Pot Plants, Mushrooms and Big Dumb Hats

In a curious twist of fate, both my partner and I were separately invited to a "Sisters Circle" and a "Men's Fire" this weekend.

It being Easter, and noticing some symmetry to the dual invites, we overrode our misgivings and both said yes.

So like the participatory anthropologists that we sometimes are, we went.

This here's the tongue-in-cheek report (plus a much more sincere exploration of how we can equip ourselves to become more hopeful, generous and resilient in the face of trying times)...

Finding #1. ”Nourishing” Sisters' Circles are mostly full of shit.

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This one, lost in the morass of Big Dumb Hats, New Age Yoga speak and utterly naked materialism delivered exactly as you'd expect.

(and if you're part of a great women's gathering, good on ya, this won't apply)

No daughters to welcome into intergenerational community.

No grandmothers to presence and ground the full range of women's experience.

Just "Soul Sisters"—a very certain demographic of 30 and 40 somethings still mistaking their latest "medicine journey" as abiding wisdom.

As they each went around the circle to share what they were "manifesting", the Queen Bee blithely shared her next Paranormal Acquisition Target: a private jet to go along with her new super-yacht.

And unlike televangelists, who at least attempt to justify their Gulfstream fundraiser with the thought that "God will hear my prayers even better if I'm scooting along that close to heaven!", the Queen Bee didn't even feel the need to explain. Private Jets are awesome. She wants one. Therefore, she deserves one.

That's because, you see, she's transcended any limiting beliefs about her worthiness, she's realized she is a Divine Queen, and she's calling in abundance from her spirit guides! Never mind the poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free (they chose the density of their incarnations, after all!).

#ProsperityGospelFTW

For anyone wondering about all the hype and buzz around Austin these days...that's pretty much it.

(Plus deer hunting on mushrooms and ketamine in float tanks.)

It's become a magnet for digital media carpetbaggers who've already consumed Encinitas, Williamsburg and Boulder, and need someplace to overwinter before the SXSW, Tulum and Burning Man seasons gin up one more time.

It's a plague of locusts. A gaggle of hungry ghosts. Everyone looking over everyone else's shoulder to spot Elon, or Rogan or a libertarian crypto bro on Peter Thiel’s payroll.

Never mind what it looks like on the 'Gram.

While that evening women's circle followed a script that could've been written for the Righteous Gemstones (a hilarious HBO parody of evangelical preachers with Danny McBride and John Goodman, if you haven't caught it yet), you've likely glimpsed similarly whacked out versions yourself.

Weeding the Philosophical Roots 🌱

As easy as it is to roll our eyes and dismiss these parodies as signs of our current rootlessness, their philosophical roots actually go back over a century.

And it's time to pull them up.

Sometimes we're not standing on the shoulders of giants. Sometimes we're mud wrestling with midgets.

(Coulda said "little people" here, but then we woulda lost the alliteration. Forgive me.)

Tim Wu, the Columbia law professor and coiner of the term "net neutrality" and the Master Switch is one of the more prescient writers on our current digital age and his framing of this dynamic makes essential reading.

In The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads Wu tells the story of the advent of modern marketing. In this era of social media, it's metastasized into a ubiquitous part of our lives and identities.

At this point, our attention, and our deepest desires are all fundamentally programmed. And if we don't know precisely how that happened, we'll never be able to undo it. (Especially now with fiendishly clever AI marketing that's been trained on our collective hopes and fears).

But here's the biggest kicker from the book: before Madison Ave Mad Men, the three founders of modern marketing were literally, actual (dis)honest to God, former snake oil salesman and failed evangelical preachers!!! Not metaphorical snake oil, actual snake oil remedies and patent medicines. Not men with a preacherly gift of the gab. Actual men of the cloth.

And what were they selling?

Redemption. Salvation. Of course!

New and improved, with special secret ingredients!!!

(This, by the way, is the exact same script that the biohacking movement copied, lock stock and barrel. If you've been snookered to put MCT in your coffee, or consume reishi mushrooms, or super anti-oxidants, bioflavonoids or any one of a hundred "magic" ingredients to cure what ails you and up-level your life, you've been flipped by the exact same script. It's not even remotely original. Just been updated for a high tech direct-to-consumer age.)

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!"?

If so, you already know these OG founders' marketing work.

Turns out, that's not just a timeless saying about the girl whose friends all get hitched before she does. It was a 1925 ad for Listerine, a general purpose 19th century antiseptic that was getting freshly marketed as a mouthwash.

And that poor perpetual bridesmaid? Her name was Eleanor. And she had "chronic halitosis." AKA Really bad breath (a newly invented term and condition). Hence the lack of marriage proposals.

But you know what? All Eleanor had to do was gargle some Listerine and her Prince Charming was on his way to a Happily Ever After and the American Dream.

#putaringonit

Redemption, by any other name.

Understand the Script or Repeat the Sins 📜

We live in the world that began here. We're all the bastard love-children of Protestant Calvinism and Free Market Capitalism. And if we don't seek formal emancipation from our unreliable parents, we're doomed to repeat their sins.

Otherwise, there'll be hell to pay.

Why take the time to lay this all out?

Because everything we're sorting through these days, especially in the New Age/self help/psychedelic renaissance scene like that women's circle, but more broadly across Western democratic cultures, has been captured by these currents.

If we don't understand the scripts we're running, we have no ability to rewrite them.

We've been driven, relentlessly and intentionally into a culture of hyper individualism.

We've been conditioned to soothe our selves and sell our souls for the acquisition of stuff.

We confer on all of this "stuff" the redemptive qualities we were promised they hold. TAG Heuer watches, red-bottomed shoes. Blue checks and Big Dumb Hats. All to make us look and feel smarter, sexier, more respected or more spiritual.

Right now.

Later doesn't cut it. Our itches demand to be scratched. Delayed gratification is for the losers or the unfaithful.

America flunks the marshmallow test every single time.

God bless us!

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And for a while—say from the end of WW II through the MadMen era—all the way up to almost now, that script worked out reasonably well for most of us.

It was an Amazing (Rat) Race, to be sure, chasing the American Dream through all of its twists and turns. But there were enough prizes and surprises around each carefully contrived corner, that none of us minded too much.

We ran faster and worked harder to get what we felt we had coming to us.

But that endless party appears to be ending.

Social security's running out soon (2037). Google and Facebook have put away the bean bags, scooters and ping pong tables and required everyone show up to work again (or sent the rest packing with pink slips).

Inflation's up. Savings are down.

Doomscrolling is through the roof.

For the first time since WWII, the belief that "I will live a life more prosperous and successful than my parents" has slipped into negative territory.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter Thompson wrote that famous line about watching the wave of 60's counterculture peaking, "…you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

It increasingly feels like this century long wave of consumptive, redemptive capitalism has crested too.

You could pin it on the Great Recession of '08, or the UK/US elections of '16, or the UN climate reports and Extinction Rebellions of '18, or the pandemic of '20, but really, it doesn't matter.

Events with this much momentum take a while to unspool, but once they start, become unstoppable. Like an avalanche, or a mudslide.

As Hemingway once wrote about going bankrupt, these things tend to happen slowly, and then suddenly, and all at once.

All of which is to say, we're in an increasingly tight spot. And we're not built for this shit. At least not anymore.

Don’t Be a Pot Plant 🪴

One way to think of this past century of consumer conditioning is to consider ourselves like little trees, all lined up side by side in plastic pots.

The pots represent our individualism, our isolation, and the artificiality of what contains us.

Few of us live in our hometowns, or in multi-generational households these days. Our "friends" online vastly outnumber our companions in real life.

We have "parasocial" relations with podcasters and celebrities who don't even know us. Even intimate love has been reduced to swiping and sniping at the Facetuned digital avatars of our #bestselves.

No humans have ever lived this way.

Ever!

Raised like that since we were little saplings, what do you think was going to happen to us?

Since we're kept inside most of the time, we're now utterly dependent on artificial light. And watering. And nutrients. Susceptible to all sorts of diseases we'd never encounter in the wild.

Deprived of anywhere to grow, our root balls curl in on themselves. When the wind blows, it knocks us over because we've been utterly sheltered from those kinds of natural stressors #safespaces.

And as for our friends and neighbors? Wrapped in plastic and isolated in rows and rows of look-alike clones, we barely notice them. And even if we did, we'd have no way to break through the plastic, to reach out and connect.

Seems kind of sad when you put it this way, but it's not that far-fetched an analogy.

Be a Mushroom 🍄

Now consider the opposite scenario. Us, born natural and free. Homegrown Humans.

We're born in the forest. Roots down into the earth. Shoots up towards the light. We grow strong in the wind and storms and learn to bend without breaking.

We know where our food, water and sunshine come from. We observe the seasons. We come to know our place in the scheme of things.

And we're not alone.

We're in a community of grandparents, parents, cousins and children.

Like redwood groves who shunt water uphill from the creekbeds to the thirsty trees on the ridgeline, or share antibodies to ward off the disease that's afflicting a neighbor, or even conduct photosynthesis for their otherwise crippled albino relatives, we are stronger and more resilient together.

We take our stand in a stand of relations.

And it doesn't even end there, as anyone who watched our buddy Lou Schwartzberg's Fantastic Fungi learned. The mycelial networks knit the forest together further still, connecting root systems, sharing information and nutrition.

At our healthiest and strongest, we are an intergenerational, interspecies collective.

Smarter, stronger, more generous and more resilient than any of us stuck in our little plastic pots on the sidewalk of the garden store.

So all of this is to say and remind us, we're not built for this shit!

Our isolated pot plants are no match for the storms ahead.

The chronic anxieties, climate despair, narcissism, addiction and depression that are overwhelming our psyches and ravaging our communities are logical and inevitable symptoms of being shrink wrapped and packaged for way too long.

Our roots—are curled up and clumped, are unable to find food or anchor us to the ground.

Our shoots—are forced to grow under false light and synthetic nourishment.

We've been cultivated and conditioned to believe that our own satisfaction is all that matters and our wildest desires must be met right away. (no money down, easy monthly payments, IF you act TODAY!).

That's what those snake-oil preachers and Law of Attraction shills figured out.

I. Me. Mine. Now.

Four of the most powerful words we'll ever hear. And we've been listening to them for so long, we’ve mistaken them for the stirrings of our own hearts.

Tough Tradeoffs May Be Ahead ⚠️

But here's the thing.

We might be entering several decades of serious belt tightening.

Some mandatory delays of gratification.

Never mind trying to hold out for that second marshmallow. S’mores may be off #TheMenu for the foreseeable future.

As we manage populations, transition energy supplies, and repair ecological and political systems, there's almost certain to be some tough tradeoffs ahead.

What if we can't or wont get what we've been conditioned to believe we have coming to us?

Our photo opportunity? Our shot at redemption?

Not now.

Not even soon.

Maybe not ever? (or at least, not in our own lifetimes)

If we're trying to process that as isolated plants in pots, it's going to break us. No single one of us can hold all that.

Far better to think like the mushroom family, weaving the forest together. Dying, sporing, expanding, collapsing, connecting. Across time and space.

Composting what came before, growing from what's available now, and contributing to what's yet to come.

Doesn't that seem a little deeper? A little richer? And a lot more natural?

Finding #2. Ancestral Honor Beats Ancestral Trauma

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Now the Men's Fire I got to go to this weekend was nowhere near as cringey as the Sister's Circle Julie sat in on. I know and like a bunch of the guys and would come back again.

But it was of a genre of gathering that always stretches my Englishness to its limit.

Sensitive New Age Guys (SNAGs) who are down to share from the heart, talk about their sacred masculine, and possibly even dip their toes into Ancestral work.

Except, like with all things in our Potted Plant culture, even look-backs still have to lead back—to us, here, now.

If we're talking about our ancestors (as every civilization from the Greeks, to Romans, Yoruba, Japanese and Koreans all have), it seems we're doing it slightly backwards.

If you hear the word "Ancestral" these days, it's typically followed by one of two words—"grains" or "trauma."

Leaving chewy cereals aside for the moment (or forever), just think about that second usage for a minute.

Other cultures engage in Ancestor worship religiously.

Elders, grandparents and the mythic leaders of their clans loom large in daily decisions. The example they set and the codes they lived by become the yardsticks by which we measure our lives.

Our incarnations are but one brief spin of the wheel in the context of a much longer story. And we try to do our best not to fuck up their solid track record.

But how do we do it these days?

By fetishizing Ancestral trauma.

Not "How can I live up to the noble and courageous example of my forebearers, and honor their sacrifices!"

But "Why do I feel so sad for all that I didn't get, and how can I possibly ever forgive them?"

We've made them, all about us.

It's kind of amazing!

And with the recent explosion of epigenetics, that trend has gone exponential. #becuzscience

From the children of Civil War POWs to the grandchildren of starving Danish farmers, to the descendants of the Holocaust, studies are showing that physiological and psychological hardship can be passed down (sometimes even making us stronger).

It's profound and fascinating work, but the Hungry Ghosts have already captured it for their own purposes.

"Wait, you mean, I can binge watch Bessel Van Der Kolk and Gabor Mate and now you're telling me there's a near bottomless well of intergenerational trauma that I also get to work on? EPIC!!! I never need to sack the fuck up, I never need to stop ruminating on my own woundings, or be grateful for being born into unprecedented peace and prosperity.

I can elevate my own narcissism by loudly proclaiming to anyone within earshot that I am not only "doing my work." I'm actually doing THE Work??? ALL of it? Sign. Me. Up!"

It's an endless mudwallow. Not once do we thank our forebearers for dying well enough that we could actually live.

Serve Like an Ancestor 🤝🏽

But, we always could, right?

We could, like those mycelial networks, like those stands of old growth trees, reconnect ourselves, our lives and our families together.

Past. Present. Future.

We could realize that, despite a century of indoctrination to the contrary, we can't always get what we want.

And that sometimes our parents and grandparents aren't just foils for our own personal healing journeys.

Sometimes they sucked it up and did hard, scary, noble things on behalf of children they never got to see enjoy those rewards.

They carried loads, without complaint that would buckle our knees. They endured scarcity and uncertainty that no amount of our Klonopin or Ambien could quell.

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Once in a while, they might even still have something to teach us.

And what's so cool about what our ancestors have to teach, is that they show us how to become ancestors ourselves when the time comes.

After all, when those ancient redwoods fall, they crash to the forest floor, opening up new patches of sunshine and blue sky in the canopy. As they rot, mushrooms and fresh seedlings spring up from their mulchy trunks.

They recede into the earth, but not before giving life to what's next.

It's like Moses wandering for 39 and a half fucking years through the hot and dusty desert, only to snuff it on the verge of the Promised Land.

He never got to taste the milk and honey he had coming to him, but it didn't matter. He was playing his part. He found the will to keep going, not because he was going to get his, but because his grandchildren might get theirs.

And we've got to reclaim that attitude too.

Because there's no real telling what the coming century is gonna bring.

There's solid odds it's going to be less secure, less stable and more mobile than the Pax Americana we all came up in.

That "American Peace.” Cheap gas. Cheap stuff. And statistically improbable stability allowed us to develop some bad habits that never got corrected.

We became convinced that the whole story is supposed to unfold for us, in our own lifetimes, all at once.

But it’s past time to break out of our plastic straight jackets, and set aside those artificial nutrients and pretty lights.

We're going to have to grow up, and move from craving I. Me. Mine. Now.

To fighting for We, Us, Ours, Forever.

Now that’s something worth manifesting.

J