Not to be taken for granted Aspired aspirations, who knows the world to come?
The cats are ready Calm like they’re waiting Careful like they’re knowing Unknowing, Steady, ready for what’s next
What’s one’s life like? Breathing
Something low and guttural Something sharp and high pitched A rough and chaotic trough A flat and orderly sequence of peaks, plateaus An enrichment and spreading (inhale) An exhaustion and discard (exhale)
The discard, one’s life Food for branching trees Forestablishing what’s next
Where will the waves go? Where will the ripples flow? For a brief time one holds then passes or drops the ball The ball passes on to the next Through the next The ball goes and leaves another Lost, rediscovered The ball hits the next, bounces, finds an other Each ball a single note in a grand Song Forming Family, in the greatest sense
Are you ready? For the next breath,
What’s next? Now, Is it savoring? Is it stewarding?
Is tomorrow guaranteed? What will the future bring? What song should we sing?
Interstellar object I3/Atlas is currently at its perihelion, or closest point to our Sun at approximately 1.36AU. Among the anomalies associated with this comet-like object, its approach is unlikely: It has been hidden from Earth’s view by the Sun’s glare throughout October (though some scientific reports in review claim to have observed the object’s emissions despite solar glare). This occulted segment of its long trip is also its most opportune time to make orbital adjustments to its own direction or for any probes it could dispatch, using the gravity of our Sun to assist. All this and other unmentioned anomalies to say: while unlikely, there is some cautious speculation that this is a technologic object, directed by an Alien Intelligence (AI).
And I say that to ask: If an alien vessel were in our backyard today and, perhaps at this moment, sending probes our way – for what purpose, one can only speculate – what would one do? Even if that were a fact, there is still much uncertainty.
Not commenting on likelihood, but hypothetically: If it were the case that alien intelligence was in our backyard this moment, close and unseen, then these moments would feel tenuous. What would one do? Savor, I suppose. It is risky and significant enough that squandering time would be easier to recognize as foolish. But it would be uncertain and inspiring enough to not throw one into despair and defeatism.
If one was known to have only a week to live, unlike in this uncertain scenario, then I imagine ‘savoring time’ would look uniquely scarce and conclusive: skipping chores, saying goodbyes, focusing fully on favorites. In contrast, with uncertainty of what the world two months later looks like, it is wise both to savor and also to steward. Take care of one’s future but also do not expect one’s future is guaranteed. Do the dishes, while remembering the precious ephemerality of it all. Savor, and also steward.
This kind of tenuousness, a liminal existential space, could be healthy. A reminder, a reorientation, that we only ever exist Here Now.
How will one Be when it arrives,
What’s Next
Moment by moment Building momentum What's the best next step? May peace be up on you!
What makes one whole? What does one want to hold? What’s one’s world? Through what whirls does one grow?
I know Some of the things I strive towards (O Sol,) Health Comfort, or how would I explain x Y z etc. tendencies Family fulfillment Self fulfillment, actually, actualization, And what is that?
Now how do I&I’s behaviors favor or farther those goals? Is it comfort that dopamine addictions satisfy, or is it joy I truly pursue, or Does X Y Z even spark joy? A toy can spark joy, sure But all inter-net and no outdoor play makes Jack a dull boy, for shore
(It’s all about the balance)
We must set out to see, what may become Best next steps, mistakes and lessons, and then the next ones
Left right left Forward and backward and the only way back is ahead And up and down and Four elements spinning all around
A Cube of Space
And so I start at the top Based on the bottom I&I see the patterns One zooms in on the particulars Pulsing, ventricular, it’s
A puzzle was presented I joked and said, “fitting as we become cyborgs, I can’t help but want to ask the Internet” My better half belittled and implored, I need not ask the Internet everything, strangers on the web I had for decades, perhaps 25 years of my life now conversed and befriended strangers on the Internet (That was when it was “dangerous” to do so, as if our collective Internet use isn’t dangerous group psychosis)
I pointed out the Internet as a great source of info that can improve us and our lives An incredible source of information-nutrition Perhaps ChatGPT is a fast food joint But there are richer food sources Is Reddit like the hazels, with sprouting subreddits and coppiced threads? Renewing Is there a walnut of informationin the wilds of the Internet? StackExchange anyone? Some enriching kernels of wisdom, tho some nuts are tough to crack Anyway, I agree, I do not need to ask the Internet everything. I don’t. In fact I make (imperfect) effort not to use the Internet in excess, setting rules and reflecting. Just a joke, as we head into cyborgdom.
But then I walk out the door to continue some outdoor chores, forest garden tending, world-relationship mending, Outside being one essential way I maintain my humanity in a dormant indoor information age. When I return from activities in the Less-Built Environment, I enter my home, walk through 3 rooms to go to my bathroom, Enjoy modern plumbing, I wash my hands and I see in a factory-made mirror, upon my modern self: A headlamp hanging from my neck – electronics, LEDs, stretchy headband and plastic case and batteries. I see headphones round my neck, use-full, Sleek and wireless and connected to a supercomputer in my pocket connected to The Internet
Goodbye past Hello future Present don’t be harming me Hoping for harmony
Think fast Savor every dash Forever everlasts In the moment (Breathe easy)
Look around Your immediate surroundings and select an object
What is it, how is it interacted with? By you, by others, by the ambient space, by invisible forces
Where did it come from? Before it was where it is now, where has it been over the past day? Over the past weeks and months and years?
“Here Now”
From whence did it come? From what origin or source? Before it is what it is now, what was it? What would you have called it before it reached the state in which you’d call it as you do now?
What is its relationship with The Source?
This one thing, how is it divisible or degradable, and how does it aggregate, enlarge, and accumulate if at all?
Let’s find its constituent parts and ways. Ways and means and matters…
Before this object joined you here Before you ever met it Where was it? Imagine being with this object in the moments before you actually met it Can you track its momentum backwards? What was its path over time? Its physical steps through space en route to you? Its transformations? Its self-becoming? What is self actualization?
Does it breathe? Did it come from China? How many places did its original materials come from, Earthling? How many beings involved in its becoming? How much love? I ask with thanks. How much hardship? I&I ask with sorrow.
If we follow the object back, through its steps in spacetime dimensions we’re familiar with, It probably came to us from an interaction with a human, or from itself in the wild… Of the humans involved, the supply chain from cradle to current-condition to grave could be very short or very long, in space or in time
Mission: optimize for resilient sun-to-life ratio Minimize harm
This transmission brought to you by a mind picking up litter, detritus, debris Wearing 3M gear to clean up toxins originating with Big Chem in the first place Legacy legacy legacy, feeling like a disgrace Our world sour and what’s it like to be displaced? O habitat O the grief O the mass extinction O the habitat I give thanks to the Source for the Present For Home I try I participate What’s the best next step?
(A short essay – tl;dr vote harris walz, minimize harm, which ‘worst’ you want to be making the best of with our precious time?)
Happy Halloween. I’ve come out of months long social media posting break to offer something scary for you. Trigger warning: political opinions, environmental catastrophes, collapse of safety critical systems.
Dear many friends who see that things cannot go on as they are, The supply chains too brittle, The relationships too strained, Many of you plan a 3rd party vote in this most polarized presidential election of “the most powerful nation in the world”, or you might even be following RFK’s lead, or you might skip it altogether for any number of defensible reasons. Many of you, dear friends, I see sympathize with a kind of accelerationist approach Accepting how bad things are and responding with willingness for it to get worse, just to break out of terrible trajectories – is that minimizing harm? WIth all the harm caused by the hour in the over-developed world… The sooner this self destruction grinds to a halt, the safer, some say That’s the gist of conclusions I’ve heard from more than one thoughtful, experienced and educated person – active environmental stewards, tactful business people, balanced martial artists, all kinds of folks I write this mainly to you, accelerationists and “never status quo”ers, especially those in swing states
This perspective is understandable. The status quo is very bad, and it is adapting very poorly overall to immediate catastrophes hammering away at itself and then some Habitat loss, resource depletion, biodiversity catastrophe…the heavy grief of wars, of power abuses, I cannot even speak it, and yet overshadowing it all is -an extinction crisis- The disregard for life My heart is heavy. The world is heavy. And the systems that sustain us are, … It is hard to fathom or accept Most of you reading this live better than most animals *ever* in terms of basic needs and safety and freedom and potential and Yet we are struggling, in astonishing debt despite ¿ever?-growing profits, in chronic illness, in an alarming fertility crisis!, inoculated ¡¿forever?! with microplastics and >forever< chemicals Depressed, anxious, angry, outraged at the systems that … What sustains us?
What sustains us?
This question has burned before me for a long time What sustains us, And how can we reciprocate?
OK Let me get to the point, to why I do this emotional labor to try to establish some same pageness, for you to at least entertain if not accept
I will vote for Harris Walz, not because I want them as president, or want to validate and further a severely broken 2-party system, the DNC, etc etc But because I do not have a workable alternative to this democracy-esque experiment And not because I can accept the horrors of investment in the military-industrial complex, Or petrochemicals, Or over-development, Or disrespectfully degrading rather than lovingly regenerating that which sustains us I cannot accept that But if I must face that If we face these realities, and if we have a finite amount of time before safety critical systems fail under their many strains Then what is in my power to really refuse is doing anything that could hasten or exacerbate harm Using what little time we have, struggling under a politic that is actively agitating, suppressing environmental regulation and investment, violating women’s rights, taking an isolationist nationalist and what else *ist path to destroying the world that sustains us A world that begets many worlds, vs. a world that devours and homogenizes I cannot vote in any way that risks obstructing deep adaptation And the only choice this election season that puts my puny power against 4?+ years of Trump, is the democratic ticket I’ll do what I can to keep a chaos agent from making it harder to deeply adapt and build alternative safety-critical systems, /while we still can/ The more time we buy, the more harm we can minimize, before the next storm, the next fire, the next pandemic and supply chain collapse and What is it that sustains us, and how do we relate to it? We have so much important work to do I cannot waste time and attention on a power hungry pedo friend of Jeffrey E and corporate cosmophagia I cannot accept wasting the time we have with this historic level of capacity, of ways and means as a whole, historic When we need more than ever to build capacity Forestablishingaliveablefuturity
Adapt in place, live in the here and now, and truly make the world a better place whether times are good or . . .
This post summarizes the defining features of ‘The Adapters Movement’. I hope this post fills a gap, offering a healthy framework to respond to the critical time we are living in. As it becomes clearer that many systems we rely on will not suffice or survive in the future, I hope this and similar movements will serve as popular and robust alternatives to inaction or to isolationist (and sometimes extremist) forms of preparedness and survivalism. Let us lessen, not worsen, inevitable harm.
This movement was first introduced to me in the form of a long, winding thread that was posted by a widely appreciated blogger Ross Raven aka Category5 on Permies.com: C5 Defines The Adapters Movement – Acceptance and Triage. Permies is the world’s largest permaculture forum (or so I’ve heard from them), and this Permies post was being discussed in an online community of the Deep Adaptation movement (which I introduce below).
I read the long thread introducing The Adapters Movement over a few days, and I found a lot of gems in it, representing the best of the ‘prepper’ and ‘survivalist’ movements, while explicitly revising many of those movements’ most off-putting and self-destructive problems. To help make the Adapters movement more accessible, I am sharing this relatively-short write-up introducing it and outlining its key themes. A heads up about what’s ahead: This post prints as four pages, which is much shorter than the many essay-length posts in the original Permies.com thread that this intends to summarize.
A little more context. This ‘Adapters Movement’ fits the wisdom of Deep Adaptation well. Here is Deep Adaptation in a nut shell: What are the chances of catastrophic natural disasters? Practically certain. What about the collapse of safety-critical systems? Very likely. Could humanity go extinct? Possible but not probable. Many systems we rely on for basic safety and well-being (e.g. food, housing, medicine, water, wood, ‘waste’, wildlife, social systems) are in the process of collapsing and some will fail. The way to adapt to these realities, according to the Deep Adaptation movement, can be summarized with the “Four R’s framework for inquiry“:
Relinquish what we need to stop to avoid more harm
Resilience is a priority for what we have that we need to preserve
Restore what we need from the past to live in ways that remedy and reduce harm
Reconcile relationships to remedy and reduce harm
With that introduction, here is a summary of key points I took from that long Adapters Movement post linked to above. I hope this helps inspire and clarify paths forward that are well adapted to grow bright, solarpunk futures out of collapse and change.
