As I write this, a pendulum of paradigms swings, yanks, and jabs wildly within me. Between synchronicity and chance. Abundance and scarcity. Community and isolation. Surrender and control. Delight and dread. I write to you, dear reader, suspended in the space between them all.
This is not exactly an easy time to be alive, is it? Perhaps it hasn't been for some time now, but something tells me there is a unique intensity at which the World of Old is face-planting presently, a 10,000 year fall in the making. This manifested nightmare of alienation goes by many names; some call it colonialism, imperialism, or the patriarchy (though I believe these touch on symptoms rather than a cause). I prefer to call it the Mass Monoculture; not because I believe the term captures this hydra's essence entirely, but as a parody to highlight that such a monolith contains very little culture of value or vitality at all. In fact, the Monoculture is an anthropomorphized force at war with the very conditions of life that it itself requires to exist. A candle that wishes to extinguish its own flame, wick, and wax. A paradox, to be sure, but also the deepest and truest form of insanity.
And yet, here we are, dear relative. Each of us making do (as Paul Goodman described it) in a life-denying civilization, trying our intuitive damnedest to choose life over the insanity of snuffing out our very existence.
Life can make do with very little, though, can't she? Her spirit wishes to live, naturally... and so she does through each of us. We can feel her spirit pulsing, pulsing, pulsing... moving us to show up authentically in the world, encouraged as we are by our surprising moments of belonging, absurd goofiness, new traditions, unforgiving laughter. Through some ancient pull we feel the presence of something greater - that "inter-" or "meta-being" that comprises who we actually are. Remembering, remembering, remembering... that we are not monsters; we are music. The earthen orchestration of life herself embodied, as you and I, and nothing less.
Songaia. Song of our Mother Earth. What depth, and from what dream, did the Spirit of Mystery pull you from? What yearning do you hold for us, Great Container? What strings did you cast into the aether, pulling this motley crew of lovers and dancers and charming instigators toward your spirited hearth, to drink from your life-sweetening waters?
Will you be the mother of many more to come, Songaia? A perennial being with many seeds, casting, germinating, opening yourself in the darkest night of soul's soil? Do your inhabitants know your dream - do they dream it, too? - as they pivot through a world of faux scarcity and sham abundance toward the wealth of a more timeless nature?
I've seen your children, Songaia, and walked among them. I may have even become one of them when I wasn't paying attention, but giving it. Maybe it happened slowly, and maybe it happened all at once... when I wasn't fearing, when I found myself lost in the mirth of their regal tenderness.
There are those of you who have transitioned. Yet, somehow, I get the sense that your work is not yet finished, your presence present yet still. I call to you humbly, First Dreamers, and permit you to move through my thoughts. Dear ancestors... might you show me what you scheme for us, reveal what moves mysteriously from your plain into ours at this mighty hour?
This is not exactly an easy time to be alive, is it? Perhaps it hasn't been for some time now, but something tells me there is a unique intensity at which the World of Old is face-planting presently, a 10,000 year fall in the making. This manifested nightmare of alienation goes by many names; some call it colonialism, imperialism, or the patriarchy (though I believe these touch on symptoms rather than a cause). I prefer to call it the Mass Monoculture; not because I believe the term captures this hydra's essence entirely, but as a parody to highlight that such a monolith contains very little culture of value or vitality at all. In fact, the Monoculture is an anthropomorphized force at war with the very conditions of life that it itself requires to exist. A candle that wishes to extinguish its own flame, wick, and wax. A paradox, to be sure, but also the deepest and truest form of insanity.
And yet, here we are, dear relative. Each of us making do (as Paul Goodman described it) in a life-denying civilization, trying our intuitive damnedest to choose life over the insanity of snuffing out our very existence.
Life can make do with very little, though, can't she? Her spirit wishes to live, naturally... and so she does through each of us. We can feel her spirit pulsing, pulsing, pulsing... moving us to show up authentically in the world, encouraged as we are by our surprising moments of belonging, absurd goofiness, new traditions, unforgiving laughter. Through some ancient pull we feel the presence of something greater - that "inter-" or "meta-being" that comprises who we actually are. Remembering, remembering, remembering... that we are not monsters; we are music. The earthen orchestration of life herself embodied, as you and I, and nothing less.
Songaia. Song of our Mother Earth. What depth, and from what dream, did the Spirit of Mystery pull you from? What yearning do you hold for us, Great Container? What strings did you cast into the aether, pulling this motley crew of lovers and dancers and charming instigators toward your spirited hearth, to drink from your life-sweetening waters?
Will you be the mother of many more to come, Songaia? A perennial being with many seeds, casting, germinating, opening yourself in the darkest night of soul's soil? Do your inhabitants know your dream - do they dream it, too? - as they pivot through a world of faux scarcity and sham abundance toward the wealth of a more timeless nature?
I've seen your children, Songaia, and walked among them. I may have even become one of them when I wasn't paying attention, but giving it. Maybe it happened slowly, and maybe it happened all at once... when I wasn't fearing, when I found myself lost in the mirth of their regal tenderness.
There are those of you who have transitioned. Yet, somehow, I get the sense that your work is not yet finished, your presence present yet still. I call to you humbly, First Dreamers, and permit you to move through my thoughts. Dear ancestors... might you show me what you scheme for us, reveal what moves mysteriously from your plain into ours at this mighty hour?
The view comes into focus, slowly, but with passing clarity…
I see a region dotted like rain-soaked pearls along the Salish Coast, harbors of living ember sown far into its interior. Village after village after village is found here... unique in their iridescent vibrance, strung like lace upon the neck of Mother Earth. I see the footprints of many, not to be minimized, but to be celebrated. Little ones and older ones, with skin of obsidian, adobe, sand and snow, footprints that carry the countless gifts of the Human Spirit upon the good green world in their birth-rightful place.
"You are mine," the Earth Mother reminds us. "Children of this Great Dream."
And so where we walk, we learn to surrender, and where we surrender, we take root once more. We witness the land deepen in luster and lessen in dust. In her many waters a Great Homecoming is afin… countless waves of shooting, speckled silver stars emerge with such force that the course of rivers reverse as the Salmon Nation returns.
The people pray as they work to restore themselves in a living world. They pray for the homecoming of more Animal and Plant People. The More-Than-Human Ones hold their councils, and after some deliberation, they reach consensus: they, too, will return. And so they do, as a monochromatic world becomes awash in living colors once again.
The people pray as they work to restore themselves in a living world. They pray for the homecoming of more Animal and Plant People. The More-Than-Human Ones hold their councils, and after some deliberation, they reach consensus: they, too, will return. And so they do, as a monochromatic world becomes awash in living colors once again.
| Many hundreds of years go by. The happenings of near-present become but a myth, stories of those to come. |
"Did they really almost end it all?" a little one asks. She is a young girl, our great, great, great, great, great granddaughter yet to be.
"Yes, almost..." the storyteller tells her. "Very close, in fact." Her eyes widen in disbelief. “However…” The storyteller tries to contain a sly and knowing smile. “The life you hold within yourself, little one, was once the life-light kept aglow within our very ancestors, barely a flicker at their most decisive hour...”
"Yes, almost..." the storyteller tells her. "Very close, in fact." Her eyes widen in disbelief. “However…” The storyteller tries to contain a sly and knowing smile. “The life you hold within yourself, little one, was once the life-light kept aglow within our very ancestors, barely a flicker at their most decisive hour...”
What happens next in their story is up to us.
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