Over the last couple of years, and supported in part by the community that has grown up around
’s Substack, along with my recent training to become a Work That Reconnects Facilitator, I’ve been on what is often called a ‘Collapse Awareness Journey’.It’s been a bit like waking up from Wonderland, and not in a good way either.
In that descent into the underworld and the underbelly of Modernity, I’ve been reshaped in ways that are only just emerging. Interestingly, it’s been (and still is) a maturational process not unlike the dark night of the soul that facilitated coming to terms with my midlife divorce and involuntary childlessness. I’ve had to completely reassess my social location, dethrone my ego and its ideas about what my life ‘should’ look like, and work out what is mine to do going forward.
Life took me to my knees, and from there I was granted a new view.
I don’t have any grand plans about ‘saving the world’ because (a) it’s too late for that and (b) it doesn’t need ‘saving’—we know from those civilizations that have left records that this is just what happens to urbanized, hierarchical human civilisations—they arise, they complexify, they outgrow their ecological resources, the social contracts that faciliate urbanization and elites break down and then the whole shebang unravels. What’s different for us is that we are a global civilization, so the unravelling is global too.
However, we emerged from the same living system as every civilisation before us, and thus I believe that we are coded with deep ancestral wisdom (what I refer to as ‘open source human code’), on how to adapt and survive—if our fragile and frightened ego allows us to access it.
As I wrote in my essay ‘Personal Archeology’:
I was born into a time of endings, and strangely enough, for all my awful experiences with them, I know they bring out the best in me. They tap into the gifts of my ancestors that sing through my blood; gifts of deep knowing, connectedness, and a steadfastness in life’s storms that others can rely upon.
I’m so happy that unlike my childlessness journey, I don’t have to ‘unravel’ alone; in fact, it’s simply not possible. We need each other.
Thank you to the Elders and emerging elders on this path, some of whom were kind enough to join me on this treasure of a webinar, including Emma Palmer, Donna Ward, Elizabeth Grambsch, Sarah Roberts, Suzan Muir,
, Mutima Imani and . (Sadly, Mutima’s sound wouldn’t play ball, so she and I will be revisiting this conversation soon).
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