There are days when I have a really big cry about it all: the injustice, the cruelty, the violence, the lying, the greed, all of it. And am utterly demoralized. This morning was one of them. And there are days when a radiance visits me and I ache to create something beautiful, or write out what is in my soul and press "publish" so that I might connect with others around the world. I am captivated by the idea of gentleness and tenderness with one's self, others, and creation as a kind of embodied wisdom. Whenever I've been in tough situations in work or in relationships, I've tried to remind myself who I am and that sovereignty over my own personhood, at my essence, is something that can never be truly stolen or exploited. I'm not always successful, but I try. I want to be tender and gentle more than ever now, and know and be known by those around me. I want to direct the flow of energy around me towards life and beauty and truth-telling in ways that call people home to themselves, too. I want to create ecosystems of grace where people can become reconciled with themselves and with life and what its asking of us. I want to live a deep contemplative life of inner transformation in the time I've got left, and in the words of John Lewis, "live as though the beloved community we long for is already here". I want my life to be a big solid "thank you" and for creation to know I've reverenced her and have been healed by her. I guess this is my cri de coeur in response to this post? It's where my heart went.
John Lewis, "live as though the beloved community we long for is already here"....
This hits me.
Madeleine, I don't have the same calm grace as you, but I find, as I write in the post, that the collapse process is taking me to that tender place, a place I've always wanted to embody/occupy.
Sarah, the thing that first prompted me to finally open the emails to the serialization was hearing your innate tenderness in how you hold the world. I read This One Wild and Precious Life laying on my bed in front of a fan on full blast while the town of Lytton, B.C. burned under a heat dome, a day's drive away. It kept me frpm losing my mind, and assured me that I wasn't overreacting. We made significant changes to our lives that summer.
I have found that, more than anything, three things are taking me to a tender, calm, human place now: meditation/contemplation, honesty with myself and others as I grow in self awareness, and most of all, play. These things bring me back into my humanity and redirect me towards perceiving life as abundant rather than driven by scarcity. And the beautiful thing about play with others is that a person is required to inhabit their own inner space while also participating in an outer space of possibility and trust. I have developed two amazingly deep new friendships lately. One friendship in particular has a quality of fertile honesty and energy and it requires me to show up in it fully myself and rigorously alive. She has done so much inner work in her own life it is as though she listens to life and to other people with her soul. I recognized in her my own soul's hunger for the same openness to life, and that I am on the same journey. So the love in this friendship is liberating me to do the same. This compassionate honesty calls the best out of me. I believe that when we move towards true wholeness and true love and acceptance, somehow the gravitational, quantum force of that draws people into our lives who are also on that journey. And we are drawn into theirs, spiraling together like a helix carrying the DNA for a new world. We create together something that could only be born out of relationship. I love how the conversation in this post is about resistance and non compliance and building from the ground up; the gift in all of this is a lived remembering of who we are, and who we are called to be as we welcome a new world into being.
I’m in Edmonton. We’re about a 10 hour drive from Lytton. The Jasper fire is still hard for me to believe — it feels like the Fort MacMurray one just happened.
Madeleine this is my rhythm too… yesterday I awoke in terror. Initially (foolishly and fruitlessly) I thought I’d do a meditation on joy… needless to say there was no way my mind/body could do that. Instead I allowed myself to feel the terror, to sob, wail and shake… I provided room to do this all day bc it was all that felt right. At some point my son dropped in to help with something. He said, “Mum I can’t fix it. You can’t fix it. So let’s just love each other.” I cried as he hugged me long and tight. I carried his aftershave for an hour after that and each whiff of it connected me with that hug. This morning I awoke feeling depleted. I cancelled the social events in my calendar and instead I sat looking and listening into my small garden and wrote about all I could see and hear. I wrote about the joy the feathered choristers provided as I watched and listened. I wrote about the new life of small late summer blossoms… and then I wrote about unravelling and rethreading… about the multitude of experiences I’ve had with this, of disintegration, integration, wounding and healing… connecting every fibre of my being, my personal experience of collapse with the horror of witnessing it play out globally, helped. I remembered what I must continue to do in these times. I have yet to publish anything on this platform. A part of me wonders who needs to read another collection of words… but I have loved your posts and Sarah’s posts… so who knows?❤️
Dear Deborah, you write beautifully and our world needs your medicine.
Someone somewhere will read and be uplifted by what you uniquely have to offer 💖So do start to publish , as words are the energy that is contributing to the transformation that is underway.
It is a beautiful collection of words Deborah. Reminding us of the pain and anguish we are (probably) all experiencing amidst the splendour and banality of our shared existence. Thank you for sharing 🥰
This moved me deeply—the way you allowed yourself to fully feel the terror rather than trying to bypass it, the way your son met you in that moment with such simple and profound wisdom. “Let’s just love each other.” That feels like a truth to carry.
What you wrote about unraveling and rethreading stays with me. There’s something about the act of weaving—of letting things come apart so they can be put back together differently—that feels essential in times like these. Witnessing collapse, feeling it in both the personal and the global, and then choosing to write it down, to mark it, to stay connected to the world in all its fracture and beauty—that is no small thing.
And as for whether the world needs another collection of words? I think about how often I’ve come across a sentence at just the right time, how a stranger’s articulation of something I felt but didn’t yet have words for gave me back a piece of myself. Words are more than just words—they’re acts of witnessing, of remembering, of calling others into deeper presence. And in that way, they are necessary.
So I hope you do publish, if and when it feels right. I, for one, would love to read more about unraveling and rethreading, about what you are seeing and hearing in your garden, about the ways collapse and repair live in your body and your days. Thank you for sharing this moment. ❤️
Ella, your response was so appreciated. I have seriously been wondering how many more words are needed in this time, but encouraged by the beautiful responses to my post above, I have published my first post, here https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
Elizabeth Gilbert advocates and uses the 5,4,3,2,1 rule which is a grounding technique that uses the five senses to help you focus on the present and reduce anxiety.
Beautiful insights Deborah. Our children are our greatest teachers. - “who needs to read another collection of words” - let’s flood the Universe with the energy of your words. X
Deborah, this is so very wise. I feel more connected with my own experience after reading your words. Please consider writing more, if that would feed you ❤️
Madeleine, we see your tenderness and gentleness in all of your comments. Big love to you. Extending grace to ourselves is often far more difficult than to others, and I trust that on days like today, you may allow yourself to grieve and lament knowing that there is one that is always near holding you. 🙏🕊️❤️
This is so deeply felt, and I love how you describe the movement between grief and creation—not as opposites, but as part of the same current. That ache to make something beautiful, to bear witness in a way that calls others home to themselves, feels like both a refuge and an offering.
Your words about sovereignty over your own personhood stood out to me. In a world structured around erasure—of land, of histories, of selves—holding onto that inner sovereignty feels like an act of quiet defiance. And yet, it’s not just about holding on, is it? It’s about what we do with it—how we direct the flow of energy, how we create ecosystems of grace where others can find themselves again. That phrase stays with me.
You remind me of something Ross Gay wrote, about how delight and care are not just responses to suffering but ways of refusing its dominion. That longing to live as though the beloved community is already here—to cultivate tenderness not just in theory, but in action—feels like one of the hardest and most necessary things we can do.
Thank you for sharing this cri de coeur. What does it mean for you, in practice, to reverence creation? What does that look like in the small moments of the day? I’d love to hear more.
You know it's kinda funny but, before I subscribed to Sarah's substack, I used my phone a lot less...
I'm not on social media (apart from whatsapp groups with my family and a few friends). I get some email newsletters which I try to make sure that I unsubscribe from if I don't always read them. I don't have a lot of apps on my phone, certainly not entertainment ones, not even news apps.
And to be honest, more often than not, when I see all these links to all these podcasts and articles and books and blogs and other substacks and interviews and all. the. stuff., I get so overwhelmed. So overwhelmed.
I mean, I am not busy, but I simply don't know how anyone has enough time (let alone mental and emotional capacity) to read/listen/take in all of this media. I have enough trouble just keeping up with the comments here on Sarah's substack! I'm making an effort to do so, because I feel like there are important things hapoening in this community, but it feels SO weird to be using my phone SO much. I'm so aware of the little dopamine hits I'm getting when I pick it up and there's stuff happening on here, in these comments. The juxtaposition of being a part of a movement that is saying 'use less' and by being apart of it, I am actually using more.
It can lead me to feel bad, inadequate even, for not having more capacity or making more time, to take in all of these resources that are available, while also feeling like one of the mice on the wheel, picking up my phone because there might be something worthwhile on it. It feels like the important work I should be doing is off my phone, in my kitchen, in my garden, in shared spaces. Looking into eyes of loved ones, not looking at screens.
But where's the line? Is that tuning out? Is that turning away? Is choosing to work in my garden rather than listening to incredible wise thinkers, disassociating? (and no, I do not listen to podcasts while gardening... I listen to my chooks).
Am I denying myself growth by not keeping it up with it all?
Am I denying my true self by trying to keep up with it all?
Am I a lesser human either way?
I take my hat off to you all, truly, when I witness your capacity. You read so much, listen to so much, and still live big full lives.
I don't know what the perfect formula is, but I do find that if I use my body to steer me, it helps. I can tell (my body sends me signals) if it is right to read. Also, I steer things via that lens - preserving humanity and decency ( as opposed to being right)
A beautiful pertinent ramble that I’m enthusiastically nodding with. I too see the irony of trying to get off the screens but then being drawn back to this space coz there is so much good stuff on here. However there are times when I get overwhelmed and even need a break from this space too. I also want to say that I wasn’t at all in to podcasts until I listened to some of Sarah’s. I will work my way back through them eventually as there is some really gritty and useful info in most of them. I’m much more of a reader than a listener.
Like you, when I’m in the garden I want to hear the chooks and the myriad of local birds, although I could do without the crazy barking dog that hates the postman. I also leave my phone at home when I walk the dog which allows me to escape and focus on my surroundings. Such a delicate balance to finding what works best for each of us 🥰
Oh Samantha, all the feels here...what you have written feels to me feels like a prayer to life. Thank you. It's all overwhelming, and I feel the same. I want to step away from the computer but I treasure the forms of connection. Can I just say that the questions you ask here illuminate the depth and beauty of the connection you have to your own humanity. The only reason I can be this engaged is that my middle and high school aged kids are in school during the day, I do most things from home, and I have weird waking and sleeping hours. If I go back to work in March, I'll have to retreat a lot from this conversation happening on Sarah's substack, and I'm sad about it already.
I too was nodding away here Samantha - I hear your words and have not even fully addressed the comments or Sarah’s post here - if I allow it it could be an all day exercise! So much richness here. So, I draw it back to what crosses my path during the day and how I address any inhumanity I come across in my part of the world. Thanks for that reminder.
I have downgraded my Guardian opinion and subscription recently as the Scot Trust who owns The Guardian and The Observer just ‘sold’ the observer to Tortoise Media. Tortoise is run by former director of BBC News James Harding who seems to have some dubious contacts. As a result about 100 Guardian journalists are out of a job at the end of this month. They bought in a new Baird member to help with AI and have just signed a deal with OpenAI.
I took my Guardian subscription money and subscribed to Carole Cadwalladr on substack. Highly recommend her work. She has been doing investigations into the Broliarchy (I believe she coined the phrase) since 2016 and has faced personal threats and lawsuits for speaking out. She has written extensively on the Observer sale if anyone is interested. She also writes about the current ‘Coup’ of the US government.
Thanks for this update. I've heard bits about this and was keen to learn more. Making a deal with ChatGPT...it's tricky because these systems already use the content, when a company makes a deal, they get a bit more control and payment. My US publisher has done same and I took the offer of $$ for the LLM to have access to my work 1. because they do it anyway, I might as well get paid and 2. the algorithms need female, contrarian etc voices and opinions in the mix (ditto Guardian opinions and slants)...
I had no idea about the Guardian and Observer. Thanks for that info. It dismays me that journalists are being funnelled into Substack now though, especially after listening to the most recent Tech Won't Save Us podcast. The podcast goes into the issues with journalists being fragmented into their own publications towards the end of the episode, if you're interested in listening.
Carole's great, isn't she? I'm peeved about what The Guardian has done. I only recently subscribed to the Australian version, and I still value (mostly!) its editorial take on issues. I did learn about the OpenAI deal recently too, so I may have to sling my subscribe dollars elsewhere... So hard to keep up, innit?
So many good political journalists from The Guardian’s Canberra Bureau followed political editor Katharine Murphy who left to work in Anthony Albanese’s office a year ago.
My husband and I were just talking about this too. Jim Acosta, who used to cover the White House and resigned in January, has his own Substack now. The word for me that keeps coming up is "egregious". When this comes up several times a day, you know the zone is flooded.
Oh yes! Good gauge of how flooded the zone is. I feel like most days I'm flooding my own zone, consuming all this collapse stuff - I need to get more strict with myself in calling a time out on it!
Oh yeah, when my jaw clenches (more!) I know I need to step away. Sometimes I also feel my brain ‘short circuiting’ from the overwhelm and I can’t focus on 1 thing or comprehend what I’m even reading! Then I go and hang out with the dogs and/or magpies.
I think The Atlantic remains quite solid..for now. And WIRED seems to have stepped up. I don't think any publication will be able to be all things now...
I stopped reading the Guardian years ago, because of its biased and unquestioning support of Israel and the ConVid scam. Now it’s really going over to the dark side.
I have read some excellent work by Carole Cadwalladr , so am going to look her up on your recommendation, thank you Qwerki 🙏🏻
Recently I ran across the concept of Refusal vs Resistance. Where Resistance is active, Refusal is more passive-but also effective. It is about choosing what we want the world to look like, and building it that way from the ground up, not in opposition to the elite, but in willful Refusal to engage with their vision of the future. Practically, this would look like living in community, growing our own food, maintaining our own lines of communication and news, creating space for expression (could anyone afford to visit the Kennedy Center, anyway?) It's not as sexy as Resistance, but it may prove just effective in the long run. And with any luck at all, the old men will die, the younger men will shoot themselves into space, and we will have a world to rebuild. One where we've already laid the foundation.
Yes, creating the ideas that need to be lying around. Refusal is a quiet, powerful, still, solid, knowing form of resistance. At the moment we need both....which is why we have to be so grateful for the activists and Extinction Rebellion crew etc
Beautifully expressed, thank you. I think I embraced the Refusal concept at least 10 years ago. I refuse to participate in many mainstream activities unless it serves a (useful) purpose for me.
Mind you, I once read the terms and conditions (all 40+ freakin pages) that one has to agree to when you buy a new iphone and it ultimately says you agree to provide them with your personal information or they won’t guarantee the use of the phone… sounds more like ransom to me??
A few weeks ago I came back from a hike, 6 days without coverage in the mountains. It was blissful, as you can imagine. But since returning it has been an unceasing wall of chaos and I've seen myself getting addicted to it. Obviously I don't want to be addicted to bad news, it scares me because it seems like the addiction is by 'design' and I feel manipulated.
I'm sure there's a whole category of progressive types who gets addicted to the media. So while I want to bear witness, I'm also having to make sure it doesn't control me.
Some things I've found insightful and helpful the last few weeks:
- Detachment Theory, Libertarianism in the anxious-avoidant economy, by Brett Scott
Thank you Sarah, it can be so easy to dissociate as a result of the flooding of the zone. I was speaking to a friend in the US recently who said to me it was just bizarre, people are just walking around and going out to dinner and are completely detached from the reality that the country is being destroyed. We have since started a joint playlist called “Revolution”. I find it jolts me awake and into action when I start to feel overwhelmed. Songs of resistance from across countries and cultures are a great source of inspiration - there’s a shift in the western psyche for sure - many people around the world have been waiting for us to join them in this fight for a very long time.
A friend just returned from New York and said the same - that no one was talking about Trump or what was happening. She said it was surreal. She felt it was fear.
And I listen to media/podcasters speaking as though what is happening = governance, that the White House continues to operate with ‘normal’ politicians! Normalising the abhorrent narcissistic nihilism is bamboozling. And shocking. I agree we must not fall asleep. We must name what we witness… we must call out (gently) self-protective delusion and hypnotic trancelike numbness amongst our family and friends… we need as many people as we can find to speak the truth, to name the horror, to call the bastards out.
I find myself watching coming across Americans online and wondering, 'did you contribute to this? did you vote for the end of the world?' and I know their apathy is fear-based but it just breaks my heart. The waves of realisation never stop
Here’s my pep talk after studying authoritarianism:
1). They never truly expect a long-term resistance movement bc they think people are a collection of trauma triggers who are easily controlled thru terror
2). If they can’t terrorize you 24/7 in your mind, they have already lost the war
3). The single best way you can resist fascism is to not let them terrorize you constantly. Protect your mental health to ensure you are not constantly in a terrorized state
4). Keep connecting to who you are at your core. Your values, preferences, ethics, and beliefs. Build up capacity to resist
5). Remember they are like abusive parents: they only see us extensions of them. They have no clue how powerful joy and community and self-expression can be. We can use this to our advantage — we can be the strong-willed child they never saw coming.
Spending time connecting to your true self is not selfish in these times — it’s intricately connected to a resistance movement that is tied to honoring our bodies, our communities, and to the land. We have to build capacity to resist by being exactly who we are!
Yep, building this capacity enables us to resist, but also to be an invitation for those caught up in the fascist leanings to join our more joyful camp (island) over here
I love love love this. Thank you. This is what gives me hope. This type of situation has played out in my personal life as well and I have found it is imperative that I look after my mental, emotional and physical health so I can stick to my boundaries, honour my values and resist the bullshit. This is brilliant Natalie
Thank you so much Sarah. Thank you for giving a voice to my inner distress over the last few weeks of watching what is happening here in Australia and the world. The pain has been wrenching. Thank you for tenderly holding the space and shining some guidance and words of encouragement to keep going. Take good care of you xxx
I rang the National Gallery of Australia today and sobbed with despair that they have covered Palestinian flags in an artwork. I walked out on a good friend I have know for nearly 40 years last night after he used racist slurs and told me Trump was the best thing to happen to the world. My dinner sat untouched on the table. I unfollowed another friend on social media today after she posted her first political post in 500 days of the genocide and it was Zionist propaganda. These are all real life situations and friendships and people and it is distressing and exhausting and very very personal. And yet, for me there is no going back. The more madness I witness, the more clear I am in my boundaries. And I gain solace from everyone else who chooses action over tolerance. Because all of this is simply intolerable.
Thank you Emma for voicing your despair. The power that zionist organisations have in this country at the moment, even in the art world, is obscene!! The recent rescindment by Creative Australia (previously the Arts Council) of the Australian representatives at the Venice Art Bienale is unconscionable (less than a week after they were announced)!!
Emma I will do the same with NGA! I have today unfollowed two connections on FB for the same reason Zionist propaganda. “And yet, for me there is no going back” agree!
I also felt the need to take a break from social media. I’m on a one week break from Substack‘s Notes. I used the time to cook, drink tea with my husband, go back to my tea ceremony practice, and read a lot about self-worth. In a world that makes us feel smaller and more insignificant by the day, it’s important to find intrinsic value in simply being. Keeping our dignity and respecting the dignity of all other beings is crucial now.
Thanks for the encouragement to stay vocal and engaged. Too many times the message we receive is that we‘re too small to make a difference. It feels like we‘re being told to give up trying to live a decent life because it won’t make a difference anyway. This is so wrong. Thanks also for all the links and suggestions for info sources. I’d add your Substack to the list.
Some days I feel very sad about the state of the world but at the same time, I feel I was born for this moment. My highly sensitive nature, my lifelong leaning in to peace and justice, my love of humans and all life on this earth. I'm fascinated by people and I often crave to hear their stories. I was radicalized to fight injustice from a young age. My parents used to have a cassette tape with 60s folk music and I was obsessed with the song Society's Child by Janis Ian. I say this with all humility, I don't know whether I have been or are going to get any of this right.
My straight-laced husband who works a corporate job is also awakening to the heartless, soulless nature of corporate society after his boss was abruptly, unjustly fired. The awakening of his inner activist is making him even more attractive to me! ;)
When I was younger, I would never have pictured myself with someone in a corporate job but I fell in love with him, nonetheless. I must have seen the spark of activist in him!
This was brilliant! Thank you for including me, Sarah. We will keep learning the new dance, speaking out, and expressing that unapologetic Kali rage. ❤️
As mentioned above. Since 1971, the non-profit, reader-supported Washington Spectator has offered independent-minded readers behind-the-scenes insight into significant news stories that are under-reported or ignored by the corporate media.
I feel like the noisier the external world gets (and it’s in overdrive right now), the more we need to connect to our inner world, not as an act of avoidance or dissociation, but as a tribute to our own truth - and then we need to live from that place. That’s how we create the world we want to live in because we are being who we are and want to be. Then we’ll find that, more and more, those noisy people will be talking to each other and not us. We would have moved on to something so much better.
Yes! Although their response isn’t certain but ours can be. Humans learn well through contrast. Their noisy ridiculousness is our deeper call back to ourselves. This is our invitation. We’re ready for this.
There are days when I have a really big cry about it all: the injustice, the cruelty, the violence, the lying, the greed, all of it. And am utterly demoralized. This morning was one of them. And there are days when a radiance visits me and I ache to create something beautiful, or write out what is in my soul and press "publish" so that I might connect with others around the world. I am captivated by the idea of gentleness and tenderness with one's self, others, and creation as a kind of embodied wisdom. Whenever I've been in tough situations in work or in relationships, I've tried to remind myself who I am and that sovereignty over my own personhood, at my essence, is something that can never be truly stolen or exploited. I'm not always successful, but I try. I want to be tender and gentle more than ever now, and know and be known by those around me. I want to direct the flow of energy around me towards life and beauty and truth-telling in ways that call people home to themselves, too. I want to create ecosystems of grace where people can become reconciled with themselves and with life and what its asking of us. I want to live a deep contemplative life of inner transformation in the time I've got left, and in the words of John Lewis, "live as though the beloved community we long for is already here". I want my life to be a big solid "thank you" and for creation to know I've reverenced her and have been healed by her. I guess this is my cri de coeur in response to this post? It's where my heart went.
John Lewis, "live as though the beloved community we long for is already here"....
This hits me.
Madeleine, I don't have the same calm grace as you, but I find, as I write in the post, that the collapse process is taking me to that tender place, a place I've always wanted to embody/occupy.
What a weird, ironic life force we are part of!
Sarah, the thing that first prompted me to finally open the emails to the serialization was hearing your innate tenderness in how you hold the world. I read This One Wild and Precious Life laying on my bed in front of a fan on full blast while the town of Lytton, B.C. burned under a heat dome, a day's drive away. It kept me frpm losing my mind, and assured me that I wasn't overreacting. We made significant changes to our lives that summer.
I have found that, more than anything, three things are taking me to a tender, calm, human place now: meditation/contemplation, honesty with myself and others as I grow in self awareness, and most of all, play. These things bring me back into my humanity and redirect me towards perceiving life as abundant rather than driven by scarcity. And the beautiful thing about play with others is that a person is required to inhabit their own inner space while also participating in an outer space of possibility and trust. I have developed two amazingly deep new friendships lately. One friendship in particular has a quality of fertile honesty and energy and it requires me to show up in it fully myself and rigorously alive. She has done so much inner work in her own life it is as though she listens to life and to other people with her soul. I recognized in her my own soul's hunger for the same openness to life, and that I am on the same journey. So the love in this friendship is liberating me to do the same. This compassionate honesty calls the best out of me. I believe that when we move towards true wholeness and true love and acceptance, somehow the gravitational, quantum force of that draws people into our lives who are also on that journey. And we are drawn into theirs, spiraling together like a helix carrying the DNA for a new world. We create together something that could only be born out of relationship. I love how the conversation in this post is about resistance and non compliance and building from the ground up; the gift in all of this is a lived remembering of who we are, and who we are called to be as we welcome a new world into being.
Madeleine, the Lytton fire was a definite MOMENT for me too, as was the Jasper fire. Are you in Canada? I'm in southwestern Ontario.
I’m in Edmonton. We’re about a 10 hour drive from Lytton. The Jasper fire is still hard for me to believe — it feels like the Fort MacMurray one just happened.
These fires are so heartbreaking... My sister-in-law's family is in Edmonton/Leduc. 😊
Amen Madeleine 🙏. I feel deeply what you are saying and I give thanks. ❤️
Madeleine this is my rhythm too… yesterday I awoke in terror. Initially (foolishly and fruitlessly) I thought I’d do a meditation on joy… needless to say there was no way my mind/body could do that. Instead I allowed myself to feel the terror, to sob, wail and shake… I provided room to do this all day bc it was all that felt right. At some point my son dropped in to help with something. He said, “Mum I can’t fix it. You can’t fix it. So let’s just love each other.” I cried as he hugged me long and tight. I carried his aftershave for an hour after that and each whiff of it connected me with that hug. This morning I awoke feeling depleted. I cancelled the social events in my calendar and instead I sat looking and listening into my small garden and wrote about all I could see and hear. I wrote about the joy the feathered choristers provided as I watched and listened. I wrote about the new life of small late summer blossoms… and then I wrote about unravelling and rethreading… about the multitude of experiences I’ve had with this, of disintegration, integration, wounding and healing… connecting every fibre of my being, my personal experience of collapse with the horror of witnessing it play out globally, helped. I remembered what I must continue to do in these times. I have yet to publish anything on this platform. A part of me wonders who needs to read another collection of words… but I have loved your posts and Sarah’s posts… so who knows?❤️
What you shared here just now is a gift.
Thank you, Sarah, encouraged, I've now also published a longer version... https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
Dear Deborah, you write beautifully and our world needs your medicine.
Someone somewhere will read and be uplifted by what you uniquely have to offer 💖So do start to publish , as words are the energy that is contributing to the transformation that is underway.
Thank you Susan, encouraged, I have now published https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
It is a beautiful collection of words Deborah. Reminding us of the pain and anguish we are (probably) all experiencing amidst the splendour and banality of our shared existence. Thank you for sharing 🥰
Thank you Ellen, encouraged, I have now published https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
This moved me deeply—the way you allowed yourself to fully feel the terror rather than trying to bypass it, the way your son met you in that moment with such simple and profound wisdom. “Let’s just love each other.” That feels like a truth to carry.
What you wrote about unraveling and rethreading stays with me. There’s something about the act of weaving—of letting things come apart so they can be put back together differently—that feels essential in times like these. Witnessing collapse, feeling it in both the personal and the global, and then choosing to write it down, to mark it, to stay connected to the world in all its fracture and beauty—that is no small thing.
And as for whether the world needs another collection of words? I think about how often I’ve come across a sentence at just the right time, how a stranger’s articulation of something I felt but didn’t yet have words for gave me back a piece of myself. Words are more than just words—they’re acts of witnessing, of remembering, of calling others into deeper presence. And in that way, they are necessary.
So I hope you do publish, if and when it feels right. I, for one, would love to read more about unraveling and rethreading, about what you are seeing and hearing in your garden, about the ways collapse and repair live in your body and your days. Thank you for sharing this moment. ❤️
Ella, your response was so appreciated. I have seriously been wondering how many more words are needed in this time, but encouraged by the beautiful responses to my post above, I have published my first post, here https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
Beautiful Deborah, thank you for this <3
Elizabeth Gilbert advocates and uses the 5,4,3,2,1 rule which is a grounding technique that uses the five senses to help you focus on the present and reduce anxiety.
Thank you Rochelle. Encouraged, I have now published my first post https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
Beautiful insights Deborah. Our children are our greatest teachers. - “who needs to read another collection of words” - let’s flood the Universe with the energy of your words. X
Diane, thank you. Encouraged I have now published my first post https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
Deborah, this is so very wise. I feel more connected with my own experience after reading your words. Please consider writing more, if that would feed you ❤️
Thank you Madeleine, for your inspiration. I have decided to publish after such encouragement. You can read my words, here. https://substack.com/home/post/p-157583823
So, so beautiful and healing to read ❤️
Madeleine, we see your tenderness and gentleness in all of your comments. Big love to you. Extending grace to ourselves is often far more difficult than to others, and I trust that on days like today, you may allow yourself to grieve and lament knowing that there is one that is always near holding you. 🙏🕊️❤️
Go well
I was talking to Madeleine about you the other day. My two prayer angels!
This is beautiful, Ian. Thank you.🙏
Tender and gentle - yes - can still be powerful like water. Gratitude for your words Madeleine x
This is so deeply felt, and I love how you describe the movement between grief and creation—not as opposites, but as part of the same current. That ache to make something beautiful, to bear witness in a way that calls others home to themselves, feels like both a refuge and an offering.
Your words about sovereignty over your own personhood stood out to me. In a world structured around erasure—of land, of histories, of selves—holding onto that inner sovereignty feels like an act of quiet defiance. And yet, it’s not just about holding on, is it? It’s about what we do with it—how we direct the flow of energy, how we create ecosystems of grace where others can find themselves again. That phrase stays with me.
You remind me of something Ross Gay wrote, about how delight and care are not just responses to suffering but ways of refusing its dominion. That longing to live as though the beloved community is already here—to cultivate tenderness not just in theory, but in action—feels like one of the hardest and most necessary things we can do.
Thank you for sharing this cri de coeur. What does it mean for you, in practice, to reverence creation? What does that look like in the small moments of the day? I’d love to hear more.
Hi Ella! I love these questions. I’m going to think on them and come back here to answer ❤️. Also, thank you for your gorgeous words, here.
Yay I’m very excited. I’m close you over at UBC. I’m doing my PhD on trauma studies, and raising three littles ❤️❤️❤️
Yay wonderful Deborah! I’m there x
You know it's kinda funny but, before I subscribed to Sarah's substack, I used my phone a lot less...
I'm not on social media (apart from whatsapp groups with my family and a few friends). I get some email newsletters which I try to make sure that I unsubscribe from if I don't always read them. I don't have a lot of apps on my phone, certainly not entertainment ones, not even news apps.
And to be honest, more often than not, when I see all these links to all these podcasts and articles and books and blogs and other substacks and interviews and all. the. stuff., I get so overwhelmed. So overwhelmed.
I mean, I am not busy, but I simply don't know how anyone has enough time (let alone mental and emotional capacity) to read/listen/take in all of this media. I have enough trouble just keeping up with the comments here on Sarah's substack! I'm making an effort to do so, because I feel like there are important things hapoening in this community, but it feels SO weird to be using my phone SO much. I'm so aware of the little dopamine hits I'm getting when I pick it up and there's stuff happening on here, in these comments. The juxtaposition of being a part of a movement that is saying 'use less' and by being apart of it, I am actually using more.
It can lead me to feel bad, inadequate even, for not having more capacity or making more time, to take in all of these resources that are available, while also feeling like one of the mice on the wheel, picking up my phone because there might be something worthwhile on it. It feels like the important work I should be doing is off my phone, in my kitchen, in my garden, in shared spaces. Looking into eyes of loved ones, not looking at screens.
But where's the line? Is that tuning out? Is that turning away? Is choosing to work in my garden rather than listening to incredible wise thinkers, disassociating? (and no, I do not listen to podcasts while gardening... I listen to my chooks).
Am I denying myself growth by not keeping it up with it all?
Am I denying my true self by trying to keep up with it all?
Am I a lesser human either way?
I take my hat off to you all, truly, when I witness your capacity. You read so much, listen to so much, and still live big full lives.
I feel very small and in awe.
Sorry. Ramble done. Putting phone down.
Thank you, amazing beautiful humans.
🙏
I don't know what the perfect formula is, but I do find that if I use my body to steer me, it helps. I can tell (my body sends me signals) if it is right to read. Also, I steer things via that lens - preserving humanity and decency ( as opposed to being right)
A beautiful pertinent ramble that I’m enthusiastically nodding with. I too see the irony of trying to get off the screens but then being drawn back to this space coz there is so much good stuff on here. However there are times when I get overwhelmed and even need a break from this space too. I also want to say that I wasn’t at all in to podcasts until I listened to some of Sarah’s. I will work my way back through them eventually as there is some really gritty and useful info in most of them. I’m much more of a reader than a listener.
Like you, when I’m in the garden I want to hear the chooks and the myriad of local birds, although I could do without the crazy barking dog that hates the postman. I also leave my phone at home when I walk the dog which allows me to escape and focus on my surroundings. Such a delicate balance to finding what works best for each of us 🥰
Oh Samantha, all the feels here...what you have written feels to me feels like a prayer to life. Thank you. It's all overwhelming, and I feel the same. I want to step away from the computer but I treasure the forms of connection. Can I just say that the questions you ask here illuminate the depth and beauty of the connection you have to your own humanity. The only reason I can be this engaged is that my middle and high school aged kids are in school during the day, I do most things from home, and I have weird waking and sleeping hours. If I go back to work in March, I'll have to retreat a lot from this conversation happening on Sarah's substack, and I'm sad about it already.
I too was nodding away here Samantha - I hear your words and have not even fully addressed the comments or Sarah’s post here - if I allow it it could be an all day exercise! So much richness here. So, I draw it back to what crosses my path during the day and how I address any inhumanity I come across in my part of the world. Thanks for that reminder.
This. X
I have downgraded my Guardian opinion and subscription recently as the Scot Trust who owns The Guardian and The Observer just ‘sold’ the observer to Tortoise Media. Tortoise is run by former director of BBC News James Harding who seems to have some dubious contacts. As a result about 100 Guardian journalists are out of a job at the end of this month. They bought in a new Baird member to help with AI and have just signed a deal with OpenAI.
I took my Guardian subscription money and subscribed to Carole Cadwalladr on substack. Highly recommend her work. She has been doing investigations into the Broliarchy (I believe she coined the phrase) since 2016 and has faced personal threats and lawsuits for speaking out. She has written extensively on the Observer sale if anyone is interested. She also writes about the current ‘Coup’ of the US government.
Her substack
https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/us-coup-gains-speed
Hoping to meet up with her IRL when I get to London this year.
Thanks for this update. I've heard bits about this and was keen to learn more. Making a deal with ChatGPT...it's tricky because these systems already use the content, when a company makes a deal, they get a bit more control and payment. My US publisher has done same and I took the offer of $$ for the LLM to have access to my work 1. because they do it anyway, I might as well get paid and 2. the algorithms need female, contrarian etc voices and opinions in the mix (ditto Guardian opinions and slants)...
I think the focus here is having ChatGPT write the articles for The Guardian now they have 100 less journalists.
Apparently The Guardian used AI to write articles when the journalists were on strike protesting the sale of The Observer.
Prompt something like ‘write me a 600 word article on <topic> in the style of Carol Cadwalladr’ and the result is very similar to her style.
Oh, OK. I need to catch up on it all..
Eeks!
good lord that's messed up!
Sheesh.. my jaw is clenched and my eyes are wide in horror reading this!!
And this is only the beginning. Thanks for the informative update
I had no idea about the Guardian and Observer. Thanks for that info. It dismays me that journalists are being funnelled into Substack now though, especially after listening to the most recent Tech Won't Save Us podcast. The podcast goes into the issues with journalists being fragmented into their own publications towards the end of the episode, if you're interested in listening.
I'll go listen
Carole's great, isn't she? I'm peeved about what The Guardian has done. I only recently subscribed to the Australian version, and I still value (mostly!) its editorial take on issues. I did learn about the OpenAI deal recently too, so I may have to sling my subscribe dollars elsewhere... So hard to keep up, innit?
I think the Australian edition and their podcasts is very good and left-leaning. Lenore Taylor is certainly not pro-Israel in her utterances.
So many good political journalists from The Guardian’s Canberra Bureau followed political editor Katharine Murphy who left to work in Anthony Albanese’s office a year ago.
My husband and I were just talking about this too. Jim Acosta, who used to cover the White House and resigned in January, has his own Substack now. The word for me that keeps coming up is "egregious". When this comes up several times a day, you know the zone is flooded.
Oh yes! Good gauge of how flooded the zone is. I feel like most days I'm flooding my own zone, consuming all this collapse stuff - I need to get more strict with myself in calling a time out on it!
me too!!
I've had to develop a bodily sense for when the tone of a collapse article is pure and almost self-congratulatory doom
Oh yeah, when my jaw clenches (more!) I know I need to step away. Sometimes I also feel my brain ‘short circuiting’ from the overwhelm and I can’t focus on 1 thing or comprehend what I’m even reading! Then I go and hang out with the dogs and/or magpies.
I think The Atlantic remains quite solid..for now. And WIRED seems to have stepped up. I don't think any publication will be able to be all things now...
PS my friend AC Grayling was just telling me about Carole the other day....
I stopped reading the Guardian years ago, because of its biased and unquestioning support of Israel and the ConVid scam. Now it’s really going over to the dark side.
I have read some excellent work by Carole Cadwalladr , so am going to look her up on your recommendation, thank you Qwerki 🙏🏻
We did exactly the same thing.
I only just discovered her (to my shame)…. Will support now. Thanks
Recently I ran across the concept of Refusal vs Resistance. Where Resistance is active, Refusal is more passive-but also effective. It is about choosing what we want the world to look like, and building it that way from the ground up, not in opposition to the elite, but in willful Refusal to engage with their vision of the future. Practically, this would look like living in community, growing our own food, maintaining our own lines of communication and news, creating space for expression (could anyone afford to visit the Kennedy Center, anyway?) It's not as sexy as Resistance, but it may prove just effective in the long run. And with any luck at all, the old men will die, the younger men will shoot themselves into space, and we will have a world to rebuild. One where we've already laid the foundation.
Yes, creating the ideas that need to be lying around. Refusal is a quiet, powerful, still, solid, knowing form of resistance. At the moment we need both....which is why we have to be so grateful for the activists and Extinction Rebellion crew etc
Beautifully expressed, thank you. I think I embraced the Refusal concept at least 10 years ago. I refuse to participate in many mainstream activities unless it serves a (useful) purpose for me.
Mind you, I once read the terms and conditions (all 40+ freakin pages) that one has to agree to when you buy a new iphone and it ultimately says you agree to provide them with your personal information or they won’t guarantee the use of the phone… sounds more like ransom to me??
Omg, I love this so much. I feel this in my bones. The idea of creating space for expression sends little fireworks off in my soul.
I was just saying to a friend-when did we stop gathering in groups to sing and play instruments? Or to make quilts, or ravioli, or.....
A few weeks ago I came back from a hike, 6 days without coverage in the mountains. It was blissful, as you can imagine. But since returning it has been an unceasing wall of chaos and I've seen myself getting addicted to it. Obviously I don't want to be addicted to bad news, it scares me because it seems like the addiction is by 'design' and I feel manipulated.
I'm sure there's a whole category of progressive types who gets addicted to the media. So while I want to bear witness, I'm also having to make sure it doesn't control me.
Some things I've found insightful and helpful the last few weeks:
- Detachment Theory, Libertarianism in the anxious-avoidant economy, by Brett Scott
https://www.asomo.co/p/detachment-theory?r=n0asv&triedRedirect=true
- The end of our extremely online era, by Tommy Dixon
https://www.tommydixon.ca/p/the-end-of-our-extremely-online-era?r=n0asv&triedRedirect=true
- Do what you can't, also by Tommy Dixon
https://www.tommydixon.ca/p/do-what-you-cant?publication_id=364620&post_id=156180003&isFreemail=true&r=n0asv&triedRedirect=true
- Villaging, Not Homesteading: We're Not Doing This Alone, by Ganga Devi Braun
https://gangadevibraun.substack.com/p/villaging-not-homesteading-were-not
- Tech won't save us podcast & 404 media podcast
Tommy Dixon is such a light!
Amazing, thank you Hammersley!
Thank you Sarah, it can be so easy to dissociate as a result of the flooding of the zone. I was speaking to a friend in the US recently who said to me it was just bizarre, people are just walking around and going out to dinner and are completely detached from the reality that the country is being destroyed. We have since started a joint playlist called “Revolution”. I find it jolts me awake and into action when I start to feel overwhelmed. Songs of resistance from across countries and cultures are a great source of inspiration - there’s a shift in the western psyche for sure - many people around the world have been waiting for us to join them in this fight for a very long time.
A friend just returned from New York and said the same - that no one was talking about Trump or what was happening. She said it was surreal. She felt it was fear.
And I listen to media/podcasters speaking as though what is happening = governance, that the White House continues to operate with ‘normal’ politicians! Normalising the abhorrent narcissistic nihilism is bamboozling. And shocking. I agree we must not fall asleep. We must name what we witness… we must call out (gently) self-protective delusion and hypnotic trancelike numbness amongst our family and friends… we need as many people as we can find to speak the truth, to name the horror, to call the bastards out.
Can I absolutely attest to this. Life is running normal for the majority, and I'm walking around thinking I may surely be the crazy one.
Humans normalise things so fast. It astonishes me.
I love listening to the ‘Embodiment’ playlist on Spotify by Megan Rose Lane - really activates my heart and soothes me.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3122Wxt3oJp50zkNhH3Mwd?si=Vo-HKGUzSXKtfqpsbguZKw&pi=a-YD4Gr-M2SpS9
Will definitely check it out thank you!
me too
I find myself watching coming across Americans online and wondering, 'did you contribute to this? did you vote for the end of the world?' and I know their apathy is fear-based but it just breaks my heart. The waves of realisation never stop
please share your playlist Joysee - music has always had the power to wake me up!
Almost feel like I have flooded the zone but hopefully in a good way.
Apologies for the deluge.
I was so excited I just spent an hour writing all this into notes on my phone while in bed and then cutting and pasting into separate comments.
Now I am late for work. 😝
I love them all
Thank you for taking the time to educate us and provide us with alternative information sources 💕
Saw this on Rebecca Solnit's socials:
https://substack.com/@dlmayfield/note/c-94417388?utm_source=notes-share-action
Here’s my pep talk after studying authoritarianism:
1). They never truly expect a long-term resistance movement bc they think people are a collection of trauma triggers who are easily controlled thru terror
2). If they can’t terrorize you 24/7 in your mind, they have already lost the war
3). The single best way you can resist fascism is to not let them terrorize you constantly. Protect your mental health to ensure you are not constantly in a terrorized state
4). Keep connecting to who you are at your core. Your values, preferences, ethics, and beliefs. Build up capacity to resist
5). Remember they are like abusive parents: they only see us extensions of them. They have no clue how powerful joy and community and self-expression can be. We can use this to our advantage — we can be the strong-willed child they never saw coming.
Spending time connecting to your true self is not selfish in these times — it’s intricately connected to a resistance movement that is tied to honoring our bodies, our communities, and to the land. We have to build capacity to resist by being exactly who we are!
Yep, building this capacity enables us to resist, but also to be an invitation for those caught up in the fascist leanings to join our more joyful camp (island) over here
I love love love this. Thank you. This is what gives me hope. This type of situation has played out in my personal life as well and I have found it is imperative that I look after my mental, emotional and physical health so I can stick to my boundaries, honour my values and resist the bullshit. This is brilliant Natalie
i love the sheer practicality of it. it really spoke to me too!
Thank you so much Sarah. Thank you for giving a voice to my inner distress over the last few weeks of watching what is happening here in Australia and the world. The pain has been wrenching. Thank you for tenderly holding the space and shining some guidance and words of encouragement to keep going. Take good care of you xxx
I love this idea of celebrating humanity as a way to counter inhumanity.
Also. A reminder that social media is not an inevitable part of life.
I rang the National Gallery of Australia today and sobbed with despair that they have covered Palestinian flags in an artwork. I walked out on a good friend I have know for nearly 40 years last night after he used racist slurs and told me Trump was the best thing to happen to the world. My dinner sat untouched on the table. I unfollowed another friend on social media today after she posted her first political post in 500 days of the genocide and it was Zionist propaganda. These are all real life situations and friendships and people and it is distressing and exhausting and very very personal. And yet, for me there is no going back. The more madness I witness, the more clear I am in my boundaries. And I gain solace from everyone else who chooses action over tolerance. Because all of this is simply intolerable.
Thank you Emma for voicing your despair. The power that zionist organisations have in this country at the moment, even in the art world, is obscene!! The recent rescindment by Creative Australia (previously the Arts Council) of the Australian representatives at the Venice Art Bienale is unconscionable (less than a week after they were announced)!!
It's horrendous. I have experienced the pressure myself.
Oh, why am I not surprised. Sending you hugs and fortitude 💕
Thank you for galling the NGA. Good on you Em! What did they say. I say this morning their horribly feeble explanation
Emma I will do the same with NGA! I have today unfollowed two connections on FB for the same reason Zionist propaganda. “And yet, for me there is no going back” agree!
I also felt the need to take a break from social media. I’m on a one week break from Substack‘s Notes. I used the time to cook, drink tea with my husband, go back to my tea ceremony practice, and read a lot about self-worth. In a world that makes us feel smaller and more insignificant by the day, it’s important to find intrinsic value in simply being. Keeping our dignity and respecting the dignity of all other beings is crucial now.
Thanks for the encouragement to stay vocal and engaged. Too many times the message we receive is that we‘re too small to make a difference. It feels like we‘re being told to give up trying to live a decent life because it won’t make a difference anyway. This is so wrong. Thanks also for all the links and suggestions for info sources. I’d add your Substack to the list.
Some days I feel very sad about the state of the world but at the same time, I feel I was born for this moment. My highly sensitive nature, my lifelong leaning in to peace and justice, my love of humans and all life on this earth. I'm fascinated by people and I often crave to hear their stories. I was radicalized to fight injustice from a young age. My parents used to have a cassette tape with 60s folk music and I was obsessed with the song Society's Child by Janis Ian. I say this with all humility, I don't know whether I have been or are going to get any of this right.
My straight-laced husband who works a corporate job is also awakening to the heartless, soulless nature of corporate society after his boss was abruptly, unjustly fired. The awakening of his inner activist is making him even more attractive to me! ;)
I feel the same way - that I was born for this moment. Finally, an outlet for such acute awareness!!! Activist men are very attractive.
When I was younger, I would never have pictured myself with someone in a corporate job but I fell in love with him, nonetheless. I must have seen the spark of activist in him!
This was brilliant! Thank you for including me, Sarah. We will keep learning the new dance, speaking out, and expressing that unapologetic Kali rage. ❤️
PS just recommended you, too x
AHHHHHH !!!! Thank you so much 🥲💖
I loved your rant, too! Hopefully you pick up some subscribers from here!
As mentioned above. Since 1971, the non-profit, reader-supported Washington Spectator has offered independent-minded readers behind-the-scenes insight into significant news stories that are under-reported or ignored by the corporate media.
https://washingtonspectator.org/
I feel like the noisier the external world gets (and it’s in overdrive right now), the more we need to connect to our inner world, not as an act of avoidance or dissociation, but as a tribute to our own truth - and then we need to live from that place. That’s how we create the world we want to live in because we are being who we are and want to be. Then we’ll find that, more and more, those noisy people will be talking to each other and not us. We would have moved on to something so much better.
We probably need the noisy people to come and talk to us... to see our calm, reasoned, loving vibe and want to be part of it...
Yes! Although their response isn’t certain but ours can be. Humans learn well through contrast. Their noisy ridiculousness is our deeper call back to ourselves. This is our invitation. We’re ready for this.