What an intense time to be alive. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well.
I have so much to say about what is happening in the world right now. But first and foremost I want to share some resources with you to help navigate the turmoil. There are some voices of reason, experts who can cut through the noise to help us.
Mindfulness teaches us to see clearly, to turn towards our experience. Now is not the time to hide, as tempting as it can be to turn away.
If we want a better world, we need to be able to turn towards who we are and what we’ve created, even if it breaks our heart. Only on a solid footing of clear-seeing can we navigate through this dark time.
The unprecedented crisis we find ourselves in requires engaged action. How we choose to show up matters. As Aristotle said:
What will you choose to do? What will our destiny be? It’s all on the line. Here are some recommendations to help us make wise choices.
1. Watch Chris Hedges short film American Psychosis.
It’s only 15 minutes long and filled with brilliant insights. Hedges is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and a minister who has reported from over 50 countries. He has seen civilizations rise and fall and has some important advice for us. Some of his reflections on America today:
“We have blissfully checked out. Most people have no idea how fragile their environment is. Societies can go down fast. There is an emotional incapacity to understand collapse even when it’s facing you.
Attempt to question where we are going or who we are, and the critique is that you’re such a pessimist, you’re a cynic. Optimism can become a disease. You have this cheerful optimism in the face of utter catastrophe and you plow forward based on an optimism no longer rooted in reality.
If hope is something you express through illusion then it’s not hope, it’s fantasy. The cult of the self is a form of idolatry. Everything is about you. Whether it’s about power or money, it all goes back to the self. Creating little monuments to yourself. It’s a pathetic attempt at self-exultation.
We have replicated the patterns of past civilizations right before collapse. We have retreated into illusion. The danger is that when we go down, the whole planet is going to go with us.
The corporate state has made a war on critical thinking. We need to teach people HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
The failure to think critically creates a historical amnesia. You don’t know how you got here. Totalitarian capitalism seeks to put this in place so that people interpret their problems as personal problems rather than political or social problems.
When you don’t understand what’s going on, when you imbibe the illusion that you’re fed, the belief that reality is not an impediment to what you desire, that you can have anything you want…this blinds you. It keeps you from seeing what’s happening around you. Because you are intellectually and emotionally unprepared, you scream for more, for a demagogue, for vengeance.
Unfettered, unregulated capitalism is a revolutionary force. It exploits everything. Everything becomes a commodity (humans, the environment) to be exploited until exhaustion or collapse. That’s why the environmental crisis is intimately intertwined with economic crisis.
Totalitarian societies are hyper-masculine and seek to banish empathy. They not only ignore and banish the weak, they ridicule and persecute them. They celebrate force, strength, violence and empathy is seen as weakness.
We live in a bizarre corporate socialism where corporations are bailed out and individuals are left to starve.
In the end stage of a decayed state, you have forces cannibalizing the state itself. Which is where we are now.
A poor, black person is worth more to the state behind bars (40-50K) than he is on the street. Totalitarian societies seek to channel intellectual and emotional energy into spectacle, into the super bowl, celebrity saga. It’s why the nazi party made sure everyone had a radio. It’s a great pacifier. Emipre of illusion (book).
Underneath the guise of consumerism is unfettered hedonism. It’s infected everything, including spirituality, which in its real form has nothing to do with us, it’s about our neighbor.
In the end what we need are values which are anathema to a consumerist society. Those are values that are rooted in self-sacrifice, understanding that a life of fulfillment comes through service, not through attainment/acquisition of money and things.
Creating community brings with it anxiety and a responsibility. There’s always that tension between community responsibility and individual desire. Consumerism plays on this tension but in the end it’s deeply self-destructive.
Acts of conscience, acts of rebellion may appear meaningless in the moment, but when you stand up to decayed systems of evil, and you speak a truth, even people within those systems hear your voice. That’s why the state puts through more and more draconian measures.
The tinder is there. You never know what’s going to trigger it. You never know how it’s going to express itself, but you know when it’s coming and it’s definitely here.
The corporate state knows no limits at this point. It has no regulation, no control, it writes its own laws. The rise of popular culture is part of the corporate assault on beauty and truth. That’s what they have to seek to eradicate. They don’t want us reminded of what it means to really be human.
Do you want a life that means something or do you want to leap from one hedonistic pursuit/high to the next?
You can’t talk about hope if you can’t see reality. And reality is pretty bleak. But that’s the starting point.
2. Learn from the experts: Meet Heather Cox Richardson
History is repeating itself in many ways right now. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. An unlikely star of these turbulent times has been a mild mannered professor of American history and politics from Maine. Heather Cox Richardson has been giving daily updates on her blog (Letters from an American) and on Facebook since 2018. She has well over a million followers because of her calm, no-nonsense, non-partisan ways of explaining what we’re seeing.
Here is just one excerpt from a recent day:
January 5, 2021 (Tuesday)
“About a year ago, I wrote that 2020 would be the year that determines whether or not American democracy survives.
And here we are.
Our system has never lived up to its fullest potential, but until recently, its aspirations have driven us to fight to perfect it, guaranteeing everyone equality before the law and the right to a say in our government. The democracy that began as equality for a handful of the people in the new nation—just white men of property—expanded first to include poorer white men, and then immigrants, then African American men, then women, then Asian immigrants, Latinos, and native peoples. That expansion has never been smooth. Indeed, it has been obstructed at every turn.
American democracy has never been perfect, and of late, voices have dismissed it as a sham. On the one hand, naysayers insist that our country is broken because we have given too much power to minorities, women, and the poor. Those people, this argument goes, vote for Democrats who will give them handouts: programs that redistribute tax dollars from hardworking white men to their own pockets.
Those who back this argument want to keep those people from voting through voter suppression measures, or with underrepresenting them in Congress through gerrymandering laws.
On the other hand, voices attack democracy because we have never really allowed full rights to any but white men. Democracy was never real, and will never be real, they say, so what’s the point in fighting for it?
But, see, here’s the thing: Once you give up the principle of equality before the law, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have granted your approval to the idea of rulers and servants. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in one of the lesser groups.
America is in a precarious spot.
But Americans have finally woken up. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and people are now speaking up, demanding that our leaders listen to us, and insisting that officials as well as ordinary Americans answer to the law.
Let’s approach the future with the clear eyes it demands.
And now, let’s get to work.”
Follow Heather here.
3. Read this short book, learn from history:
‘On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century‘ is a short book by Timothy Snyder who is an author and historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. He is a Professor of History at Yale University and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to dictators.
This book is a MUST READ. It’s a playbook on how tyrants come into power and what an engaged citizenry can do to prevent collapse before it’s too late. All the signs are there. Snyder says:
“The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”
The book is easy to read and is action oriented. Here are the 20 short chapters with a few highlights:
1. Do not obey in advance.
2. Defend institutions.
3. Beware the one-party state.
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. “You might one day be offered the opportunity to display symbols of loyalty. Make sure that such symbols include your fellow citizens rather than exclude them. Even a lapel pin can be far from innocent.”
5. Remember professional ethics.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries. “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.”
7. Be reflective if you must be armed.
8. Stand out.
9. Be kind to our language. “Avoid using phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Get off the internet and read books. Nazi propaganda pitted ‘True Germans’ with all others who Hitler named as enemies of the people.” This kind of shallow discourse is not helpful.
10. Believe in truth. “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, the no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”
11. Investigate. “Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Realize that some of what is on the internet (and TV) is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns, many of which come from abroad. Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.”
12. Make eye contact and small talk. “This is not just polite, it’s part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It’s also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings and understand whom you should and should not trust.”
13. Practice corporeal politics. “A tyrant wants your body getting soft in a chair. Get outside. Make new friends and march with them. Do something.”
14. Establish a private life.
15. Contribute to good causes.
16. Learn from peers in other countries.
17. Listen for dangerous words.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
19. Be a patriot. “Set a good example for generations to come by being your best self and insisting that your country do the same.”
20. Be as courageous as you can.
Get the book here (less than $6 used) or if you want it new and want to support your local bookseller, look for them here. If you don’t have a local bookseller, support my friend Gee Gee’s adorable bookstore Buxton Village Books on Bookshop!
Hope is a Verb
I want to leave you with something more personal. I am currently enjoying the quiet, wild beauty of Hatteras Island which I try to do at the start of each new year.
I am trying to balance staying engaged with what’s going on with unplugging and just being quiet in nature.
The other day I was on a walk when I found a Leatherback Turtle washed up on the beach. Leatherback turtles are magnificent creatures! The largest turtle in the world, they weigh up to 2000 pounds and grow up to 7 feet long. They have existed in their current form since the age of the dinosaurs.
These extraordinary beings can migrate up to 10,000 miles a year and dive to depths of 4000 feet. Unfortunately, they are now endangered (some of them critically) mostly because of the fishing industry (have you joined Veganuary yet?), and also because they mistake plastic for their favorite food (jellyfish).
The turtle I saw was pretty badly decomposed but I could clearly see a large sheet of plastic wrapped around his/her flipper. Instead of just feeling sad or angry (which I absolutely did), I asked myself this question:
What is Mine to Do?
I ask myself this question a lot. We can’t do everything, but we can almost always do something helpful in a challenging situation.
Hope is a verb. We can’t wait around and expect things to be different. We need to get in the game. In this case, I spent the next 3 days walking the beach and picking up all the plastic I found. Every day I came back with 2 garbage bags filled with plastic (I reused the garbage bags, which I will continue to use for trash pickup, so as not to add to plastic waste).
Given that 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year, you may say my act is pointless. But given that even one mouthful of plastic can kill a turtle, I would argue that every kind act matters.
I will continue to try and be a source of truth and beauty during these turbulent times, for humans and non-humans. Truth and beauty go hand-in-hand.
Speaking of truth, we are seeing a disturbing amount of disinformation being spread, and a shocking number of people willing to believe it. This is a whole separate problem which I won’t get into now, except to encourage you to read this article in Medium which is the best one I’ve seen on how good people can get manipulated into believing a false reality.
What is Yours to do?
Take good care of yourself, that is primary. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the resources above or on what action you’re taking.
May we heal what divides us and come out stronger on the other side.
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On the bookshelf:
‘Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery,’ by Starhawk
A rich, complex, and radiant examination of the nature of power. Spinning together myth, history, ritual, poetry, spells, psychology, and activism, Starhawk offers new and creative alternatives for positive change in our personal lives, our communities, and our world. Written in the late 80s, this book is still very relevant to the struggles of today and offers some spiritual solutions.
On the movie watch-list:
Trial of the Chicago 7
This historical legal drama about a group of young Vietnam war protestors charged with conspiracy, has some important lessons for us today. It is now streaming on Netflix.
Shamanic Healing Update
Because of some other projects I am working on, I am taking a break from coaching clients but I continue to offer shamanic healing since even one session can create a shift. Click here to learn more or to book a session.
Below is a testimonial from a recent client.
“As soon as I spoke to Erin on the phone to schedule the shamanic journey I started to feel a shift in energy. During the call when the actual work was being done I felt a bit of a release and a lightning of the energy Inside my body. The depression and heaviness that I have been feeling started to alleviate and continued to improve for weeks after the journey. My Dogs seemed to sense something happening as well, they started barking in the middle of the session for no apparent reason, then went back to sleep. I can tell that I’ve had a shift on the chemical and energetic operating levels. It was a very helpful experience that I plan to do again.”
