Is COVID-19 a Collective Rite of Passage?

Many transitions in human cultures are marked by rites of passage, such as baptisms, weddings, even funerals. And, during those transitions there is a moment when those involved are neither what they were, nor what they will become.

Courting the Wild Twin: Excerpt

This condition of wondering is still absolutely intact in us. It is. Amongst the loaded shopping trolleys of Walmart and Tesco, the fluorescent tech hubs, flicker-screens and finger-beckoning apps, it’s still there. This raw, imaginative, holy thing.

There’s an audacity to it, but it’s what we’ve always done.

Our Entangled Future: Excerpt

Stories play a powerful role in transmitting personal and collective experiences. They allow us to “feel” climate change in ways that can move us emotionally and open our imagination to new possibilities. They raise our awareness not only to what is happening in the world, but to how it may be experienced by others, both now and in the future.

Resist and Rebuild

We should use the new story, and the proposals this narrative vehicle carries, to build mass resistance movements, taking inspiration from – and building on – highly effective mobilisations such as the youth climate strikes. We will draw strength from the movements in other nations, and support them in turn.

The Lies We’re Told About Appalachia

Stories about Appalachia, who tells them and who gets to claim them, matter a great deal when it comes to understanding the place and people more fully. And that understanding is critical, because without a deeper and more complete understanding of Appalachia, it will be hard for its people to build a brighter future that crosses lines of division and works toward parity between race and class.

The Need for a Greater Vision: Finding a New Model

The nature of the current crisis demands extreme action, not a watered down politically acceptable compromise.  It may seem impossible at present, but as the situation unfolds there will be opportunities to make fundamental changes to how we think, to how we live and govern ourselves.

The Need for a Greater Vision: Recognizing Reality

We live in a culture that is embedded in unquestioned beliefs passing as truth. These beliefs are the source of our current crisis. We attempt to solve the problems of degradation of our environment and climate disruption, but we do not look at these core beliefs.

The Stories We Need: Pan-African Social Ecology

Kadalie’s book is one more testament that a collective awakening is taking place to jettison the state and redefine global history from the bottom up.

For all this, direct democracy by itself can hardly promise social and ecological restoration. Democracy is not a matter of implementing formulaic procedures and structures; it is a matter of fostering bonds of mutual support and the sharing of communal power.

The Earth Does Not Speak in Prose

The minute there’s an orthodoxy of language and an orthodoxy of thought, which we all feel we have to stay within otherwise we’re going to get punished, or cancelled, then that’s the end of expression, that’s the end of any attempt to explore outside the boundaries. It’s what every orthodoxy from fascism to communism to theocracy tries to impose on the people to purify the culture, by forcing out anyone who thinks or speaks incorrectly.