PROMO Embracing Climate Change Uncertainty w/ Madeline Bugeau-Heartt

Guest: Madeline Bugeau-Heartt

 How do we hold space for what feels unanswerable?

In this episode of the Behind the Scenes Edition, host Jessica David welcomes Madeline Bugeau-Heartt, Program Associate at The BTS Center, to guide us through a contemplative practice. This episode isn’t about solving anything — it’s about embracing what feels impossible.

Main Practice: Madeline shares a guided meditation that invites listeners to sit with the “impossible questions” — the ones that don’t have tidy answers, especially in the face of climate uncertainty.

Born from personal experience and deep spiritual reflection, this practice reframes uncertainty as sacred, not something to be avoided, but something to be honored.

Key themes include:

• Holding profound uncertainty with reverence
• Embracing not-knowing as a spiritual act
• Honoring the questions that shape us
• Cultivating bravery, not certainty

Listeners are encouraged to move outside (if possible), settle their bodies, and gently bring their impossible questions into presence, not to “figure them out,” but to tend to them as holy.

Next Steps: 🌀 Try this practice again — or share it with a friend. 💬 Reflect on your impossible questions: What are they whispering? 🪶 Journal. Walk. Breathe. Notice what unfolds.

📲 Share your experience with us: Email: [e-mail] Text or Call: 207-200-6986

🧭 Keep journeying with us — the next episode in this series features a practice led by Jessica David.

Meet the Guest:

 Madeline Bugeau-Heartt is a Program Associate at The BTS Center. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and NYU Tisch, she brings her background in experimental theater, farming, and caregiving into her work. Madeline is passionate about creating spaces for radical imagination, deep embodiment, and joyful resistance, especially as we navigate life in a climate-changed world.

This episode is part of our Behind the Scenes edition — a mini-series offering spiritual and embodied practices from The BTS Center’s team. 🌿 Learn more at: thebtscenter.org

Episode Transcript

>> Jessica David (00:00):
Jessica. I'm Jessica David.

(00:03):
This is the climate change podcast behind
the scenes Edition.
Hello, friends. I need to know, how
do you stay grounded when it comes to our climate
catastrophe, especially when you're feeling
overwhelmed, bewildered, and dispirited?
Madeline Bugeau Hart is program associate at the

(00:24):
BTS Center. And in this episode, Madeline
is going to guide us through a practice.
Hi, Madeline. Welcome back.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (00:33):
Yay. Thank you so much, Jessica. I'm very
glad to be back and talking to you.

>> Jessica David (00:39):
I am very glad to have you back.
Listeners may remember Madeline from a previous
episode, uh, where we talked with Ben Yoshua
Davis about hope and how complicated it
is.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (00:51):
Super complicated. It hasn't changed.

>> Jessica David (00:53):
Yeah, spoiler alert. If you haven't listened to
that one, it is complicated.
So, Madeline, before we get into your practice
itself, tell me. Tell me about your
intentions for this practice.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (01:05):
Yes, I was thinking about my intentions for
this practice, and a story came to mind of something that
happened to me recently. I was out on a jog, and I
ran into this woman in our community. She is a
poet and amazing and, uh, like an old
guard feminist. And I said, I m. Was like Harry
doing. And she said, you know,

(01:27):
I know the truth now, and nothing in
my life has changed. And it feels
awful. And I said, right.
It feels like a medieval torture, like you're
suspended between two things. And she said, yes, yes. And, uh,
so I think my intention for this practice today
is. So many of the conversations I'm having with people

(01:47):
these days are around this really excruciating
tension that we are holding within ourselves,
both individually and collectively. There's
so much uncertainty, so many questions
that seem impossible to answer right now,
and so much at stake. And I wanted
to make a practice where we could sit with
that, uh, usually unbearable

(02:10):
feeling together to give enough space
and, dare I say, respect in order
to see what might emerge from those questions.

>> Jessica David (02:19):
Hmm. Oh, my goodness. I'm really looking forward
to this now. It's. I. I feel the need for
it. It's in myself, even as you're describing it.
So what do you have for us?

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (02:30):
So I'm calling this a practice for sitting with
impossible questions on the nose.

>> Jessica David (02:36):
Yes. Call it what it is.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (02:38):
I think just so often the impossible questions we're holding,
as I said, just feel so uncomfortable. And I
certainly try to push them away, but I
really do believe that they're trying to get our attention
and that they could even be whispers from a
better future. So my hope for
this practice is to reframe this

(02:58):
profound uncertainty as a
sacred Gift. And I thought I would squeeze
in a, uh, quote which I think sums this up pretty
well, by Rainer Maria Rilke. He
writes, be patient
toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves.

(03:21):
Like locked rooms and like books
that are now written in a very foreign
tongue, do not now seek the
answers which cannot be given to you because you
would not be able to live them. And the point
is to live everything.
Live the questions now.

(03:42):
Perhaps you will then gradually, without
noticing it, live along some
distant day into the answer.
I mean, thank you. Rilke sums it

(04:04):
up.

>> Jessica David (04:04):
Yeah. Although I think you summed it
up just as beautifully, saying,
profound uncertainty as a sacred gift. I
love that.
Okay, so, last question before we get into it. Let's say
we, we love this practice. What,
what do we do next? What do we do after? Hmm. Mhm.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (04:23):
Yeah, it's a great question, I would say, to
share your impossible questions
with others. It's only when we get together,
at least in my experience I found this, that we're able to
cross these beckoning thresholds. And I found that
the movements, at least within my, usually
start with a question that no one has an answer to.

(04:44):
I would also say to think about the other things
in your life or the things that live within you, that
usually feel too painful or too
uncomfortable to face, and perhaps consider
them as portals in and of themselves.

>> Jessica David (04:58):
Hmm. Oh, this,
this idea that developing this practice,
what we called in our conversation a few episodes ago, you know, this
muscle gives us bravery
and skill to also look into other
spaces, uh, and other corners maybe,
that we wouldn't have been thinking about at the moment. Oh, beautiful.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (05:18):
Yeah. Bravery, Jessica, let's
practice bravery as a muscle is so beautiful.

>> Jessica David (05:23):
Well, we certainly, certainly
could use that.
All right, Madeline, lead us in.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (05:31):
M. Okay, so
here is a practice for sitting with
impossible questions
first. And if you are able,
go outside. Try to
place your good creature body

(05:51):
alongside a more than human being.
And if you don't have access to an outside space,
that's okay too. Just try to tuck yourself
into a place that's just yours
for the next few minutes.
If you are outside, perhaps you lean
against a tree or press

(06:12):
your spine into the ground.
Perhaps you wiggle your toes on
rocks.
Think of the question living
inside of you that feels
impossible right now.
M. Whether that means impossible to
answer or impossible to live

(06:34):
with.
Amidst our climate changed world, I often
feel racked with uncertainty.
I spend my days throwing myself
at, uh, questions I so desperately want the
answers to. How
do we heal this?

(06:56):
How can we cross the threshold into the world we're
longing for? How do I keep despair at
ah bay? How can I release all
outcomes?
Let your own impossible question rise
to the surface.

>> Jessica David (07:13):
M.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (07:18):
Instead of trying to figure it out,
instead of wrestling with it or pushing it away,
imagine that it is in fact a. Ah,
sacred unknowing,
glittering like an unwrapped gift
instilled within you as a wholly
indiscernible whisper.

(07:43):
As you feel your heart beating in
this moment that will soon be gone, as
you feel your lungs doing their inherent work
of giving and receiving air,
open your palms so that they face
upwards. Or
press them into the good dirt,

(08:06):
or rest them gently over your eyes.
Whatever position feels like a gesture
of acceptance to you.
You are a vessel for this deep
unknowing, a dynamic dwelling.
For this question to live in.
Ask whomever it is you pray to. God or

(08:26):
the trees or your inner light, the great mystery.
Ask whomever it is you love that you know loves
you. In return for the ability
to hold this impossible question
with grace, ask
that its slow reveal, its mysterious
untangling, come only in its own

(08:47):
due time.
Ask that you may create within yourself a nest
of trust to hold this profound
uncertainty. Ask that you may stay
awake enough so that when the time comes,
you can move from this question's release
with courage.

(09:09):
I bless this impossible question
within you just as I bless the
impossible questions within me.
We cannot manhandle our way into their
unfolding, cannot force the cracking of these
codes. Instead,
let us hold them as if we have been

(09:29):
entrusted as their divine keepers.
And when we meet again, you and I,
let us draw them back out into the light and
wonder at them together and with
reference.

>> Jessica David (09:53):
Wow. What
a gift that was,
Madeline. I know that you didn't write that just for me, but it felt
like it.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (10:03):
I. A little bit did, though. Jessica, uh, whenever I do,
I'm always like, this is just for you. So I. A little
bit did.

>> Jessica David (10:11):
I felt. I felt it. I hope,
listeners, I hope you feel that way too, with Madeline's
voice in your ear. Such a. Such a
gift for us. Just thank you, thank you,
thank you.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (10:23):
Thank you for sitting with me in the impossible
questions. It's, uh. Yeah.

>> Jessica David (10:29):
Yeah.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (10:30):
Good.

>> Jessica David (10:33):
I love this notion of just acceptance and
just kind of dwelling. Think he's dwelling with the
unknowing and the deep
centering.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (10:43):
Like, I so often feel like I have to control
everything. Like, if I just think hard
enough and if I just make the right decision, somehow I'll be able
to quote, figure it out. I had a dear friend once
who was in a 12 step program and he was laughing. I
said, I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure it out. And he said, laughing,
laughing, he said, madeline, when you figure it out, give me a call because

(11:03):
I'd love to hear how you did it. And so I love to think
that these questions have power in and of themselves
and that they are doing their own work to unfold within us
in their own due time. It de centers my own
gripping little fingers.

>> Jessica David (11:19):
Yes, yes, the gripping. Oh, uh, the gripping.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (11:22):
All right, I'll grip till my fingers bleed. Yeah, I gotta
learn how to practice myself out of that.

>> Jessica David (11:27):
Yes, well, I think you've done that. You've done
that for me. I feel much less gripped. I feel much less, you
know, like I'm hanging on just, just
with this. So thank you. Thank you.

>> Madeline Bugeau-Heartt (11:38):
Thank you. Thanks.

>> Jessica David (11:40):
Um,
okay, listeners, now it is your turn. What
did you think of Madeline's practice?
Tell us about your experience with this or any
other exercise that brings you strength and peace.
Please email us
podcastbtscenter.org

(12:02):
that address again is
podcastabtscenter.org
or you can leave a voicemail at
207-200-698.
That's
207-200-6986.
You can also text that number,
207-200-6986.

(12:26):
We would love to hear from you, however you'd like to get in
touch. For more on this or
any other episode, please visit
climatechangedpodcast.org
that website again is climate changed
podcast.com
thank you for listening to the Climate change

(12:46):
Podcast behind the scenes edition with me,
Jessica David. Coming
up in our next episode,
I am going to do my best to offer a practice.
Feels maybe like I should have gone first instead
of last. Many
thanks to Madeline Bugeau Hart for guiding us

(13:06):
through today's practice and thanks to producer
Peterson Toscano for producing this episode.
To Nicole Dearoff for your assistance and support.
Climate Change Podcast is a project of the
BTS center in beautiful Portland, Maine.
Learn about the many resources we offer along with
our, uh, in person and online programs.

(13:28):
Visit our website
thebtscenter.org
that's the btscenter.org
Take good care my friends.