As with all schools the key is to Finding your people in the playground -look for your others, and hold on with both hands! Because when we find find our others - the hard days/years feel more manageable , and sometimes even joyfu. I think that's such a big part of what's needed - this moment can be painful and sad, and tricky it also can be joyful and rewarding and include Ice cream ;)?! Else I'm going to have to bunk off!
I also really like the unschooling idea - I often hear that term used around home education, and how first kids need to 'unlearn school ways' before we can be open to learning at home. This idea names the open-minded acceptance of unknowing, but also decoding, that we need to embrace going forwards.
yes beautiful ! - finding your crew as we say around here ;-) And I dig ice-cream too - was a bit of a poke at the media. My own experience is there is much joy in this work, so much but to step into that often requires some uncomfort and turning towards the edge - a willingness to let go of these old stories and ways of seeing - humility perhaps.
I guess for me this post was really a frustration with the inability, the ongoing stuckness to speak to what is going on at a stuctural level. This great pretending. Context shapes everything I believe, we are contextual beings - so if we don't speak to the context truthfully we continue to behave in ways that are rooted in the context we think we are in e.g humans in control, separate from the rest of nature, on a linear path of progress based on competition and getting ahead. That is the soil from which everything else grows. In my tiny mind - a sane culture and society would be honest about the context we are in - and flow capital and resource into new human infrastuctures and ways of organising for adaptation and regeneration - so things like unlearning would be resourced and supported. But hey this is a different spaceship! Thnx for reading and sharing
Such a great piece of writing Dan. You’ve articulated so much of what I’ve been feeling but haven’t been able to form into any sort of coherence. I’ve been guilty of leaning into the great pretending over the past couple of years. I’ve needed to tend to things close to home and that’s meant neglecting matters of our collective home. Feeling ready to re-find my crew seat on the spaceship again x
There's no guilt to be felt I don't think, it's so hard for folks to be with all of this and just function in the machine and all that life throws at us. We are all enmeshed in it and sometimes its just too much, pretending is vital for coping at times. My rage is at the societal structures and institutional power that create the 'consensus trance' - oh how things could be different if we just were able to speak and act from a place of honesty and humility. But here we are, and there is so much to do and so much possibility. How to step into service and also look after each other and hold the full spectrum of emotion and feeling. Lovely to hear from you - thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts 🙏
Appropriate as my favourite times at school where never spent inside the actual building. Been feeling it all this summer. Currently eating ice creams on the coast of Belgium having driven here through hundreds of kilometers of wildfire smoke, and with another wildfire opposite us over the channel. We've finished eating the blackberries at home. The car doesn't feel like it's crashing that slowly anymore.
Think we keep doing as we are doing. I just wish we could open up this more honestly in more mainstream convos and accelerate flows of capital and resources towards projects, communities on the ground who are actively in the School of Collapse and are creating the life sustaining alternatives
I like the question, what to do? And, I like holding it with humility, it kind of strips me of any knowing. I quite like that.
I think you're right, we keep doing as we're doing. As Tamasine, says find the others, your crew, hold on with both hands and get trying. Although the capital and resources to do support that work would really help.
Whatever happens there is still plenty of joy to be had together.
Love this yes, And on not knowing - I relate. How to tune into what is and what wants your attention is a daily practice now, and being with the not knowing and all that is in that.
One thing I am doing these days is paying more attention to my dreams which is why I wrote this post ;-)
I'm very grateful that you share your dreams. Some of the best kernels of a Re-Action Collective idea, come from the in-between. Somewhere after the sleeping and before the awakening. Aswell as when we're outside together, or under canvas, or around a fire. Not surprising, as if we search hard enough we know these times are when the real work has always happened.
As with all schools the key is to Finding your people in the playground -look for your others, and hold on with both hands! Because when we find find our others - the hard days/years feel more manageable , and sometimes even joyfu. I think that's such a big part of what's needed - this moment can be painful and sad, and tricky it also can be joyful and rewarding and include Ice cream ;)?! Else I'm going to have to bunk off!
I also really like the unschooling idea - I often hear that term used around home education, and how first kids need to 'unlearn school ways' before we can be open to learning at home. This idea names the open-minded acceptance of unknowing, but also decoding, that we need to embrace going forwards.
yes beautiful ! - finding your crew as we say around here ;-) And I dig ice-cream too - was a bit of a poke at the media. My own experience is there is much joy in this work, so much but to step into that often requires some uncomfort and turning towards the edge - a willingness to let go of these old stories and ways of seeing - humility perhaps.
I guess for me this post was really a frustration with the inability, the ongoing stuckness to speak to what is going on at a stuctural level. This great pretending. Context shapes everything I believe, we are contextual beings - so if we don't speak to the context truthfully we continue to behave in ways that are rooted in the context we think we are in e.g humans in control, separate from the rest of nature, on a linear path of progress based on competition and getting ahead. That is the soil from which everything else grows. In my tiny mind - a sane culture and society would be honest about the context we are in - and flow capital and resource into new human infrastuctures and ways of organising for adaptation and regeneration - so things like unlearning would be resourced and supported. But hey this is a different spaceship! Thnx for reading and sharing
I'll meet you at the school gates.
I've seen you in the playground many times!
Such a great piece of writing Dan. You’ve articulated so much of what I’ve been feeling but haven’t been able to form into any sort of coherence. I’ve been guilty of leaning into the great pretending over the past couple of years. I’ve needed to tend to things close to home and that’s meant neglecting matters of our collective home. Feeling ready to re-find my crew seat on the spaceship again x
There's no guilt to be felt I don't think, it's so hard for folks to be with all of this and just function in the machine and all that life throws at us. We are all enmeshed in it and sometimes its just too much, pretending is vital for coping at times. My rage is at the societal structures and institutional power that create the 'consensus trance' - oh how things could be different if we just were able to speak and act from a place of honesty and humility. But here we are, and there is so much to do and so much possibility. How to step into service and also look after each other and hold the full spectrum of emotion and feeling. Lovely to hear from you - thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts 🙏
Appropriate as my favourite times at school where never spent inside the actual building. Been feeling it all this summer. Currently eating ice creams on the coast of Belgium having driven here through hundreds of kilometers of wildfire smoke, and with another wildfire opposite us over the channel. We've finished eating the blackberries at home. The car doesn't feel like it's crashing that slowly anymore.
What to do, hey?!
Think we keep doing as we are doing. I just wish we could open up this more honestly in more mainstream convos and accelerate flows of capital and resources towards projects, communities on the ground who are actively in the School of Collapse and are creating the life sustaining alternatives
I like the question, what to do? And, I like holding it with humility, it kind of strips me of any knowing. I quite like that.
I think you're right, we keep doing as we're doing. As Tamasine, says find the others, your crew, hold on with both hands and get trying. Although the capital and resources to do support that work would really help.
Whatever happens there is still plenty of joy to be had together.
Love this yes, And on not knowing - I relate. How to tune into what is and what wants your attention is a daily practice now, and being with the not knowing and all that is in that.
One thing I am doing these days is paying more attention to my dreams which is why I wrote this post ;-)
I'm very grateful that you share your dreams. Some of the best kernels of a Re-Action Collective idea, come from the in-between. Somewhere after the sleeping and before the awakening. Aswell as when we're outside together, or under canvas, or around a fire. Not surprising, as if we search hard enough we know these times are when the real work has always happened.
Keep paying attention, and please keep sharing.
Here's to tending to the possibilities in the messy liminal in-betweens ;-)