Align Your Orbit: Space Between
Align Your Orbit is a monthly set of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide you toward intentionality and impact. Find delight in these timely experiments. If you would like to receive these offerings as a monthly email, sign up here.
As the dominos of climate chaos fall dramatically around us, we sing and dance our improbable futures closer. We hold our battered anger with tenderness as we approach the edge of life as we know it. Hold your heart in your hands and reach out to the others with your shared vision. There is no better time to start living the future.
Let even your small talk be full of personal and communal substance. Be intentional and precise about each plan you make. All eyes are on you as you take the stage. This is how you approach the moment you were made for.
Want to experience this as a Spotify playlist?
Experiments for May
1. confess – Learn how to talk about what you want to hide the most. Say it in the mirror. Tell someone plainly without downplay or justification. Pave the way for others to unburden themselves from their own guilts. We all have them. It’s time we talk.
Challenge Mode: There’s blood family and then there’s chosen family. If you’ve chosen someone, you choose them again each day until you don’t. How much repair indicates brokenness? Discover the difference between patience and tolerance.
2. when you feel most yourself – Write a list of which traits you have that you hold close at all costs. What is most essential to you and what are the consequences of that choice? Pay attention to the stories you tell about yourself. Which ones do you want to bring forward?
Challenge Mode: Play with a new artistic medium without a plan. Start writing without a prompt or objective. Watch which creative actions you feel compelled to take when you aren’t already attached to an outcome.
3. embrace that dissonance – Desire doesn’t need to make sense. Appreciate your arousal when it arrives even when you don’t act on it. Note your resistance to practices you know make you feel better afterward. Make a point to yawn wider and stretch taller in the morning.
Challenge Mode: Give yourself permission to have gaps in your practice. Trust your intuition, your body, and your mind to tell you when it’s time to start up again. Allow yourself space for new discoveries in the return from absence.
4. day and life – As Annie Dillard says, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Assess your recurring habits and plans. What are you doing regularly that you don’t want to carry into the future? What’s missing?
Challenge Mode: As human beings, we connect best with large-scale issues when we find a way to make it personal. Focus on the local environmental issues facing your community. Read an individual’s experience of climate displacement, injustice, or poverty. Lose your city eyes for an hour. Give yourself a reason to care, and you’ll prepare yourself for action.
Andra’s Recap of April’s Experiments
The theme for last month was Flow of Force and included experiments around deep rests, alternate realities, hearing the call, and flocking behaviors.
I spent a good chunk of the beginning of last month feeling resistant to doing much of anything, even things I liked. As such, giving myself more time and space for meditation and going to bed early felt necessary. Additionally, as I am continuing to heal an overuse injury in my arm/neck/shoulder, I have been trying to be more aware of the rotation of my arm as I sleep to give it the best chance for rest all through the night.
My dreams have felt especially potent and relevant to my waking life. Symbols and actions from my dreams appear later in my waking life more often than ever. I haven’t really come to a sense of how to notice that in a meaningful way going forward, but it gives me the sensation that my intuition knows what it’s talking about. There’s a lot of trust there right now.
In remembering that there are as many realities as there are points of view, it was also important for me to stop projecting so much of my personal experience onto others. I am frequently guilty of assuming that everyone is just as tired and burnt out as me, which I then use as an excuse not to ask for support. Separating my viewpoint from others’ experiences has been very helpful in holding realistic expectations for all involved.
My best opportunity to lean into my eccentricities came when I went to Las Vegas for my sister’s 21st birthday. While I determined that Vegas, or at least the strip, doesn’t really cater to the type of person I am (queer and easily overwhelmed with sensory input), I had a blast in curating my outfits each night. Even with my family, I was brave and wore a bando with a suit jacket and slacks. I had my hair back in a ponytail with dark makeup, and I felt fully in my androgyny. Despite not feeling like my look was generally appreciated, I felt like I was slaying, and I was so proud to debut that version of myself. It reminded me that dressing up is for me and not for anyone else.
In terms of hearing the call, the strongest bubbling up has been in my environmental activism. I have been helping to organize a group of artists to lend their talents toward local environmental issues, and being with that community has been incredibly fulfilling. I also had a situation with a family member where I suddenly discovered in a very unfortunate way that they had money invested in the fossil fuel industry. I had a very strong knee-jerk reaction and did justice to that heartbreak while salvaging the situation in a way I ultimately felt proud of. I am happy to have an example of managing something so tense and heated with grace as I move into the future.
I did decide to take a break from my sobriety in Vegas (I did two whole months!), and it provided excellent opportunities to analyze and reflect on why and how I use marijuana. Long story short, marijuana gives me tremendous access to my body knowledge and whimsy, but I seem to overuse it to smooth out social interactions. If and when I start using marijuana more regularly, I want to keep that in mind and remember that I need to address my social discomfort rather than let it simmer underneath everything.
After reading Eleven Walks with Experts Eyes, I had a good time recognizing when I was participating in flocking behaviors while walking and when I wasn’t. Traveling and walking through airports and casinos gave me many opportunities to reflect on this. I do find that I have very good peripheral awareness of others most of the time, even when my direct attention is elsewhere, and this is very satisfying.
I am lamenting that check-ins aren’t a more regular practice with most of my friend group. Metacommunicating is a fun activity for me, but it’s hard to initiate it without feeling like I’m taking inordinate control of the conversation. Luckily, I have an amazing and very analytical partner who loves to metacommunicate as well as several lovely housemates who like to check in about checking in. I’m glad I can rely on them, but I’m also craving more of that from people outside my household.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy May’s experiments!