Composting Spoiled Maps
How do we navigate a world enmeshed in violence and dance towards regenerative futures ?
This is a long read, it’s my attempt to try and make sense of many threads that I’m holding, and what I’m noticing that is really alive and in the context of the overwhelm of the increasingly violent moment we are in. It’s also to help me pay attention to a deepening focus of where I feel I am being called to serve…guiding in the relational space, composting, space clearing, processing, opening up, connecting, letting go, experimenting, imagining, creating, becoming.
Not sure if you’ve read Chris Hedges piece - ‘The last Days of Gaza’
Chris is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, author and activist with huge experience covering war and conflict in the Middle East.
It’s a tragic, sickening and devastating post.
Heart breaking and mind melting.
But then imagine living in Gaza right now ?
I recommend reading it, bearing witness to this horrific suffering in these unravelling times as they get more extreme.
Which they will.
And because I think he’s also gesturing to ‘whiteness’, something we’ve dived into here before with Bayo Akomolafe.
Not a reference to skin colour but rather the dominant logic of capitalist modernity, a logic which is perhaps desensitising and numbing our species and our capacities to respond differently.
It also makes me think where we might be today if this honesty and quality of journalism was alive in our mainstream media.
There is nothing left to say. Maybe that is the point. To render us speechless. Who does not feel paralyzed? And maybe, that too, is the point. To paralyze us. Who is not traumatized? And maybe that too was planned. Nothing we do, it seems, can halt the killing. We feel defenseless. We feel helpless. Genocide as spectacle.
Chris Hedges
And because in many ways to me at least Gaza is the epicenter for this collapsing extreme world view that is intensifying everywhere.
A world view built on the deep invisible code of colonisation, occupation, resource accumulation, weaponary, warfare, trauma and white (human) supremacy
On the illusion of human separation from the living natural world that birthed us and sustains us.
Shaped by design principles of extraction, domination and control.
Underpinned by inherently violent structures, beliefs and norms.
Modern civilisation whether we like it or not is built on webs of suffering, human and more than human.
And the closer you look, the more attention you give, you will see it everywhere, it’s the same violent logic and it’s all interconnected.
Let me give three examples this week that I’ve noticed in my little world…
Ocean of violence
This week has been the UN Ocean week in Nice in France, I spent a few years working with ocean activists, conservationists and NGO’s, trying to raise consciousness of ocean literacy - which among many things speaks to the ocean as the main life support system on Spaceship Earth, the main climate regulator, water cycler and that a miracle of multi-species relationships in the ocean generates over 50% of the oxygen we ALL breathe.
Every second breath you take. Oxygen from the Ocean.
Much of this year’s conference has been about centering global policy shifts around horrific off-the-scale industrial fishing practices and the huge Govt subsidies which support the ongoing destruction of the ocean ecosystems.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Govts currently subsidise over $20 billion towards the destruction of our major life support system on this planet.
The wild illusion of separation and human supremacy once again.
As on land - extractive, violent, capitalist approaches to colonising the ocean and all its beings, controlling and hoarding resources, in order to maximise short term profits are destroying complex ocean ecosystems and their abilities to regenerate as well as the coastal human populations that depend on a healthy ocean for livelihoods
And then there’s the rest of us beings who just need oxygen right ?
Violence and financial capital is foundational to the current crises in the ocean.
Dancing with violence
As a DJ and lover of electronic music I’ve been noticing several DJ’s and artists who are discovering violence entangled with a number of major music festivals with some announcing boycotts this summer
Capital has flowed into electronic music events in recent times, entertainment company Superstruct who snapped up Sonar Festival in Spain and Field Day in London and about 80 other music festivals across Europe were acquired by KKR, a US investment company for over £1 billion last year.
Turns out KKR has a number of investments in Israel with strong links to the occupation and it’s all coming out.
It’s interesting listening to see how different DJ’s are responding and navigating their moral decision making. And worth getting into the comments to see how fans and communities are feeling and acting.
Richie Hawtin for example…
Midland…
Sama Abdulhadi…
Even on dancefloors, a space that felt once quite sacred, our consumption money is being channeled into these murky systems of capital and violence.
Capitalism mediates seemingly every relationship and interaction we now have.
And violence is the default operating logic which underpins this current form of it.
Living things have to die, resources must be extracted and controlled, all relationships need to be monetised for Capital to keep growing.
It is a death economy, enmeshed in extraction, warfare and suffering.
And it increasingly mediates every part of our lives.
Violent behavioural norms
Last Friday I went to see the band Massive Attack play in London, an amazing gig by true elders of the UK music scene. Before they came on the actor Khalid Abdalla had given a rousing speech about Gaza and the need for peace, and solidarity between all people. See below.
As he left the stage and the show began, a man in front of me jumped over the barrier from our area into a VIP area with better views and more space to move. (irony not lost)
He was immediately bundled violently to the floor and dragged out by 4 security guards - I mean it was as if he’d attacked someone - it was a really obnoxious energy to witness, more so coming off the back of the opending speech on solidarity and peace.
And literally could have been sorted with a quick word in the ear.
And then of course there’s what’s happening on the streets (and press conferences) in the US right now…
Violent behaviour is so close to the surface, it is becoming the default response mechanism from institutional power to any form of resistance or non-violent protest.
The dominant maps we are using to navigate our ways through this world are not compatible with peaceful regenerative futures.
They are spoiled, damaged and deeply inaccurate to what we now understand to be true with the operating system of life on Earth - co-operation, relationality, inter-dependance, diversity, reciprocity, mystery.
They are deeply coded in violent logic even if we cannot immediately see it or want to believe it.
Because our realities are actually weaved through multiple entangled relationships and interactions and how we see or don’t see that entanglement either upholds and perpetuates the violence or invites us on the journey of re-pair, healing and regeneration
In the ways we collectively perceive and see the living more than human world around us - e.g the ocean - inert, inanimate, resources for extraction, control and human entitlements Vs sentient animate more than human kin
How we collectively view others not ‘like us’ - e.g the genocide massacre in Gaza which we have been watching live streamed for two years because of dehumanisation and racism of Palestinians Vs seeing solidarity with our fellow human beings
How we collectively accept the violent logic of the dominant systems as unavoidable and essential for human progress - e.g growth based economies, competition, scarcity, productivity as success Vs degrowth, wellbeing economy, localisation, post capitalism,
How the state responds when people resist - e.g oppressive police state and facism V’s peaceful dialogue and non-violent communication
BTW I’m not suggesting any of this is an easy option, we are all enmeshed in the violence, caught up in these webs of suffering, because the systems and structures which uphold them are so pervasive.
But more and more of us are also beginning to re-member that life is relational, entangled, interdependent - we can see it and feel it in our hearts and bodies if we choose to pay attention.
Because we are not separate beings as we’ve been programmed to see things.
And so no one is free until everybody is free
Or as Bucky put it 60 years ago
“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller
What do I do ?
I shared Chris Hedge’s Last Days of Gaza post on instagram earlier this week and had numerous messages from folks saying :
‘What do I do?’
Possibly THE question of our time.
I understand that feeling of helplessness.
I’m often drowning in it.
It’s exhausting.
I’ve felt paralysed in these last few months, more so than I can ever remember.
But I’ve been taken that question out to my Oak friends of late.
And I’m wondering how long do we keep saying that, and just keep on feeling helpless.
How long do we continue like this?
What are we actually meaning?
A desire for safety?
A fear of discomfort and being lost?
A need to be understood, to fix, to control ?
The oppression and violence won’t stop if we don’t respond in new ways.
It will move to focus on other bodies.
And chances are it will meet us all soon.
It reminds me of something Vanessa Andreotti said to me in an episode - a saying in Brazil
‘in the situation of a flood it is only when the waters reach your waist that you can actually swim’
The waters are clearly rising but maybe they’re still not yet high enough for many of us.
And perhaps if you’re asking ‘What do I do?’ maybe the real work we’re here to do is now upon us as Wendell Berry once said…
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
―Wendell Berry
Start with Composting
Anyone who tends to a garden or a veg patch knows that preparing the soils for new growth requires paying attention to what is already there, understanding the conditions and relationships that are shaping the current context.
Understanding what might be dominating or contributing towards unhealthy conditions and what might create new resilient growth.
It requires observation, humility, experimentation, vulnerability, practice and change.
Letting go of control.
Unlearning.
Not knowing.
Clearing the space and thoroughly composting the material, even the messy gross shit, tending to its endings with attention and compassion.
And this is what releases nutrients for new growth and possibilities.
From where beautiful and radical possibilities that we cannot currently imagine will most likely emerge.
From seeds in the darkness.
Working with the ancient and trusted cycle of life - birth, death and renewal.
And the thing with composting is it never ends, you commit to the ongoing living process as Earth does.
To keep regenerating soil requires commitment and practice.
Practice requires getting your hands and body into some dark, messy, decaying shit from time to time.
I’m coming through a personal composting cycle right now which has been so tough.
But I can feel some light emerging.
There are gifts to be found in the composting experience - nutrients, clues, intelligence, mysterious treasure and possibilities which far outweigh the more challenging parts of the journey. In my opinion.
Navigating towards cultures of care and regeneration
If we want to create new maps that help us navigate towards cultures of regeneration, weaved through values of care, connection, love, compassion, generosity, solidarity, - I’ve come to believe that we must dedicate regular intentional time and space to fully compost the deeply violent codes that have created the spoiled maps that have led us to this present moment.
To truly put to rest the violent norms of capitalist modernity shaped by hundreds of years of colonisation, extraction and the illusion of separation.
To breakdown the destructive ways of seeing and being which run through all of us, are alive within us (often without our awareness)as well as the many systems, structures and stories that we are carrying and that have shaped us in these ways of being.
Because while the immediate desire to find the new maps, to keep going forward, to seek solutions, answers and to avoid the uncomfortable is understandable…. the great danger is we continue to perpetuate the violence, desensitisation, numbing, othering and apathy to collective action and genuine meaningful change.
And it seems to me at least that this is the current trajectory.
What might we find in the darkness, silence and not knowing if we stay there long enough ?
Becoming-with - the composting process is symbiotic with true regenerative action
This is not an either or binary choice.
The composting process is symbiotic with regenerative action.
This is not quick work, this is generational, we are entering a long long journey of uncertainty - a cultural initiation perhaps.
This is long time, cathederal thinking and being.
It’s an invitation into becoming-with.
It’s about re-patterning how we relate to Earth, to ourselves and to each other, and to the invisible scaffolding of capitalist modernity that still whispers in our frazzled minds : control, escape, purity, progress.
This is not work to be done alone, but in community.
In crews.
We need to learn to hold and listen deeply to each other, judgement free.
This is not dull work, but deep nourishing soul work, a chance to connect profoundly with our unique hidden gifts and how we can use them in service to life in this time we have here.
This is not work without guidance and support, by centering our relationship with Earth, the true operating system for life, this is an invitation into the vast intelligence of a complex regenerative, mysterious system that has been evolving for several billion years.
There is deep wisdom and knowing to be accessed through relationship and practice.
Intelligence which helps us also to see how impoverished we actually are in these human-centered limiting structures of capitalist modernity.
Becoming-with
As we begin to make space and practice for letting go of these destructive ways, as we notice and unlearn the violent relationships and ways of being, as we allow the suffering to flow through us and witness that in each other, as we open and drop into the heart, body and land, we begin to clear space where we can access a creative intelligence and ways of being and a true compass that will fuel regenerative energy and actions like nothing else.
Let’s dance and compost our shit together
Our current maps are spoiled.
We know it in our heart and guts, if we’re honest.
But what if we began to center the living Earth.
A system that can unite us, that thrives on diversity.
With an ancient living intelligence that has outlasted any human construct, that we can trust
And begin the long journey of growing cultures of care, connection and love for all life that we cannot yet imagine but that our future ancestors are calling for.
There is joy, connection, treasure and possibility to be found in the grief and darkness of these times.
If we can learn to trust the mystery of these times
I’m sure of it.
To transmute the violence, grief and suffering.
But it will require each one of us to step in and find what is uniquely ours to do.
This is not a scaleable capitalist thing.
It requires individual and collective participation.
It’s about learning to dance.
To dance with complexity, contradiction, grief, beauty, horror and surprise—without abandoning the dance floor.
Wishing you peace wherever you are.
If you’re curious about the work of composting the maps and codes of capitalist modernity and the story of separation and seeking guidance, practice and community, as an individual or as an organisation, please be in touch.
dan@becomingcrew.com
Really loved this, Dan!! 🙏🏻🥳