We Can Meet There In Peace (If We Make It)
Welp, we just got back from a super fun and potent week at Camp Omega in the mountains of Aspen, with a hundred rad humans.
We set out to answer three questions:
1) Where have we come from?
2) What's going on?
3) What do we do now?
And I'd have to say, the crew did a bang up job of coming to some worthwhile insights and next steps.
ANSWER KEY:
1) We're time-bending space monkeys harvesting starlight.
2) We're in a super tight spot.
3) It's time to take our stand, make art and help out.
It was less a "retreat" from reality, than an advance into the future.
In a sea of increasing cultural, political and ecological churn, we got to learn, grieve, move, sing, dance, and train together in ways that felt grounded, open and fun. Deceptively worthwhile medicine.
Huge thanks to our friends at the Beyul Retreat, who've taken a 19th century railroad camp-turned hunting lodge and turned it into a sustainable spot for making magic, and our favorite old time religion preachers, the band Rising Appalachia who reminded us how to sing the redemption songs we all need more of these days.
If there's any Big Idea from Recapture the Rapture that I hope folks get deep in their bones, it's that we have all the tools we need to forge a future we all want--they're there, just lying around in the excess of our consumer culture, waiting to be picked up, dusted off, and put together with a little love and ingenuity. This is the Story of How We Begin to Remember.
Culture Architecture just gives us a roadmap to build back better (to borrow a phrase and then subvert it entirely ;) And more to come from Camp Omega as we get video and stories sorted.
As we keep tracking the transition from business as usual into the "what do we do now?" phase of things, we are increasingly going back to our roots to go forwards into the future. And those roots lie in simple, potent living, close to nature, as self sufficiently as possible.
For anyone still stuck on the Flow state/biohacky/neuroporn thing, and wanting to geek out on the tips and tricks to get there, the answers are as simple as they've ever been: Deep Embodiment, Rich Environment, and High Consequence. No nutraceuticals, VR headset, or apps required...
Get below your neck and into your body--feel gravity, balance, and functional movement. Get out into MN (Mother Nature) and grok the magic of un-built environments and our unperturbed circadian rhythms, and take some physical, social, or psycho-spiritual risks--we're not built to sit at home surrounded by flame retardant cushions in a climate controlled cocoon, after all. (#henotbusybeingbornisbusydyin').
At the very least, rather than doom scrolling on your phone, read a really good book (see our Future Proofing Reading List). Start envisioning the stories we want to live into. The ones that remind us of what's to be done.
More to come this week about our next steps and Canyon Course, but we'll leave you all with this for now--a poem by one of our biggest inspirations in life, Pulitzer prize winning poet, ecologist and mountain man Gary Snyder. It's what we shared in our final circle at the end of the week in Aspen--never fails to choke me up, and galvanize for the road to come.
For the Children
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,up,
as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
––
Don't curse the Darkness. Go light a bonfire.
J