At one of our first workshops on becoming guardians of future generations, someone said, "All we really have to do is awaken the sleeping guardians within us."

The person who said this was not asleep in any sense of the word, and she was in a circle of wide-awake people who had been drawn to this workshop by a combination of curiosity, commitment, and hope. Still, something waits within us to be stirred. An archetype? A knowledge? An imagination?

I am beginning to think that everyone already knows how to be a guardian; it is just a matter of awakening sleeping knowledge. Modify that: Everyone knows how to learn to be a guardian of future generations. Training is needed, but the training course and the teachers, the required knowledge and principles, the steps of certification and recognition become clear when we awaken the sleeping guardians within us.

This is especially true of the personal kind of guardianship, which is where most of us will begin. But it may also apply to the legal and communal dimensions of guardianship.

To flesh out the idea of future generation guardianship, we need the collective wisdom of these individual guardians within. This site is a collection point for that wisdom. I am about to start a new How To book in the Living Library because that wisdom is starting to gather… but meanwhile, what follows is a group exercise in awakening the guardian, with thanks to Joanna Macy. Try it and let us know what you learn.

. . . to carrying my own bags to the supermarket.

1. My collection is miscellaneous. They don't match my outfit. People will call me the bag lady behind my back.

2. It's hard to remember to take bags when I'm going out.

3. I never say "I have my own bags" fast enough and the cashier starts putting my stuff in a plastic bag and then has to take it out and then I bet he throws the bag away anyhow and the whole exercise becomes pointless.

4. At the regular checkout they have these new carrousels specially made to hold their plastic bags. My bags don't fit on them. . .

The precautionary principle has many names. Prevention. Foresight. Forecaring. I invented “forecaring” and it now appears in at least one resolution on the precautionary principle—Marin County, CA. But in general I don’t like invented words.

What’s your favorite substitute for “precautionary principle”?

We look for substitutes because “precaution” can sound timid and “principle” can sound abstract and because the precautionary principle, which is in fact bold and concrete, usually has to be explained. It’s worth explaining, but it may never become a household phrase.

Here’s an elevator-speech explanation, the precautionary principle in 25 words or less:

It’s the principle of protecting people and the environment when harm is likely but the science is uncertain.

Do you have a better elevator speech?

Go back about 500 years—seven modern lifetimes ago—and “seventh generation” becomes the best expression of the precautionary principle.