Michael Pollan, Consciousness and Metacrisis - Updates & Events

Dear friends and colleagues,

As someone working in the environmental space for years, I expected the climate crisis and emergency, but I wasn’t prepared for the broader metacrisis now unfolding, touching every layer of human life. I’m still making sense of these times myself, and again and again, the path seems to lead back to community. Thank you for being here.

Amidst the chaos, I’m taking time to shape our fuller vision and plans for 2026. In the meantime, we’re preparing something special for Earth Month, just around the corner. Until then, we’ll continue highlighting collaborative events, news, and opportunities across the PSYCA community. Thankfully, there is a great deal of incredibly inspiring content coming from you and for you!

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NYC & Online Book Events for Michael Pollan: A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness - Feb. 24 & 25

Michael Pollan's much-anticipated book, A World Appears - A Journey Into Consciousness, will be available Feb. 24.

A number of us will join his discussion at Barnes & Noble, Feb 25, 6pm - tickets are going fast, so definitely grab one if you want to join us! You can also join virtually. The official launch will take place at Pioneer Works, Feb 24, which sold out quickly, but some of us plan to go.

If you plan to attend any of the above, or are interested in programming related to this book, please fill out this form to be notified of such opportunies.

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NYC - Metacrisis Salon - Feb. 21

Led by our friend Benjamin Von Wong, the Metacrisis community points out that many of the crises we talk about — climate, governance, technology, trust — share a deeper common condition: Polarization.

Polarization isn’t just something happening between people — it’s something happening through us: through media systems, incentive structures, moral narratives, and unprocessed fear. It narrows perception, rewards certainty, and makes coordination feel impossible just when we need it most.

This salon explores polarization not as a debate to be won, but as a signal — a warning light indicating deeper breakdowns in sensemaking, trust, and relational capacity.

We’ll be joined by a guest from Braver Angels, an organization working at the front lines of depolarization by rebuilding the human capacities required to stay in relationship across difference — without demanding agreement or shared conclusions. Learn more & RSVP.

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World Ayahuasca Forum - Call for Abstracts Deadline Feb. 20

PSYCA is a proud community partner of the World Ayahuasca Forum, taking place Sept. 11-13. When we shared flyers for this conference at our Climate Week event at Bathhouse Studios, they flew off the shelves, so we know you’re keen to engage. We look forward to sharing more information about attending coming up and related plans. In the meantime, please learn about the gathering on the site and share with others. If you or someone you know is inspired to pitch content, as they write, “all voices welcome”!

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New Research on Climate Feedback Loops — and Possible Planetary Self-Cooling Pathways

As some of you know, my father, Alec Feinberg, has been working in climate science in recent years. His new peer-reviewed paper, published in Climate, examines how self-reinforcing warming feedback loops — such as ice loss and reflectivity decline — may increasingly drive global temperature rise later this century.

The study models when these feedback dynamics could reach critical thresholds and explores supplemental approaches — including targeted Earth brightening and other solar geoengineering concepts — as possible ways to reduce heat amplification and buy time alongside emissions cuts and carbon removal.

Because solar geoengineering is an evolving and debated field, we share this as a contribution to ongoing research and dialogue, not as settled consensus — and welcome thoughtful discussion.

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Consciousness Drinks & Women Funding the World - Feb. 17

Join an evening that could transform the way you are raising capital for your business or the way in which you fund interesting projects. Our friend and colleague, Rick Lipkin, from Catalytic Impact Foundation, will share details on how he has used donor-advised fund (DAF) capital to invest in companies, with the profits reinvested in the DAF without a taxable event! There will be magic in his sharing that you will not want to miss.

Women Funding the World is a gathering of women and men who fund living systems that protect life on earth. Angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity experts, debt financiers, family offices, and philanthropists gather to meet cutting-edge entrepreneurs who are disrupting and transforming systems.

Consciousness Drinks is a gathering of practitioners in the consciousness and mental health space who come together to support one another's work and meet with philanthropists and investors to help them scale their vision.

Thank you the sponsor Ember Health, venue host Kollectiv NYC, Community partners PSYCA, Chloe Capital, Exploring Reality Maybe Podcast, WFW hosts: Lorine Pendleton, Samantha Ory, Erika Stewart, Rosie Von Lila, Sarah Endline, Nesma Bensalem, and Jody R. Weiss, and Consciousness Drinks hosts: Dr. Anna Yusim, Dr. David Schwartz, Jody R. Weiss.

RSVP HERE *Official PSYCA members will receive a discount code separately.

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New Substack! By PSYCA Member Leonie Staas: “A Deeper Green”

Leonie Staas joined PSYCA’s Mycelium Thought Leadership Accelerator, and subsequently, her Substack was born!

What if the state of our planet, and the state of ourselves, are really two sides of the same coin? The unprecedented challenges of our time all have the same root cause: disconnection - from ourselves, each other, and the wider web of life. The planet’s message is clear: change is inevitable.

Prior, Leonie worked on change on the top-down level. In powerful institutions, change is a question of policy, technology, law. Through her personal journey of ecological anxiety and grief, she learned about change from the bottom-up: change as a human, change as assuming responsibility in my web of relations, change as an act of care. If change is to be systemic, it needs to entail both. Change is not a question of policy only, but also one of mind, heart, and spirit. Check it out!

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I’m grateful to have spiritual resources as we look to the future, through my work with psychedelic therapy clients and studies with various teachers. This week, I was inspired by what Carl Jung once wrote: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” In times like these, perhaps honest inner and collective work is part of what hope looks like - together.

With gratitude, Marissa

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Marissa Feinberg
Founder
PSYCA, TBW PR
LI \ IG