One of the many things I love about you, Kathleen, is your ability to look at all this nonsense for what it is, evil warts and all, and yet remain grounded, humourous, and loving. Does that make sense? There are so many newsletters I can't give my energy to anymore, but I always feel your optimism and love what you have to say and how you say it.
Of course, my favorite part was the Tree House! I clicked on that link, thinking, "Hmm, I wonder who it is!" :) Thank you for that, my friend.
Happy Fake Gregorian New Year, Kathleen! We know that the actual new year starts around your birthday...you have an Aries sun, right?? XOXO
Barbara! What a heart-warming comment and reflection. Thank you! (I can never really tell how what I'm putting out will hit until I read the comments.)
Right? Who doesn't want to live in that tree house?
And yeah, a fake new year seems fitting enough in a fake world, so we'll go with it. :-)
Aries sun-sign is right. Maybe I'll celebrate then. (Last night a rewatch of a Harry Potter and early bed.)
May good things come your way in abundance, Barbara. XOX
I had a suspicion it was you before I clicked. But it was a handy link to sub.
I was just referencing Isaac Middle on the fake Gregorian new year: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/everything-changes-on-new-years-day. Would it really start on the day after the solstice? I guess it's always somewhat arbitrary depending on where in the journey around the sun it starts. But agreed the Gregorian choice is uber-arby. ;-)
Oh, thx, Tereza! I will check that out. As far as I understand (from an astrological perspective), it aligns with the spring equinox and when the Aries season begins. Aries is the first sign in the Zodiac. It makes much more sense to me...new beginnings/spring/Nature is waking up, etc. We're hibernating now, although it feels much more like that for those in colder climates.
Beautifully written, Kathleen. "As the false falls away, a more real version of you emerges."
Nothing was ever what it appeared to be, nor what we were taught. Right now is the time for everyone to see the Truth. When we take one step towards the Truth, it seems to take three towards us.
Truth is the Authority --
Authority is not the Truth -- SG
We naturally See what Is, our Mind tries to tell us a Story about what Is. Through belief, the Mind places labels and divides the experience observed. Labels and Titles become barriers to Sight. Truth is the only thing that can be Real or be Trusted.
When we get to a point where we can reject normalcy bias, we are free from all the stories and the social roles we believed in. Freedom is not a Creation from outside experiences; it's a Manifestation of our inner Sight.
I really resonated with this passage and was reminded of one of my favorite books, Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" ...
——————
"I find it helpful to remember that culture - even wholly manufactured cult-ish culture - exists alongside a real, physical, Natural world. Spending time in Nature aligns us back to this simple fact.
With the rise of digital-everything this becomes increasingly essential.
Even more, Nature refuels and reminds us of a deeper reality we are always connected to - however obscured it’s been. Somehow, almost magically, when we turn towards it, it turns towards us."
... and how even that memory has become captured and corrupted. Long video, but the essence can be found in about a minute from 1:20:00 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVgFmTMgls.
I hope against hope this is not a prelude to the fight we have in store for this new year, but sociopaths are both clever and relentless.
Thanks for the great post, keep up the good fight, and again, a Happy New Year from Japan. 🥳
First of all, what a lovely mix of nature and music.
The Ginger Zee bit (watched from 1:20) is bizarre. She seems genuinely excited by the particles being put into our skies (does she not grok they literally rain down on us?)
The crazy weirdness with weather is largely manufactured, imo. As CAF recently said on a Greg Hunter interview - you're not sick, you've been poisoned. Ongoing detoxing is now needed.
SEIRS was new to me. I hope this doesn't get rolled out but if it does maybe we'll discover a lot more of us have caught on.🙏 Thanks for passing along, Steve.
The 'newscasters' are pumped up with too much competitive, self-promoting, personal ambition to dare question their scripts. Same here in Japan. There is a loooong line of newscaster-wannabes who will stop at nothing to snag a job. And those who hold the purse-strings know it. 😫
Beautiful that book! Aldo with his chickadees. I had the pleasure to know and work with his son, Carl Leopold- he died in 2009 at 89 - We buried him in the Cemetery preserve we created south of Ithaca, NY.
Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve. Our goal in forming it was low cost, low maintenance , common sense- the proceeds went into a ‘permanent maintenance trust’ to take care of the property in perpetuity- off the taxpayers backs. Eventual old growth forest. Young Carl and family lost their dad to a forest fire he was helping fight.
Thank you Kathleen for this thoughtful post to begin the year.
I first read Leopold's book as a 2nd year undergrad in biology, taking an Ecology seminar a year or so earlier than I should have. Not only the prose style, but the sentiments expressed turned my life upside down.
Up until then, I had taken mostly required science classes that just sorted students on a bell curve for brute memorization skills. But on my first read of ASCA, I started exploring the edges of the philosophy of science ... first with Schopenhauer on the teleological argument and evolution, later, T.S. Kuhn and Karl Popper, and then with philosophy proper ... from Nietzsche to Plato to Wittgenstein and my own mental break-down / break through.
That was about 50 years ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Spent 3 summers as a mountain fire fighter in Arizona (one year in The Apache National Forest that Aldo also worked in), moved to Japan 42 years ago, went on to grad school in applied linguistics and got tenure at a Japanese college, and ran the biology labs at Temple Univ. Japan for about 20 years.
I still have that same dog-eared copy of ASCA here with me in Japan, as well as another copy of the paperback, a hard bound edition, and a Kindle edition.
Without looking, I can still remember my two favorite chapters ... "65290" (those chickadees) and "Too Early". I remember finding out later that Aldo died fighting a wildfire. We all have to go sometime, but that somehow seems appropriate.
Aside from his warm prose, my big take-away from the book is that anything of real value — those Platonic ideals of the good, the true, and the beautiful — are grounded in wilderness ... and when we stray too far from awareness of that wilderness, we are bound to stray far from those Platonic ideals.
I make a big distinction between "wilderness" and "nature" here ... with "nature" as synonymous with the metaphorical god of Spinoza and Einstein ('god' as nature in its entirety) ... and wilderness as that part of nature which resists being touched, quantified, or controlled by man. As with 65290, this may be a bit different from AL's thought, but I found that distinction useful here in Japan.
Most Japanese are somewhat secular, but with strong, largely subconscious sentiments in line with the native animist traditions of Shinto and/or the Taoist elements of Buddhism. The culture is largely known for its reverence for nature. But I could not help but to notice that it is largely "tamed and micro-managed" nature ... from those lovely Japanese gardens that imitate wilderness, to those stunted and guided bonsai trees. Infrastructure demands a similarly warped approach to nature ... pork-barrel politics turning river banks and hillsides into concrete monstrosities, industries dumping PFAS (toxic forever chemicals) in the water and microplastics everywhere. To some extent, I can understand the Japanese fear of untamed nature.
The constant earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, and tsunamis are something I rarely experienced growing up in rural North Carolina. I can understand both appreciating and fearing the life-and-death dance with untamed nature. But I can not forgive the sociopathic "want it all, and want it now" mind-set that drives most sociopaths ... uh ... I mean "titans" of industry. In their zero sum games, the qualities that Aldo Leopold wrote about are only distant memories for most modern Japanese, and only occasionally trotted out and weaponized for some ulterior motive.
Meh, mellowing with age helps a bit, but that also implies "socially moral progress" is a myth. Each generation starts from ground zero, with most going through the same mistake of putting personal ambitions, wants, and desires ahead of those Platonic ideals.
Cheers Susan.
It's been a pleasure chatting with someone familiar with what Aldo Leopold stood for.
You are a font of knowledge, Steve. Really appreciate the expansive nature of your comments.
That distinction between nature and wilderness, I think can be applied to humans - assuming here that as nature-beings, much of how we present is manicured and controlled in order to fit into our (distorted) world.
The wilderness part of us, may well be what shows up when we start to reject those ways we've adjusted and confined ourselves.
Who are we when those identities adopted to adapt are gone? I think that's when things get really interesting. But we're not really on our own, the deeper order of universe, the cosmos, nature is still in place. We can align there - if we can get out of our own way, of course.
Aha ... I must be awake, if not 'woke' ... I got your name right. 😂
Much thanks for your praise, and if there is anything to it, it's because you and your friends are bringing the best out of me.
I had not directly applied that 'distinction' metaphor to humans, but on reading how you picked up the ball and ran with it, it makes perfect sense.
As you've pointed out, so much of what passes for "education" and "news" is a stifling of the awareness of the mystery, power, ideals, and dangers of the wilderness within us. That wildness is an anathema to the 'harmony' of Japanese social psychology — but also to the supposedly more individualistic "freedom-loving" Western cultures. Both cultures give lip-service to those values, but I am guessing that both are cultural conceits, weaponized by the clever sociopaths behind so much of what we call "culture" — a lot like that Horatio Alger rags-to-riches myth of meritocracy.
Yeah, military boot-camp tries to de-wild the human as a morally autonomous individual. I am guessing a lot of military post-traumatic stress is the struggle to heal the cognitive dissonance between indoctrination and our innately 'wild' empathy. As your original post points out so well, the captured institutions of journalism and education have been even more insidiously effective at de-wilding us from our fundamental human nature. We didn't even realize we've been militarized.
"Who are we when those identities adopted to adapt are gone?"
Great question! I don't have any original answer, but a couple of interesting options immediately popped up before me ...
Ha. A bit like riding the edge of a mandelbrot set. Yet, as you say, even that mathematical metaphor is part of a larger picture we will never 'understand', but might intuit.
Ha. Zen, Apollo, Dionysius, and mandelbrot sets. East or West, pretty much pointing in the same direction. While most of us sit and stare, like one of the dumber dogs, all-too-tame, looking at the finger. 😂
"I am guessing a lot of military post-traumatic stress is the struggle to heal the cognitive dissonance between indoctrination and our innately 'wild' empathy."
Never thought about it like that but yes. So tragic.
And tragic also that trauma - in its many forms - is used as a tool of control to keep us small, weak and and obedient and yet is often not even recognized.
I said something at a recent gathering about how everyone is traumatized from birth and received a mix of blank stares to annoyed glares. Not. A. Single. Question.
I'd better double check my 'spell checker', otherwise that wicked witch of the west, Katherine, might appear again. 😂
Come to think of it, earlier today, an interesting excuse for name switching came to mind. As pronounced by a Japanese speaker, "Katherine" and "Kathleen" sound identical. Maybe I've gone native?
They are "relentless" because they don't know they are wrong. They think they are the normal ones. They live in a bizarre, secret world of insanity which we will never fully understand
Not being sure is probably the best place to stand under ( to have humility)and the best place to make connections however slight.
Finding something that others might partially agree with might be a good place to start. Like agreeing on the definition of a single word... without this, the first sentences from both mouths are a subjective construction so if some understanding from both people is not reached there is no point bothering with a second word or sentence
If this process is too slow then one might wonder which person is insane, for arguing with people that are not willing to open their minds to a single word definition are not well and neither are people that persist with them.
I read a philosophy article recently that suggested that simple questions to people's statements are a good mirror.
" Why do you think that"
" Am I understanding you correctly?".
I love JET'S early work but dumping big horrible "truths" on people that have made irreversible, potentially life ending decisions for themselves, their loved ones and actually everyone in existence is not a good place to start.
"...but dumping big horrible "truths" on people that have made irreversible, potentially life ending decisions for themselves, their loved ones and actually everyone in existence is not a good place to start."
💯
Non threatening questions are definitely helpful. Having largely dropped my agenda to inform, I find they show up naturally.
Maybe convictions are like prisons of the mind. ( It's in the spell ing)
They are the the strong boxes that i keep my precious fears and beliefs safe from disruption, doubt, uncertainty and the unknown. ( I try to use " I and my" rather than " we or you or people" because the latter is presumptuous in that it requires consent by agreement. ( I) don't like being told or accused. Generalisations are frequently useless ( to me)).
The mystery of the unknown can be a scary place but what is life without adventure?
At my age just sitting up can be an adventure! Whoa what a rush though!
Nice one yourself with spell-ing. And so true - these words we use, over and over, fortifying and strengthening the assumptions given to us that keep us small.
"The mystery of the unknown can be a scary place but what is life without adventure?" Agree! We're not here to play it safe. Our eternal spirits know that. :-)
I've also thought about that paradox of self-awareness of Cluster B types. Some research seems to indicate "they" (trying to hedge with the large spectrum) know when they are going against a social norm, hence the calculated, imitative nature of their behavior, and the collapse of their gaslighting narratives into unsustainable contradictions.
But if there is a genetic predisposition to behave as such, I wonder if they can be said to have much "free will"? Maybe the free will to pursue moral autonomy is restricted to the more neurotypically empathetic who can be tempted and swayed towards either extreme of a moral spectrum — from the full blown pathological narcissism of would-be god-kings to the mostly quiet altruistism of compassion that does not feel compelled to draw attention to itself. Maybe.
There is not some specific group called "the sociopaths." Or did you want to provide the list? This does not work. Or, if Kathleen Devanney accetps the word sociopath, what is that? They are persons who think what they are doing is right.
They are people. They have the same DNA, they are your same species. best, . . .
I was referring to sociopaths as a specific personality disorder. Not saying those definitions and diagnosis is alway accurate or captures the spectrum - and I am assuming a spectrum. I was using the term to refer to people who don't have basic empathy.
Hi Kathleen and JS ... morning here and "Katherine" has disappeared. 😂
Yes, I have also noticed a problem when using the word "sociopath". Some people assume I am using a conversational definition as a slur. I have to be careful of my potential audience and mode of discourse. Kathleen, you are spot-on in how I use the word, with "lack of remorse" as one of those components in lack of emapthy. See this all the time with politicians getting caught with their hands in the till, and making a kabuki show of apology if at all.
As may have come up in our chats before ... when I use the word "sociopath" ... I am talking specifically about the terminally toxic effects of those high in Cluster B behavior traits (dark-triads) who are drawn to power and corrupted by it.
The more I observe and think about them, the less I think they become pathological because of traumatic circumstances. The more I read (the ponerology substack, Lobaczeski, Hare, etc., the more I tend to believe they are different from more neurotypically empathic humans. They seem to be genetically pre-determined personality traits, and in the cases of true psychopaths, clearly seen morphological differences in brain scans. Who knows? Future technology may reveal structural / wiring differences in the minds of pathological narcissists, repeated opportunistic behavior, or for that matter, pathological levels of zero-sum game competitiveness.
One fly in the ointment is how the majority of neuro-typical, empathetic people can be whipped up into a frenzy of sociopathic behavior, depending on the tribe dehumanizing the other, or the tribe being dehumanized. Military boot camp is a blunt way of heading of any potential for moral autonomy in times of war. Dehumanizing the soldier is the first step in dehumanizing the enemy. So in a way, I guess this potentially puts everyone on a spectrum that depends on manipulable circumstances. Still, I suspect there is a subgroup of humans who are born with a war of all against all as their default. Few bankers send their kids to the front line, and fewer still of our 'leaders' will partake. This is classic behavior of those high in dark-triad personality traits.
One problem with the build-a-better mousetrap systems approach, is that such systems invariably seem to skip over the persistent percentage of people who eventually capture and game the best of intents ... to the point of empires that repeatedly collapse under their own corruption ... hence that need to return to nature for solace, for more lasting values, to temporarily throw off the yoke of the sociopaths.
Cheers, Agent K ... ha, one way to keep that pesky "Katherine" from creeping into my correspondence.
There is a behavior that can be called sociopathic, literaly 'toxic to society'. Philosophically, we can never fully understand the ultimate causes and final effects of even the slightest of our behaviors. But I used the word to refer to a diagnosable group (true psychopaths indeed having different DNA resulting in neuro-morphological differences), which Kathleen points out, do exist, though on a spectrum.
For example, in the 6-hour congressional anti-monopoly session a couple of years ago, Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland, specifically called out Mark Zuckerberg for targeting dark-triads (pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths) in the hiring process for nefarious purposes.
The Ponerology substack is a great rabbit hole into that group. If ever targeted by one, or their 'flying monkey' enablers, it becomes one of the defining experiences of one's world. 42 years here in Japan as an ethnic minority, and I have been an all-too easy target.
I heard my mom and dad argued about whether to name me "Steve" or "Stuart". I don't know who won the day, but the reasoning was "Stuart" can be too easily shortened into "Stu" and lengthened again into "stupid".
Thank you for writing this much needed musing. Accepting reality has been a theme in my life for awhile, and as painful as it can be, I sure as heck can't go back. And it is bleeding into many around me. I will no longer entertain any fantasies with my time and attention. And if I can't speak the "truth" to you, I don't want to speak to you on a meaningful level. Who knew gaslighting would become 2nd nature to much of the population? We're living in a homogeneous society that recycles/repeats everything they absorb from socials/friends/msm. It is disturbing. I think George Orwell was a time traveler 😀.
I think all of us who've been looking behind the curtain can relate to what you write.
"Who knew gaslighting would become 2nd nature to much of the population?" I just said much the same to a friend. Crazy how the lies perpetuate among those being lied to.
The replication thing - so true. There is nothing new or creative in it. No life. So much of our culture feels irrelevant or dead. Really it is. And - even though it doesn't seem to be the case - it's actually leaving.
George was probably privy to some info most were not. Though I like the time-traveler idea better. :-)
"Courageous, intelligent, grounded, wise, kind, curious and expansive doesn’t quite cover it. I’m fortified by them. Inspired too." That pretty well describes YOU, Kathleen! You forgot "humorous".
I know there are more words, but when I'm under pressure I freeze, sorry. I love the title you chose, too, "The Cult in Our Culture." You're so "clever", there's another word! lol Oh! I forgot
"honest". OK. That's it. One more, "Creative". Happy New Year!!
"The real you, a better you, is on deck. We were wrong. We were lied to. We were used. Okay, let it go and keep going."
Precisely THIS. This is what is holding people back from seeing the truth, isn't it? (Probably what I was trying to say in: https://thefreethinker.substack.com/p/why-the-narrative-refuses-to-die) The discomfort--for some, the horror--of admitting they were fooled, lied to, abused, attacked. How much more comforting to bury one's head in the sand, go along with the herd, assume someone is looking out for you and will save you, rather than YOU stepping up to your authenticity, admitting you were fooled, refusing to go along with a lie, becoming the truth warrior you were meant to be... along with all the accompanying discomfort.
The way towards authentic self (and toward truth) is moving towards discomfort, not shying away from it.
I originally missed that essay you've linked, James. Thanks for including it - it's brilliant and a very satisfying read!
Yes, it's been a strange journey to see how previously understood markers for gauging a shared reality can fall away so quickly, given the 'right' context.
And truly, would never have guessed in 2020 or 21, that in 2025 so many laggards would still be around. Perhaps there was - as some claim - a timeline split of sorts. (Some kind of sorting has occurred.) With that we're living out very different outcomes. IDK.
And you hone in on the opportunity for those who prize truth over belonging - authenticity. I'll add integrity and all the good stuff that grows when we plant our selves in the ground of truth.
Great title for your post. Nice take on things. Astonishing (and scary) how brazenly nowadays evil is touted as something clever/smart. In the end, 'The System' will dig its own grave - I hope not too many people fall into it. All the best for 2025, Josh.
“We realize we’ve changed, we’re not the same, and with that, everyone we’re in relationship with us needs to adjust. Sometimes that improves those connections, sometimes they end.”
“A newfound humility”
Oh my yes, Kathleen!
And then God puts new people in your life so that you finally understand what meaningful relationships truly are.
Yes, isn't it amazing how that works? You have to let go of some relationships and then new ones open. We get what we need and sometimes we get a lot more. Deep trust that there is a way forward that serves humanity in all its dimensions, is something I'm experiencing as well. Very very grateful for that.
Happy new year. Thank you for what you do, Laura, and for being you. ❤️
Katherine Devany said this. "how we interpret events - as victims or as participants with agency and choice - will largely shape our ..." futures. Okay, now I have this woman asking to live with me (but she has conditions, etc.) Like you say, everyone has to be a participant. How this "relationship" goes is completely up to us. She is working class, her dad (who just happens to have fentanyl as his cause of death) was a Teamster so that's working class and she praises dad and she says he took care of everyone well. So now --- into the future with, I hope/expect, new ways to work in this world.
i had friends with terminal cancer who had fentanyl pops, it seemed to be the only thing that helped the pain near the end. did it accelerate their demise? probably but it was a blessing nonetheless.
Any group of people gathering together and focusing on a particular interests can be called cults. Flower breeding groups for instance. It is probably not very well known that there is a world-wide Teddy Bear collecting cult. They have regular get togethers and very serious conferences etc. - a friend of mine was at one stage an enthusiastic participant.
Speaking of powerful authoritarian cults the biggest and oldest is of course the "catholic" church which is of course based on and promulgates lies. Historically and right at the beginning is was a heresy hunting religion.
Some basic lies:
1. Even the name "catholic", meaning universal aint true. The teachings of the institutional church are not in any sense universal.
2. Its applied politics is an extension of its bogus claim re Jesus supposedly giving the "great commission" to convert all nations and peoples to the "one truth faith" - really belief system.
Some back-to-the-past "catholic" traditionalists even pretend that its grotesque Magisterium is binding on ALL human beings. They even pretend that the "catholic" belief system is the only authentic form of Christian-ism and that all other Christian denominations are in serious error.
3. Its applied politics were "authorized" by various papal Bulls(hit) which were used to justify the plunder of the America's in particular, in the name of its cultic (genocidal) "god" and for the "glory of Christ".
4. An extension of #3 was/is the bogus doctrine of "Discovery" which was used to justify the theft of supposedly "empty" lands. It is still in force by the way.
5. On of the church's principal propaganda vehicles is the ETWN TV network.
E signifying eternal.
The teachings/propaganda of the church are not in any sense eternal, nor as I pointed out above universal.
Hopefully and sometime in the near future humankind will throw away all of that with both hands.
An excellent read, thank you so much. I feel uplifted to know you are out there, writing so beautifully and echoing my experience so I feel less alone.
This piece felt like a calming roadmap, Kathleen, even as it holds no specific destination.
I'm convinced that my back pain is the personal micro to the societal macro, and that it's what I need to go through to emerge, changed, on the other side. I may not know what I'll look like over there, but I know I'm following the map laid out by the Divine. Or in your case, the Devanney. 😏
I'm glad it read that way, Mary. And I like your interpretation on the sidelining with your back. Ultimately it's serving you. I believe it.
I don't know what it looks like as we go either, but agree there is a path forward.
I'm finding lately there is a deepening calm happening, (with occasional emotional upheavals to be sure) as I let go more and more of what I thought I knew. Getting more comfortable with that piece. There is a space where no matter how crazy things look, there's still nothing 'wrong'.
Thank you for reading/commenting. Look forward to our next connect. XOX
So many synchronicities and enlightenments here, Kathleen. I woke up thinking that the culture was your cult, transposed. And you took my scattered thoughts, and wove them into a narrative that extended them before I even had formulated the question. And you turned the most cruel of all psyops into a lesson in how it's all being revealed. So grateful for you!
I knew there was a reason (other than the blue martini in the hot tub) that I decided to wait for today to record my New Year's post. I'll be including this. They say that however your new year starts is how it will all go. Having woken up already late to my 10 am dance class and only now having my first coffee of the day, along with my last Waffle of Insane Greatness with bananas sauteed in butter and brown sugar, here's my forecast:
This year we will do everything wrong and it will all turn out right.
One of the many things I love about you, Kathleen, is your ability to look at all this nonsense for what it is, evil warts and all, and yet remain grounded, humourous, and loving. Does that make sense? There are so many newsletters I can't give my energy to anymore, but I always feel your optimism and love what you have to say and how you say it.
Of course, my favorite part was the Tree House! I clicked on that link, thinking, "Hmm, I wonder who it is!" :) Thank you for that, my friend.
Happy Fake Gregorian New Year, Kathleen! We know that the actual new year starts around your birthday...you have an Aries sun, right?? XOXO
Barbara! What a heart-warming comment and reflection. Thank you! (I can never really tell how what I'm putting out will hit until I read the comments.)
Right? Who doesn't want to live in that tree house?
And yeah, a fake new year seems fitting enough in a fake world, so we'll go with it. :-)
Aries sun-sign is right. Maybe I'll celebrate then. (Last night a rewatch of a Harry Potter and early bed.)
May good things come your way in abundance, Barbara. XOX
I had a suspicion it was you before I clicked. But it was a handy link to sub.
I was just referencing Isaac Middle on the fake Gregorian new year: https://downthewombathole.substack.com/p/everything-changes-on-new-years-day. Would it really start on the day after the solstice? I guess it's always somewhat arbitrary depending on where in the journey around the sun it starts. But agreed the Gregorian choice is uber-arby. ;-)
"uber-arby" is a keeper.
😂
Oh, thx, Tereza! I will check that out. As far as I understand (from an astrological perspective), it aligns with the spring equinox and when the Aries season begins. Aries is the first sign in the Zodiac. It makes much more sense to me...new beginnings/spring/Nature is waking up, etc. We're hibernating now, although it feels much more like that for those in colder climates.
Happy January! :) XO
“Uber-arby” 😂
I didn't even have to click the link... I knew EXACTLY whom she was referencing... 😏
🧚🌲🌲💚 Happy Fake Gregorian New Year, Mary! I’m having so much fun saying that! 😂🥰
As you should!! 😂
😊
Same!!!
Beautifully written, Kathleen. "As the false falls away, a more real version of you emerges."
Nothing was ever what it appeared to be, nor what we were taught. Right now is the time for everyone to see the Truth. When we take one step towards the Truth, it seems to take three towards us.
Truth is the Authority --
Authority is not the Truth -- SG
We naturally See what Is, our Mind tries to tell us a Story about what Is. Through belief, the Mind places labels and divides the experience observed. Labels and Titles become barriers to Sight. Truth is the only thing that can be Real or be Trusted.
When we get to a point where we can reject normalcy bias, we are free from all the stories and the social roles we believed in. Freedom is not a Creation from outside experiences; it's a Manifestation of our inner Sight.
Happy New Year --- The year we will find answers.
Love this comment, Nef.
"Freedom is not a Creation from outside experiences; it's a Manifestation of our inner Sight." Wonderful. So concur!
Happy new year to you as well. Very best.
Happy new years!
2025 is the invasion of an alien called the TRUTH.
like you said, it cannot be unseen
And this is what COVID was supposed to do, but failed once the spell ran out. The video explains the psychology of the whole thing.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/covid
Thanks, Rob. I think I opened that link before - it's in German, which I don't speak. Is it available with captions?
I hope you're right - and I like that - invasion of the Truth.
Happy new years and very best to you.
I added the transcript from the Michael Nehls interview in the post.
In YouTube you can turn on the English/Canada subtitles if you prefer watching.
Thanks, Rob. Should have figured that out.
A Happy New Year to you Kathleen.
I really resonated with this passage and was reminded of one of my favorite books, Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" ...
——————
"I find it helpful to remember that culture - even wholly manufactured cult-ish culture - exists alongside a real, physical, Natural world. Spending time in Nature aligns us back to this simple fact.
With the rise of digital-everything this becomes increasingly essential.
Even more, Nature refuels and reminds us of a deeper reality we are always connected to - however obscured it’s been. Somehow, almost magically, when we turn towards it, it turns towards us."
———————
The passage also reminded me of how I once envisioned the mystery and power of wilderness set to some of my favorite music ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ODR70Xg08Y
... and how even that memory has become captured and corrupted. Long video, but the essence can be found in about a minute from 1:20:00 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVgFmTMgls.
I hope against hope this is not a prelude to the fight we have in store for this new year, but sociopaths are both clever and relentless.
Thanks for the great post, keep up the good fight, and again, a Happy New Year from Japan. 🥳
First of all, what a lovely mix of nature and music.
The Ginger Zee bit (watched from 1:20) is bizarre. She seems genuinely excited by the particles being put into our skies (does she not grok they literally rain down on us?)
The crazy weirdness with weather is largely manufactured, imo. As CAF recently said on a Greg Hunter interview - you're not sick, you've been poisoned. Ongoing detoxing is now needed.
SEIRS was new to me. I hope this doesn't get rolled out but if it does maybe we'll discover a lot more of us have caught on.🙏 Thanks for passing along, Steve.
My pleasure Kathleen.
The 'newscasters' are pumped up with too much competitive, self-promoting, personal ambition to dare question their scripts. Same here in Japan. There is a loooong line of newscaster-wannabes who will stop at nothing to snag a job. And those who hold the purse-strings know it. 😫
You always give me homework, Steve! Fortunately it never disappoints. I'll look into the book and click those links when I have a little more time.
So appreciate your always illuminating comments.
Happy New Year to you, friend! May 2025 treat you well. Very best.
Beautiful that book! Aldo with his chickadees. I had the pleasure to know and work with his son, Carl Leopold- he died in 2009 at 89 - We buried him in the Cemetery preserve we created south of Ithaca, NY.
Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve. Our goal in forming it was low cost, low maintenance , common sense- the proceeds went into a ‘permanent maintenance trust’ to take care of the property in perpetuity- off the taxpayers backs. Eventual old growth forest. Young Carl and family lost their dad to a forest fire he was helping fight.
Thank you Kathleen for this thoughtful post to begin the year.
Thank you for reading and commenting Susan.
What a beautiful connection you had - thanks for sharing that. Let's hope common sense prevails as we move into the new year.
Very best to you.
Susan! Followed you on the spot!
I first read Leopold's book as a 2nd year undergrad in biology, taking an Ecology seminar a year or so earlier than I should have. Not only the prose style, but the sentiments expressed turned my life upside down.
Up until then, I had taken mostly required science classes that just sorted students on a bell curve for brute memorization skills. But on my first read of ASCA, I started exploring the edges of the philosophy of science ... first with Schopenhauer on the teleological argument and evolution, later, T.S. Kuhn and Karl Popper, and then with philosophy proper ... from Nietzsche to Plato to Wittgenstein and my own mental break-down / break through.
That was about 50 years ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Spent 3 summers as a mountain fire fighter in Arizona (one year in The Apache National Forest that Aldo also worked in), moved to Japan 42 years ago, went on to grad school in applied linguistics and got tenure at a Japanese college, and ran the biology labs at Temple Univ. Japan for about 20 years.
I still have that same dog-eared copy of ASCA here with me in Japan, as well as another copy of the paperback, a hard bound edition, and a Kindle edition.
Without looking, I can still remember my two favorite chapters ... "65290" (those chickadees) and "Too Early". I remember finding out later that Aldo died fighting a wildfire. We all have to go sometime, but that somehow seems appropriate.
Aside from his warm prose, my big take-away from the book is that anything of real value — those Platonic ideals of the good, the true, and the beautiful — are grounded in wilderness ... and when we stray too far from awareness of that wilderness, we are bound to stray far from those Platonic ideals.
I make a big distinction between "wilderness" and "nature" here ... with "nature" as synonymous with the metaphorical god of Spinoza and Einstein ('god' as nature in its entirety) ... and wilderness as that part of nature which resists being touched, quantified, or controlled by man. As with 65290, this may be a bit different from AL's thought, but I found that distinction useful here in Japan.
Most Japanese are somewhat secular, but with strong, largely subconscious sentiments in line with the native animist traditions of Shinto and/or the Taoist elements of Buddhism. The culture is largely known for its reverence for nature. But I could not help but to notice that it is largely "tamed and micro-managed" nature ... from those lovely Japanese gardens that imitate wilderness, to those stunted and guided bonsai trees. Infrastructure demands a similarly warped approach to nature ... pork-barrel politics turning river banks and hillsides into concrete monstrosities, industries dumping PFAS (toxic forever chemicals) in the water and microplastics everywhere. To some extent, I can understand the Japanese fear of untamed nature.
The constant earthquakes, volcanoes, typhoons, and tsunamis are something I rarely experienced growing up in rural North Carolina. I can understand both appreciating and fearing the life-and-death dance with untamed nature. But I can not forgive the sociopathic "want it all, and want it now" mind-set that drives most sociopaths ... uh ... I mean "titans" of industry. In their zero sum games, the qualities that Aldo Leopold wrote about are only distant memories for most modern Japanese, and only occasionally trotted out and weaponized for some ulterior motive.
Meh, mellowing with age helps a bit, but that also implies "socially moral progress" is a myth. Each generation starts from ground zero, with most going through the same mistake of putting personal ambitions, wants, and desires ahead of those Platonic ideals.
Cheers Susan.
It's been a pleasure chatting with someone familiar with what Aldo Leopold stood for.
Steve
You are a font of knowledge, Steve. Really appreciate the expansive nature of your comments.
That distinction between nature and wilderness, I think can be applied to humans - assuming here that as nature-beings, much of how we present is manicured and controlled in order to fit into our (distorted) world.
The wilderness part of us, may well be what shows up when we start to reject those ways we've adjusted and confined ourselves.
Who are we when those identities adopted to adapt are gone? I think that's when things get really interesting. But we're not really on our own, the deeper order of universe, the cosmos, nature is still in place. We can align there - if we can get out of our own way, of course.
Bull's eye Kathleen!
Aha ... I must be awake, if not 'woke' ... I got your name right. 😂
Much thanks for your praise, and if there is anything to it, it's because you and your friends are bringing the best out of me.
I had not directly applied that 'distinction' metaphor to humans, but on reading how you picked up the ball and ran with it, it makes perfect sense.
As you've pointed out, so much of what passes for "education" and "news" is a stifling of the awareness of the mystery, power, ideals, and dangers of the wilderness within us. That wildness is an anathema to the 'harmony' of Japanese social psychology — but also to the supposedly more individualistic "freedom-loving" Western cultures. Both cultures give lip-service to those values, but I am guessing that both are cultural conceits, weaponized by the clever sociopaths behind so much of what we call "culture" — a lot like that Horatio Alger rags-to-riches myth of meritocracy.
Yeah, military boot-camp tries to de-wild the human as a morally autonomous individual. I am guessing a lot of military post-traumatic stress is the struggle to heal the cognitive dissonance between indoctrination and our innately 'wild' empathy. As your original post points out so well, the captured institutions of journalism and education have been even more insidiously effective at de-wilding us from our fundamental human nature. We didn't even realize we've been militarized.
"Who are we when those identities adopted to adapt are gone?"
Great question! I don't have any original answer, but a couple of interesting options immediately popped up before me ...
Those ten zen ox-herding pictures ... https://ordinaryzensangha.org/ten-oxherding-pictures/
And something by Nietzsche in his distinction between Apollo and Dionysius ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian
... provisional order versus chaos unchained.
Ha. A bit like riding the edge of a mandelbrot set. Yet, as you say, even that mathematical metaphor is part of a larger picture we will never 'understand', but might intuit.
Ha. Zen, Apollo, Dionysius, and mandelbrot sets. East or West, pretty much pointing in the same direction. While most of us sit and stare, like one of the dumber dogs, all-too-tame, looking at the finger. 😂
Interesting spectrum woven here.
"I am guessing a lot of military post-traumatic stress is the struggle to heal the cognitive dissonance between indoctrination and our innately 'wild' empathy."
Never thought about it like that but yes. So tragic.
And tragic also that trauma - in its many forms - is used as a tool of control to keep us small, weak and and obedient and yet is often not even recognized.
I said something at a recent gathering about how everyone is traumatized from birth and received a mix of blank stares to annoyed glares. Not. A. Single. Question.
Too traumatized to ask I guess. 🤷♀️
Cheers, Steve!
Pushing the witching hour here in Japan.
I'd better double check my 'spell checker', otherwise that wicked witch of the west, Katherine, might appear again. 😂
Come to think of it, earlier today, an interesting excuse for name switching came to mind. As pronounced by a Japanese speaker, "Katherine" and "Kathleen" sound identical. Maybe I've gone native?
Cheers, Agent K!
They are "relentless" because they don't know they are wrong. They think they are the normal ones. They live in a bizarre, secret world of insanity which we will never fully understand
I definitely think our normies don't know they are wrong, the sociopaths, I'm not too sure about. They may well know and don't care.
Thanks for reading/commenting, jacob. Best.
Not being sure is probably the best place to stand under ( to have humility)and the best place to make connections however slight.
Finding something that others might partially agree with might be a good place to start. Like agreeing on the definition of a single word... without this, the first sentences from both mouths are a subjective construction so if some understanding from both people is not reached there is no point bothering with a second word or sentence
If this process is too slow then one might wonder which person is insane, for arguing with people that are not willing to open their minds to a single word definition are not well and neither are people that persist with them.
I read a philosophy article recently that suggested that simple questions to people's statements are a good mirror.
" Why do you think that"
" Am I understanding you correctly?".
I love JET'S early work but dumping big horrible "truths" on people that have made irreversible, potentially life ending decisions for themselves, their loved ones and actually everyone in existence is not a good place to start.
"...but dumping big horrible "truths" on people that have made irreversible, potentially life ending decisions for themselves, their loved ones and actually everyone in existence is not a good place to start."
💯
Non threatening questions are definitely helpful. Having largely dropped my agenda to inform, I find they show up naturally.
Nice one Kathleen. " Agenda to inform" !
Maybe convictions are like prisons of the mind. ( It's in the spell ing)
They are the the strong boxes that i keep my precious fears and beliefs safe from disruption, doubt, uncertainty and the unknown. ( I try to use " I and my" rather than " we or you or people" because the latter is presumptuous in that it requires consent by agreement. ( I) don't like being told or accused. Generalisations are frequently useless ( to me)).
The mystery of the unknown can be a scary place but what is life without adventure?
At my age just sitting up can be an adventure! Whoa what a rush though!
Nice one yourself with spell-ing. And so true - these words we use, over and over, fortifying and strengthening the assumptions given to us that keep us small.
"The mystery of the unknown can be a scary place but what is life without adventure?" Agree! We're not here to play it safe. Our eternal spirits know that. :-)
Just found this, or did it " find me"?
Building your own prison-
https://youtu.be/mJMO0i-xsbc?si=jiLU1WSpSCMvDPFJ
Hi again K! (no mistaking letters 🤣).
I've also thought about that paradox of self-awareness of Cluster B types. Some research seems to indicate "they" (trying to hedge with the large spectrum) know when they are going against a social norm, hence the calculated, imitative nature of their behavior, and the collapse of their gaslighting narratives into unsustainable contradictions.
But if there is a genetic predisposition to behave as such, I wonder if they can be said to have much "free will"? Maybe the free will to pursue moral autonomy is restricted to the more neurotypically empathetic who can be tempted and swayed towards either extreme of a moral spectrum — from the full blown pathological narcissism of would-be god-kings to the mostly quiet altruistism of compassion that does not feel compelled to draw attention to itself. Maybe.
There is not some specific group called "the sociopaths." Or did you want to provide the list? This does not work. Or, if Kathleen Devanney accetps the word sociopath, what is that? They are persons who think what they are doing is right.
They are people. They have the same DNA, they are your same species. best, . . .
I was referring to sociopaths as a specific personality disorder. Not saying those definitions and diagnosis is alway accurate or captures the spectrum - and I am assuming a spectrum. I was using the term to refer to people who don't have basic empathy.
Hi Kathleen and JS ... morning here and "Katherine" has disappeared. 😂
Yes, I have also noticed a problem when using the word "sociopath". Some people assume I am using a conversational definition as a slur. I have to be careful of my potential audience and mode of discourse. Kathleen, you are spot-on in how I use the word, with "lack of remorse" as one of those components in lack of emapthy. See this all the time with politicians getting caught with their hands in the till, and making a kabuki show of apology if at all.
As may have come up in our chats before ... when I use the word "sociopath" ... I am talking specifically about the terminally toxic effects of those high in Cluster B behavior traits (dark-triads) who are drawn to power and corrupted by it.
The more I observe and think about them, the less I think they become pathological because of traumatic circumstances. The more I read (the ponerology substack, Lobaczeski, Hare, etc., the more I tend to believe they are different from more neurotypically empathic humans. They seem to be genetically pre-determined personality traits, and in the cases of true psychopaths, clearly seen morphological differences in brain scans. Who knows? Future technology may reveal structural / wiring differences in the minds of pathological narcissists, repeated opportunistic behavior, or for that matter, pathological levels of zero-sum game competitiveness.
One fly in the ointment is how the majority of neuro-typical, empathetic people can be whipped up into a frenzy of sociopathic behavior, depending on the tribe dehumanizing the other, or the tribe being dehumanized. Military boot camp is a blunt way of heading of any potential for moral autonomy in times of war. Dehumanizing the soldier is the first step in dehumanizing the enemy. So in a way, I guess this potentially puts everyone on a spectrum that depends on manipulable circumstances. Still, I suspect there is a subgroup of humans who are born with a war of all against all as their default. Few bankers send their kids to the front line, and fewer still of our 'leaders' will partake. This is classic behavior of those high in dark-triad personality traits.
One problem with the build-a-better mousetrap systems approach, is that such systems invariably seem to skip over the persistent percentage of people who eventually capture and game the best of intents ... to the point of empires that repeatedly collapse under their own corruption ... hence that need to return to nature for solace, for more lasting values, to temporarily throw off the yoke of the sociopaths.
Cheers, Agent K ... ha, one way to keep that pesky "Katherine" from creeping into my correspondence.
You can call me Stove. 😂
Hi JS.
There is a behavior that can be called sociopathic, literaly 'toxic to society'. Philosophically, we can never fully understand the ultimate causes and final effects of even the slightest of our behaviors. But I used the word to refer to a diagnosable group (true psychopaths indeed having different DNA resulting in neuro-morphological differences), which Kathleen points out, do exist, though on a spectrum.
For example, in the 6-hour congressional anti-monopoly session a couple of years ago, Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland, specifically called out Mark Zuckerberg for targeting dark-triads (pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths) in the hiring process for nefarious purposes.
The Ponerology substack is a great rabbit hole into that group. If ever targeted by one, or their 'flying monkey' enablers, it becomes one of the defining experiences of one's world. 42 years here in Japan as an ethnic minority, and I have been an all-too easy target.
Cheers
Damn it. "Katherine"?
That's what I get for responding late in the night. 😂
Corrected while wiping the egg off my face.
No worries, Stephan. :-) I've been called worse!
LOL. That's two of us!
I heard my mom and dad argued about whether to name me "Steve" or "Stuart". I don't know who won the day, but the reasoning was "Stuart" can be too easily shortened into "Stu" and lengthened again into "stupid".
Thank you for writing this much needed musing. Accepting reality has been a theme in my life for awhile, and as painful as it can be, I sure as heck can't go back. And it is bleeding into many around me. I will no longer entertain any fantasies with my time and attention. And if I can't speak the "truth" to you, I don't want to speak to you on a meaningful level. Who knew gaslighting would become 2nd nature to much of the population? We're living in a homogeneous society that recycles/repeats everything they absorb from socials/friends/msm. It is disturbing. I think George Orwell was a time traveler 😀.
And thank you for reading and commenting, KatBro!
I think all of us who've been looking behind the curtain can relate to what you write.
"Who knew gaslighting would become 2nd nature to much of the population?" I just said much the same to a friend. Crazy how the lies perpetuate among those being lied to.
The replication thing - so true. There is nothing new or creative in it. No life. So much of our culture feels irrelevant or dead. Really it is. And - even though it doesn't seem to be the case - it's actually leaving.
George was probably privy to some info most were not. Though I like the time-traveler idea better. :-)
Best to you, KB and Happy New Year!
"Courageous, intelligent, grounded, wise, kind, curious and expansive doesn’t quite cover it. I’m fortified by them. Inspired too." That pretty well describes YOU, Kathleen! You forgot "humorous".
I know there are more words, but when I'm under pressure I freeze, sorry. I love the title you chose, too, "The Cult in Our Culture." You're so "clever", there's another word! lol Oh! I forgot
"honest". OK. That's it. One more, "Creative". Happy New Year!!
I wish I could hug you, Ronnie! Your kindness runneth over!
I hope all the generosity you spread returns to you many-fold. ❤️
Thank you, thank you. Look forward to 'seeing' you soon! Very best New Year wishes! XOX
Right back at you, Kathleen, to everything you said. XOX
This is why there are so many (angry, defiant) deniers. Because the truth is just too much to bear.
Agree. Sigh. Will they do it when it becomes even MORE obvious? We'll see.
At least we can't say life isn't interesting...
Best New Year's wishes to you, Al.
Thanks for the shout out, Kathleen!
"The real you, a better you, is on deck. We were wrong. We were lied to. We were used. Okay, let it go and keep going."
Precisely THIS. This is what is holding people back from seeing the truth, isn't it? (Probably what I was trying to say in: https://thefreethinker.substack.com/p/why-the-narrative-refuses-to-die) The discomfort--for some, the horror--of admitting they were fooled, lied to, abused, attacked. How much more comforting to bury one's head in the sand, go along with the herd, assume someone is looking out for you and will save you, rather than YOU stepping up to your authenticity, admitting you were fooled, refusing to go along with a lie, becoming the truth warrior you were meant to be... along with all the accompanying discomfort.
The way towards authentic self (and toward truth) is moving towards discomfort, not shying away from it.
I originally missed that essay you've linked, James. Thanks for including it - it's brilliant and a very satisfying read!
Yes, it's been a strange journey to see how previously understood markers for gauging a shared reality can fall away so quickly, given the 'right' context.
And truly, would never have guessed in 2020 or 21, that in 2025 so many laggards would still be around. Perhaps there was - as some claim - a timeline split of sorts. (Some kind of sorting has occurred.) With that we're living out very different outcomes. IDK.
And you hone in on the opportunity for those who prize truth over belonging - authenticity. I'll add integrity and all the good stuff that grows when we plant our selves in the ground of truth.
Let's hope more come over.
I appreciate all you do. Very best.
Great title for your post. Nice take on things. Astonishing (and scary) how brazenly nowadays evil is touted as something clever/smart. In the end, 'The System' will dig its own grave - I hope not too many people fall into it. All the best for 2025, Josh.
Thank you, Joshua.
Yes, agree on the grave - digging in process. And I share that hope as well.
Best.
“We realize we’ve changed, we’re not the same, and with that, everyone we’re in relationship with us needs to adjust. Sometimes that improves those connections, sometimes they end.”
“A newfound humility”
Oh my yes, Kathleen!
And then God puts new people in your life so that you finally understand what meaningful relationships truly are.
Who can I trust? I can trust in Him. 🙏🙏🙏
Happy new year Kathleen.
Thank you, Laura.
Yes, isn't it amazing how that works? You have to let go of some relationships and then new ones open. We get what we need and sometimes we get a lot more. Deep trust that there is a way forward that serves humanity in all its dimensions, is something I'm experiencing as well. Very very grateful for that.
Happy new year. Thank you for what you do, Laura, and for being you. ❤️
Katherine Devany said this. "how we interpret events - as victims or as participants with agency and choice - will largely shape our ..." futures. Okay, now I have this woman asking to live with me (but she has conditions, etc.) Like you say, everyone has to be a participant. How this "relationship" goes is completely up to us. She is working class, her dad (who just happens to have fentanyl as his cause of death) was a Teamster so that's working class and she praises dad and she says he took care of everyone well. So now --- into the future with, I hope/expect, new ways to work in this world.
Big decision on deck for you, Jacob. I wish you well with it.
Happy New Year and good luck! Best.
i had friends with terminal cancer who had fentanyl pops, it seemed to be the only thing that helped the pain near the end. did it accelerate their demise? probably but it was a blessing nonetheless.
Excellent point.
All religions are cults - with no exception.
Any group of people gathering together and focusing on a particular interests can be called cults. Flower breeding groups for instance. It is probably not very well known that there is a world-wide Teddy Bear collecting cult. They have regular get togethers and very serious conferences etc. - a friend of mine was at one stage an enthusiastic participant.
Speaking of powerful authoritarian cults the biggest and oldest is of course the "catholic" church which is of course based on and promulgates lies. Historically and right at the beginning is was a heresy hunting religion.
Some basic lies:
1. Even the name "catholic", meaning universal aint true. The teachings of the institutional church are not in any sense universal.
2. Its applied politics is an extension of its bogus claim re Jesus supposedly giving the "great commission" to convert all nations and peoples to the "one truth faith" - really belief system.
Some back-to-the-past "catholic" traditionalists even pretend that its grotesque Magisterium is binding on ALL human beings. They even pretend that the "catholic" belief system is the only authentic form of Christian-ism and that all other Christian denominations are in serious error.
3. Its applied politics were "authorized" by various papal Bulls(hit) which were used to justify the plunder of the America's in particular, in the name of its cultic (genocidal) "god" and for the "glory of Christ".
4. An extension of #3 was/is the bogus doctrine of "Discovery" which was used to justify the theft of supposedly "empty" lands. It is still in force by the way.
5. On of the church's principal propaganda vehicles is the ETWN TV network.
E signifying eternal.
The teachings/propaganda of the church are not in any sense eternal, nor as I pointed out above universal.
Hopefully and sometime in the near future humankind will throw away all of that with both hands.
Agree, Jonathan. Religions will, imo, also go into the shredder. :-) (Though we'll likely see some pop-ups to replace them for a while.
Thanks for reading/commenting. Best.
Amén, sister! With clarity and conviction!!
An excellent read, thank you so much. I feel uplifted to know you are out there, writing so beautifully and echoing my experience so I feel less alone.
What a wonderful comment, April! Thank you for that. Best wishes for the upcoming year. 💕
This piece felt like a calming roadmap, Kathleen, even as it holds no specific destination.
I'm convinced that my back pain is the personal micro to the societal macro, and that it's what I need to go through to emerge, changed, on the other side. I may not know what I'll look like over there, but I know I'm following the map laid out by the Divine. Or in your case, the Devanney. 😏
I'm glad it read that way, Mary. And I like your interpretation on the sidelining with your back. Ultimately it's serving you. I believe it.
I don't know what it looks like as we go either, but agree there is a path forward.
I'm finding lately there is a deepening calm happening, (with occasional emotional upheavals to be sure) as I let go more and more of what I thought I knew. Getting more comfortable with that piece. There is a space where no matter how crazy things look, there's still nothing 'wrong'.
Thank you for reading/commenting. Look forward to our next connect. XOX
So many synchronicities and enlightenments here, Kathleen. I woke up thinking that the culture was your cult, transposed. And you took my scattered thoughts, and wove them into a narrative that extended them before I even had formulated the question. And you turned the most cruel of all psyops into a lesson in how it's all being revealed. So grateful for you!
I knew there was a reason (other than the blue martini in the hot tub) that I decided to wait for today to record my New Year's post. I'll be including this. They say that however your new year starts is how it will all go. Having woken up already late to my 10 am dance class and only now having my first coffee of the day, along with my last Waffle of Insane Greatness with bananas sauteed in butter and brown sugar, here's my forecast:
This year we will do everything wrong and it will all turn out right.
Thanks, Tereza!
If what 'they' say is true, maybe having cleaned out stuff on my porch today is a good omen for reducing clutter all year. And getting a post out!
Re:
"This year we will do everything wrong and it will all turn out right." Fabulous- I can live up to that. :-)
Sincerely grateful for you, Tereza, and our apocalympotimist cohorts. (I never spell that right.)
My list for 2025 now waffles with that Insane Greatness. Why didn't I think of that?
(Not to mention the blue-martini hot tub experience.)
May good things flow your way. Looking forward to your next post. XOX