Building resilience with solidarity

My latest reflections from working on a collapse camp

Feb 09, 2025

Dear friends and strangers,

It’s been a while! Some work projects have required more of my attention in the past couple of months and more importantly, this season (of the year and of my life) has asked me to retreat, slow down and not force any output. It’s been really peaceful.

I’ll continue writing this newsletter, but my previous cadence of a newsletter per week feels too demanding at this point in time.

I’ve recently started with a group of people to work on an event which will take place end of the summer in Germany, called Kollapscamp (collapse camp). It’s still in the early stages, but today I want to share some of the reflections it has brought me for my relationship with collapse.

With love,
Till

group of people near bonfire near trees during nighttime — Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash

What is Kollapscamp?

Different activist movements have already used camp formats in the past to gather for a couple of days. People connect, attend talks and workshops and everything from program to food is supplied by volunteers and participants.

The Kollapscamp is organized by activists from climate movements, municipalities, agricultural projects and much more. There are a range of different backgrounds, but people all have come to the realization that our systems and our society have not been able to shift away from extractive and harmful practices. Which means an ecological and societal collapse in our lifetime is unavoidable now. There are different priorities and assumptions on which systems will collapse first and what timelines might look like, but there is a common understanding that “if we just try hard enough, we can avoid catastrophic consequences“ doesn’t work anymore.

Up to a thousand participants are expected who will come together end of the summer for practical skill sharing (like farming, disaster response or self-defense), doing the emotional work together and most importantly to start building networks and societal structures for resilience.

Currently, in the public discourse the only existing narrative as a response to the acceptance of collapse is the right-wing individual prepper who is building a bunker, stockpiling food and gathering weapons.

The Kollapscamp is a counter proposal focussing on resilience through solidarity and community building.

Collapse reflections

Working on the project has brought up a couple of interesting reflections in me which I’d like to share with you.

To act or not to act?

A common response to facing collapse is the urge to act. To do all it takes as fast as possible, so we can avoid collapse. This is what we see in the climate movement a lot and what has brought many activists and scientists with awareness of the severity of our ecological breakdown to exhaustion and burn out. Even after accepting collapse, we might think while we cannot avoid collapse through action, we can prepare for it so that we won’t have to experience the consequences.

While action seems logical, it can also easily become an escape. When we keep ourselves busy with working for the greater cause, we might feel like we’re can outrun collapse and we might feel like we are in control of our future. But that can actually be an avoidance strategy so we don’t have to feel the heaviness and discomfort that collapse brings with it. The grief, the anger, the fear. And especially our powerlessness in a dynamic that’s so much bigger than our individual realm of impact.

Therefor a crucial process is the acceptance that we can’t actually control or stop what’s unfolding. We can develop the ability to let go of our attachment to the outcomes of our actions. Be it action to prevent collapse or action to protect ourselves from collapse. If there is resistance to letting go of that attachment, in it we can find what we still trying to avoid feeling or acknowledging.

So does it even make sense to organize a camp where people come together for practical preparation and resilience building? Isn’t that just another escape from facing the impermanence and death that collapse is presenting us with?

Pondering on this question recently, I noticed a part of me that says “preparing is just an escape and doesn’t matter anyway when the shit really hits the fan“. But I can see that this part was also trying to find peace in some kind of expected future. When all preparation is irrelevant, then I don’t have to deal with the uncertainty. With the fact that I don’t know how collapse will exactly look like and what will matter and what won’t.

I think it’s very valuable to let go of our attachment to the outcome of our actions. And also from there I think it is indeed valuable to take action and start building resilience. Even if it won’t actually protect us, it can be a source of connection and community.

However, I’m focussing my energy especially on the emotional and inner work of the camp where we will provide workshops, group rituals and a space for participants to find support during the camp experience.

Response to rising fascism

As ecological systems break down, costs rise across the board, fear of an unstable future increases and the pressure on society mounts. Existing inequalities, conflicts and fears get amplified. From that perspective, the rise of fascism worldwide doesn’t come at a surprise. Here in Germany in the hot phase before the election, migration has somehow become the most prominent topic and the fascist AfD party is gaining huge momentum.

Considering the rise of fascism, the question of self-defense has come up. In the Kollapscamp we will have workshops around this topic, as the rise of fascism means danger especially for marginalized groups.

Self-defense can be an act of love. It can be a firm “no” which protects us, our boundaries and those more vulnerable than us. Being loving doesn’t mean letting people step all over you, to the contrary, it demands us to step up for ourselves and not avoid conflict out of fear. And with the rise of fascism, much of that will be needed.

At the same time, preparing to exercise violence for self-defense can be a slippery slope. Especially when it comes to weapons, how easily will we find justifications that our intentions are good enough? That our way of using violence is only self-defense?

This has brought up the interesting question of how to respond from a loving perspective even though there are tensions at play: How do we build resilience against fascism without reproducing the very fear-based patterns of fascism and the underlying separation of “us vs. them”?

We’re in it together

As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of diversity of perspectives in the organizing team and there will be a lot of diversity between the camp participants. People come from different backgrounds, have had different experiences and are at different points in their individual collapse journey.

When working on the camp, I observed a caution and even doubt in myself. Are the other organizers really aligned with how I feel about what people need in collapse? With my understanding of the importance of inner work and my intention to support people with love in collapse? With how I approach collapse myself, with vulnerability and the deepening of connection?

I have found a lot of peace in letting go of the idea that we need to be (or even can be) a homogeneous group. And of the idea that this group becomes an identity of me that I either attach to or reject.

I see this camp (and already the process of organizing it) as an opportunity to build connections with people who or are facing the collapse of ecological and societal systems. It allows to build relationships and to organize with people who might not be exactly as I am and might have a different view on certain topics.

And that’s actually exactly what’s going to be needed a lot more in the unfolding collapse.

Collapse is not an event, but a process. And we’re already in it. We’re all on our own collapse journey. And there is a collective journey we’re part of. The camp will allow all of these journeys to continue, no matter where one is currently at and what one needs at this point.

Providing the space and support for that feels very beautiful.

Love in Times of Collapse

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