A Moment: talk trash with me
A Line I Heard
“What if ‘trash’ didn’t exist?”
Journey Framing:
As we looked at local aspects of Portland to highlight in the How on Earth? LIVE! Episode, we found ourselves in an unexpected place: trash!
Let’s go through the Earth Archetype journey together as a preshow peek.
NOTICE
What happens when you read this quote?
Maybe your shoulders drop a little, like someone just gave you permission to imagine differently. Or maybe your brain starts redesigning systems before you can stop it.
Whatever's showing up (the delight, the curiosity, the sudden urge to sketch out a circular economy on a napkin) just notice it's there.
CONNECT
Someone just invited you to reimagine an entire category. A world where nothing is designed for disposal, where everything is food for something else.
But here's what might happen next: You get excited for a minute, then reality hits. Your actual trash can. Your recycling confusion. The pile of Amazon boxes. The spark dims.
Here's what Metaphor sees: The question isn't asking you to solve it. It's asking you to play with it.
Because when you can imagine a world without trash, you can start seeing the small moves toward it. And you stop feeling stuck in disposal-only thinking.
TRY
This week: Ask yourself one "what if" question about something you usually throw away.
"What if this container went back to the store?"
"What if food scraps became soil?"
"What if broken things were designed to be fixed?"
You don't have to solve it. Just notice where your imagination wants to go.
REST
You don't have to redesign the whole waste system this week.
Some days the most Metaphor thing you can do is just let yourself imagine, without needing to make it all happen today.
& REPEAT
Notice when you're thinking in disposal instead of cycles.
The category starts to feel less inevitable. The possibilities start to feel more real.
And one more person is practicing imagination as a climate skill.
In Community,
Amber Peoples
Creator of Earth Archetypes
p.s. Talk trash with us!