Welcome to the 122nd edition of Conscious Humanity — it’s so good to see you here!
If you’re new here, my name is Emily and I’m a writer, photographer, teacher in higher education, home gardener, single parent, and all-round creative soul. I am in the midst of figuring out how to extract myself from the capitalist-driven, digitally saturated, artificially “busy” life we’re told we must live in order to survive and “succeed.”
And I’m helping you do the same.
Below are seven positive things that have entered my orbit in the last two weeks, all chosen as inspiration to slow down and unearth a more creative, nature-connected life. They’re formatted so you can scan through and dive deeper into those that resonate most with you. I offer these things not as noise, but as nourishment. May at least one thing brighten your day, inspire you to take action, or help you return to what matters most.
To the moon first, and I’ve been railing against the enormously expensive Artemis II space expedition to the far side of the moon because we have enough problems on Earth - why spend all that money on space travel (again!) when there are so many people here without food, water and shelter? What a gigantic waste of money (and fuel)!
However…
…it was beautiful to see the photos of the Earth setting behind the moon, taken by the Artemis II crew. A profound change in perspective from our usual view of the moon from here on Earth. And as the late scientist and activist Dr Jane Goodall said in a video recorded for One Home in 2024, reminders about the beauty and preciousness of our Earthly home can surely be a good thing.
“Planet Earth is almost certainly the only home we shall ever know. So how is it possible that despite our wonderful brains we are destroying this beautiful home of ours?
Clearly our intellect has led us astray.
We’ve forgotten wisdom.
It’s only, I think, when head and heart work in harmony that we can truly attain our full human potential.
I just hope that seeing these fantastic and unforgettable images will help people understand the urgency of working together to restore that which we have destroyed, to heal the wounds we have inflicted on planet Earth.
A beautiful blue and green home.”
I hope so too!
One of my contributions to restoring Earth is building a diverse array of native plant species in my little yard to provide shelter and habitat for local birds and insects.
What’s happening in your little corner of the world?
Also, I just had to include a reminder that none of this is the moon’s fault…
First Dog on the Moon (Australia’s only Walkley award-winning marsupial-based cartoonist) said, if we didn’t spend $2bn on going to ‘THE MOON!’ would we spend it on things we need?
Short answer: no.
“Once again the main problem with EVERYTHING (including going to the Moon) is capitalism. We can afford to go to the Moon while feeding / housing everyone on Earth, ending all the wars especially the class war and doing something about climate change etc etc blah blah.
WE CAN BUT WE DON’T. SO IT’S NOT FAIR TO BLAME IT ON THE MOON!”
To more philosophical things now, and Caroline Ross at Uncivil Savant wrote this beautiful piece about sensing stillness and sovereignty, and it offers some lovely wisdom in answer to the questions on many of our lips:
What are we supposed to do?
How do we respond to “it all”?
Caroline’s philosophy is grounded in her decades long practice of the Yang Style of T’ai Chi and in this context she describes the concept of ‘yielding’:
“…to be appropriately moved by any given thing, while keeping your centreline, not pulling away, not trying to control things, not pretending something isn’t happening, nor staying stubbornly still.”
She goes on to explain that even after decades of practice, she doesn’t always get it right,
“Once or twice in my life, I have yielded effortlessly, successfully, and a grave situation has transformed in the blink of an eye. I have also spectacularly failed to yield, piled effort upon effort and caused nothing but additional strife.”
In other words, trusting the process often leads to transformation, but trying too hard and forcing an outcome just causes more problems.
And this speaks to what many of us grapple with: a yearning for certainty and a want to control things so that we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, and to avoid discomfort and anything that causes us fear. But Caroline is speaking to the great comfort that can be brought from doing the exact opposite: yielding to a situation (which is very different to allowing oneself to be dominated or controlled by others).
Yielding is being still, and open, and sensing the possibilities around us, and as Caroline explains,
“The implication is that the tiniest weight can be felt and will set the body in motion. Such exquisite sensitivity means that aggression has nowhere to land on us, so long as we remain connected, aware and free to move.”
In a practical sense, this philosophy can guide our awareness that the world, and people in general, are not “bad.” The majority of humans want to live peaceful lives and as Caroline says, remembering that the broadcast news version of the world “differs vastly from what is only spoken of in person, or what is held dearly in people’s hearts.”
‘Yielding’ can be applied to our lives in general, and also to creative practice. For example, I’ve been super frustrated with my watercolour painting recently. None of the pieces I’ve painted this week have brought me calm or satisfaction. My colours have been either too bold, or too muted, or muddy and overworked, and all have been lacking the light I’m so desperately wanting to bring into my work. In hindsight, I’ve been forcing the outcome too much; putting pressure on myself to produce a finished product or complete piece, when what my heart wants to do is play. My personal challenge for the coming weeks is to practice yielding, in both life and art. To listen to my heart.
How is your heart right now, fellow human?
While we’re thinking about being open to possibilities, KC Cole (found via Earth Island Journal) wrote that science can provide a framework for human values by exploring the fundamental importance of relationships, diversity, and cooperation within the natural world.
Drawing on insights from quantum physics, evolutionary biology, and game theory, Cole explains that we can resist singular “truths” and look to scientific discoveries to inspire hope (rather than overwhelm)…
“…I like to think that Lucretius was right: The more we understand about the universe, the more those learnings can guide us to a plausibly better future — and the more basis we have for ditching bad behavior.”
Science is helping us to understand that we share genes with all living things on Earth; we are not separate to, but part of, a living tapestry:
“The tapestry that is “you” contains the combined wisdom of entire ecosystems, including our shared biological heritage…”
Research has also confirmed that cooperation wins over competition (in the long term), and we need genetic diversity to survive…
“And as if we needed more reasons to be decent, neuroscience suggests generosity releases endorphins. People who give away money actually feel richer than those who accumulate it. What’s more, they’re healthier.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this; I don’t have much money, but I love the buzz I get from paying for a friend (or stranger’s) meal, making a donation to a charity or creator, or leaving some extra money for a farmer selling straw bales at their farm gate, as my eldest son and I did last weekend.
Bringing together a couple of threads that we’ve touched on above, Nora Bateson is featured below at a Wisdom & Action event, speaking about Warm Data, or “Information That is Alive.”
She explains that the practice of asking “Who am I when I’m with this person?” And “Who can this person be when they’re with me?” is a pathway to deeper understanding, of ourselves and each other.
When we’re with other people we are constantly perceiving relational contextual information, and behaving according to who we’re with. We can’t help it!
Nora reminds us that how we perceive the world shapes how we participate in it, and this is a unique human capacity* for adaptation. It doesn’t mean we are “insincere chameleons” - we are a living system perceiving context, and we’re surviving.
*I also believe that non-human creatures perceive context and behave accordingly - just think about how your dog or cat behaves with different members of the family!
I’m drawn to wisdom like this right now because it speaks to living, relational data that is distinct from Artificial Intelligence.
It helps to define what makes us human.
And the “what makes us human?” question is one that I haven’t formulated a complete answer to yet (and probably never will) but this contextual, relational “sensing”, is part of it.
Building on this idea of sensing warm data, and looping back to the concept of ‘yielding’ from above, I have just discovered The Tuning Fork by Vanessa Chamberlain on Substack (via Uncivil Savant). In her intro post, Vanessa explain that she is an artist, spiritual director, and practical theologian. And wow, her posts offer such beautiful explorations for creators and thinkers which are grounded in religion, but just as accessible and relevant outside of religion.
Her post, On Stillness - Landing Butterflies offered huge comfort and inspiration to me, and helped drag me out of my watercolour funk. I recommend reading the whole post if you’re intrigued because I can’t possibly do it justice here, but below, Vanessa is talking about how she found stillness and aliveness after a creative breakthrough, and I resonate so much with her thought process both before and after the breakthrough:
“The blank, white, surface glares directly at me, with no patience for my difficulty in maintaining eye contact.
It stares me down. ‘Who are you really Vanessa? Are you up to this? Do you know how to make a significant mark? Is this going to be worth my time? Do you even know how to show up?’
Probably not.
My studio life is mostly one of avoidance. Procrastination. Failure.
And then one evening, after a cloudy day of not pursuing anything of substance, I make a random, soft, broad, mark, with an old brush, in deep browny-red oil paint that I have just mixed, on a clean piece of water colour paper.
The paper is taped to a board on my easel, and this activity is filling up a half hour window before I need to go and teach. It’s a way to feel a little less bad about my disappointing day.
And, at that moment, I hear the page make a noise…
…And now something is happening. And I am alert to it. Ears pricked. Nose active. Eyes deepening in to a different kind of seeing.
I feel my way. Letting colours arrive and move and shape just as they see fit. My body stretches to reach for the right materials. My eye stays fixed. My mind acts as memory alone, making available knowledge I’ve gained from every mark made to date, in service of the ‘now’.
Something is demanding to be made through me. And, at this random moment at the end of a failed day, I am soft and defeated enough to be able to surrender to it. To let my ‘whole person’ become a ‘responsive space’, or ‘‘sounding box’’ for the ‘event of beauty’ occurring within me.1
Though my whole body is moving through this making process, I know that somewhere deep in me I have become still.
Still enough for the ‘shy woodland creatures to emerge’.2
Still enough to land butterflies.”
The “landing butterflies” reference is about achieving a stillness and calmness that invites butterflies to land on you because they feel safe enough to do so. You really must read Vanessa’s post to explore this in more detail!
As another antidote to “the world” I love finding dedications to nature and the mortal experience, and American poet Mary Oliver was incredibly able to capture the essence of these things. The excerpt below is from a poem titled April, and is from her twentieth (!!) collection of poetry called Swan: Poems and Prose Poems (2010). It’s another reminder to be still, and listen…
“I wanted to speak at length about
the happiness of my body and the
delight of my mind for it was
April, night, a
full moon and —
but something in myself or maybe
from somewhere other said: not too
many words, please, in the
muddy shallows the
frogs are singing.”
How lovely.
Onto a very different style of listening now. Josh Harmon is a hugely talented drummer who “spreads joy through rhythm and sound.” He started out during the pandemic by posting videos of himself drumming along to routines of his favourite standup comedians, and called it “Rhythms of Comedy.”
Here’s a clip of Josh recreating the soundtrack to a classic Snoopy scene…
You can see more of Josh’s joyful and clever work on his website and all the social platforms, like YouTube and Instagram.
And that’s the end of this edition! I hope at least one thing brightened your day, inspired you to take action, or helped you return to what matters most.
🙏🏻
Thanks for reading Conscious Humanity by Emily Wade - you are amazing! If this post brought a smile to your face, please share it with a friend or two.
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