For some of us, the Quest for safety will present a bigger challenge than for others.
The last trimester in our mother’s womb, the way we came into the world, and the amount of contact we had with our mother’s body as infant leaves an imprint in our Nervous System.
Some of us have an imprint of safety, and some of us got an imprint of unsafety.
The first ones move through the world with a general sense of it feeling a safe place to be, for the others, the world just generally feels like a threatening place that demands full alertness.
We can exhaust ourselves trying to make the world a safer place, but we might never reach that, because, well: Chaos.
But we can Quest after the source of safety within ourselves and learn to work with our body and our nervous system to regulate back into safety after activation because of real or imagined danger.
We can learn that by co-regulating with other bodies, through breathwork and other practices, and by entering the Journey of truly befriending our bodies.
It would tremendously help as well of course, if as a collective we could guarantee safe housing and feeding to everyone, without the hustle for the money tickets.
But it might take longer to get there than your personal Quest for safety.
Your Quest for Balanced Psychonautics starts with learning to source safety within yourself.
If you play with magick or with psychedelics this is always an important skill to have:
Embrace yourself and come back to safety.
If you are up for exploring this topic in a ritual framing, join the next Ritual Research Crew that starts September 24th.
You can warm up at Basecamp and get to know the Map and Compass we will use for this magickal expedition for free or get started on the Quest and start catching up with the Trailblazers.
A meta-modern approach of hope for the aftermath of a doomed civilization
To be frank – the belief has taken hold in me, that this civilization construct as we know it, approaches the end of its cycle. The dysfunctionality of it I find difficult to ignore and I know many others see it this way too. The narratives of system collapse do resonate with me to some extent. The unraveling of civilization I imagine will provide us with quite challenging experiences of the cataclysmic category and I must admit, that some part of me feels excitement about this.
Some cultures include in their mythology the representation of forces of destruction and creation that alternate in cycles, which gives them a sense of normality to the events we might be facing in this decade of transformation. Our culture with its narrative of linear progression has difficulty making sense of and accepting cycles of destruction, death and involution.
In this deteriorating world we still have options, albeit not many, but few are available to us. Certainly, we can get very depressed about the impending doom catalysed by climate change and the social disruption it will probably unfold and we can indulge in hedonisms to distract us from it and party hard until the end. Looking at the deterioration of our planet and the billions impoverished and in desperate conditions, we can get angry, take it to the streets and demand change and call for accountability by the people, institutions or system we deem responsible. We can indulge in narratives about conspiraciesout of fear of a turn towards a totalitarian dystopia of the Chinese surveillance capitalism flavour. And we can also adopt a more ironic stance on it all, and take it into our own hands to seed the path for a new version of human civilization which may flourish on the ashes of the neoliberal capitalist patriarchal global system.
Humanity will start solving their problems, the day they seize to take themselves too seriously.
Principia Discordia
Cultivating a humorous playfulness about this all, has helped me not to lose hope in the possibility of a golden age kind of future, even though big parts of my system sometimes scream at me: We are so doomed! I have accepted that it might get ugly before we can make it better.
A rather new movement based on the “Metamodern Solar Punk Manifesto” by Joe Lightfood has caught my attention and sparked the part of me that still has hope and optimism in her heart. I have picked up some of those thoughts as they highly resonate with me.
Enter the Metamodern Solar Punks
Solar Punks adopt a serious playfulness or playful seriousnessabout life and the dance of existence and the integrative both/and thinking that allows to merge different perspectives and look for the synthesis.
Solar Punks know that in the face of utter meaninglessness, we need to be craftful with the creation of the narratives that will inspire the resolve to act towards the change we want to see in the world.
Solar Punks have enough touch with reality to realize how dire the shituation of the survival of the species on this planet looks but remain upbeat and hopeful that we can turn shit around, even if we need to manage deterioration first.
Solar Punks choose to believe that we can develop as a species and evolve our culture in a way that we integrate the wise use of technology and reconnect with nature in a synergistic way. That we can develop cybernetic systems of self-regulating autonomous but interconnected communities and act as a global civilization stewarding the planet without centralized systems of mass control.
Solar Punks choose to foster a narrative of hope for a brighter future by taking action towards radical change and not wait for authorities and power holders to do so while falling into despair or gloom.
Solar Punks integrate the perspectives of both science and spirituality to make sense of the world and do not shy from using ritual and reconnect to the rhythm of cyclical living.
Solar Punks understand that we need to overcome hyper-individuality and alienation and that our nervous systems have not evolved past tribal structures and that we need to reinvent some form of tribes four our systems to fully feel safe and flourish.
Solar Punks understand that a healthy society builds upon healthy relationships and we need to upgrade our ways of relating to each other, to the land and to the cosmos and we can do so by integrating the wisdom of indigenous cultures from the past, that were more attuned to their environment.
Solar Punks understand that we need to experiment with different containers for social interaction to find more nourishing solutions than a society built upon the notion of a nuclear family. From these experiments in temporary autonomous zones, we can establish a mycelial network of regenerative and visionary communities to spawn a new civilization.
Solar Punks create game worlds of infinite games, with the purpose of continuing to play, to exchange the finite games of winners and losers putting more value on ingenuity, generativity, interdependence and community with an emphasis on environmental regenerativity, subsidiarity and social justice.
Solar Punks accept that game worlds always come with hierarchies, but try to build growth hierarchies instead of dominator hierarchies, fostering social cultural environments that foster individual autonomy and collaboration, unity in diversity and egalitarian distribution of power.
This game world we inhabit faces a huge transformation, and how well the human race adapts to these changes still remains to be seen. Facing this unknown, I choose to play with those that also see the possibility for a regenerative civilization. Those who see this planet as a gem and us as its stewards.
The Solar Punk narrative offers the inspiration to pursue a change, for a future where humanity makes a wise use of our god-like technology. In this future we build our habitats in a synergistic manner with the land and environment, and manage the resources at our disposal in a way that provides for a good living for all creatures that cohabit on this planet.
In the face of the doomsday scenario memes spreading through our media-narratives, we can choose to remain upbeat about our chances for human development and evolution. The world as we know it might crumble and dissolve before our eyes, yet I firmly believe that these states of chaos act as a powerful catalyst for evolution. If we surf the waves coming our way, we might have some fun on this wild ride. We might even come out on the other side of it, having evolved into a new stage of civilization.
You might judge this as a romantic stance on a crisis, but I have been through a few of my own and from each one I emerged a different person, much wiser and much more integrated.
You might judge me as a dreamer – but I am not the only one. We can dream a different world into existence.
Will you join the Solar Punk narrative or wait for cyberpunk dystopian narratives to take over our reality?
In my practice as Chaos Magickian, transformational coach, space holder and facilitator, I’ve been coming across a certain archetype of a person who seems to gravitate towards me very naturally. The Chaotic Edge-Dwellers, as I like to call them, find me both professionally and in my private life and I have a special place in my heart for them, as I resonate deeply with this archetype.
We can find Edge-Dwellers in many different niches and throughout different archetypes of Artists, Misfits, Black Sheeps, Criminals, Fools, Tricksters, Philosophers, Edgy Scientists, Writers, Third Culture Kids, Magickians, Witches, Hermits and Pranksters.
The inner wiring of The Chaotic Edge-Dweller is too divergent to fit the neat little boxes provided by our society and educational system. While most humans will adapt by censoring parts of themselves to fit in, be accepted and feel safe, the Chaotic Edge Dweller can not, and/or will not make this choice.
The nervous system wiring of the Chaotic Edge-Dwellers diverges from the mainstream in a way that makes it very difficult to operate by the standards of functioning in the structures of mainstream society. Most of them would be given the ADHD “DISORDER” label by the mental health system if they fail to function in expected ways and seek out diagnosis.
My own experience with this archetype has shown that many of these folks have access to higher functions of intelligence, including strong empathy and access to extra sensory experiencing. They possess high levels of creativity and influx from the collective unconscious, which can be at times chaotic and volatile, and often experience the feeling of being an alien on this planet. This experience in and of itself does make them quite unique and different from others. They experience the world in a way most cannot understand.
The experience of feeling not understood, invalidated, othered, of not belonging, and for some folks even being bullied when growing up, can brutally shock our system and without the ressources to integrate this shock, create trauma. The additional work needed to work through early life trauma adds to the incapacity to function as society would expect us to. With a mind that processes information so differently, the chaos of our thinking – also attracting chaos in our lives – increases the sense of alienation amongst people who apparently function as required.
The difficulty in navigating the given ORDER of our world has much to do with the chaotically shifting states of consciousness. For some of these neurodivergent folks, the awareness might rapidly shift from states of easy social navigation, to emotional overwhelm, to a spontaneous influx of creative disorder and artistic inspiration, to a state of scattered minds or nervous system activation into fight or flight response.
This makes it even more difficult to take the path of masking and apparently functioning, because it leaves them at the mercy of whatever state of consciousness they find themselves in and creating the environment conducive to a state of productivity becomes a difficult challenge.
The Chaotic Edge Dweller holds, I believe, a strategic advantage in times of a paradigm shift. When the structures of society crumble and dissolve, the stress and anxiety level of those who have gotten used to operating with the standard maps will skyrocket.
In these times of chaotic transitioning, where the old maps no longer fit the territory, the Chaotic Edge Dweller is less likely to be as intensely affected.
Chaotic Edge-Dwellers seem to thrive in more chaotic environments. Their systems gear up a notch and they can tap into more resources and creativity to surf the waves of chaos. They have ventured away from the well walked paths, in the search for their way. In doing so, they have gotten familiar with what it feels like to be navigating uncharted territory.
The Chaos in their minds makes them a bit more immune to the tendency to fall into group think and adopt popular narratives. Their capacity to shift between states of consciousness allows for a vision of the world taking up different perspectives and avoiding the traps of fixed reality tunnels.
For the transition we face, these qualities come as an asset. The out of the box thinking of the Chaotic Edge Dweller could offer great value in the creation of new structures. Having the capacity to adapt to shifting territory, the Chaotic Edge Dweller can play a much bigger role through the emergence of a new stage of civilization and human evolution, opening more space for innovation.
The challenge for the Chaotic Edge Dweller to overcome, in order to thrive, is to master their shifting states of consciousness at will. They must find the balance of ORDER and DISORDER in their own system, to stand firm on the board and surf the Waves of Chaos.
The time has come to embrace the beautiful chaos in your system, do the work to anchor your self-esteem, regulate your emotional responses, find the others and shine a light on all the different ways we can proceed on unchartered territory, building the new on the edges of a dying system.
I am Calling in my tribe of chaotic Edge-Dwellers for the love of Chaos and consciousness evolution!
Methodological Agnosticism, Cultural Deprogramming & Chaos Magick
My first gateway to reality shifting was the study of Comparative Religion.
I experienced this field of study as a proper mindfuck. A proper mindfuck can expand our way we see the world, once we have rearranged our maps after they shatter.
