A thought provoking and tender exploration of how we meet this moment. As the people of Gaza are being subjected to every deprivation , except to die on their land. We all need to be questioning where we go from here ?
As always Gabrielle , I want your words to seep into my bones , heart and soul. As we have no guides or instant fixes that can help us now, we are all in uncharted territory.
I love your message from the tree, I have beautiful Beech tree near by, I sometimes talk to it. Maybe I will take that to the next stage. Thanks for this and the recommendation.
So important to remember Gaza and similar places and not to romanticise their suffering and the utter devastation of their societies, civilisations, cultures, lives... Not an initiation for them but a decimation at the hands of another culture and a wider unwell world. A reckoning for us all.
I'm glad you enjoyed my words and the spirit of them. I hope you have some wonderful chats with your tree! They are so wise and grounding.
Gabrielle, as I read your recent posts I recognize that what is growing in you is already also growing here the commons. It’s unseen, unknown to our typically trusted senses, underground right now. But it is gathering energy which we can feel. It isn’t coming through one of us, but is awakening in many of us. I’m grateful to be in this space with you.
I feel this too, Polly! I am not reading Substack so much at the moment due to time constraints but when I pop my nose in I am always surprised to see resonant threads. It has always been a great joy of mine to attempt to capture the zeitgeist in words for other people to recognise themselves in. Glad for this platform to allow me to do it regularly and with readership. Thank you for being here :)
As much as you feel the call to do more, Gabrielle, I think with this work you are already there. Listening. Resting. Slowing down. Respecting your own needs while deeply processing and so beautifully, powerfully, channeling the voices of others in unison with your own. You are becoming a bridge to a world which has always been with us and yet, in some ways, is still struggling to be born.
I'm so excited to be able to witness and learn from what you're sharing, and grateful for the inspiration, reassurance, and courage you continue to bring.
This missive in particular really hit home, like an uncomfortable truth that can no longer be kept at bay, and that even my increasingly earnest attempts to convince others that collapse is immanent/upon us somehow participated in keeping at arms length. Of course it's obvious now: directing energy outward at others conveniently obscures the next step for oneself. Humbling but necessary. Hard to let go of the preparing part and embrace the deeper mystery and invitation of collapse into intiatory transformation that will surely follow no matter how prepared we feel we are (or are not). Thank you.
So true, Blake. It's so tempting and offers brief comfort to assert a sense of certainty and control over our own lives and those of others. By all means, prepare, that is part of it. But also trust, listen, slow down, surrender, don't assume to know anything...
Thank you for sharing your work and your words. I feel what you have shared in my bones. It terrifies me and at the same time, welcomes me. There is a better way. Together we will find it.
It terrifies me too, Lori. And then I feel such relief at not having to figure it all out on my own.. But the waiting, and the trusting, and the listening, they're not natural for our industrialised minds. I miss the opportunities to go deeper into these "mind-less" spaces in ceremony, and yet trying to access that place of stillness and listening while also attending to every day life is so important.
The edge where grief and beauty mingle. The place where the ground beneath the familiar gives way, and still something deeper holds. Collapse, as you write, is not an interruption. It is an initiation. That truth moves me in ways I often do not understand. But I am learning to trust it.
I have been undone enough times to know the unraveling has its own intelligence. What falls apart is often what could never truly sustain. Remembering that collapse is an ancient, intelligent, and necessary pattern offers a kind of steadiness, a rootedness.
Collapse lives in myth, in the land, in the body. Inanna’s descent, Persephone’s abduction, Odin’s sacrifice. Deep sea caverns. Nurse logs. Autumn. Death. Birth. These are mysterious maps, reminders that what feels like annihilation can be a passage. Perhaps collapse, in its most intimate form, is how Earth apprentices us again into true Belonging.
For me, the practice has become less about trying to hold balance and more about allowing myself to be undone in ways that draw me closer to what is real. Sometimes it is incredibly messy. The wilderness of the heart. The garden that needs compost. The cracks where wildflowers bloom against all odds. Their guidance feels more trustworthy than any path toward mastery or control.
“Those who wake others must live awake.”
This brought to mind William Stafford’s reminder:
"And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."
Your writing leaves me with this question: how do I apprentice myself more fully to the mystery here and now, before collapse forces my hand? Each small act of relinquishment, each moment of kinship chosen over control, reverence chosen over convenience, feels like the beginning of another way. A way that remembers Earth’s living intelligence and mythic currents as our own.
Thank you for carrying this work with such honesty and tenderness. Reading your writing is like sitting in a simple, sacred circle where grief and beauty and responsibility can breathe together.
Beautifully written, and such an important topic very close to my heart. Years ago, I was extremely fortunate to be met by initiation guides amidst the greatest descent of my life. It was so moving to be held in this way (which neither pathologizes nor fetishises initiation, but affirms what's happening and helps guide the necessary dance with Mystery). This led to my becoming such a guide myself, namely by way of shamanic practices. As you say, the collapse is global and affecting us all, and so we are all in one, huge descent together. The work is to meet our own, individual initiation within the greater one, for in the intimacy of that we will find our way of participating from the seat of soul, the seat of our deepest truth and longing. Much love to you for taking time to make a survey and craft these pieces. It takes time and effort and the culture we are dreaming into being needs it. May you prosper from all you contribute. ~Ama
Ama... what you speak of touches such a deep yearning in me. I feel I have been on the path of initiation for a decade now... And yet, lately, I have been utterly consumed by the longing to be annihilated. I hope that wording makes sense to you, it is the only way I know how to put it. I want to fast for days, sit in silence and solitude, freeze on the desert, dance under the hot sun until I'm sweat-soaked and blistered, be ripped out of my mind and flung, scattered, into the vastness of all that is. My twenties held many such experiences, but I am now a mother of two small children and I cannot quite fathom how to touch this part of me among the duties I am now bound to. All I know to do now is speak to the animate forces on my morning walks, give myself over to my writing, let motherhood itself initiate and consume me... It doesn't quite scratch the same itch, but I am sure my time will come again.
Your longing to be annihilated is a precious, ancient thing. It's important, if I gently may (and you may already well know this), to hone in on which one of you, which way(s) of being within you is ready to die. Initiation work begins always, always with one, golden question: What is ending / has ended / is dying? I adore these wild longings you carry... and I just want to emphatically say, at risk of bragging but why not... I have done them all, every single one, SINCE becoming a mother. Motherhood was my great unraveling, my first mega initiation... that's partly why I was so moved by your piece. I am a living testament to the fact that, while it looks different for mothers, it's not only possible to say yes to your descent and soul's longing, but ultimately, done from a seat of self-kindness and allowing the limits of motherhood to actually become the container / the magic cauldron, it will only benefit your children to heed the soul's call. I send you my love and hope this was helpful and not, goddess forbid, advicey. :) Clearly you are deeply in tune with your Deep & Secret Self.
I listened to your words this morning as I sat in my garden with tea. They are a continuation of the conversations I have been having… little by little and more overtly with certain people when I sense their readiness and desire to speak about “what is going on.” We will have to learn to surf an avalanche without a chance to practice before hand. It will necessarily have to be done entirely by intuition. Like an athlete, musician or improve actor, all our practice up to that point will be put in play and it will not be a drill.
I am grateful for those who are using their platforms to give voice to what we are feeling. Meg Wheatley, Nate Hagens, Sara Wilson, and Emergent Magazine to name a few. Each is reminding us to slow down to feel into being embodied as a human critter capable of self reflection. To touch, feel, smell, taste, enjoy, celebrate and share the experience of being alive and trust the experience. When I say trust, I mean can we lose control? I struggle with that.
At my age I am planting seeds for a future I may not see the fruit of. I must trust that some of the plants that emerge will be suited for where they land as the avalanche settles.
This! “If we can allow collapse to strip away our false sovereignty, something else becomes possible.” Balance! Power with! Kin again with our true Earth Kin!
I will face it Welcoming the uncertainty, unpredictability, mystery! Thank you for this!🙏
If only it could be made manifest today! I feel it's going to be a looong journey before we humans surrender our sense of false sovereignty as a global society. I wish I could be here to see it. However I used to use the impossibility of the task as a reason to not pursue it. I now see there is no other path. This is the only one that will personally bring me peace and joy. You're welcome and thank you for being here!
I feel the same way. I had the same problem with the impossibility of it. Now, I can’t fing wait! There is you, me and many others. This is that adorable little girl’s shot at something alive and real. At my age, that’s enough for me.
This piece is a breath of wild air. I love how you frame collapse not as an ending, but as a kind of ancient initiation, a chance to shed, listen, and be remade. The tree reading story especially hit home. There’s something powerful about letting discomfort wake us up to what’s real and alive, even when it’s messy.
I was genuinely touched — something that doesn’t happen often — by what you wrote about our deepest need: connection. It made me wonder, how could we return to that in a more concrete way, as a society? Thanks for weaving myth, vulnerability, and hope into the conversation.
Thank you Nelian! It's definitely the biggest question, how can we reignite these ancient human ways on a societal level. I used to think the task was too big, but now realise I cannot devote myself to anything less.
As I was reflecting on all this tonight, I realized that just showing up here, writing, sharing what I know, what I’ve lived, and what I’m still learning, is already a first step. Being present for those around me feels essential. I keep asking myself if I can do more, and I know I can, and I will. Maybe that’s all that matters today. It feels like more than ever, people are ready to speak up, to shift their perspective, and to notice both the silent and the noisy stories our societies are telling.
Thanks for sharing Gabrielle. So much resonates with my own experience and reflections. May your explorations take you to exactly where you need to be ⭐️
A thought provoking and tender exploration of how we meet this moment. As the people of Gaza are being subjected to every deprivation , except to die on their land. We all need to be questioning where we go from here ?
As always Gabrielle , I want your words to seep into my bones , heart and soul. As we have no guides or instant fixes that can help us now, we are all in uncharted territory.
I love your message from the tree, I have beautiful Beech tree near by, I sometimes talk to it. Maybe I will take that to the next stage. Thanks for this and the recommendation.
So important to remember Gaza and similar places and not to romanticise their suffering and the utter devastation of their societies, civilisations, cultures, lives... Not an initiation for them but a decimation at the hands of another culture and a wider unwell world. A reckoning for us all.
I'm glad you enjoyed my words and the spirit of them. I hope you have some wonderful chats with your tree! They are so wise and grounding.
Gabrielle, as I read your recent posts I recognize that what is growing in you is already also growing here the commons. It’s unseen, unknown to our typically trusted senses, underground right now. But it is gathering energy which we can feel. It isn’t coming through one of us, but is awakening in many of us. I’m grateful to be in this space with you.
I feel this too, Polly! I am not reading Substack so much at the moment due to time constraints but when I pop my nose in I am always surprised to see resonant threads. It has always been a great joy of mine to attempt to capture the zeitgeist in words for other people to recognise themselves in. Glad for this platform to allow me to do it regularly and with readership. Thank you for being here :)
As much as you feel the call to do more, Gabrielle, I think with this work you are already there. Listening. Resting. Slowing down. Respecting your own needs while deeply processing and so beautifully, powerfully, channeling the voices of others in unison with your own. You are becoming a bridge to a world which has always been with us and yet, in some ways, is still struggling to be born.
I'm so excited to be able to witness and learn from what you're sharing, and grateful for the inspiration, reassurance, and courage you continue to bring.
Thank you so much for seeing me and offering these kind words, Geoff. Grateful for your reflection. Keep sharing and being here 🙏
This missive in particular really hit home, like an uncomfortable truth that can no longer be kept at bay, and that even my increasingly earnest attempts to convince others that collapse is immanent/upon us somehow participated in keeping at arms length. Of course it's obvious now: directing energy outward at others conveniently obscures the next step for oneself. Humbling but necessary. Hard to let go of the preparing part and embrace the deeper mystery and invitation of collapse into intiatory transformation that will surely follow no matter how prepared we feel we are (or are not). Thank you.
So true, Blake. It's so tempting and offers brief comfort to assert a sense of certainty and control over our own lives and those of others. By all means, prepare, that is part of it. But also trust, listen, slow down, surrender, don't assume to know anything...
Thank you for sharing your work and your words. I feel what you have shared in my bones. It terrifies me and at the same time, welcomes me. There is a better way. Together we will find it.
It terrifies me too, Lori. And then I feel such relief at not having to figure it all out on my own.. But the waiting, and the trusting, and the listening, they're not natural for our industrialised minds. I miss the opportunities to go deeper into these "mind-less" spaces in ceremony, and yet trying to access that place of stillness and listening while also attending to every day life is so important.
The edge where grief and beauty mingle. The place where the ground beneath the familiar gives way, and still something deeper holds. Collapse, as you write, is not an interruption. It is an initiation. That truth moves me in ways I often do not understand. But I am learning to trust it.
I have been undone enough times to know the unraveling has its own intelligence. What falls apart is often what could never truly sustain. Remembering that collapse is an ancient, intelligent, and necessary pattern offers a kind of steadiness, a rootedness.
Collapse lives in myth, in the land, in the body. Inanna’s descent, Persephone’s abduction, Odin’s sacrifice. Deep sea caverns. Nurse logs. Autumn. Death. Birth. These are mysterious maps, reminders that what feels like annihilation can be a passage. Perhaps collapse, in its most intimate form, is how Earth apprentices us again into true Belonging.
For me, the practice has become less about trying to hold balance and more about allowing myself to be undone in ways that draw me closer to what is real. Sometimes it is incredibly messy. The wilderness of the heart. The garden that needs compost. The cracks where wildflowers bloom against all odds. Their guidance feels more trustworthy than any path toward mastery or control.
“Those who wake others must live awake.”
This brought to mind William Stafford’s reminder:
"And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."
Your writing leaves me with this question: how do I apprentice myself more fully to the mystery here and now, before collapse forces my hand? Each small act of relinquishment, each moment of kinship chosen over control, reverence chosen over convenience, feels like the beginning of another way. A way that remembers Earth’s living intelligence and mythic currents as our own.
Thank you for carrying this work with such honesty and tenderness. Reading your writing is like sitting in a simple, sacred circle where grief and beauty and responsibility can breathe together.
Beautifully written, and such an important topic very close to my heart. Years ago, I was extremely fortunate to be met by initiation guides amidst the greatest descent of my life. It was so moving to be held in this way (which neither pathologizes nor fetishises initiation, but affirms what's happening and helps guide the necessary dance with Mystery). This led to my becoming such a guide myself, namely by way of shamanic practices. As you say, the collapse is global and affecting us all, and so we are all in one, huge descent together. The work is to meet our own, individual initiation within the greater one, for in the intimacy of that we will find our way of participating from the seat of soul, the seat of our deepest truth and longing. Much love to you for taking time to make a survey and craft these pieces. It takes time and effort and the culture we are dreaming into being needs it. May you prosper from all you contribute. ~Ama
Ama... what you speak of touches such a deep yearning in me. I feel I have been on the path of initiation for a decade now... And yet, lately, I have been utterly consumed by the longing to be annihilated. I hope that wording makes sense to you, it is the only way I know how to put it. I want to fast for days, sit in silence and solitude, freeze on the desert, dance under the hot sun until I'm sweat-soaked and blistered, be ripped out of my mind and flung, scattered, into the vastness of all that is. My twenties held many such experiences, but I am now a mother of two small children and I cannot quite fathom how to touch this part of me among the duties I am now bound to. All I know to do now is speak to the animate forces on my morning walks, give myself over to my writing, let motherhood itself initiate and consume me... It doesn't quite scratch the same itch, but I am sure my time will come again.
Your longing to be annihilated is a precious, ancient thing. It's important, if I gently may (and you may already well know this), to hone in on which one of you, which way(s) of being within you is ready to die. Initiation work begins always, always with one, golden question: What is ending / has ended / is dying? I adore these wild longings you carry... and I just want to emphatically say, at risk of bragging but why not... I have done them all, every single one, SINCE becoming a mother. Motherhood was my great unraveling, my first mega initiation... that's partly why I was so moved by your piece. I am a living testament to the fact that, while it looks different for mothers, it's not only possible to say yes to your descent and soul's longing, but ultimately, done from a seat of self-kindness and allowing the limits of motherhood to actually become the container / the magic cauldron, it will only benefit your children to heed the soul's call. I send you my love and hope this was helpful and not, goddess forbid, advicey. :) Clearly you are deeply in tune with your Deep & Secret Self.
I listened to your words this morning as I sat in my garden with tea. They are a continuation of the conversations I have been having… little by little and more overtly with certain people when I sense their readiness and desire to speak about “what is going on.” We will have to learn to surf an avalanche without a chance to practice before hand. It will necessarily have to be done entirely by intuition. Like an athlete, musician or improve actor, all our practice up to that point will be put in play and it will not be a drill.
I am grateful for those who are using their platforms to give voice to what we are feeling. Meg Wheatley, Nate Hagens, Sara Wilson, and Emergent Magazine to name a few. Each is reminding us to slow down to feel into being embodied as a human critter capable of self reflection. To touch, feel, smell, taste, enjoy, celebrate and share the experience of being alive and trust the experience. When I say trust, I mean can we lose control? I struggle with that.
At my age I am planting seeds for a future I may not see the fruit of. I must trust that some of the plants that emerge will be suited for where they land as the avalanche settles.
This! “If we can allow collapse to strip away our false sovereignty, something else becomes possible.” Balance! Power with! Kin again with our true Earth Kin!
I will face it Welcoming the uncertainty, unpredictability, mystery! Thank you for this!🙏
If only it could be made manifest today! I feel it's going to be a looong journey before we humans surrender our sense of false sovereignty as a global society. I wish I could be here to see it. However I used to use the impossibility of the task as a reason to not pursue it. I now see there is no other path. This is the only one that will personally bring me peace and joy. You're welcome and thank you for being here!
I feel the same way. I had the same problem with the impossibility of it. Now, I can’t fing wait! There is you, me and many others. This is that adorable little girl’s shot at something alive and real. At my age, that’s enough for me.
Beautiful, Ben. Thank you :)
Collapse as initiation
Yes
The response is coming and beauty will return
I love the depth of this soulful exploration
Thank you 🙏
This piece is a breath of wild air. I love how you frame collapse not as an ending, but as a kind of ancient initiation, a chance to shed, listen, and be remade. The tree reading story especially hit home. There’s something powerful about letting discomfort wake us up to what’s real and alive, even when it’s messy.
I was genuinely touched — something that doesn’t happen often — by what you wrote about our deepest need: connection. It made me wonder, how could we return to that in a more concrete way, as a society? Thanks for weaving myth, vulnerability, and hope into the conversation.
Thank you Nelian! It's definitely the biggest question, how can we reignite these ancient human ways on a societal level. I used to think the task was too big, but now realise I cannot devote myself to anything less.
As I was reflecting on all this tonight, I realized that just showing up here, writing, sharing what I know, what I’ve lived, and what I’m still learning, is already a first step. Being present for those around me feels essential. I keep asking myself if I can do more, and I know I can, and I will. Maybe that’s all that matters today. It feels like more than ever, people are ready to speak up, to shift their perspective, and to notice both the silent and the noisy stories our societies are telling.
Thanks!!!
Thanks for sharing Gabrielle. So much resonates with my own experience and reflections. May your explorations take you to exactly where you need to be ⭐️
Thank you, Rachel. And you too! ✨️