[Fear] means that we are human beings walking into the unknown, and that we are risking breaking with others for something we believe in.

Diane Wilson asked, "Why aren't people upset? Why aren't people protesting?" The mayor and county commissioners told her to keep quiet, and everybody else was afraid to speak out against the companies, which included some of the country's biggest chemical companies. There were even attempts on her life. Family members abandoned her, and certainly none of the other shrimpers stood with her.

What an extraordinary time to be alive. We're the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life.

That's what happened when my own life crumbled. The people who came into my life bolstered me to take more risks, to be even more true to myself.

For me hope isn't wishful thinking or blind faith about the future. It's a stance toward life - one of curiosity and humility.

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a dyed-in-the-woo l possibilist! By this, I mean with an eco-mind, we see that everything's connected and change is the only constant.

We'll learn fear might not mean 'stop'; personally, I've come to believe fear usually means 'go.' It always means listen closely.