It is currently 2050 and the Earth is a cooperative place. How that came to pass is a very multilayered, nonlinear inquiry, yet I can recall significant events that I felt powerfully in awe of as I experienced them in ‘real time,’ as I do still today. I am grateful to have the opportunity to reflect on that with you.
Instantly I am taken to February of 2024. Perhaps that is coming through as a starting point because at the time it felt like an ending point. Intense change was not only on the horizon, it had arrived.
Since mid-2022 I had been residing in Troy, NY – a Hudson Valley city of about 50,000 people. I had moved there from across country based on a cursory YouTube review and intuitive feel, but I grew up in northern New Jersey so east-coast living was familiar. For about a year after the move I embodied the Hermit archetype, largely remaining alone with two cat companions in a one-bedroom on the 3rd floor of an 1840 building I felt blessed to inhabit.
In or around November of 2023 I felt from within a rather spontaneous and unusual desire to attend local public meetings. Consciously I was unaware as to why the gravitation and aware as to feeling carefree about it. I felt trustingly open at the opportunity to more intimately connect with the community of Troy.
All the while, there had been a societal vision concretizing within my mind – a gradual unfoldment of a reality that at times felt more ‘real’ than what appeared in physicality alone and at all times felt bigger than me. It presented a different structural landscape through which relationships and resources flowed with innately guided agency. I had begun drafting a vision board on Canva if only to reflect its abstract, potential nature through concretized art.
I had several names for this vision that I would intermittently use when referencing it – ‘project,’ ‘idea,’ ‘direction.’ Here I’ll call it the ‘seed.’ I felt very protective and, at times, obsessively attached to this seed. I would let it go, perceiving it too idealistic or otherwise impossible to capture. And back it would come, often with more vitality. I became exceedingly good at dancing the tango with this seed as both an objective observer and subjective experiencer.
Back to February of 2024 – only several days after Pluto made an ingress into Aquarius for approximately 19 years. What an incredible period to say the least. We’re now experiencing Pluto’s transit through Pisces which has powerful energy all its own, but the residual nature of Aquarian transformation remains today with an acute intensity.
February of 2024 was when I experienced the inner shift away from disempowered chasing to empowered movement. I called my parents on the day of Super bowl LVIII. I remember that specifically because my dad had informed me then that he had accepted an offer on the family business, which was for sale after 90 years in operation. It was bittersweet for the family, my dad especially, who had taken over running the business from my grandfather almost 10 years before that. My dad, as far as I know, had never planned to run the business. The catalyst that changed his trajectory, and the family dynamic for years to come, was the suicide of my uncle and the decline of my grandfather’s health.
In all my life until making that call to my parents, reaching out to anyone for support felt untenable. Engaging in gradual yet arduous shadow work for several years eventually illuminated why. I had to experience and process certain patterned thought akin to a five of pentacles in Tarot over and over and over again until my cognitive understanding aligned with an energetic innerstanding that I was, and am, worthy.
From that empowered sense of self, I released the fear in asking for support. I was so grateful when it was immediately given, clearing the way for me to more attentively focus on an opportunity for which I, too, felt very grateful – an essay contest.
The essay contest came at a perfect time. Soon after I had started attending local public meetings, I met and became friends with the consultant for the Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency (RCIDA). In our first several weeks of communication, we frequently discussed RCIDA initiatives that he hoped to bring me in on. It wasn’t until in or around early February of 2024 that I realized within myself that the initiatives of the RCIDA as it was internally organized at that time felt aligned with neither my sense of integrity nor direction. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks because it became clear that I had been chasing after what ultimately felt hollow. I could sense my newfound friend felt similarly.
I had described the seed to him in general terms periodically since we had met, but it wasn’t until early February of 2024 that he suggested I connect with the CEO/Operations Director of the Tech Valley Center of Gravity (TVCOG). The TVCOG is a non-profit makerspace and education center in downtown Troy for community members to explore their creativity. I had walked by this space numerous times, always impressed and curious about its offerings. So, it was of great delight to me when the CEO quickly responded to my email that we meet, which we did soon thereafter. He gave me a tour of the two-story incubator and we talked about why I felt a desire to experience its energy. I told him what I saw in my mind’s eye and I remember him listening very patiently and intently. I could hear his wheels turning, no doubt correlated to his engineering background. There was a pulse of electricity in the air – a heartbeat – pumping through the seed and activating its life force.
As suggested during this brief yet meaningful conversation, I reached out to the Director of Sustainability at TAP, Inc – a non-profit neighborhood design and planning center also in downtown Troy. Generally, I wanted to learn more about ‘smart cities’ and ‘digital twins,’ and specifically I wanted to explore any such attempts made in Troy. These concepts speak to the seed’s blueprint, which prior to my meeting at the TVCOG had existed in unformulated notion only. I loved the possibility of connecting with a local community member intimately knowledgeable and associated with both the concept and the neighborhood more broadly. I had a strong sense that the soil was harmonizing to securely house the seed.
At the same time this connection with TAP was brewing, so too was the grant from the Arts Center of the Capital Region – also in downtown Troy. The Operations Director of the TVCOG had also suggested this source of financial support, but quite honestly, I initially felt hesitant to apply. The program was intended to empower local ‘artists’ to create innovative works that would contribute to a sustainable and expanding economy. But was I an ‘artist’ as they had been more traditionally understood? I also felt within myself a strong boundary against the potential imposition of demanding requirements. Well, those hesitations were almost immediately quieted with a divine finger snap. As it happened, the day after I toured the TVCOG the local newspaper published a story highlighting the Arts Center’s grant program and two recent recipient stories! I reached out to one of the recipients named in the article to inquire about her experience post-grant. I wanted to know her perspective, because maybe it would shift mine. And boy did it.
This all brings me back to why the timing of the essay contest was so perfect. For several years I had an unclear sense of direction due to an inner compass that was seemingly erratic, variable, and ambiguous. I can largely thank Uranus transiting my natal Sun sign, Jupiter, and Mercury in the 6th house for that. But in February of 2024 a map was starting to clearly develop, at the same moment I became aware of the opportunity to express this beautiful lucidity to an open and listening audience. In other words, it met me at a beginning where a cycle’s end connected.
And from that moment until the present, a dream has been coming true beyond what was imagined. We have seen a social landscape transformed through the collaborative development and integration of a locality’s superimposed digital ‘twin.’ This ‘twin’ representation decentralized and streamlined access to information that had long been hidden, fragmented, and privatized. It did so by focusing attention on the social infrastructure existing ‘subconsciously’ within the neighborhood’s ecosystem. I partnered with local community members and multidisciplinary consultants to observe and illuminate social patterns of various scale. This joint effort allowed the neighborhood body to come into a more conscious, intimate relationship with its edges and their transcendence.
Pivotal to this transformative shift was my initiative to deepen awareness of response-ability within the context of personal infrastructure. I had a sense that practices of self-learning and self-love were significant in revealing the collective’s ‘subconscious’ patterning. I encouraged the creation of safe spaces to deeply and compassionately explore the aspects of oneself hidden in the shadows. Toward this end I organized an experienced team to facilitate experiential learning of astrology, tarot, enneagram, gene keys, human design, and more. Sharing in and witnessing the emergence of wise self-empowerment came to root a social network in intergenerational trust, patience, gratitude, security, fulfillment, and charm. Home and family life became more inclusive, relatable, and meaningful almost as an effortless byproduct.
Through access to subconscious patterning, both individually and collectively, we gradually began to see a shift in power dynamics. ‘The people’ innovated systems of a regenerative nature centered on balance and unity with one’s sense of innate authority and liberty. The people’s conscious awareness and embodiment of self-love did not rely on ‘externalized’ authority or technology to satisfy perceived needs, but opened to collaborative partnership with it to realize its desired prosperity. Each sovereign being became grounded in their capacity to self-regulate, no matter the conditions of the moment.
As we have seen in Troy and beyond, embodied empowerment uniquely expressed within a collective body is the social fabric providing warmth to a diversely cooperative, cohesive life. There is so much further I could detail, and should there be interest I would be greatly honored to share more. I feel incredibly humbled to have had the opportunity to share even this – the illustration of a seed’s germination.