Align Your Orbit: What If It All Goes Right?
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.
Despite the ever-present sensation of impending apocalypse, we must continually spark collective visions of optimism. A clear vision of the future is necessary for building possible paths toward that reality. Bank on the water, the land, and the resilience of intentionality as you simultaneously coexist in consensus and co-create multidimensional connection to anyone else doing the work.
Offer trapped magic to the greater network through the magic of release. Free your senses from rigid definitions to invite synesthesia. Roll your shoulders back and link arms with the multifaceted effort toward liberation.
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Experiments for March
1. magic release – Consider your physical and digital footprint. Your sweeping archive only grows from here. Meditate on strategies to sort old photos, historical documents, and magical collections. Revel in the relief of carrying less weight on your metaphorical shoulders.
Challenge Mode: There’s genuine power in saying no. Don’t let the next rung of capitalism’s ladder override your right to your time. So many people are already proud of you. The empty rewards of overwork will only kick happiness further down the road.
2. summoning all senses –Look around, and there is no such thing as boredom. Sit in a forest, your backyard, on the corner of a busy intersection for even seconds, and marvel at how much changes. Invite hot tea, fresh incense, and new music into stagnant interior spaces.
Challenge Mode: Sweeping vagueries obscure your access to wonder. Get specific in your descriptions of past conversations, emotions, and physical experiences. Enjoy fathoming the unfathomable as you tumble in search of words.
3. contract to expand – Sometimes, to get a muscle to relax, you must engage it to experience the full range of motion. Seek movement that brings joy into your joints. Do snow angels on the floor of your home to explore how and where you have freedom of motion. Honor the constant efforts of your organs in their never-ceasing commitments to keeping you alive.
Challenge Mode: Catch yourself when you feel interpersonal anxiety and imagine the confrontation you’re actually afraid of. How do you react? What would you need to cope with that new situation? Bring your worries more fully into reality and reveal them for the absurdities they often are.
4. collective brilliance – It’s easy to feel alien and isolated when you think you’re the only one working toward a liberated future. Push against that belief, join activist groups, and participate in somatic communities. Remember it’s difficult to make people afraid more than once, but preparation lasts a lifetime.
Challenge Mode: On March 21st, Th!rd Act is hosting an action to Stop Dirty Banks . It’s an artistic and musical protest to act against the funding of fossil fuel companies. These actions will primarily take place in the United States, but some actions are happening in Canada, and you can start an action wherever you live! Get more information from ThirdAct.org.
Andra’s Recap of February’s Experiments
The theme for last month was Love What You Love and included experiments around expressing joy, cycling in a piece of clothing, offering benefit of the doubt, and being honest about the time you spend honing skills.
I had many opportunities to express joy and love as my girlfriend and I got married this month! We had a small gathering, and every single person in attendance contributed to the outrageous queer magic of the ceremony and everything that came before and after. And, not only that, but I was able to let my guard down and show unbridled affection to many of those same friends. It was an incredible bonding experience to be in a house with seventeen other people and know that I love each and every one of them with my whole heart.
On the honeymoon, I practiced playing until I felt it the next day. There were many days when we did fairly strenuous climbs down to the beach, and every time it was worth it. I have also more fully embraced the fact that I love having sore core muscles, so I’ve been doing exercises that make me feel them the next day.
At the end of last month, I went to visit my grandparents, and in trying to get rid of some things, my grandma gave me lots of clothes that actually fit me really well. I have had a good time incorporating them into what I already wear. I also made space for going through both my closet and my magic items to reorganize and cull what no longer fits or makes me happy.
Regarding inviting novelty into the quotidian, I have been reading On Looking, Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, and I’ve enjoyed the sections that talk about the psychology of attention and how it develops over time. It only deepened my conviction that, when I have a child, I don’t want to tell them that their version of reality is wrong. I want to help instill the idea that differing realities can exist simultaneously.
In being married now and looking from the outside like a very lesbian relationship, I was waiting for some kind of backlash from family or strangers about my choices, but it really hasn’t happened. While I do have a lot of privilege in the fact that I live in very accepting communities, it has been nice to realize that I’m not necessarily going to be accosted for just walking down the street. I’m doing the work to open myself to the idea that the world is not as unfriendly as the media chalks it up to be.
That said, I still feel like some code switching is necessary, and honestly one of the ways I manage that is through mask wearing. There are certain places where I more freely let my guard down, both physically and emotionally, and other places where that’s not what I want to bring to the space. Honestly, I wish this were a more common practice.
In thinking about being honest about what I put time into, the biggest place where that’s been relevant has been with my part-time job. I have needed to stand my ground about what is and isn’t in my job description. I still need to make my actual responsibilities more transparent, but I’ve set those wheels into motion.
In terms of imagining multigenerational possibilities, I spent time seeing the landscape as a living being and realizing how profoundly I wanted to protect it and the ability for others to experience it. I imagined being the coastline and determined that, yes, I would absolutely want people to climb and play and swing in my branches. I left that experience with a renewed sense of urgency for climate activism. And while the future still looks grim, I have faith that life will find a way. We are building the path forward.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the March experiments!
*image is a collaboration between Ash and MidJourney