SOL.Center ’Panta Rhei’ is a multi-faith environmental community and movement that supports the cultivation of contemplative and ethical practices that create the moral grounds for us to adjust to changing climate conditions while curbing the crisis. We are part of a larger global, grassroots-led effort that aims to avert a climate collapse/catastrophe by supporting radical change in human behavior. Our local response: “The Climate is changing, so should we!” We recognize the interconnectedness of both local and global climate justice issues and support solutions by promoting projects and initiatives that transition away from fossil fuel dependence. We recognize the colonial mindset at the roots of the climate crisis and aim to decolonize our hearts and minds collectively while honoring indigenous and earth based wisdom in our quest to repair and restore relationships with land, ourselves and one another. We aim to nurture an egalitarian, self-reliant, regenerative and therefore sustainable community. We experience the climate crisis as a spiritual crisis. Through meditation and the guidance of wisdom traditions, we are looking inwards first. With the support of community, we find belonging and resilience to act on behalf of life. We are determined to meet each other wholeheartedly and collaboratively while making waves in our local community and beyond. We hereby extend an invitation to other like minded individuals and groups to join us as we meet this important moment in human history, together.

Acknowledgment of living on Native Lands
In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge to live on the sacred homelands of the Matinecock Tribal Nation [an Algonquian people] of Sewanhaka, Wamponomon and Paumanake [all names for Long Island] who are the original stewards of this Island.

Today, due to forced removal, theft, genocide and treaties the community resides in various parts of the USA and on Long Island.

We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands.

We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers, land- and homeowners to recognize our own place in and responsibilities towards addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Matinecock Tribal Nation Communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.

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Hildur Palsdottir (she, her), co-founder of Sol Center, is a climate activist, community organizer, public speaker, and co-founder of ReWild Long Island. She is a founding steering committee member of Transition Town Port Washington and President of the Board of Trustees at The Science Museum of Long Island.

Rebecca Lefton (she, her) has been a member of Sol Center since its birth in 2017. She has devoted her professional career to the environment and climate change with a lens on gender equality and women’s rights. Currently, Rebecca works with TreeSisters, a charity that is placing reforestation into everyone’s hands through grassroots funding of tropical trees as a solution to climate change. Rebecca is working with allied organizations to develop an ethical approach to landscape restoration that is guided by Original Peoples.

Heinz R. Jufer (he, him) [teacher, social anthropologist, skipper] is an engaged global citizen and mariner with broad interests ranging across the arts, education, ecology and spirituality. He is determined to make the greater common good part of daily practice. In search of creating social and environmental solutions embedded in regenerative and sustainable systems, his goal is to enable communities to participate more effectively in their own destiny.

“Water is our most precious and interconnected natural resource. It sustains all ecosystems, communities, and economies from local watersheds to the seas. It’s vital to sustaining our health, safety, and the environments in which we live and work. Simply put, water is life.”
— Alexandra Cousteau.

Water
Water flows from high in the mountains.
Water runs deep in the Earth.
Miraculously, water comes to us, and sustains all life.
Water and sun green these plants.
When the rain of compassion falls,
even a desert becomes an immense, green ocean.
— Thich Nhat Hanh

We are children of the waters …..
Our planet is enveloped by a
permeable yet fragile cloud of
moisture that sustains life and renews those
who dwell on this earthly home.
— Samuel Tovend

“Soul and soil are not separate. Neither is wind and spirit, nor water and tears. We are eroding and evolving at once, like the red rock landscape before me. Our grief is our love. Our love will be our undoing as we quietly disengage from the collective madness of the patriarchal mind that says aggression is the way forward.”
— Terry Tempest Williams