I feel this: "Chronic stress and many modern health issues are the result of an evolutionary mismatch between our primarily nature-adapted biology and the industrialized environments we now inhabit."
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Humans are evolved for nature, not cities, say anthropologists
A new paper by evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw (University of Zurich) and Daniel Longman (Loughborough University) argues that modern life has outpaced human evolution. The study suggests that...
phys.org
November 22, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Some of my most cherished memories involve cities, but oh do I feel this: "Chronic stress and many modern health issues are the result of an evolutionary mismatch between our primarily nature-adapted biology and the industrialized environments we now inhabit."
phys.org/news/2025-11...
phys.org/news/2025-11...
Reposted by Kira Walker
“And its song, my freight.”
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
November 8, 2025 at 4:20 PM
“And its song, my freight.”
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
‘Prayer for When I’m Lost’ by Patrick Rosal, in Orion’s Autumn 2025 issue
orionmagazine.org/article/pray...
"There is so much we can do when our hearts can’t take it anymore."
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
Deeply grateful to @orionmagazine.bsky.social for giving @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and myself the opportunity to have a conversation about borders, belonging, writing, rivers, grief and resistance, as well as our shared love for the more-than-human world.
orionmagazine.org/article/hear...
orionmagazine.org/article/hear...
Heart’s Home - Orion Magazine
A conversation about borders, belonging, and keeping the Kushners out
orionmagazine.org
November 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
"There is so much we can do when our hearts can’t take it anymore."
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
What a wonderful, rich conversation between @alexismarieadams.bsky.social and @julianhoffman.bsky.social
'Though the specificities of colonization are unique to each location, what is consistent about colonialism is that it “has operated and continues to operate through the disruption and re-ordering of relations between humans, land and lively beings.”'
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
The gaze of a bison
From North America to Palestine, “the horror of settler colonization has always been a multispecies endeavour”
kiraw.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:44 AM
'Though the specificities of colonization are unique to each location, what is consistent about colonialism is that it “has operated and continues to operate through the disruption and re-ordering of relations between humans, land and lively beings.”'
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
kiraw.substack.com/p/the-gaze-o...
Bird lovers and bird-friendly people: please join me in helping support birders of Gaza and their families as they try to survive genocide and ethnic cleansing, while still encouraging their love for birding.
birdersofpalestine.com
birdersofpalestine.com
Birders of Palestine
Support the birdwatchers of Gaza. Prints and postcards taken by Palestinian birders.
birdersofpalestine.com
September 6, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Bird lovers and bird-friendly people: please join me in helping support birders of Gaza and their families as they try to survive genocide and ethnic cleansing, while still encouraging their love for birding.
birdersofpalestine.com
birdersofpalestine.com
"If this level of horror can be written about, recorded, Tweeted, livestreamed, and broadcast by journalists in Gaza, only to be ignored by politicians and journalists in the West, then what is the point of journalism?"
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
How Do We Tell the Story of Gaza’s Murdered Journalists?
Since October 2023, I have been closely following the most outstanding cohort of journalists in the world: the mighty but dwindling community of journalists in Gaza. For about a year, I attended p…
lithub.com
August 20, 2025 at 11:04 PM
"If this level of horror can be written about, recorded, Tweeted, livestreamed, and broadcast by journalists in Gaza, only to be ignored by politicians and journalists in the West, then what is the point of journalism?"
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
lithub.com/how-do-we-te...
Reposted by Kira Walker
I wrote about the Prespa lakes region in northern Greece for @theguardian.com today. At the crossroads of three countries and my home for the past quarter of a century, it's a place that continues to surprise me with its wild beauty and rich human cultures.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
Balkan bounty: the little-known corner of Greece now ripe for walkers and nature tourism
Mountains, butterflies, bears and pelicans are among the natural wonders in the stunning Prespa lakes region, which straddles three countries
www.theguardian.com
August 6, 2025 at 10:08 AM
I wrote about the Prespa lakes region in northern Greece for @theguardian.com today. At the crossroads of three countries and my home for the past quarter of a century, it's a place that continues to surprise me with its wild beauty and rich human cultures.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...
One year after wildfire devastated Jasper, Canada, a reflection on one of the defining emotions of our time: solastalgia.
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
When ashes paint the sky
Solastalgia and grief in an era scorched by flames
kiraw.substack.com
July 22, 2025 at 1:47 PM
One year after wildfire devastated Jasper, Canada, a reflection on one of the defining emotions of our time: solastalgia.
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
kiraw.substack.com/p/when-ashes...
Ever since I first visited, I’d felt haunted by how somewhere so precious, so rich in life, could be so recklessly destroyed. I’d returned because I wanted to see the landscape when it was flooded. To imagine how Doñana was, and maybe still could be, in all its lush, watery, bird-rich glory.
A wetland without water
How greed, excess and the failure to love imperilled one of Europe's ecological treasures
kiraw.substack.com
July 1, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Ever since I first visited, I’d felt haunted by how somewhere so precious, so rich in life, could be so recklessly destroyed. I’d returned because I wanted to see the landscape when it was flooded. To imagine how Doñana was, and maybe still could be, in all its lush, watery, bird-rich glory.
"Stopping threats is not enough. As many as 250-350 species will require complementary conservation measures … to survive the next century.”
‘Extinction crisis’ could see 500 bird species vanish within a century – report
Researchers say urgent conservation efforts will be needed to mitigate the ‘shocking statistic’ that threatens to unravel ecosystems
www.theguardian.com
June 28, 2025 at 9:02 PM
"Stopping threats is not enough. As many as 250-350 species will require complementary conservation measures … to survive the next century.”
Essential piece by the great Suzy Hansen.
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
Israel’s Crimes of the Century
How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.
nymag.com
June 25, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Essential piece by the great Suzy Hansen.
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
"A society still conducting this kind of manmade technological violence after many decades of knowing exactly the suffering it causes to innocent people must believe in these weapons much more than in life itself."
nymag.com/intelligence...
Looking forward to Sadiah Qureshi's new book Vanished on how extinction is entangled with race, empire and colonialism.
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘A billionaire will pay a lot of money to shoot a recreated being’: historian Sadiah Qureshi on extinction and empire
In her new book, Vanished, the history professor picks apart the political and philosophical dimensions of species loss
www.theguardian.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Looking forward to Sadiah Qureshi's new book Vanished on how extinction is entangled with race, empire and colonialism.
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Paying attention to the life around us and recalibrating how we value that life is just as powerful as having more scientific research”.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Reposted by Kira Walker
#CanadaIsBurning, and it won't be solved by expanding oil and gas. @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social @liberalca.bsky.social #cdnppli
UK weather forecast on Sunday morning said that sunshine would be dimmed by smoke from Canadian wildfires, carried in the jetstream.
June 10, 2025 at 6:36 AM
#CanadaIsBurning, and it won't be solved by expanding oil and gas. @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social @liberalca.bsky.social #cdnppli
Reposted by Kira Walker
Must watch, like the must read. @johnvaillant.bsky.social has straight answers to our Qs. Do we want it any other way? We and our planet deserve this kind of respect. @livewirecalgary.bsky.social @sprawlcalgary.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAL0...
Wildfire expert answers your questions on fire prevention, control
YouTube video by CBC News
www.youtube.com
June 6, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Must watch, like the must read. @johnvaillant.bsky.social has straight answers to our Qs. Do we want it any other way? We and our planet deserve this kind of respect. @livewirecalgary.bsky.social @sprawlcalgary.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAL0...
Reposted by Kira Walker
“One of our very good friends – he now does not have the emotional courage to hang up a sheet to collect moths at night. It is too devastating to see how few there are.”
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides
www.theguardian.com
June 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM
“One of our very good friends – he now does not have the emotional courage to hang up a sheet to collect moths at night. It is too devastating to see how few there are.”
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
On climate change and a shifting world: for insects, for birds, for bats, for us.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...