Where do we go from here? Radical acceptance, collapse, and grief, in 8 thoughts after the U.S. election

Dear Soothers.

Where do we go from here?

Like many of you today, I’m disjointed, numb, shocked, grieving, angry, tired, bewildered, and, well, just head to Thesaurus.com and put in whatever synonym you find for “bad” and I’m feeling it.

I write, always, to process my own life and experience, and to (attempt) to make sense of the world. As soon as I awoke to the news of Trump’s election this morning (though I was fitfully awake through most of the night, but had willed myself not to look at the internet. LOTTA staring into space while my anxious animal body twitched around), thoughts poured in that wanted to be explored in writing. So here are some of them, written about randomly and in no particular order.

I can’t promise cohesion, or clarity in these words or bullet points. There will probably also be lots of typos. The lack of sleep and the intensity of the moment and emotions promise that. But this isn’t a time for cohesion or clarity, anyways. This is a time for grieving, anger, despair, and whatever other emotions may arise for you. Please give yourself whatever time and space you’re able to be in those.

And know that while I write from a place of grief and anger and fear, it is not for me or my beloveds (except perhaps the children in my life) that I feel this despair, necessarily. As an able-bodied, cis straight child-free white woman with economic privilege, who’s 44 and doesn’t plan to attempt to have children or deal with reproductive issues, I’m well aware that a Trump presidency may not actually materially affect my life that much. My heart is instead open and hurting for the people of Ukraine and Gaza, trans, queer, BIPOC readers, immigrants, anybody and all who have previously been brutalized by the Trump presidency, which is too many to name. I also grieve deeply for the Earth, and what climate change will continue to do her, but one comfort I know by now is that, ultimately, the Earth will do what she has to take care of herself, and she has more infinite wisdom and power than all humans combined. The Earth will be fine, the human race — questionable.

There is, of course, grief for all empathetic and highly sensitive people in being told so directly and clearly that, yes, this is the country we live in, and these are our fellow countrymen. I know it stuns and shocks the sensitive heart to feel and understand that in no uncertain terms this deeply, and fear may what come next.

So may some of these words and points give all of you, my dear community here that gives me so much joy, the tiniest bit of guidance and comfort. (Though some of the points I choose to make may feel triggering or cause discomfort, too. I want to be straightforward about my beliefs of what comes next, as I find that loving and ultimately more useful.)

Behind the paywall of this post on Substack I offer a guided Tarot reading for how to move forward, and some of the “whys” that can maybe be found here for us. Become a paid subscriber here.

So here we go!

1. There is power in acknowledging where you are, making peace with what is, and realizing that giving in is not giving up. Since I came across it last year, this piece by Renaee Churches responding to Rebecca Solnit’s efforts to keep hope alive and fight defeatism has stuck deeply with me. Churches asks, what if we accept that things are quite bad, this IS where we are, and then we move from THAT place, rather than an imagined future where we’ve solved the catastrophic problem we are facing?

   My question is essentially this: what if we accept that America is in some stage of collapse, and we are potentially entering an era of fascism of some level? And, honestly, perhaps, that we’ve been operating under a sort of fascism/sham democracy for actually quite a while now? I know this sounds kind of insane to posit, but I wonder if it’s the only way not to gaslight ourselves and move forward with what is reality.

   Churches talks about this in framing of the climate crisis. I’ll excerpt heavily from her piece below; read these words slowly and truly let them land in your body and your understanding. Any bolding is mine:

   Writer Rebecca Solnit was recently published in The Guardian and stated that:

   Some days I think that if we lose the climate battle, it’ll be due in no small part to this defeatism among the comfortable in the global north, while people in frontline communities continue to fight like hell for survival. Which is why fighting defeatism is also climate work.

   We have already lost the climate battle and it is stories or opinions like the one above, that are preventing others from grasping this, and stopping us from taking the kinds of collective adaptive responses appropriate on a local and global scale.

   The not-too-late framing is a dangerous one. It means people are prepared to wait for global elites to roll out the energy transition, to deploy such ‘solutions’ as carbon capture technologies, or other flawed techno fixes, aimed at making those elites wealthy, while not stopping the baked in warming that is already here and accelerating. It is only when we finally break through the not-too-late taboo that we will begin the work in earnest of adaptation to reduce suffering as much as we can.

   …Here in Australia, my friend Margi from Kangaroo Island survived the Black Summer bushfires back in 2019/2020 before the Pandemic, but her life was turned upside down and she no longer believes we can avoid catastrophic outcomes in the future. Instead all her focus is on a radically local approach: rebuilding and preparing for the next bushfire with her community, a fire they know will come again. Communities are realising that governments are not equipped to respond as effectively as they once were, and that mostly now we are on our own.

   …Hope is no longer the appropriate response, instead a steadfast courage is needed to face a grim future, and a determination to do the next right thing, come what may. What else is there? All we can do is get up each day and adapt to the changing circumstances as best we can, attempting to stay healthy, well adjusted, mentally stable and able to contribute to disaster risk reduction in whatever ways are available to us.

   This is the Doomster Way, the Way of Acceptance. We are in #collapse and if we refuse to accept this we risk making a bad situation much worse.

   …What possibilities open up if we accept defeat? If we say we have failed and that the breakdown of our civilization will continue to unfold in our lifetime?

   Imagine the creative energy, mourning, cooperation and humility that would abound. Imagine setting the younger generation free. Free from the obsession with career, money, working, superannuation and other irrelevant concerns in a collapsing world. The massive mental health crisis affecting youth today may be alleviated if they heard some truth telling or plain speaking from adults — a deep, heartfelt apology from our generation to theirs.

   There could be a flourishing of our civilization as we face our demise, loving family and friends, enjoying the arts and community in new ways as we simplify our lives, a celebration of all our achievements as well as forgiving ourselves for the error of our ways. We can make amends to wild creatures and First Peoples everywhere, love the damaged and degraded places of the Earth, as well as protecting the remaining precious wilderness from the force of global capital.
   

   *It’s Catherine writing again here starting here -
   What if we acknowledge this all as our truth, that civilization as we know it is likely to be over, or at least drastically changed, in our lifetimes. What would it mean for you? Really take some time to journal on this. Say we knew an asteroid was coming in say, who knows, 10-50 years. Would what it mean for you? That you would quit your soul-sucking, widget-pushing job? That you might take your children out of school, or move your family the place you wanted to always live? Say “I love you” to that person, or repair (or end) that relationship?

   Maybe action-wise it might not actually mean anything for you, but the mental load it lifts could be life-changing and heart-opening, a deep breath of truth.

   I know this sounds awful, and defeatist, and passive, and, you know, of course it IS awful. But to me, it is not defeatist or passive. It is a radical acceptance of what is — the core of all spiritual practices. So anywhere, in a tiny corner, is there a spot of relief you could find about what you can do now, when you accept the truth of where our country and in fact, world is? Any small liberation, or freedom? (In order to do this at all, however, we will need to go through many stages of anger, denial, and grief, which I talk about in point below.)

   This leads me to…

2. America is in decline, and our civilization as we know it is in some stage of collapse. And this is how it has always been. This is not a subject of debate amongst the people who study history of civilizations and collapse, it’s simply the truth. There’s basically a playbook for collapse and America is acing it, step by step. I’ve found some acceptance and understanding and relief around this from a few resources, particularly Sarah Wilson, who is live-substack-writing a book on collapse and talking about it on her podcast. (Her episode collapse theorist with Margaret Wheatly who’s been doing this work for 50 years in particular helped me a lot.)

   Civilizations rise, they exist for a bit, they fall. They always have, it seems, they always will. Humans have not mastered the ability to create a permanent civilization where the majority of its folks and species and land thrive. What is happening now is scary and awful and sad and, theoretically, should not be happening, because we know the ways to make it not happen, why are we letting this happen?! but, perhaps perversely it gives me some comfort to know that across human history, end-stage civilization collapse is, well, quite normal and somehow the order of the day.

   Again, I fear that me emphasizing this comes across as defeatist and shrugging my shoulders and putting my head in the sand, but for me, it’s truly, truly, not. It is a radical awakening and acceptance of the large wash of history, that gives me, at least personally, stronger grounding and a place to choose to act and decide from. I act from what is true and right now, not an imagine future place where everything is solved — WHILE still in many ways fighting for that dream, at the same time. This is a big both/and to hold the complexity of.

   Another good resource for collapse, who’s been talking about it for ages, is Carmen Spagnola and The Numinous Network.

3. So if all of this is true, how, then, as a spiritual person and mentor, can I explain when bad people win, and bad things happen that hurt others? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING CATHERINE?! So. We’re in collapse. Climate change and maybe fascism is coming for us. Racism, patriarchy, exploitation, end-stage capitalism — old friends, and they’re not seeming to go anywhere. And so, the biggest question I struggle to answer around this personally as a deeply spiritual person, is, why does the universe/god/whoever da fuck let this happen? If there’s a spiritual Big Leader Entity in charge, shouldn’t they just all grant us peace and abundance and health?

   Quite often, people who are spiritually seeking but skeptical end their quest here — if there WERE a spiritual force in the universe, they wouldn’t let bad things happen, they assume. Therefore it can’t exist!

   As somebody who made the transition from deeply cynical and skeptical atheist in her 30s to a Tarot-reading, feng-shui-practicing, talking-to-dead-ancestors, communing-with-spirit-guides full on nature-worshipping animist, I can tell you, for better or worse: that just ain’t how spirituality works and any glance at every single major religion or spiritual practice in the world and in history knows, accepts and understand this.

   What spirituality offers, again, is an acceptance that bad things do and will happen — awful, soul-crushing events, losses, disasters — and our work is to find faith and love for ourselves and our fellow humans and creatures throughout that reality. AND, perhaps even more importantly, to then enjoy the beauty, glory, delights, joys that also come just as frequently in the human experience, and to savor and be present to them.

   The biggest truths I’ve come to terms with around spirituality and the universe and how it operates, personally, are this:

   -Spirituality is not about everything working out. It is about growth of the soul during the absolutely balls-to-the-wall insane human experience. (Sometimes I’m half convinced I’m actually an alien who has been sent to live amongst humans to study them, but part of the assignment is I had to forget I was an alien, except sometimes it comes through and I’m like, “these fucking idiots, THIS is what they’re going to do, really?….”) Anyways, growth only happens in challenges, in loss and despair and illness and horror, and choosing, where we can, to rise to meet it and still love ourselves. (I will also note, this may seem pablum coming from me, given all the privilege I have, and I acknowledge that as true too. Have me experience deeper loss, pain and horrors than I have, and perhaps I would abandon my faith.)

   -The Universe itself, whatever alive, intelligent force we have here that has created this galaxy, this planet, us as humans — it doesn’t strive for good, or perfection, or fairness. It strives for experiences of every shade, from the most glorious to the most depraved, as well as to try to continually come back to balance and homeostasis. The pendulum is forever swinging back and forth in how the universe operates, I find, in its search for the elusive yin and yang of light and dark. We’re simply willing (or unwilling) strapped-in riders in the experience.

4. We can no longer fully trust or rely on large institutions — because they are too big to fail, too big for us to live without, and can then be manipulated and run by people will ill intentions, or their structures become vulnerable, and then we are left adrift with no options or infrastructure for how to proceed in our communities. This is a delicate thing to write about and embrace, because I can realize and appreciate all the good that large organizations and big government have done for society. Medical advances, disaster relief, health care, science, housing, infrastructure, electricity. At the same time, as we have grown-ever dependent on larger organizations for so much of our lives (centralized food systems, healthcare, large corporations that employ us, power grids) and forgotten many of the skills or ways that allowed us to do things ourselves, so then we become at the mercy of these organizations, and this isn’t always a good thing. We saw this with the food system and infrastructure with COVID. We must, must must learn how to grow food in and for our communities again. And then sometimes, these organizations even become harmful because if bad people get in charge of them, there’s little the good people inside of them can do. We can see now already this happening with abortion and reproductive rights. Healthcare centers, hospitals, and doctors in certain states are now forced, under regulation, to not be able to help women who need their help, in fact causing deep harm and even death to the women, leaving them without options of where to go. But for thousands of years we have had healers in communities, who KNEW their communities who had land-and-nature based practices that, while of course not perfect or necessarily the equivalent to modern health care, DO help, CAN help. I once had an astrologer years ago tell me I would become an herbal abortion doula and I laughed — I was just on the opening step of my spiritual awakening, still pretty cynical, and definitely didn’t know anything about herbs. Now, a year into my herbal training and as radical around reproductive rights as ever, I wonder of the truth of that prediction.

5. All this to say, the theme amongst all I’m saying is this: It’s time to come back to small, and the personal agency you find in that. Grow food. Learn to repair clothing. Simplify your lives. Declutter. Stop buying more shit. Learn to live with less. Live lightly. Know enoughness is already here.

   I’ve written extensively on this subject, and I suspect more will come in the future, but for now you can read two of my previous posts on this:

   Small is the skill we’ll need for the future

   Are we here to power down the systems?

6. Hopefully this is the permission the U.S. political left needs to get actually radical. That’s all I’ll say here. A milquetoast moderate approach that’s meant to try to be palatable to all leaves us with nobody inspired.

7. We must learn to grieve and become friends with death, because that will be a huge step of what comes next, and what is already here. I have an old friend who received a terminal colon cancer diagnosis; she’s 43. This is pure insanity, the darkest timeline (and also, I’ve written about this before and I will write about this again, WHY ALL THE YOUNG PEOPLE WITH CANCER? Something is going on. My mom had cancer at 44 in the 1990s and she was an utter anomaly; now it’s normal? I cannot accept this). We’ve been talking in our friend group online (she lives abroad) as she moves step by step through what is next and we also process this. “Why does nobody teach us how to do this!” she cried, frustrated, one day.

   Why DOES nobody teach us how to do this? To grieve, to die well? What kind of freaking head-in-the-sandbox reality are we trying to create, to avoid and FEAR the only inevitability in this human experience that comes for us all?

   We must learn to grieve. We MUST make peace with death, we must make perhaps, if not friends with death, at least nod, acknowledging to it. We must acknowledge it as the rightful and natural path for us, and learn to live with the uncertainty of not knowing when it calls for us.

   And the grieving, we must do as we face the realities of collapse. There will be so much to grief of what could have been, what we will lose, what we have already lost.

   Please know your grief is righteous and right and appropriate, and allow it, in yourself and others.

   For me, one of the steps I will be taking in the next few years (SHOULD WE STILL HAVE THE INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE TO DO IT HAHAHHA) is taking a death doula certification. Going with Grace is a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization that exists to support people as they answer the question, “What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may live presently and die gracefully?”

8. Finally, there’s a card in Tarot, the Wheel of Fortune that I feel is our card for this moment. When it comes for me and my clients, there’s a Taoist parable I like to tell that captures its essence. You've probably heard this tale in some capacity, but to me it is the best, most elegant description of surrender and is something I carry with me in my metaphorical pocket every day. It goes along these lines:

   There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you.” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. One day he didn’t latch the gate properly and the horse ran away. “Oh no! That is terrible news!” his neighbors cried. “Such bad luck!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbors told him. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbors cried. “Such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the army. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

   The takeaway: We just don't know. We just... don't know. Any situation that could be happening to us that seems horrible (a layoff, a breakup, a fight, this election) could be the very thing that brings us blessings on the very next puff of wind. We just don't know. Haha, I hate it too. I mean, this is objectively awful. I’m not trying to put glitter on shit here with what’s happening in the U.S. election. For me, part of existing in this human experience is to admit I don’t know why what’s happening is happening, and to look out for the hopes and possibilities that maybe, somehow, what’s happening HAD to happen to clear out the next path for something more beautiful than we can imagine. Maybe it’ll be years from now; maybe we won’t know it’s happening; maybe it’ll never happen. But surrender ultimately, is paradoxically what can allow true change to unfold.

   And of course, for surrender, I always turn to the original on this topic: Rumi.

   Two quotes that help me enormously:

   "Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. You've been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.”

   “Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead, let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?"

   I know it right now seems that perhaps nothing will be right again. And maybe it won’t be, or not for a very long time. And perhaps what I’ve written here today has not inspired you, but perhaps gives you a larger weight to hold (SORRY!!! MY B! 🙃). But I think we must be truthful about where we find ourselves in time.

   However, I hope somewhere in these rambles and reflections, you see the steps and guidance of what must come next:
   
   Acceptance
   Surrender
   Love for yourself, your community and neighbors and family
   Personal agency
   A reconnection to land, food and nature
   Community care
   Helping the most vulnerable
   Still fighting
   Still hoping, but acknowledging reality
   Still being in this wild, awful, beautiful human existence

   And simply doing, what we can, when we can, moment by moment, and day by day.

   All my love to you, Soothers. I deeply believe that highly sensitive people are some of the change agents currently on this planet meant to usher us into whatever comes next, and that your skills, which may currently feel like weaknesses, are actually what are needed to help us make that shift [read more about that here].

   In an email for paid subscribers, I asked Tarot:
   1. Why did the Trump re-election happen?
   2. Is there a lesson inherent for us in this?
   3. What is an action step we can take next?
   4. A message of support from the universe

   I also talk about the Six of Swords, which was a card that came up for me repeatedly when I asked about this election.

   I’ll say that the message of this reading was this: Massive change had to happen so we could clear out what no longer serves us. And now, with that on its way, perhaps, we can leave behind a promise we’ve been clinging to, and feel the relief of that. And know, even if it’s years or decades from now, ultimately, hopefully (I pray) this point in history will move us to something best for our humanity, planet, our hearts and dreams.