Align Your Orbit #72 - Rise & Fall
Align Your Orbit is a series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide ourselves toward intentionality and impact, synthesized after years of conversations. Find delight in these journeys of exploration. If you would like to receive these offerings as an email on the new moon, sign up here.
We’re teetering on collective edges as we explore varying densities of intensity. Ride the waves as sustainably as possible. Feel yourself reach capacity and carve out time for rest. Speak boundaries like a brick wall when you need to; melt when you can.
Bless the people who are willing to be inconvenienced. Change is both disruptive and inevitable. Let it move through you and energize you in the process. This is how the cosmos wants you to participate. Breath in shadows knowing you can transmute anything with love to wisdom.
Experience these experiments as a playlist!
New Experiments
1. reverse the narrative – Nothing is without nuance. If something feels unidirectional, tip that idea on its head just to see it from another perspective. Fixed narratives proliferate stagnation and breed mistruth. Allow for reality to be fluid—remember that the universe is a constant state of yes, and.
Challenge Mode: Seek opportunities to break the participant-facilitator binary. Ask questions of your audience and learn what they already know. Teach something you haven’t taught before. Discover the knowledge alive in your neighborhood. Listen for what each moment has to tell you.
2. outdo competition – By seeking collaboration and co-creation of reality, watch competitive modalities naturally fall by the wayside. Boost someone up whom others might consider a rival. Find unlikely allies. Generate a sense of agency and possibility. Be trusting and vulnerable until you have a specific, immediate reason not to be. There’s power in believing in the world of the future—one of unfathomable brilliance.
Challenge Mode: Keep challenging the dominant culture narrative by asking questions. Where does that end up after use? How do those chemicals affect other portions of the ecosystem? What are you doing to track the impacts of that decision? Have you consulted the group of people affected about that? Did that positive outcome happen because of this effort or in spite of this effort? Don’t let anyone forget that every system exists in a loop.
3. embrace growth intervals – Our ability to be in service to others is a recent evolution—we’re still working on it. You are not infallible, and neither is anyone else—admit your mistakes. Co-create the paths toward generating forgiveness in every direction. Provide the next step on the path to repair after someone wrongs you with a generous and understanding heart.
Challenge Mode: If someone refuses to give you grace, repeatedly wrongs you, or communicates violently, redirect the energy. Let your body loosen, move with, catch, and return. This is a fluid, unconscious motion. Stop the harm and protect the aggressor simultaneously. Watch the water drip off a duck’s back and return to the pond.
4. reach & pull back – Give yourself periods of high physical activity and allow periods of rest. Experiment with the time intervals and ratios that work for you. Having variance in your routine will keep it fresh for longer. And there’s no reason to force suffering or feelings of inadequacy. Let it flow.
Challenge Mode: Anger is just a form of energy like any other. Remember that destruction often makes space for new growth, and destruction can be as gentle as compost.
Andra’s Recap of Re-Source
The experiments for last month included feeling into the electricity of existence as it is, implementing slow solutions to the landscape, listening for hidden needs, and having moments when you ache for air.
The biggest places where I felt rejuvenated this month were inside of breathwork and writing stories with two collaborators. But, to be honest, the events, grief, and constant grind of pretending like everything is fine make it hard to hold anything together these days. I had to keep looking for the people who surprise me—those who tend the land, those who keep showing up, those who sing—to keep going. I know we are all building resilience, but the density of being alive right now—challenging to say the least. And there’s only so much anyone can do as a single person.
Still, I trust the network of weavers. We are starting to make waves. I’m seeing them.
After learning that urine is largely safe for non-food gardens and trees (and that the nitrates and phosphorous are good for soil), I set up the privacy shelter I have and put a camping bucket out there, rotating the sites I pour on. Opting for this minor inconvenience given spiders, chill, and traffic noise is admittedly difficult at times, but I used the shelter most days last cycle.
I worked with the idea of winding the path quite literally, volunteering with Tryon Creek State Park to dig a drainage trench to keep water off one of their horse trails. I learned about that process and learned how the rangers are caring for the forests. Additionally, I was surprised to hear that volunteer crews maintain almost all trails across the entire United States. These are the people giving me hope.
In terms of being specific about which resources I am lacking, I realized that saying, I don’t have the bandwidth for that, is not always the truest statement I could make. A lot of times, it’s more accurate to say that there is friction to that proposal. While it is more difficult to be honest about this, even with myself, it has been a good practice to recognize what I need to fully engage in a space.
Listening for hidden needs is tricky, and it is next to impossible to know if your judgment was correct in the end. How this showed up for me was trying to address and hear out the fear in someone’s voice when I heard it, regardless of what the content of their statement was. It has helped me come into situations with more grace and empathy.
I’ve done my best to make thoughtful and well-worded objections in group spaces when I genuinely feel like the group needs some perspective. It’s always tricky to offer constructive criticism gently and with a fully kind heart, especially when I’m emotional. It has been good practice this month. I’m not perfect at it, and I still need to slow down in my processes to fully allow for disagreement.
I went to three different group breathwork sessions and had many more on a personal level this month. There’s nothing like holding my breath to make me feel grateful to be alive. The moment I breath in again, I cannot experience anything other than abundance. It’s the most potent and successful form of meditation I have ever encountered.
My stretching practice has admittedly left something to be desired, but I’m letting that be okay. I had some glorious moments with fires that helped melt out some of the tension in my body. I also spent time in a wood-fired cob sauna, singing songs with strangers. I suppose, in that way, I did a lot of unexpected stretching of my vocal cords. I was grateful to revisit my voice.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy this cycle’s experiments!