Align Your Orbit: Rebuilding Starts Now
Align Your Orbit is a series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide ourselves toward intentionality and impact. Synthesized after years of conversations and now with inspirations from MidJourney, we’re fully embracing our cyborg natures. Find delight in these journeys of exploration. If you would like to receive these offerings as a monthly email, sign up here.
We’ve been following the money, and the trail it leaves is ugly, infested, corroded, and on fire. The illnesses of our society are eating themselves from the inside. Media is losing its grip on the mainstream narrative, and we’re more aware than ever of the farcical nature of national and international politics.
We can’t afford to wait until the meltdown is over to start restoration. We have to be ready for the flood of transition coming. Build and strengthen foundations now so we are ready to reforest, restructure, and repair toward a new future. Invest in your local community and embrace creative divestments from failing circulatory systems.
If you’d like to experience these recipes as a playlist, here’s the link.
New Experiments
1. community starts in you – The voices in your head are trying to get your attention. When someone hogs the microphone, approach with tenderness and compassion. Determine what you need in order to trust the rest of your system. Practice trading roles of observer and actor. For more information about plurality and internal family systems, check out this blog.
Challenge Mode: Once you develop a sense of compassion for your parts of self, turn that newfound empathy out toward your external community. Approach people from all walks of life with curiosity. Hear their stories. Ask what would improve their situation. Don’t assume you have the solution.
2. take the pulse – Shift your focus toward the hyper-local. Find out who currently leads your neighborhood groups. Get involved in decision-making processes. Share resources, events, and opportunities for involvement with others in your immediate area. Get a sense of what skills your neighbors have.
Challenge Mode: We need to look now at the structures we want to support going forward. As the government and media continue their slow-motion train wreck, turn away from the drama toward mutual aid structures, citizen assemblies, and self-organizing, non-hierarchical micro-governments. As discussed in Mutual Aid by Dean Spade, create spaces that are leaderless and leader full. Host a neighborhood party. Sign up for community hour exchange.
3. pass the baton – Our communities grow stronger when no one person is special. Taking on too much of the work yourself robs your community of opportunities to grow and strengthen. Delegate tasks, support others in taking on leadership roles, and set everyone up for success with templates and mutually determined processes.
Challenge Mode: The person who is a good leader during normal, blue skies times might not be best equipped to handle an emergency. Play to your community’s strengths and decide the circumstances under which someone else might take the lead. Rotate facilitation so everyone feels invested and develops skills.
4. lift from the bottom – Use your feet as a barometer of how your whole body is doing. Can you feel into your toes right now? Try out new stretches and orthopedic solutions that prioritize what keeps you standing. Thank your sense of balance, take time to invert your blood flow, and gently break up that hardworking fascia.
Challenge Mode: Practice humility. Get on level. Accept feedback as investment in your character. Ask to massage or wash literal or metaphorical feet. Seek opportunities to get your hands dirty. As PJ O’Rourke says, everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
Andra’s Recap of Distinct Messages
The experiments for last time included listening to the body’s messages, being in alignment with the outcome of generosity, sinking into the universal consciousness that is always present, and taking your emergency plan one step further.
I’ve been having some digestive discomfort, and while I tried to limit what I was eating and adjust accordingly, I had a difficult time reducing the noise. As a result, I needed to seek an actual doctor to give me some suggestions on which direction to take. While that might be a bit of a journey, I’m grateful to have some medical providers I can trust.
However, meditating for 10 minutes after big events has been extremely helpful. Even if my mind is running on overdrive the whole time, I find that I rejoin friends and family with much less activated energy.
Generosity came into play for me recently primarily with regard to my time. I had to make very calculated decisions about where and when I wanted to put in time. When I made sure that, regardless of the event I attended, I would learn something or strengthen my community, the events were more successful and fulfilling. I’ve also needed to say no to people and events that have stopped being mutually beneficial, which is a tough but necessary process. Being particular about where I’m spending my time has made it possible for me to be more generous with my time and energy in places that also nourish me.
After having left a very physically demanding job, I am now adjusting to exercising less. As a result, I have started biking more, and I am working on reincorporating my stretching into that. When I stretch, I do try to listen for the moment when my muscles stop fighting the process before I stop.
Between completing the final field exercise for my Neighborhood Emergency Training (yay!) and ordering some tourniquets for my emergency supply bag, I feel more prepared than ever for emergencies. I’ve also done so much effort, especially this month, in shifting my attention to what is hyper-local. I want to know what’s happening, what the risk factors are, who has skills that might come in handy, and what politics are in play. It’s been a truly enlightening process.
In inviting the pain of social collapse in, I’ve allowed myself to experience the grief and loss that Nex Benedict and Aaron Bushnell represent, both in their individual deaths and what they mean in terms of our collective grief. While I wish that these atrocities were not happening, I am grateful for the opportunities to be grieving in community.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the new experiments!