Sometimes old selves need to die in BIG ways. This is true at all scales: Personally. Interpersonally. Collectively. Societally.
Even enormous selves that are very resource-intensive to maintain will die. Like our society. This is natural. All selves die. ๐
Has anyone else been experiencing personal and collective apocalypses lately, particularly in the period between early December and mid-late January?
2023 turning over into 2024 feels like big REVOLUTIONARY energy to me. ๐
A time when your "ordinary" (sense of self, way of seeing things, etc.) starts to calve off from you like a glacier. Defense mechanisms snap into high gear to try to cling to keep the self together, but its destiny is to be melted down. Massive chunks of ice collapsing into the ocean send epic cascading and compounding waves, chaotically disturbing the surrounding ocean's ordinary state. The whole system reaches an edge state for a few tense moments. ๐ง๐๐
Going off the deep end, into the unknown, is what we shall all do when all of this collapses. โซ
But going off the deep end,
WITH FAITH that your connection-to-ALL will carry you somehow over to the other side...
Now that's a next-level survival adaptation. ๐ช
It's one that I've specialized in over the last twenty-odd years. I refer to it as apocalypse medicine. When the revolution IS the ordeal AND the reward in one. When peak pain and catastrophe gives way into peak bliss and understanding. A composting. A birthing process for a new self, and all the grief, fear, stress, and challenge that comes with giving birth (or being-given-birth-to).
So in this newsletter/blog, I offer an artistic reflection on the big apocalypse energy that seems to have accumulated for me and others, and is openly expressing in this moment.
And in the spirit of the ๐ถrebirths๐ถ that are inherently entangled with apocalypses, may I present to you, my brilliant friends and their emergent works. These are my fellow locusts* ready to emerge from our underground shells and rise to the occasion of our lives, prepared are we to avidly dismantle and digest this dying, design-flaw-plagued societal order, decimating it into something liveable again.๐ชณ๐ฆด๐ชณ๐ฟ
*Said with the utmost love!!! Thus I offer an experimental proto-bulletin, a first "above ground" dispatch of a Synergy emergent network. <โ An emergence I believe might be coaxed out by the invoking. So why wouldn't I drop it haphazardly into the middle of this communique?? ๐
Synergy: A Proto Dispatch
Brilliant "deep permie" business owner friends who you should support post haste!
- Deacon Rodda's book Designing Sovereignty is raising funds now! I'll be blunt (because that's how I roll): If you do any kind of organizing of people or organizations who want to make the world a better place: you NEED this resource even if you don't know it yet. Deacon's wisdom is extremely well curated, refined, and potent. Highly recommend his Instagram and his consulting services, too. Only 6 days left on the crowdfunding campaign so please support it, and spread it around!
- Kristina Ryan's company, Wild Harvest Company, provides ecological and expert garden care for customers across the Front Range. I've been loving connecting with this badass business woman about her work and her dreams. Grateful for how she might be able to lend a hand with LSI's Reinhabit Co-op of organic gardeners. Community cross-fertilization and mutual aid, yay!
- As for me? Oh, have I mentioned I recently became the executive director of Living Systems Institute? Heh, I realize I'm kinda burying the lede there, it's just that I have lots else to cover in this newsletter. I'll leave the unpacking of that news for a later edition. For now, if you want to support me/that project, simply make a donation through the LSI website. ๐๐
- OH & please FOLLOW Fractal Praxis ON INSTAGRAM BECAUSE I'M DOING A LOT MORE STUFF THERE NOW AND HAVING FUN WITH IT! ๐
- Please also send love and/or funds these ways โฌ๏ธโก๏ธโฌ๏ธ:
- The marvelous Kฤnya's Permatierra boutique in Wheat Ridge where she offers caring, top-rated, eco-friendly dog grooming services along with art, plants, and more! Donate here.
- The well-loved Drew's Ritual Point tattoo & tarot Patreon!
- Leon Art Gallery is trying to raise enough to not close down shop, please donate if it's within your means.
Reflection: On The Wisdom of Apocalypse
Across society today,
More people can admit to their conscious selves now, that they are facing apocalypse in their own lifetimes.
More people are preparing themselves and willing to talk and act now.
It is in that context that I offer my own latest massive disillusionment. A six-week long damned dark night of the soul, with the last two weeks leaning more on the "emergence" side, yet with major aftershocks still rippling through my life like Cthulhic tentacles. ๐
Maelstrom. A total collapsing of identity-calcified strategies and unbelievably painful, soul-stretching birth-ing of greater ways.
The shocking suppressed grief erupting forcefully ๐ and the shocking stillness of integration ๐๏ธ pendulating so rapidly it feels like flickering in and out of alternate realities, like a lightbulb on the fritz, or that film Everything Everywhere All At Once.
And then the delayed-effect, shuddering aftermath made up of massive reorganizations of existing personal systems, relationships and choicesโlike the aftershocks from an earthquake.
Wretchedness, gone through, and integrated, amazinglyโlike a sweet soft daybreak after a hellish all-night thunderstorm. ๐
Nothing is the same. You might not even recognize your own life in that moment.
Nevertheless here you are. You remain breathing. You are some kind of a "new" you. It's a more truthful version of you, operating more from your values and convictions instead of from your shadows. And... You proceed.
The final stage: the seizing of my own immense power embodied in the unraveling, and recovering control and direction of it, like the magician.
Medicine guidance:
When your systems start to break down, and the "bad" parts come raging from the depths of your unconscious (shadows), like abused animals escaping their cage.... ๐ป
If you're well-trained, and you let your intuition lead, you can catch the demons at their own game, seizing them in the compassionate sights of your consciousness. ๐ฏ
Then, you can engage these parts directly. Ideally, in a respectful dialogue, like Vasalisa and Baba Yaga found for themselves (see: the Vasalisa chapter in Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes) ๐บ
And then, astonishingly: you can re-integrate them. โญ
And overnight, it can seem like your shadows become your secret superpower. You wield your whole self, more than you are wielded by your shadows. ๐ฆธ๐ฝโโ๏ธ Kudos!
May the greatest love you ever experience in this lifetime take the form of lessons which let you love more, better, and wholly.
Grappling with ordeals like these are necessary for us to improve our adaptabilityโliterally, to evolve our "self" to be more functional in life and on life's terms. There are many viable strategies for survival, and, there are more non-viable than viable (paraphrasing comrade Deacon here). How well-maintained is your tool set for living, surviving and thriving? You might be asking yourself this on the eve of your next apocalypse.
If you're dealing with a breakdown / breakthrough at this time, and you need some witnessing support, please consider reaching out about Fractal Praxis coaching.
The Soundtrack:
Dedicated to the apocalypse-redemption cycle (or "arc" ๐) I just sketched out above, I compiled this playlist for you. Music and lyrics have been carefully curated yet tending toward the ponderous/rock/metal heavy side (which I love). The playlist is inspired by my own dark portal. Let it transport you into a mere slice of the agony I tasted. It ends on some more pieced-together notes, naturally. โ๏ธ
Songs like "Hiding All Away" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and "Every Day Is Exactly The Same" by Nine Inch Nails especially speak to some of the "demons" I dealt with in this ordeal. When I say "demons," by the way, I just mean patterns that are suppressed because they're destructive or shunned because they're feared/judged/unwanted. Think of them like distorted responsive structures in the brain. These were coming up that I was forced to confront and find room for in my heart-mind. In my case (my karma), some examples of that are: extreme withdrawal and isolation; collapsing, helplessness and depression; protecting myself through excessive aggression or anger, etc.
Music is older than words, I believe, and more powerful. Through our bodies' magical capacities for expression (theater, music, and movement, mainly), we can communicate about real and shared emotional states, containing astounding complex nuance, that words, quite literally, cannot touch.
Music and lyrics, well-crafted together, are amazing portals into the emotions we may sideline and suppress. Sometimes, music can help elicit the unknown yet valuable feelings locked inside us.
So here's your personal Rx for the week: an invitation to ๐ถ ask music to speak to you๐ถ... Seek out some music that matches your inner feeling in this moment. Then observe how the art and your emotions interact with one another. ๐
And move from there!
PURGE CHURCH IS COMING
One of the first Fractal Praxis event offerings of 2024 will be โจ๐PURGE CHURCH๐โจ: a dark, cave-like, music-bound container for the compressive, eruptive expression of suppressed feelings like rage, grief, frustration and GAAAAHHAHHAHHHHH!!! ๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ฉ
You'll SHED your shit and SCOUR your soul. In this way you FREE YOURSELF through taking ownership of the gunk that's IN you, clogging up your sacred channel. I'm PASSIONATE about this, if you can't tell! ๐ And am OVER THE MOON to be your sacred hostess.
Don't sleep on this pop-up offering... Subscribe to this newsletter and you'll first dibs on tickets before the general public! ๐๏ธ๐ฟ
...
Allright. Damn. It's been a long few weeks, my friends. Now I'm feeling like my homie the Buddha after battling Mara endlessly for hours, days, nights... and then emerging, suddenly, into the earned clarity. The faith withstood. The storm has passed on. I'm gonna savor this moment. And then relax. There's a reason God rested on the 7th day. What a good role model for the necessity of rest in an integrative praxis.
Speaking of integration, feedback is always welcome on these newsletters. Just hit reply and it should go straight to my inbox. ๐ค
Sleep well ๐๏ธ & blessed be ๐ฏ๏ธ
C.
