Hi dear reader!
This newsletter is a feast of updates. Since there is often a ton swirling in my worlding, I figured that, if I can't compose a coherent narrative newsletter for you, I could at least pepper you with an oodle of bullets and activities. A dispatch from the active digestion. 🌀🌀🌀
Fractal Praxis Developments
- Going back to (biz) school! I've enrolled in Marie Forleo's B School to help guide my way as I seek to have the greatest reach and impact with Fractal Praxis as a hybrid (online & IRL) business. This is one of the most confident investments I've made in Fractal Praxis' business growth to date. 🍾
- Starting up the ✨Embodiers Circle✨! The Embodiers Circle is a sacred container for the most devoted students of "fractal praxis" to go deeper with their embodied & witnessed practice/study. 🛐 There are multiple benefits to joining. Members gain exclusive access to self-guided tools, trainings, and practices from the Fractal Praxis framework, PLUS live group gathering spaces such as rituals & ceremonies, lectures & discussions, and group coaching sessions.
- Interested in becoming an Embodier Member for just $26 per month? Joining early will give you a unique opportunity to shape what the Embodiers Circle becomes—and to shape the future of Fractal Praxis! Go ahead and email me with any questions, or sign yourself up here to get started!
- In the coming weeks, I'll be putting out more content on Instagram to build on the theme of my last reel: 🪦apocalypse medicine🪦. "Apocalypse medicine" is my original term for the type of medicine woman I have specialized in. I have devoted the last ~15 years to becoming extremely knowledgeable about how to deal with systemic collapses—of a self-identity, of a belief system, of a way of life, even of a sociopolitical system—and how to manage the aftermaths. Getting good at this makes you anti-fragile, which means: growing stronger with each disruption, because of the disruption. Given the scale of impending chaos and collapse, it's never too soon to start building up a sophisticated intuition for navigating collapse! Fractal Praxis is all about us becoming more anti-fragile through allying ourselves with the wise patterning embodied in living systems. Since "apocalypse" is a fractal pattern pervading all scales of living systems, this is something I can guide you on no matter what personal or collective "brink" you might be finding yourself on. Simply reach out for more—and be sure to follow me on Instagram!
- What questions do you have about these ideas of apocalypse medicine, systemic collapses, and anti-fragility? After watching the reel linked above, what do you want to hear more about? Simply hit reply to this email to let me know your thoughts!
I'm enjoying the practice of sharing some of the space in this newsletter for the ever-dynamic, emergent "Synergy dispatch" (something I tested out right here recently!) The Synergy Dispatch is my chance to share what's "alive" & salient in my world of splendid connections, the lovingly curated web of amazing social entrepreneurs and changemakers surrounding me (mostly in the Front Range, Colorado). A big part of my oft-"swirling" world is based on trying to keep track & keep on top of my self-appointed stewardship responsibilities to this as-yet-informal-but-real network.
There are DOZENS of things, people, initiatives, that I could write about here. I'm going to try to choose just a few each week.
Synergy Dispatch: Living Systems Institute (LSI) & Drew's Dark Moon Zine
Living Systems Institute (LSI)
LSI is a permaculture education, action, and social hub founded by David Braden 20 years ago. I have had the privilege of moving to the beautiful LSI property in Golden, Colorado in May of this past year. Not long after that, David selected me as the executive director to replace himself as he entered into hospice care. It has been a whirlwind of change, yet I feel blessed every day to get to live and work here for regenerative households and futures throughout the region and the world.
Fortunately David's health has been holding steady since he ceased chemo treatment, and he is still an active co-creator of LSI. LSI is comprised of a vibrant community of volunteers who seek to spread the LSI style and philosophy of garden-and-habitat creation all over the region. Really, the deeper purpose is about developing a more resilient, thriving pattern of interactions between people, land, and their fellow species/"inhabitants."
Our updated mission statement is: "Living Systems Institute’s mission is to build soil, store carbon, produce abundance, and restore an understanding that each individual’s well-being is closely linked to the well-being of the natural environment and the broader community."
I am honored to serve as executive director in a volunteer capacity (for now) and will strive to keep the volunteer spirit of the organization going strong, even as we begin to expand, seek grants, and run more programs. You can learn more about LSI (and its subsidiary program, Reinhabit Co-op) using these links.
I'm still in the midst of getting my bearings and beginning to lead LSI. But what's MOST up for me in the LSI domain is: I'm looking for a roommate!
🏡🌻 Looking for a roommate at LSI / Sunflower Sanctuary 🌻🏡
Would you or someone you know be interested in living with me and helping co-steward this beloved permaculture micro-homestead in Golden?? Take a look at the opportunity here, and please, be in touch!
Appreciation of Em's organizing work with Jewish Voices for Peace
My amazing friend Em is following her spirit's calling in the face of horrific violence and oppression happening in Palestine by organizing direct actions with the Denver-Boulder chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). She and other Jews are putting their bodies in the way of business as usual to call for dignity, human rights, and equality for Palestinians and Israelis. If you feel called to support their work, you can donate here. If you want to volunteer alongside Em, reply to this email and I'll connect you two.
🌑 Drew's Dark Moon Zines 🌑
My dear friend and collaborator Drew Hornbein is killing it as a phenomenal artist and intuitive. Check out & support their work on Patreon.
Drew is creating a ritual zine in rhythm with the moon cycles. The zines will be co-created from contents submitted by friends and community. The first zine's theme is PASSION.
Here's an excerpt from my own submission to the zine. True to form, I'm thinking about the phenomenology and pattern-nature of LOVE. This piece is about how when we love someone or something, we keep being drawn back to be near them/it again. The energy we invest in getting close to our loved ones again form circuits in time and space. This patterning pervades multiple scales and layers of living systems. For example, energy flowing down familiar pathways in the brain is a circuit. Traveling the regular paths between work and home (and loved ones' homes) reflect a circuit. The arousal we feel for one another amplifies our circulatory system, in which the heart pulses blood through the circuits of arteries, veins, and capillaries. I see the affinity between all these layers.
Here's the piece, called Circuits.
Here’s the thing about love.
When we are attracted to
being in the presence of one another,
we will go round and round
and dare fight our way through to
meeting them again.
These circuits are our life blood
arousal raising our temperatures
compelling action and attraction
pulsing pleasure into the ether
sending a prayer or a scent or a song
on the air—like ecstatic feathers post a tussle
we build heart like we build muscle
somatic tetherings of pleasurings
like “I hope I can feel that again!”—
and our life’s pursuits are thus measured
in the ruts, the loops, the circuits, of our love.
Yet, it’s dangerous out here,
for loss of love’s touch defines fear.
Fear stops flow, it clenches and clings,
it attacks and disperses, breaking circuits.
And hear me: We’re never going to get
to a future of collective endearment
over fear-driven life-energy commandeering,
unless we make our own flesh the sacrament
and regurgitate our childhood commandments of separation and competition
forging a whole new culture out of enduring
fabrics of being together, staying with,
and being here together well.
We can make water again
flow from the hills.
We can ensure the wells are filled again.
We can ensure cups overfloweth.
We can be the people drinking from our own abundance.
Landscapes strewn rich with rivers and reservoirs.
If we are sure of what we are choosing,
of how it makes us feel, completely,
and we choose it with our whole selves.
“There is a seat at our table
if you would choose to join us…”
In closing...
Sometimes I have a hard time managing all the desire circuits I'm enmeshed with. Especially in my informal/guided role as a network weaver. My calendar is often filled with meetings for the purpose of exploring potentials, connecting from our soul levels, and stewarding relationships that I may not call upon now but know are relevant to me/to us one day.
Lots of the time I do this on my own time and dime, even if all I end up doing is "matchmaking" two other business collaborators, and never directly seeing the payoff from that. It would be nice if I got some kind of brokerage-style token 🪙 for these efforts... maybe one day when community currencies are in full effect... maybe one day when the yet-to-be-formalized Synergy network is formed. For now, I do it because it is a calling, and because it brings about more regenerative communities.
We all benefit when our communities thrive in interconnection. I simply act from this wisdom, every chance I get.
In this spirit, I say, simply: Be in touch!
Love,
C.
