Being reimagined with lived experience, reverence, intuition, and wonder

I was 37 and just finishing my doctoral dissertation research when I woke up one day and realized that I'd spent my adult life reading primarily the work of men. Almost all books, articles, essays, research papers, and even poetry: men, men, men, men, men. Back in 2008, the world of publishable and published words and ideas– at least in English and especially in the halls of academia and business– was still raining men. To the point of absurdity, though, not hallelujah. And yet.

And yet.

By far. By far.

The very best thing that doctoral program offered up of itself to me was a group of women friends who were part of my cohort. A group I will be– be– for at least the rest of all our lifetimes. Our time around tables together– laughing and crying and learning and eating and being silly and dreaming and even holding unimaginable pain and loss. During those early years. And in every year since then. When we sit around a table together, my whole self is present. I am this group. This group is me. We're a we. That's way more than what 40 years of reading men taught me. But I digress.

Back in 2008, when I realized I'd been reading mostly the best imaginings of wealthy white men, I vowed that I would spend the next 30 years of my life reading the otherwise. Reading almost exclusively women and non-binary folks and non-academic folks and non-traditionally-published folks, and storytellers who put nothing on paper at all, and those who didn't use words, and anyone else who fell, leapt, or was pushed outside the white-walled prison our ancestors and I– in our life-long search for security, recognition, and/or salvation– had built for ourselves and, unfortunately, for many others too. A prison whose walls were already shaking from the cracks they held. And then there's the crack that many of us come to value and stick to as adults when we walk away from the life-hating corporate, academic, or political worlds: this crack– there must be a far better way than this.

Seventeen years have passed since I made that vow. I've actually expanded it. I spent the past 7 years listening primarily to the land herself, to forests, to plants, to the relationships among the insects, wildlife, plants, trees, land, water, seasons, and people. We know this: now is a time for being reimagined. Humanity herself is being reimagined. It's not an easy time, especially for those who are fighting change, which is inevitable, and those in the path of those fighting change so hard that they don't notice or mind mowing down neighbors or whole countries in the process.

Here are some musings from the otherwise, the elsewhere, the cracks, the land, the forests, the plants, and the interrelationships. On what it takes to be reimagined.

Trust lived experience

Here at 55, I remember 37-Year-Old Me vowing not just to step into cracks in the old system but to jump up and down in them. Widen them. Maybe even turn liquid and flow into them together as community. To become like the water that shocks first-year students who are certain that the jar is already full when stones, and then sand, fill it to the brim– not yet imagining what water can do in the space between things.

At 38, after graduation, I remember meeting with a trusted elder/former professor who thought I should host some talks in the gorgeous old building that he'd invited me to– a building whose history was one of almost non-stop exclusion of women, of Black people, brown people, Jewish people. Not surprisingly, by 2008, though they had changed old policies, they found that they were having trouble finding enough members. The grand old building itself was in jeopardy. A building worth saving– this elder felt– despite its history. I tried to listen. I did. But he walked me by the tiny door at the back of the grand building, in a dark and narrow alley, where wives were once allowed to enter but only into a backroom and only to serve. I felt my skin crawl. I listened with my skin, not just my ears, from that moment on. And I kindly told him that I'd much rather connect with people in homes, parks, and in neighborhood community centers, not this massive, imposing, still-intimidating mansion. I was too polite, back then, to tell him what I really felt, which was this: "Gift the building to those whose ancestors should have been welcomed with open arms or let its beginnings in exclusion and generations-spanning commitment to intentional cruelty toward most of humanity crumble this whole fucking building into rubble and dust."

We can't always say out loud what needs to be said in the moment. Lived experience changes us so that one day– like today– we can. And if years of lived experience doesn't work, for women, there's also menopause. Huzzah!!! Which I now believe should be called "Men best pause" to listen, because here we're fucking done with holding our tongues, being polite or silent in the face of abuse, and not saying exactly what we think. But I digress. Or maybe not. Lived experience...

By my mid 40s, as I learned to accept and live with the Younger Onset Alzheimer's in my family, and all attendant grace, and pain, that come with this particular wise/unwise/young/old/cultural-myths-shattering way of collective being, I realized that together we can become the cracks themselves. Welcome to the Void, I wrote back then, and The Grace of Dragons: Receiving the Gifts of Dementia Care Partnering. I'm so grateful now for who Alzheimer's disease pushed me, and sometimes drop-kicked me, into being. A disease that taught me there is nothing whatsoever wrong with Mom and her collective way of being. It's society that has a lot to learn from her/us– especially about how to be grateful for literally everyone present– not the other way around. Strangers who shake their heads and offer condolences upon learning that Mom, that we, have lived with Alzheimer's disease for 23+ years– have no idea. Zero. None. About the reality of our experiences. Only those who choose to stay present and close do. Only those who love us deeply and forever– across all our foibles and mistakes and wanderings– can feel and see our truths.

This week, as I turned 55, both global genocide and ecocide are live-streamed daily to exhausted adults and anxiety-prone children while petty wealthy men debate complete and utter nonsense in the halls of government, and their fascist footmen carry out complete and utter violence against humanity. Today, only one thing is crystal clear. The limitations of the world of wealthy, respectable, published, pampered, well-educated white men aren't hidden anymore. The world where most emotions were shamed and beaten out of boys at a young age and then only they were allowed to speak, succeed, and rule was a self-blinding disaster. That world has either already crumbled where you live, or its about to. And it should. Because those that cling to that world are now clinging to delusion. Pure wounded childhood fantasy. And that's obvious to the rest of humanity as a whole. The "leaders" causing billions to suffer, and millions to die, are still trapped in that old world where we are expected to deny all evidence of our own experience– everything gathered and witnessed and created by our own bodies, hearts, minds, and friends.

A world that makes your skin crawl should become dust. Let all aspects of that world crumble within you. There are better worlds than that one already growing and present. Better old ways of being, and better new ways of being. My own lived experiences have brought me here...

I will not stay long in a room or on any online platform where people self-censor to the point that they never speak of the attempted erasure of millions– from state-sponsored kidnappings to genocides happening right now or the fact that their own cities will be out of water, or burned to ash, a few years from now– all for fear of disturbing an imagined peace that almost nobody feels anymore. That way lies not trusting your own senses. That's madness. Enough with the self-censoring! We all deserve more trust than that. Be yourself, as loudly as you can be. And when you can't be yourself, one option is to take a deep breath and walk away. From places, from people. Find new places, new friends. Let your absence, the silence, speak for you. Another option is to keep being yourself without apology. Allow people to walk, run, or sprint away from you as they wish. Welcome learning and unlearning everywhere that you find them.

So today, at just-turned-55, my lived experience has changed me again. I no longer aspire to be the water poured into the jar by an expert to demonstrate that more can be poured into cracks than we can first imagine. Life's wilder and wiser and so much messier and fluidly elegant and unexpected than that. These hands of mine have minds of their own. These hands will touch soil, listen to trees, hold and channel the dreams and experiences of my unspeaking Mom and grandmothers who dwell in other realms. These feet will walk outside, often with others, to learn with and from the land, the region, the weather, and the neighborhoods themselves. Will put my frightened body in places she's not certain she should be. This skin and these ears hear whole places– which frightened beings have labeled everything from daydreaming to impractical to wasting time my whole life to witchcraft and, more recently, as an "all-consuming isolating thing and also a vanity project"– but understanding how to hear the voice of a whole place is what my own people most need. That feels wildly practical to me. And dreamy too.

This heart connects to the heart field of Earth now, naturally, and without apology. Lion-hearted people aren't more courageous than anyone else, they're just always aware that they're connected to everyone and that we need others, and the otherwise, and elsewhere, and the cracks– beyond all measure.

Why did we ever believe that the land, the water, the forest, and the stars couldn't speak for themselves?

How could we ever have thought that children and elders and civilians and forests somehow deserved suffering, torture, erasure, and genocide?

We were trained to accept the harsh words of others as better than– above– our own experience and always-sensitive selves. To internalize those harsh words from powerful others. Let that go. That time is done. It's done. More beautiful things are here...

Trust reverence

I thank my lucky stars for the otherwise. For the different. For the women who taught me there are whole worlds in each book and under each footstep I take across the yard and to make sure to learn the names of all those tickling my heart or my feet. I thank my lucky stars for immigrants following hearts and ancestral dreams back and forth across imaginary borders. For the outpourings and overwhelm and floods of emotion and otherwise (my friend Bayo Akomolafe says excesses– love it!) of life that cannot– will not– be fully held by human categories, minds, philosophies, words, walls, dams, prisons, violence-bringing ICE agents, or other far-too-tight ways of being. I thank the stars for, as Bayo also says, the cracks.

Bayo shared the following words this week. Wow do I love them. Reverence is present in every letter, space, word, breath, and sound– through and through– everything he writes always reads as poetry to me:

"Cracks do not just let light in, they let world in. When we say cracks come with their own weather, we name their atmospheres of grief and astonishment, their humidity of longing, their winds that do not blow in straight lines. We name the business of becoming undone in ways that make new touch possible. We speak to the climates of feeling that resist tidy names, where sobbing might be a form of measurement, where disorientation is a form of orientation. The crack does not invite repair; it invites reverence. Not sealing, but sensing. Not a plan, but a pulse."

His words likely transported you somewhere.

Did they take you somewhere? Where did you go?

For me Bayo's words returned me to when I was 36, and a professor suggested that my crying– whenever people around me began intentionally hurting each other or hiding what they were feeling entirely or when I was overwhelmed with gratitude for simply being present– was a form of leadership. That shocked me back then. Why had I thought crying was a weakness? Today, reading Bayo, I was introduced to the idea (likely the experience) that sobbing could be considered a form of measurement. I'm intrigued by this picture Bayo always seems to be drawing yet is always undrawing elsewhere, leaving unfinished bits for others to play along. Space for reverence. And for me. Now wondering if I'm a measuring device.

As an empathic being I regularly, almost daily, feel like a long-dead canary in a coal mine that nobody around me even notices. "This self-hating violence is killing us!" my tiny decomposing feathered body screams up from the floor. Wow, do I feel seen by always-sensitive beings like Bayo. And not just seen. Present. In the presence of reverence, we feel revered. Well respected and loved just for being alive and present.

Bayo and his family and community are reverence personified, from my perspective. Reverence through and through. If you find disrespect for life, or for others, or for you, in Bayo, then friend, you brought that shit with you. My own people know reverence, yes. But at some point we decided to give reverence just one day/week. Settling for far less than we really are six days out of every seven. Causing us to lose faith in ourselves, and then others, and then life herself.

Cracks do not just let light in, they let world in. When we say cracks come with their own weather, we name their atmospheres of grief and astonishment, their humidity of longing, their winds that do not blow in straight lines. We name the business of becoming undone in ways that make new touch possible. We speak to the climates of feeling that resist tidy names, where sobbing might be a form of measurement, where disorientation is a form of orientation. The crack does not invite repair; it invites reverence. Not sealing, but sensing. Not a plan, but a pulse. - Bayo

Reverence carries plant wisdom into bare toes, earth wisdom into words, beloved experience into hearts and skin and bones, and even bones into ash, soil, and rivers. Reverence is life blood and connective tissue for earthlings. We can't just discard reverence. When we try, we grow weary, angry, sick, and even violent. Wow. Read again what Bayo wrote above. If you think that just one human wrote that then you need to go find the nearest crack and jump in headfirst. Luckily, cracks are everywhere these days.

P.S. If you long for reverence in life, or you still feel alone and uncertain about jumping into cracks headfirst, or becoming the cracks, then the online and in-heart class We Will Dance With Mountains: Vunja (A Slow Study Course with Dr. Bayo Akomolafe) is open through June 21st if you care to jump with Bayo & friends. Or, if you need to. I'm not affiliated with the class in any way beyond my heart's insistence on remaining connected to other crack-loving hearts around the globe. Spending time with these folks is great for when you're so sick and tired of the human world that you find yourself envying mushrooms and microbes within the warm-hot summer stink of the compost pile. Long-time friendship does that, doesn't it? Creates deep pockets of rest and sanctuary in an uncertain world. And reminds us of the lessons we've forgotten about how well-suited we are for this shifting place we call home. When we move through this space as friends.

Become intuition

When, like me and my people, you've tried individual agency into the ground– and grown exhausted with constant trying and trying and failing and failing to fix everything that's wrong with the human world, or even with your own smaller world, and you're exhausted from the trying– then it's time to trust elsewhere.

It's time.

Elsewhere has arrived. Friend of Otherwise and Lived Experience. Cross-generational student of Reverence, Movement, and Spontaneity.

Elsewhere speaks in whispers, welcomes whispering. Invites intuition.

I strongly suspect that Intuition is simply elsewhere fully welcome within us. Let's become intuition for a moment just to see what that brings forth...

I am not reimagining myself and the world today. I'm not. That's me doing. That's agency.

As Intuition, we ourselves are being reimagined. We can close our eyes and open our hearts or minds, or whatever you're in the mood to open, and we can just feel this. We can know this. And, we can simply name what is. For example:

• It feels like Mom is entering her final year in this body.
• I can sense that you've already made up your mind.
• I can feel that something has shifted within me– something that won't, can't, shift back again.
• That served us well back then. It doesn't serve us, or anyone, now. We're letting that go.

We are being reimagined by the Earth Herself, and by the region we are in, and the air we breathe, by the Sky and Stars Themselves, and definitely by all the living beings small and large around us and within us (yay gut biomes!), and also by goddess or God or Allah or universe or multiverse or spirit, if you prefer.

As earthlings, as humanity, as countries, as communities, as organizations, as families and friendship groups, and, yes, as individuals. We are being reimagined. Those connected, humble, and emotional can feel this. So, um, yeah. At the moment that's mostly women, nonbinary folk, and the coolest– best held and protected– men. Intuition is simply who we are when we admit we're curious about the world, feel deeply connected to it, and we know that we're not the boss of everything.

Why did we think if we just worked hard enough that we could control everything as individuals? What a small, sad, disconnected way of being. Look where that has landed humanity. We are dealing with the bloody departure of the last of those wealthy enough and privileged enough to maintain and cling hard to humanity's worst delusions– to superiority based on random family of birth or skin color or genital shape and location, to wealth hoarding while others suffer and die (something healthy animals will not do), and to self-abuse, violence born of chronic self-abuse, and all intentional harming of others as a misguided way to connect, stay safe, or increase your standing in the eyes of other abusers.

Befriending Elsewhere leads to trusting Intuition. Trusting Intuition leads to honesty surfacing and befitting– not overpowering or harming others in– the moment. When you feel wow, you can say "Wow!" When you feel nonsense, you can say "Nonsense!" When you feel that this is bullshit, you can say "This is bullshit!" When you sense that someone else should speak in this moment, you can just shut up. When you feel with your whole being– which is far vaster than one body– name what you feel. Out loud. Name every shift sensed and every feeling. We are namers, after all. If you want to take action but don't know where to start, start by naming shifts you sense and feelings you're feeling. Name or rename everything within you that is silent or unhappy with its location or name. It's not enough for only the bravest among us to do this. And it's definitely not enough to allow only the wealthy, and con artists, racists, misogynists, white supremacists, narcissists, and other life-haters of the earth to do this– their Intuition is limited by the tiny amount of Elsewhere they allow in out of chronic fear. All of us must shift past our politeness, fear, and other life-dampening old training to do this too.

Some people are lucky enough to have groups of supportive, physically present humans supporting them in becoming Intuition. Some of us are lucky enough to have ancestors or forests or rivers supporting us in this. Some of us are lucky enough to lean on artists and authors and books and movies and games. Some lean on animals and open spaces and collective imagination. Lucky us! Gather all your supporters together into your heart. Become Elsewhere. Feel what they feel. Listen to what they say. And when that collective multi-perspective within can be touched with your mind, heart, and body, speak. That's Intuition.

That's us!

Wonder

We're living on a planet where individual human life, security, recognition, and salvation– separate from the place we're living and everyone we're living with and near– aren't enough for almost anyone anymore. We see better, know better, and do better now. The suffering that leads to violence, born of chronic isolation, self-hate, and abuse, is giving way to more collective, life-giving, tender and gentler ways of being. Those clinging to the old ways are fighting this change violently– causing mass suffering, displacement, starvation, incarceration, and state-sponsored murder on a scale to the point it has its own name (genocide). It's horrific. Life right now is horrific.

[Deep breath in. Deep breath out.]

If you can see the horror, and speak it, then here's the good news. You're also deeply connected to wonder. You are connected to a whole universe (multiverse?) of wonder.

Wonder does not ask us to look away. Wonder is us allowing ourselves to be even more us. Us looking closer, more openly, more carefully (full of care in the presence of awe and curiosity), and with a larger, more connected-to-life heart, spirit, body, mind, and community. As a life-long practice. Those who tamp down and try to kill their own emotions gain the ability to harm others and themselves, but they lose a lot in that process. From my perspective, they lose what I love most about us: easy access to wonder.

The isolation of chronic imagined separateness from life was never enough for most of us: moments and extended periods of wonder taught us that as children. We are a part of a very beautiful, remarkable, interesting, and magical place. Even when our adult selves settled for less than wonder, and less and less togetherness, and less than a feeling of wholeness and belonging as we move through the world, our kid selves knew better. Know better. We know better.

In our family we've played a silly game called Rock, Paper, Scissors our whole lives and a modified version the past decade or so, called Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. These days we often use this silly game to see who will do a task that nobody wants to do. The shape of your hand as one of these objects/reptiles/people determines the winner and the loser, because one always beats another and all can be beaten by at least one other. Wonder, however, cannot play this game. Not directly. Some say that's because Wonder silences all present and lives outside all notions of winning and losing. Fair points, for grownups anyway. Sassy others, like me, say it's because nothing beats Wonder.

Nothing beats Wonder.

Intentional perpetrators of suffering, fear, and genocide can't fully hear that. Can't feel that and know that. Not yet. Our collective wonder has to become even more visible. And she's on her way!

Nothing beats wonder.

Wonder dwells within us, and within and beyond everything. Wonder is often found within mystery, the surprising, and is felt in moments when our curiosity becomes more powerful than our fears. When our internal awe encompasses our internal fears. Or when our utter delight becomes greater than our trepidation. Or when our collective openness to possibility or awe pull forth something entirely unexpected by everyone present.

In my culture, kids stumble upon wonder every day. Adults are taught that wonder is impractical and we simply don't have time for the impractical anymore. Ick. And... Playful elders woo wonder. Become wonder. Teach wonder with almost every action, regardless of what language they speak, what they happen to look like on the outside, or whatever else they do.

I'm not the fan of certainty that I once was. And, I'll say this: it's tough to go wrong when you're wondering. When you're trusting Wonder. When you're aware that wonder is, in fact, everywhere. When you let yourself be – or choose to be– just slightly more curious than you are heartbroken, fearful, angry, livid, outraged, anxious, or depressed. There's nothing wrong with any emotions. And, some of them need wonder as a companion so we don't get so bogged down in them that we run out of air. Especially when we're feeling separate or isolated.

We may not be able to include Wonder as an option in Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. But Wonder was fully present when someone invented that game (pulled from the show The Big Bang Theory), and she's fully present when we still play it as 55-year-old adults in the face of a society that says we shouldn't concern ourselves with the silly.

We will absolutely concern ourselves with the silly. We don't apologize for being fully human! And we don't ask others to, either. Thanks in large part to Wonder.

Where do you return to?

The world is beautiful. The human world is also a terrifying, bloody mess here as the age of the mighty separate individual crumbles into rubble and violence. Hiding is an option, for some. Grieving is another option. Fighting is yet another option. Resting well works, some days. Creating, receiving, and giving sanctuary is another option. Creating and becoming community is an option, too. Growing and gifting food or laughter to neighbors never goes out of style. And. Then. There's me and my people. People of the cracks. People of reverence. People who refuse to write off wonder as impractical, intuition as worthless, playfulness and rest as unimportant, tenderness as weakness, humans as illegal, or anyone at all on Earth as insignificant. That includes our individual selves.

Where do you return again and again when times are tough?

I return to my people, the land, and the forest. And I keep coming back to the words that I feel like I've heard so many beloved others say, in one way or another. Words woven into my being so well that they're beyond memory. Such as, be the change you wish to see in the world. Or, if you want a world where rest is built into everyday life, do that. Or go where that's already happening and learn how to do that from others. If you want a world where people lean on their community for everything, do that. Or find where that is already happening and learn how to do that from others. If you want a world where money doesn't matter, do that. Join a Buy Nothing group and watch as thousands of others show up to share, loan, lend, borrow, and gift.

Here, we are open to being completely reimagined with lived experience, reverence, intuition, and wonder. Come to my people when you want that. We're everywhere when you want us and almost impossible to find if you don't. Like Wonder herself.