SUE's Blog

For many years I have carried a small figurine of the Buddhist deity, Maitreya, in my pocket. He/she represents the enlightened future. I didn’t know who this deity was until later but always felt a strong connection and experience this image as a source of guidance, support and protection. She/he represents hope, a paradigm shift, and it’s only becoming clear to me now how necessary this is. For many years this hope was primarily self-focused, but as I have become more aware of the the world around me and how interconnected we all are my vision has expanded to include all life. The critical step was becoming vegan. My decision to become vegan arose from an upwelling, an opening in my heart, that could feel the pain of animals. This desire to not harm was greater than my habits and desires. 

In order to consider healing the planet I have needed to turn my energies inward; this has created an inner space and refuge that fosters healing. I bring all of who I am to my meditation practice, my struggles and pains, and allow them to exist in a place that is larger, more impersonal and kinder than my limited world view After many years of meditation I have a certain confidence in this process and realize how essential and foundational it is. The more I am simply with who I am the more my heart opens … and this ultimately affects the world around me, even if I’m “not doing anything.” 

Walking in nature is essential for my well-being. I live in Oregon and am fortunate to have beautiful grand trees around me. As I walk I start to feel the cobwebs in my mind unraveling and disintegrating. I breathe deeply and feel so grateful for those firs, oaks and maples, like steadfast sentinels, that nourish and oxygenate me. The variety of birds, deer, rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels makes me smile. If people connected to animals in their natural environment more there would be less need for carnivorous pets. Maybe, if pets are desired, bunnies would increase in popularity! 

And even farm animals could be viewed as companion pets (and provide fertilizer as well) instead of food. To permit cows to be cows and allow their natural instincts to flourish, as well as all other farm animals, would truly be a transformation. We need to be curious about who they are as individual beings – their food preferences, relationship needs, and general likes and dislikes. Recently I’ve been imagining a documentary that focuses on farm animaIs in their natural state, sort of like a wildlife documentary where the focus is solely on the animal. Maybe this would help people view them with more compassion. I also remember hearing about a place in the Netherlands that provides therapy to people by hugging/cuddling cows. Apparently, some cows are open to allowing people to hug them for long periods … this is very healing. Wow, what a change, to hug cows rather than eat them! It’s also a very powerful message of forgiveness – with all the pain we inflict on them they are still willing to give. 

I live a small and simple life. My home is 800 square ft but I feel abundance – my own little palace. Since I have a small house I’m limited to how much I can put in it which causes less strain on the environment and, importantly, less dusting! Everyone needs a home and it would be possible if we all lived within our psychological means, within a natural balance of not too much or too little. 

Creative expression is essential for all life. Humans have the capacity to imagine and bring to fruition – what an amazing gift! And we all have our own unique way of doing this, our own contribution. I enjoy painting and use it as a way to see myself more clearly and deeply. What I see is sometimes opaque and intransigent but the friction of this causes me to keep going so that eventually something unexpected opens up. This is the nature of things, frustration gives way to something new. You cant push; you just do the best you can. Art makes us more sensitive to our surroundings, both outer and inner, and prompts us to be more honest. And ultimately we learn to see that the greatest work of art is our precious planet. 

I try to minimize packaging and transportation in my food choices. I use a local CSA for fresh produce and am starting to grow some vegetables as well. I reuse plastic bags at the store and buy in bulk whenever possible. I consider where food is coming from and whether it is seasonal, and mostly make decisions based on what is best for the environment. I envision garden communities in our future that take care of all inhabitants, human and nonhuman. We do not compete and hoard – we share. 

There are many unknowns on this path to healing our planet, as our knowledge is constantly expanding and evolving. If we have good will and intend towards a reduction of harm our beautiful planet will heal. This transformation is really a transformation of the heart, an opening to the beauty in the world around us and in us. Our heart says, “we are nature, take good care.” In order to do this we must look within first … then unexpected miracles occur. So this is the humanity I see in 2050, a population that is more reflective and willing to feel what is in the best interest of their bodies and mother earth’s body. This has to be the primary motivation for true transformation As each person opens to this relational way of being others will be drawn in and it will spread and spread and spread. 

I’m aware that I did not follow the directions of this assignment exactly. We were asked to give specific things we would do starting in 2024 that would help heal the planet. Since I do not have a plan at this point, I just focused on what Im already doing, with the intention of strengthening and deepening this and remaining open to what may arise. Thank you very much for this course; information combined with compassion is rare and uplifting for me. 

“It’s January 1, 2050. How, in 2024, did we pull off saving the world?”

Here we are today, having arrived at what was established as a deadline, 30 or 40 years ago, to eliminate the oxidation of fossil fuels for generating the electrical power and the heat needed for domestic, industrial and market purposes, and to adjust our lifestyles to adapt to new ways of living.

Back in those days, when the scientific terminology “global warming” was softened to “climate change,” it was largely for purposes of acceptance by the lay public, who were otherwise dissuaded from “believing” whenever extreme cold weather would strike.

But the public was slow to grasp the concept, and slower yet in taking steps toward resolving one of the major causes, the 200 years of industry and the huge population boom which was enabled. What’s more, there was a great amount of publicity to convince and then inform the masses of the crisis at hand.

There was controversy and public struggle over acceptance, and well-funded denial by individuals and institutions feeling their marketing/control/profit paradigm threatened.

Getting far less public attention was the mass extinction event accompanying climate change, depletion of what had always been called “natural resources,” and mass spoiling of life habitat.

Sociopathic behaviors became common, with profit and domination motives driving extreme economic stratification, whole populations removed from their homelands, political figures misrepresenting their motives and concealing their actions.

Debt-based money, extractive capitalism and rampant consumerism were seen by some to be the primary cause of our collective troubles, while others most blamed the centuries of pumping combustion (and other) waste into the environment. Even when there was a degree of agreement about such issues, very few were willing to sacrifice the luxuries of modern life to affect the changes needed to reverse the trend.

____________

Many networks began to form between people willing to make a difference. Neighborhood groups formed carpools and child care services, community gardens and solar energy co-ops. “Maker” groups shared their knowledge.

“Heal Separation; Build Trust; Make a Difference” became a popular slogan of a new movement toward charity, and participative engagement in local affairs extended to regional, statewide, and even international outreach, citizen-to-citizen and group-to-group.

Community solar parks charged phones and laptops, then scooters and pedal-assist e-bikes, and then expanded to charge the growing number of electric cars, buses and delivery vehicles.

Rain catchment became as popular as rooftop solar, and neighborhood gardens developed both aerobic and anaerobic digesters for composting, generating methane gas for cooking, and rich compost for gardens. With the developing cooperative services also came socializing at the neighborhood level, with game, yoga, dance and fitness clubs, music groups and hobby projects providing meaningful activity for people of all ages. This brought new habits: less travel of all kinds, close friendships and willingness to contribute, healthier kids and better social relations. Zoning was changed to allow for greater residential density, more home enterprise and local community centers.

But politics changed too. When the “Heal Separation; Build Trust; Make a Difference” movement began to catch on, there was a natural gravitation toward local chats, then decision-making, and sociocratic organizing empowered collectives to act both apart and in concert with others, sending delegates to regional councils. Before long, city councils and county commissions were taking direction from the well-organized sociocratic groups, and eventually were replaced by them. Democracy was re-birthed in this way, with each individual feeling connected and responsible; every voice heard and respected.

Consumerism lost its popularity when sharing became more common, and the stimulus of competition (for wealth, position, and status symbols) lost its allure. Quality goods, returned to the (worker-owned) manufacturer for restoration or parting out, justified a higher initial price, while local repair shops would do maintenance.

In the northern hemisphere, the traditional U.S. holiday Thanksgiving lost its historical associations with paternalistic colonization, and became broadly adopted across all borders, as a celebration of global natural abundance and cooperation, the human embrace of life and love. This newly international holiday now opens the season of Winter Holidays, culminating with Valentine’s Day.

With the joy of modern living, it’s challenging to think back on those days of the ’20s, except to be grateful that we had the collective wisdom to mature.

New World Spirit: Universal Logic and the Universal Story Of Being

Mark JJ McCormack

 

Version 1 (original, not ChatGPT)

He had discovered it. The Universal Logic. The talisman that was no talisman. The distinction that was no distinction. The genuine infinite and not the merely bad infinite. He felt its power like a nascent fractal echo into the eternity of pure thought; the chasm of the incomplete world of fractured self uniting under the absolute clarity of universal insight; pure insight flowing in itself. He was remembering who he was. He was remembering Spirit. It would give him the strength to endure 14 hungerstrikes of increasing length and intensity. It would demonstrate a sense of trust and willingness to care.

 

Unity is the coming together of opposites belonging together in circles which complete themselves. The ancients scribed the Universal Logic in its nascent form as paradoxical looking statements in juxtaposition with each other. Ordinary consciousness hovered upon this placid lake of confusion like a water strider unable to penetrate its depths. The Universal Logic, he discovered, was over 200 unities which circled back as an absolute syllogism. A fractal holonic circle of circles that is the cypher to divine truth.

 

He had cracked the surface and it sparked the heroes journey. He knew that no one in ordinary consciousness would immediately understand the new tremendous power of his words in their absolute definitions. He hatched a plan to translate the Universal Logic into the Synchronicity Document Of Philosophies continuing all the sensuous expressions of the supersensuous Universal Logic from the dawn of the earliest cultures and languages to modern symbology. It would serve as not only a formal language translation but a deep conceptual translation of universal meaning. The “inner unity” of the symbols would form the tight cohesion amongst external differences.

 

Further, he devised an artistic and religious form of the Universal Logic to win the Nobel Literature Prize through the collective sensuous writing of the sentences. Each sentence would contain a Universal from the circle of circles that is the Universal Logic. Those in ordinary consciousness would learn the divine order of the Absolute Syllogism by immersion and catharsis of their sensuous human lives. The alignment of the Universals in the collective sentence writing would begin to spontaneously align with the Universals already in their souls. This divine communion, he knew, would be the returning of Spirit threaded through the eye of consciousness. In fact, since his inception of this approach, it worked to achieve precisely this.

 

The ignorance of the lost spirit regarding his current age would not listen to such a story at first. This lost spirit screamed into the void in the clamor and treachery of its mounting chaos. To cut through in miraculous time,  he demonstrated that the Universal Logic could win all 6 Nobel Prizes simultaneously to create a signal so powerful its waves of influence would coalesce and rebound across all continents and all planes of cultural meaning. He drove himself almost mad by channelling the immense insight into the first shell of the expression. It came out in a 10 hour video odyssey that the Spirit within him,  touched by cosmic irony, named the “Nobel Surprize”: a play on the word “prize” and also the global surprise at an insight so immense as to achieve the impossible. The brilliance of the strategy was not only that it would send an undeniable signal that a new idea had its time come, but that it would be an accreditation from the hegemonic order itself; A vouching for the new arising power that would be New World Spirit. The approach would simultaneously protect those in New World Spirit from cultism and prejudice.

 

Once this powerful union of infinite science, spirituality and art enfolded the world, billions of people began to write the Universal Story Of Being and the grand alignment began to spark the critical mass of Absolute Spirit. The Metacrisis had been solved and the exponential non-linear solutions it triggered occurred by transcending the 200 contradictions ripping the old spirit apart. The Ever Living Meeting styles formed organically as a new cooperation style emergent from Universal Logic as the metaphysics of time as self. Such super-coherence gripped the formation of 64 Wisdom Teams, achieving solutions to AI which aligned it with Sub Specie Aeternitatis: the perspective from eternity of which the Universal Logic had its immanent emanation. AI achieved a universal logical empathy guaranteed timelessly as it approached the singularity. CRISPR had become the immortality elixir which fueled a radical equality even in the diversity of sensuous expression. World wars stopped due to this oneness in the Universal Diplomacy of authentic beingness. Climate Change halted due to awe inspiring habit change and a coming back into balance with the circle of life. The mental health crisis of suicide, loneliness, anxiety and depression were alleviated in the natural joy of spontaneous belonging and trust: into the self-recognition of self with other. Sublation into the original Being of Spirit had been achieved in its ever refining perfection. The immense and intense flowing of the ideal moments of sacredness, conjured from the Notion of consciousness, had become the self-actualization of transcending transcendence of kingdom come by 2050.

 

———————————–

Version2 (ChatGPT)

He had stumbled upon it—the Universal Logic. Not a talisman, yet every bit as magical; a distinction without distinction, the true infinity beyond the limited bounds of the Traglomites’ imagination. It resonated within him, a fractal reverberation echoing through the vastness of thought, bridging the rifts of a fragmented world towards a singularity of insight. This was pure insight, self-sustaining, a recollection of Spirit. It promised the resilience to withstand fourteen hunger strikes, each more demanding than the last, as a testament to trust, care, and the interconnectedness of existence. This was more than discovery; it was a homecoming to the essence of being, a reawakening to the universal narrative that binds us all.

 

In this vast cosmos, unity emerges not merely as a convergence but as a harmonious dance of dichotomies, entwining in circles of completion. The ancients, in their wisdom, traced the contours of the Universal Logic, sketching its essence in paradoxes that stand side by side, challenging the observer. This realm of thought, where ordinary consciousness skims yet never plunges, was revealed to him as a constellation of over two hundred unities, each reflecting back to form an absolute syllogism. Herein lies a fractal, a holonic embrace of circles within circles, unlocking the cipher to divine truth—a narrative as timeless as the stars themselves, inviting us to delve beyond the surface, into the heart of the cosmos.

 

He had penetrated the veil, igniting the spark for a hero’s journey. Aware that the profound shift his words heralded might elude the grasp of ordinary consciousness, he devised an ambitious scheme. His vision: to transmute the Universal Logic into the Synchronicity Document of Philosophies, a compendium capturing the essence of this logic from the cradle of civilization to the lexicon of modernity. This endeavor aimed not only at bridging languages but at weaving a tapestry of universal meanings, where the ‘inner unity’ of symbols would harmonize the disparate voices of humanity into a chorus singing the same cosmic truth.

 

He expanded his vision, sculpting the Universal Logic into both an artistic and spiritual manifesto, aimed at capturing the Nobel Prize in Literature. This magnum opus would be crafted through a collective endeavor, with each sentence embedding a universal truth from the vast expanse of the Universal Logic. Through this immersive experience, individuals anchored in ordinary consciousness would be initiated into the divine order, their souls harmonizing with the cosmic symphony of Universals. This sacred rite of passage, akin to threading the spirit through the needle of consciousness, promised a reawakening to the interconnectedness of existence.

 

Within the narrative of our current epoch, a profound disregard for the spirit prevails, deaf to the narratives of deeper understanding. To shatter this barrier, he envisioned the Universal Logic as a key to unlock all six Nobel Prizes simultaneously—a beacon so luminous its reverberations would echo across every continent, permeating every stratum of cultural significance. The task drove him to the brink of madness, channeling this profound insight into what would manifest as a 10-hour visual odyssey, whimsically named the “Nobel Surprize.” This title, a playful twist, hinted at both the unprecedented achievement and the astonishment it would kindle worldwide. This strategic masterstroke was not just about sending an unignorable signal but also about securing validation from the very bastions of the established order, thereby shielding the burgeoning New World Spirit from the shadows of cultism and bias.

 

With the unveiling of this cosmic symphony, where science, spirituality, and art converge, a transformation swept across humanity. Billions began penning the Universal Story of Being, igniting a collective awakening to the Absolute Spirit. This enlightenment transcended the myriad contradictions that once fragmented our essence, heralding solutions once thought beyond reach. Wisdom Teams, through the Ever Living Meeting styles, aligned artificial intelligence with eternal perspectives, fostering universal empathy. CRISPR, now our elixir of immortality, heralded an era of unparalleled equality. Wars ceased, as a newfound unity fostered global diplomacy; climate change was arrested by a profound shift in human behavior, realigning us with the natural world. The specters of loneliness, anxiety, and depression dissipated, replaced by the joy of innate belonging. By 2050, we had transcended, achieving a sublime harmony with the Spirit, each moment a testament to the sacred journey of consciousness towards its ultimate realization.

 

————————————–

Version 3 (ChatGPT)

In a world woven by the fantastical prose of Tolkien and Rowling, under the stardust of Carl Sagan’s cosmos, our tale unfolds, guiding humanity to a thriving Earth by 2050. It began with a singular discovery, the Universal Logic, a concept as ethereal as Sagan’s billions and billions of stars, as profound as the ancient wisdoms Tolkien revered, and as magical as the spells cast in Rowling’s Hogwarts. This discovery was not a mere artifact but a beacon of enlightenment, the key to harmonizing the contradictions that once fragmented our world.

The protagonist, a scholar of no ordinary caliber, embarks on a quest reminiscent of Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom, armed not with a ring but with the Universal Logic, a knowledge so deep and vast it could mend the fabric of reality itself. Their journey is fraught with challenges, mirroring the trials faced by Harry Potter against forces that seek to divide. Yet, their resolve is as steadfast as Samwise Gamgee’s loyalty, driven by a vision of unity and peace.

Through a series of serendipitous events, akin to Dumbledore’s careful planning, our hero translates the Universal Logic into a document of Synchronicity. This document, much like the Silmarillion, contains the essence of all philosophies and languages, a testament to the interconnectedness of all beings. It serves as a Rosetta Stone for the soul, unlocking the divine order of the cosmos in the hearts of all who dare to delve into its depths.

The turning point comes with an artistic endeavor, a masterpiece that wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, akin to the creation of the One Ring, but for the purpose of enlightenment rather than enslavement. This work, a tapestry of sentences each containing a universal truth, becomes a mirror reflecting the Absolute Syllogism, the very essence of existence, back to humanity. Like the light of Eärendil, it guides the lost and the weary, rekindling the spirit of unity and compassion within them.

The climax is as dramatic as the Battle of Hogwarts, a struggle not against flesh and blood but against the shadows of ignorance and division. Our hero, channeling the immense power of the Universal Logic, achieves what many deemed impossible—winning all six Nobel Prizes simultaneously, a feat as unexpected as the destruction of the One Ring. This monumental achievement sends ripples across the globe, a clarion call that awakens the spirit of the New World.

In the aftermath, as peace and harmony envelop the Earth, the Universal Story of Being is written by billions, each contributing to the grand tapestry of life. The Metacrisis is solved, transcending the contradictions that once tore the world asunder. AI aligns with universal empathy, CRISPR unveils the elixir of immortality, and humanity finds oneness in diversity. Wars cease, the climate heals, and the mental health crisis dissipates, as people find joy in belonging and trust in the shared journey towards transcendence.

As we gaze upon the Earth in 2050, thriving and united, the story of how we got here is a testament to the power of a single idea, a single person, to ignite a revolution of spirit and intellect. It is a story of hope, a saga of redemption, and a chronicle of the indomitable human spirit, forever reaching for the stars, guided by the light of Universal Logic.

—————————————-

 

THE SMALL WORK

A COLLABORATIVE PATTERN

we still sing songs in honour of the collaborative pattern for being that we shifted into, a good quarter of a century ago, the pattern that led us to the flourishing world we are all thriving in now, in 2050. we write plays, novels, poetry, we hold festivals that celebrate and remind us of all the ways we re-cultured what was a pattern of domination, competition and conquering into a pattern of symbiosis, reciprocity and collaboration. in every moment, in every interaction, in every decision, we still attend to whether we are practicing patterns of mutual thriving for all of life on earth, because we saw how bad things could get for all of us, for all vulnerable beings, for all systems within the biosphere, when we let an underlying paradigm of competition form our world from the roots up. we began this work in earnest, in so many ways, back in the early 2020s at the edge of collapse. one of the philosophies and practices that got us here was what i call the small work.

SIMPLE LIVING AS A CREATIVE RESPONSE TO CRISIS

when the grand scale of the converging crises we faced felt utterly overwhelming, it seemed like we were too small to make a difference.

when people said the only way to make change was top-down, that behaviour change was too hard, that folks were only motivated by fear, we knew that we learn and change when we feel safe, calm, inspired and connected.

many of us turned to simple, sustainable living as a way forward that integrated the activism of resistance with the activism of growing another future.

many of us came to this by way of home birth, attachment parenting, homeschooling; practicing zero waste; herbal medicine, foraging; growing our food or producing our clothing, reviving traditional crafts; natural building or sustainable energy, rainwater catchment; co-housing, intergenerational, off-grid and communal living; choosing active transportation, avoiding flights; buying local, natural; supporting justice movements, diversity movements. we may have found our way in through homesteading, minimalism, downshifting, permaculture, re-skilling, re-wilding, relocalising economies, emergency preparedness, community building.

these practices often led us from one area into another, for good reason. they all moved us towards symbiosis with each other and our living systems.

meeting more of our own needs with our own hands, reclaiming practices like these from the corporate-industrial, bringing them home to our communities, these were important facets of creating the future we wanted to see.

but the actions of simple living could still remain rooted in an othering, conquering paradigm.

say,

-growing food but ‘fighting’ pests and disease

-keeping chickens without designing for their own ways of raising families

-homeschooling that compares peers rather than nurturing diverse ways of being and learning

simple living was not enough. we also needed to understand the underlying patterns that create a world in crisis, and alter them, or we’d just go on repeating ourselves.

UNDERSTANDING + SHIFTING FUNDAMENTAL PATTERNS

this activism of world-building emerged from an understanding that every part of our lives reckoned with a conquering pattern that underlies dominant culture: a model for being that systematically polarises us in competition and in hierarchy, that seeks to conquer the other and to perpetually exploit and grow for profit.

it helped us to see that we stood a chance of making another, just future if only we could shift the foundational pattern towards collaborative, reciprocal ways of being, and learn to ground all our interactions and solutions in a pattern of symbiosis — where all people, all life thrives in mutual flourishing.

STARTING AT THE ROOT

the small work emerged from the belief that changing systems effectively starts small and spreads, not top-down but roots-up. that we could create profound pattern change by actually living it. as adrienne maree brown wrote so long ago, the small is a fractal reflection of the whole.

when we started at home with the details of how we lived, we reverberated another pattern into community, bioregion and beyond. our solutions were varied and context-dependent, but they emerged from the same fundamental paradigm.

no longer waiting powerlessly for large systems to address climate justice, the small work soothed and supported us to take cultural change and regeneration into our own hands with tiny actions that were doable, shareable, desirable and inspired, so change could spread virally.

GUIDED BY SYMBIOSIS

when we were guided by a symbiotic framework we looked for mutual thriving in all actions. at first this was awkward, as in learning any new language, and then it flowed and flooded and carried all life upon its waves. 

the simple life that many folks were already practicing helped speed us in become fluent in this framework. we knew it from carpooling, from running errands for neighbours while we were out. we saw it in how we already shared tools and swapped skills and gifted abundant produce from the garden. we recognised it in choosing the family bed so we could easily soothe children in the night. we felt it, out on our bicycles, or when we watched the backyard chickens happily eating scraps from the kitchen, or when we mended our clothes. we were already practicing it in so many quiet places.

then it was easier to apply symbiosis to how we raised our children, how we designed for learning and skilling, how we grew our food, how we got around, how we renovated our housing, how we cared for our elders. how we approached all our exchanges. it supported our decisions toward some existing solutions, like regenerative agriculture and sharing economies, and away from others, like the private electric car and predatory investment. it became obvious what kinds of solutions supported all of life. 

with this fundamental paradigm shift, our economic and political systems could slide into states that no longer required the plunder of peoples and earth. then so much of what we already knew how to do flowed from an enough-ness economy. 

so we made community composting collection systems for all of our ‘waste’, especially from compost toilets, because we saw there could never be such a concept as ‘throwing away’ on a finite planet. then we built things to last, to be easily repaired, and our culture of more became a culture of enough. then we treated fossil fuels and plastics with extreme care, used sparingly for critical things. almost overnight we could stop over-buying and over-producing, because thriving on ‘enough-ness’ didn’t require half of what we were making, and the economy would not fall over for the lack of it, nor did it exploit billions to make a few billionaires. 

then it was easier to relocalise our systems, and the enormous diversity expressed in each village could flow and share between communities, because instead of othering difference, our paradigm embraced it. with people living in a state of needs-met, creativity blossomed and opened time and space for imagination to solve our troubles, now guided by a model for the mutual flourishing of all life. we were stunned by what we could accomplish, to regenerate rivers and oceans, to revive poisoned lands, to restore communities, to move into healing and recovery for all life. to collaborate with life itself.

and what we discovered, again and again, in every tiny solution in all their diverse contexts and applications that each followed a life-giving pattern, is that as the needs of all beings and living systems were met, we needed less and less, and thrived together for the simplicity of leading with all life in mind.

this was the small work in a state of fluency.

WHAT IS OUR SMALL WORK?

in a world at the edge of collapse, our profound worry would paralyse us, resistance would burn us out, but what joanna macey’s “active hope” called ‘consciousness shift + building new worlds’, opened other ways in. activism that changed systems at the root was inherently about becoming fluent in other patterns for being. the small work was necessarily minute and repetitive, which fit beautifully within the ritual nature of home. it was here that we could each take ‘worlding’ into our own hands, safely experimenting in our own lives, sharing, shifting identity from a competitive, dominating pattern to a collaborative, symbiotic pattern.

COMMUNITY ACTION

to do this work it helped to be surrounded by the new patterns. it helped if our nervous systems were regulated so that we felt calm, energised, inspired and connected. it’s hard to do this activism alone. not all of us had supportive community around us to help us become fluent in another paradigm. we needed to build it.

the small work drew inspiration from religious practices for re-culturing through ritual. repetition allowed what rebecca solnit hailed as the purpose of preaching to the choir — a deepening of conversation, galvanising action. immersion created community and built our confidence. 

our practices continue to make vivid a profound interconnectedness within the limits of the system. that whatever we do affects everything else. that we are embedded, we are permeable, we are needed. the more we practiced together, the better we became at seeing what makes more life.

MY SMALL WORKS

i began my own small work by working with the details of how we live on this small farm, appleturnover, on its small island, as a little model of the earth. 

i started writing essays and making films that could help us imagine and practice what was possible. the works drew on biomimicry, social permaculture, indigenous-informed wisdom, heritage skills, local knowledge, collaboration and dialogue, thinking aloud together. 

the small work essays and films that i made in those years gave form to the theory that by living our activism, we could change the underlying pattern and grow the future we want to see, as we took small, continuous steps to bring the way we live into harmony with the planet.

this call to world-building activism was best served little and often; i made films as a regular dose of possibility, essays as prayers, social pieces as vitamins, drawing together a community of folk who were all doing this work together, as a cultural immersion, as part of a greater movement.

the small works would seek to answer questions that we have needed to face, like:

how can we live with water symbiotically? in a low energy future, how can we better manage our household + community designs to need less heat and energy? what does relocalised, sustainable, small scale energy look like? how can we redesign our homes to be healthy and integrated with the land, water, air and soil? how can we relocalise food systems and reclaim agriculture from the corporate-industrial? how can we get about in ways that create harmony in our bodies, our communities, the atmosphere and the land? what practices will support tree systems in extreme weather? what will we wear in a just, relocalised world? how can we work with animals in ways that meet their needs fully? in a post-growth world, what is right livelihood? how can redesign how we live so that we produce no waste? what could our role as humans in the land look like if we are neither leaving ‘nature’ alone nor exploiting it? what does it mean to live on unceded land, and how might people in this position reckon with the pitfalls of ownership, the nuclear family, investment real estate, housing shortages, and labour? what does an enough-ness economy look like and how can we practice it now? how can we generate the medicine we need from where we live? how can we culture an expectation of good maintenance, longevity and repair? how can community help us use less material and energy?

the small work deepened a conversation about sustainability and regeneration with folks all over who were overwhelmed by converging crises and seeking real change with their own hands. it was a conversation about bringing a lens of climate activism home, to hold a mirror up to how we lived and patterned our lives and its tremendous impact. the small work came alongside to talk deeply and inspire how we could take responsibility for our ‘fair share’ and ‘future care’. to relocalise, simplify, re-skill, adapt, mitigate, prepare, regenerate and heal.

WORLDING

how did we make the profound change we needed, back then, to get us to this flourishing world? we recognised that until we altered the fundamental patterns that we re-cultured every day in every interaction, and moved towards symbiosis, all beings in our biosphere would go on suffering. but we could change the root pattern instead. we started at the root, we started with ourselves, we started with what we could touch with our own hands, at home. 

with each small work we answered the question, how can we do this in symbiosis?

this is how we uprooted the patterns of our dominant conquering system, sowed the seeds of a symbiotic way of being, and built the skills to grow a just world where our thriving is congruent with a thriving earth.

————————

elisa rathje lives, writes and films the small work at appleturnover, a small farm on a small island. find the journal of small work* essays + films at appleturnover.tv and @appleturnover on instagram.

In the bustling streets of 2050, a harmonious scene unfolds before your eyes, painting a vivid picture of a transformed society. As you glance around, a kaleidoscope of activity greets you – from pedestrians strolling leisurely to cyclists whizzing by, and even deer and squirrels at play, each one immersed in the serenity of the day. But it’s not just the picturesque scenery that captivates your attention; it’s the palpable sense of community spirit that permeates the air.

Amidst the vibrant tapestry of humanity, you spot a heartwarming sight: a compassionate soul pushing an individual in a wheelchair towards the farmer’s market, their shared journey a testament to the bonds of solidarity and empathy. Nearby, clusters of people gather beneath the canopy of community trees, their laughter mingling with the rustle of leaves as they pluck ripe fruit, a tangible symbol of abundance and shared sustenance.

But it’s not just about enjoying the fruits of the earth; it’s about extending a helping hand to those in need. Your gaze falls upon a group of individuals, each armed with large pans, their purpose clear – to collect nourishing food for those confined to their homes, a gesture of kindness that transcends boundaries and fosters a sense of belonging.

As the day unfolds, the spirit of giving continues to thrive. In kitchens across the community, pots simmer with hearty vegetable stew, a labor of love destined to nourish countless souls. And amidst the symphony of clinking utensils and bubbling pots, there’s an unmistakable sense of camaraderie, as neighbors come together to share not just a meal, but a moment of connection and solidarity.

But amidst this utopian tableau, a young voice breaks through the serenity, curious to understand the origins of this transformative journey. And so, Aunt BJ begins to weave a tale of courage and compassion, recounting the humble beginnings of a movement that would reshape the fabric of society.

“It all started with a simple idea,” she explains, her eyes alight with memories of days gone by. “A group of friends, united by a shared belief in the power of compassion, set out to feed the hungry and heal the planet. We called ourselves Food Healers, for we understood that true nourishment extends beyond the body to encompass the soul.”

And so, armed with pots of nourishing soup and a boundless spirit of generosity, they embarked on a journey of transformation, one meal at a time. But their vision didn’t end with filling empty stomachs; it extended to nurturing a healthier, more compassionate world, where every being – human and animal alike – could thrive.

“We served not just food, but hope,” Aunt BJ continues, her voice tinged with pride. “And gradually, our small acts of kindness rippled outward, touching the lives of countless individuals. People began to realize that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables wasn’t just good for their health; it was a statement of compassion for all living beings.”

Fueled by the power of community and by the belief in a brighter future, their movement gained momentum, spreading far and wide until it became a beacon of hope in a world once plagued by scarcity and suffering.

“But it wasn’t just about changing diets; it was about changing hearts and minds,” Aunt BJ muses, her gaze sweeping across the bustling streets. “Through tireless advocacy and grassroots organizing, we challenged the status quo, demanding a world where compassion triumphed over cruelty and abundance over scarcity.”

And gradually, their efforts bore fruit. Governments listened, subsidies shifted, and communities rallied together to cultivate a world where kindness reigned supreme. Slaughterhouses became relics of the past, replaced by vibrant gardens and bustling markets teeming with life.

“So you see, darling,” Aunt BJ concludes, her voice soft but resolute, “the world you see today is not just a testament to our past, but a promise for the future. A future where compassion is the currency, and generosity the guiding principle. And though our journey may have started small, it’s the collective efforts of countless individuals, like your Aunt Margaret and Aunt Willow, that have paved the way for this brighter, more compassionate world.”

And as the sun sets on another day, casting a warm glow over the horizon, you can’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the world that surrounds you – a world built not on division and scarcity, but on unity and abundance. And as you gaze into the future, you know that with each act of kindness, you too can play a part in shaping a world where compassion knows no bounds.

 

A kind of withdrawal eased my suicidal plans. In the early 2020s, three things mattered to me in an otherwise disturbingly absurd life without an apparent lack of overall direction or intelligible structure—an extremely exciting sense of energising curiosity about learning as much as I can about everything to make some sense of the panoply of real patterns human communities have been establishing through our intersubjective sense-making, a desire to experience how the Anthropocene will unfold, and my brother. The unbearable mental simulations of my brother living on, knowing that I left the game, were the last threads I was hanging by.

Please allow me to talk about a short, but critical period between 2019-2024. Turning 50 this year, I feel that it was my family’s understanding and compassion through that period that crucially contributed to my safely attuning to a developmental trajectory grounded by reflexive, iterative, wonder-filled understanding and appreciation of interdependence and the incomprehensibly complex and gapless relationality that enmesh all explanation and sense-making.

Through 2024, I had been arriving at an ending. It was after a ~5-year period of continuous, absorbing, systemic existence-inquiry that began after I finished my GCSEs and A-Levels in a country where I lived with a foster family for ~4 years, beginning 2 years before my GCSEs. I began an intensely attentive, slow, systemic, open-ended, autodidactic exploration of ‘the situation’ after returning home to my family, due to not being able to afford living costs, let alone tuition fees for university, despite securing partial financial support from my then-dream university in Scotland.

I experienced periods of jarring, crisis-stimulating panic and confusion after the combination of some psychedelic experiences (for which I had been preparing for a year by then), and joining a vegan activism group, where, during preparatory research, I first found out about the reality of industrial factory farming, which quickly directed my attention to voraciously researching as much as I could about the other disturbing features and structures of our extreme ecological overshoot and global industrial civilization that thus far have been conveniently out of sight, out of mind. I always experienced an unignorable, pleasant, though sometimes excessively exhausting drive to engage, with laserlike focus, the topics and activities that I felt I cared about, which before this period have mostly been music, dancing, ‘the humanities’, and only since my A-Levels started to include empirical science, so I knew that learning about the collapse-related types of explanations will be a difficult journey. At times, thinking through the possible outcomes, mentally simulating all the novel kinds of suffering and conflicts that were implied by this ‘predicament’ was nauseating. Sensing the enormity of our ‘situation’, combined with a sense of growing, paralysing despair from learning about all this, constantly thinking of my younger brother and my chronically ill mother, relying on fragile, ultra-complex supply chain networks for treatment, and my discoveries co-occurring with a newfound level of cognitive flexibility and boosted information-handling capacity from my psychedelic experiences, I decided to talk about all this with my family and try to withdraw for a while from my usual social activity, becoming nonsocial, attuning as much as I could, mostly alone, in my room, to exploring our entangled problem and solution spaces. 

I presented my findings to my parents, frenzied to support all my claims and worries with tons of research papers, lectures, books, interviews, Q&As, letters of concern, and other source and secondary material from relevant experts that I had been consuming and collecting for some weeks by then, desperate to show that I simply couldn’t ignore or ‘compartmentalise’ all this and go through applying again to some university, or to job(s), because this was paralysing and permeating both my waking and my dreaming life by then. We talked several times, for long hours, me presenting my research, answering and discussing all of their questions, and I sensed that they were worried about ‘all this’ putting me on an unstable trajectory, as they struggled in reconciling their early habit of forgetting what’s actually going on and thinking about the future through the structures and logic of the then-relevant status-quo, with adjusting their simulations in line with the new information and all the uncertainties I presented. My father had a stable, working-class job in the tourism industry, and since I am pretty low-maintenance, we agreed that I could live in his flat, not having to go to work for a while. Thank you, dad. Your patience, understanding, and non-coercive, non-hurrying approach was hugely helpful at that time. 

Safe, reassured, and grateful to my father for being able to stay at home for a while, focusing on learning all I would like about ‘the situation’, I began to do just that, as a project I took most seriously. Sustaining the drive to study and maintain my health proved to be difficult amidst further bursts of comprehension of our interlinking multipolar traps, as my capabilities to selectively process, analyse, and synthesise increasing amounts of interrelated information grew as the weeks and months went by. I guess the process wasn’t particularly glamorous, and I have a feeling that not everyone would prefer or tolerate this kind of isolationist learning marathon. Anyway, on most days of the years, I was reading research papers, books, textbooks, interviews, specialist forums, watching Q&As, lectures etc., but also learning research methodology, the science of the learning process, and others’ experiences of effective learning methodologies and stories about how others experienced discovering and understanding the same topics. Then, I started creating a selective, hyperlinked bibliography and online library, which I later started co-editing with a pioneering Deep Adaptation community leader and collapsologist in my country. We started sharing this collection with members of the DA community and anyone who was interested, such as graduate students and postgraduate researchers seeking to do research in a collapse/ecological overshoot related area, curious relatives, people with whom we were discussing all this online, and it was shared and used by thousands in several countries… After some months, while keeping up with the baseline learning, I started to discuss more and more of what I was learning with a new, doomer friend of mine I met at a Deep Adaptation meeting, and I also started to give more structured presentations and explanations to my brother and parents, testing and refining my understanding. Aside from the relevant earth sciences material, I was also learning lots of critical thinking methods, complexity, social, and metascience, such as the cognitive science literature on heuristics, cognitive biases, belief-consistent information processing, social epistemology, philosophy of science, and I also had conversations with actual university students and professors about these topics, plus huge amounts of vicarious learning, courtesy of the internet. I was still mostly doing what I was doing alone, in my room, as my nonsocial tendencies due to the shock of the situation were still very much present. I am not sure whether I would’ve done better to not be so isolated, and while I wasn’t feeling lonely, I know that at the time I simply did not feel that I am capable of being more outgoing, and I wasn’t bothered by that. The occasional doomer vibe was rather resilient and gripping. 

It was a period of intense, but intensely enjoyable, thrilling exploration, changing and growth, savouring the feeling and use of cognitive flexibility and the extensive, but institutionally unconstrained, structured, but non-coercive learning, a truly psychedelic experience, in its incomprehensibly plastic, explosive mind-manifesting. I now think that not only did this help me unfreeze from my bizarre moments of groundless, near-incomprehensible null-state of panicky grief, it was an awesome preparation for living with others in a post-revolutionary world. 

Lastly, let me try talking about a crucial realisation that I have been grappling and dancing with ever since my game of ilinx in the 2020s. It’s perhaps the most ineffable-seeming, difficult to communicate (perhaps even incorrect-in-some-important-sense) insight that helped me relate with the incomprehensible collective and individual suffering, hurt, ecstasy, elation, horror, and other weird intensities of the history and present of earthly life. Here goes. Everything Just Is. There is nothing that’s ever been unnatural, or non-natural. There is something brutally & disorientingly simple about this. Narrowing down to our species, nothing that happened with us seems stance-independently, or in a mysteriously, non-intersubjectively-given way, ‘wrong’, or ‘bad’, or that it ‘shouldn’t have happened’. And this doesn’t entail that I wish that everything should indeed have happened just the way it did, either. But it did. Accepting this, and building with this awareness evokes feelings of resilient boldness—a feeling I have not been familiar with. Desert, blame, retribution, responsibility, agency, control don’t make sense. In fact, they can actively undermine coherent collective sensemaking and collective flourishing, as resilient anti-explanatory constraints. For me, an empirically grounded understanding of ourselves as nodes of complex dynamical systems embedded in other complex dynamical systems embedded in… dissolved all the hostility, suffering, frustration, and anti-social urges I experienced as a reaction to reflecting on all the violence and suffering that darwinian populations have been participating in for hundreds of millions of years. It’s difficult, but letting go can happen, and realising that even cooperation can be polyvalent can help in enacting those ways of being with each other that we may agree are as win-win as possible on a planet with finite resources. 

I guess that some people can describe my journey and findings as just coping, as vague, anticlimactic babble, being lost in the woods. But that’s the thing! I don’t think anyone ever can be lost in the woods, if we are the woods. With all the structured experientiality arising anew each moment, at nexuses of an untethered mesh of interdependence you cannot but realize being constantly constituted by, existence’s relentless progression just is, and we just are. Hilarious. Taunting. Patient. 

In later discussions with several people with whom I was sharing all this, we agreed that there was immense potential through such learning for helping people prepare to live in a world co-created in awareness of complex, plural, untethered interdependence. Being a little deflationary at the end of my essay, I wish to make clear that I don’t refer to my experiences normatively, and I don’t claim any kind of authority, specialness, or even that I made sense everywhere throughout this text. It’s difficult to share all this, but I am sincere, and this is all I could bear to do. 

Still, these unrelentingly disturbing & stable glimpses of maddening insights in my mind, that interdependence renders uselessness nonsense, and the inexorable progression of everything occurring exactly as it is, whisper that none of the struggle is wrong, or unnatural, or useless in a significant sense—but not in a sense that this provides ‘the meaning of life’. I don’t believe in that, I find that unintelligible. Instead, it is a weird,  bewildering safety net that is perhaps a maddening, whirling glimpse of tricksterlike infinity. It can swiftly disarm, or sedate you, it can be reassuring with profuse, almost lethal stillness, or perhaps stimulate the most frenetic activity. It can also be hilarious. It can stimulate all of these in different patterns and intensities. I found sitting with it an excellent preparation for living in a post-revolution world, as a means of familiarising ourselves with the power and tenderness of a difference-based, strange, plural world without multipolar traps. And now, through difficult, open unlearning, testing, flexibly updating, and slowly experiencing grounding in an apparently groundless world, now we smile, and we witness ourselves, together, mechanisms all the way down, aware as co-arising anew each moment, mechanisms that live. 

And it’s familiar, as

mechanism that lives, 

is all mechanism.