when I start to lose my mind, I remember this

even while I'm twisted up in knots watching the world implode, I know that we are witnessing a birth

The world as we know it has come undone. The political landscape is a dumpster fire visible from space. I’m worried: that my transgender child is going to get rounded up and sent to a gulag somewhere, that the economy is going to buckle, that food supplies are going to dry up, that women are going to lose our most basic rights, and that eventually the authoritarian machine will come looking for me because I’m a progressive, anti-fascist, energy-healing, educated feminist.

Even if my privilege and good luck spare me from some of the more egregious expressions of empire collapse, I’m worried that I will be required to function in a society for which I have no aptitude, namely, a survival society. I’m about as useful as my dog, whose only talents are long naps and looking like a person when she sits upright on the couch. If anything happens that prevents me solving problems through YouTube and mail order, my prospects are dim.

So lately, when I’ve settled down to write my little Substack essays, I’ve struggled to find the words to frame the meltdown that’s going on day after day after day. The horror is stark. I want to sit down and write something uplifting and instead all I can think is WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. But then I remember why I’m here, on this planet, right now.

Believe it or not, we are witnessing a birth. A profound collective healing.

I love to get deep into a BodyTalk session and engage with the patterns that are making mischief below the surface of my clients’ lives—stuff like not being good enough or needing to be someone partially made-up just to function in the world. When I’m the witness to these stories, it’s so easy to see where things are stuck! All you have to do with these outmoded strategies is locate them in the body and bring them into the light. Then they’re free to dissolve. Nothing to it.

As far as I can see, we are collectively going through a similar process.

This planet has been undergoing a consciousness shift for decades now, which is evident when you think about how easily we talk about intuition, angels, frequencies and manifestation techniques—all of which were ninety-nine percent weird even thirty years ago.

We know about reading the vibes in a room, about reconnecting with our Earth Mother, about how we’re walking around on top of a thrumming mycelium network, and about how to use all kinds of subtle healing techniques to restore us to our most vivid, potent selves.

With all these upgrades in understanding, it’s a natural next step for us to begin to create pathways for healing, communion, and functional co-habitation with each other and the planet. We’ve begun to see en masse that all life is sacred, that we’re part of this exquisite dance, and that when we’re in harmony with the Great Symphony of Life there are more than enough resources for every living being on this earth.

This knowing has reached a tipping point that is making the old power structures obsolete. And those structures do not like it.

Everything that must leave us is leaving, but not quietly like a house guest who packs their bags and leaves a polite note, oh no, it’s leaving like a pissed-off ex-boyfriend who smashes all your pictures and tries to get your phone away from you until you lock yourself in the bathroom and tell him you’re calling 911. It’s leaving like a fallen god, dragging the temple down on top of itself. This looks like extreme power bids and inequality and restriction and rigidity and aggression, because what’s coming up underneath all of this madness is—really, truly—a new and more harmonious consciousness, a place where humans interact with each other and the planet and all the more-than-human world with respect, patience and grace. That’s happening. Where freedom is the key word, because it works. When we can each follow our own knowing, the web of life can dance. We free up energy to love, and tend, and laugh, and pursue our joy when we no longer have to worry about hoarding resources and controlling others. So that’s coming. But meanwhile, here we are.

Maybe this crazy bullshit will spool out for a month or a year or a decade, maybe there will be a repeat performance of global violence and suffering, but eventually the current regime—not only of American politics, but of global resource management and our relationship with the planet that feeds us—will crumble. It hascrumbled. We can see through the cracks. Whole walls are coming down.

We’re in the terrifying part of the ride. But if you happen to be a person who knows that our whole experience is being conducted and guided by a benevolent Source; if you know that the end-game is to return to the experience of Love; if you know that we are each divine beings and so is every other element of this shining Earth; if you know that the only thing that makes sense when everything is going to shit is to bump up your kindness and compassion game—then you are going to be all right.

We are going to be all right.

Let’s remember this. You were born to be here right now. Your presence here is no accident. You have the chops to navigate this. You have the heart-centeredness, the emotional resilience, and the excellent sense of humor that will see you through. You are helping to hold the highest Light on this planet while she goes through her most intense points of transition. You’re a great listener, you make other people laugh, you dare to make the things that only you can make—and those are the skill sets that are walking us through this moment, one up-ended day at a time.

You are a healer just by being you. The way you pet your dog heals the world. The way you stop to watch the moon.

We don’t have to work at the world that’s arriving. We just have to nourish it. We don’t have to stop or block or fight against a paradigm that’s ending anyway. Stand up for humans, stand up for the living world, but don’t worry about needing to change things. They’re changing no matter what. And they’re changing for the better.

In the coming age, it will make more sense to trade than to bomb. We will heal from our need to hoard everything and begin to share resources and territory. We will begin to interact creatively and collaboratively. We will heal the toxic masculine that has driven us like lemmings off the cliff and will reclaim our innate capacity for rhythm, for generosity, for self-expression, for respect. I see a world filled with communities that are alive with art and dance and music, where we worship Source in whatever way feels aligned to us, and where we have set up societies that maximize our chances of feeling fully alive.

These are not the end times. These are the beginning times. And friend, it’s an honor to share these times with you.