Devotion is a Remedy for Despair
Sharing voices that are giving me strength right now, hoping they will do the same for you
As we all live into the complexities of the present moment both personally and professionally, I’m finding myself leaning heavily on a few trusted voices as well as the sweetness and kindness of the many young people around me (one the biggest benefits of the professorial life).
In one way, the urgent issues have not changed, but they are fully unmasked and we are all asked to truly face the magnitude of living in an abject society. At the same time, the acute vulnerabilities of certain among us are seriously heightened and the effects of current policies are not equally felt by all.
Telling a far better story about how to survive
Naomi Klein’s work has been a powerful teacher for me for years on climate activism and a guide to better understanding what is happening in a world on fire. A friend (and contributor to this newsletter) sent me her recent Guardian article and I highly recommend it to you if you have time. I have pulled a few key passages for you here:
How do we break this apocalyptic fever? First, we help each other face the depth of the depravity that has gripped the hard right in all of our countries. To move forward with focus, we must first understand this simple fact: we are up against an ideology that has given up not only on the premise and promise of liberal democracy but on the livability of our shared world – on its beauty, on its people, on our children, on other species. The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants.
Second, we counter their apocalyptic narratives with a far better story about how to survive the hard times ahead without leaving anyone behind. A story capable of draining end times fascism of its gothic power and galvanizing a movement ready to put it all on the line for our collective survival. A story not of end times, but of better times; not of separation and supremacy, but of interdependence and belonging; not of escaping, but staying put and staying faithful to the troubled earthly reality in which we are enmeshed and bound.
This basic sentiment, of course, is not new. It is central to Indigenous cosmologies, and it lies at the heart of animism. Go back far enough and every culture and faith has its own tradition of respecting the sanctity of here, and not searching for Zion in an elusive ever-distant promised land. In eastern Europe, before the fascist and Stalinist annihilations, the Jewish socialist Labor Bund organized around the yiddish concept of Doikayt, or “hereness”. Molly Crabapple, who has written a forthcoming book about this neglected history, defines Doikayt as the right to “fight for freedom and safety in the places where they lived, in defiance of everyone who wanted them dead” – and rather than be forced to flee to safety in Palestine or the United States. Perhaps what is needed is a modern-day universalization of that concept: a commitment to the right to the “hereness” of this particular ailing planet, to these frail bodies, to the right to live in dignity wherever on the planet we are, even when the inevitable shocks forces us to move. “Hereness” can be portable, free of nationalism, rooted in solidarity, respectful of indigenous rights and unbounded by borders.
That future would require its own apocalypse, its own world-ending and revelation, though of a very different sort. Because as the scholar of policing Robyn Maynard has observed: “In order to make earthly planetary survival possible, some versions of this world need to end.”
We have reached a choice point, not about whether we are facing apocalypse but what form it will take. The activist sisters Adrienne Maree and Autumn Brown touched on this recently on their aptly named podcast, How to Survive the End of the World. In this moment, when end times fascism is waging war on every front, new alliances are essential. But instead of asking: “Do we all share the same worldview?” Adrienne urges us to ask: “Is your heart beating and do you plan to live? Then come this way and we will figure out the rest on the other side.”
To have a hope of combating the end times fascists, with their ever-constricting and asphyxiating concentric circles of “ordered love”, we will need to build an unruly open-hearted movement of the Earth-loving faithful: faithful to this planet, its people, its creatures and to the possibility of a livable future for us all. Faithful to here. Or, to quote Anohni again, this time referring to the goddess in which she now places her faith: “Have you stopped to consider that this might have been her best idea?” - Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
For regular readers of this newsletter and listeners to the podcast you will see in these passages many of the same messages that our community has been exploring, sharing, writing, and creating around including Tal’s recent post on Doikayt and Heather’s on listening to the more than human world and Dominique’s earth-centered approach to teaching industrial design among many others. Naomi’s work gives me strength to do the work we are doing, it amplifies what we feel intuitively and provides guidance for ways forward.
Another voice I always find supportive and insightful is Michael J. Morris who also echoes many of these same sentiments. Below I’m sharing a lightly edited post that Michael offered on Instagram recently and that I have been returning to again and again. Michael is a dear friend and a generous contributor to our community as a writer, dramaturge, and workshop leader including the very popular Queer Magic workshops. Follow Michael’s work on instagram and on their website:
https://www.michaeljmorris.co/
Devotion is a Remedy for Despair
By Michael J. Morris
When you are at your death, what will you be so grateful that you experienced?
What will you be so satisfied that you did?
How can you spend as much of your time on this planet as possible doing those things and having those experiences?”
So many of us spend so much of our days doing things we’ve been told to do, things we feel obligated to do, things we’ve been convinced are important for reasons other than our own, and things we are compelled to do in order to survive.
It’s true that if we intend to survive, there are things we must do, even when they don’t bring us joy. It is also true that under oppressive, exploitative, extractive conditions, survival is made much more difficult for many. And yet even under such conditions, we find reasons to be here. We find connection, pleasure, joy, satisfaction, purpose, curiosity, and awe in whatever ways we can. And when we look back at our lives, these experiences will be the source of meaning and gratitude.
I have often heard stories or advice about avoiding regrets at the end of life, and there is wisdom in avoiding regret. Can we also look to our inevitable endings with the pursuit of gratitude and satisfaction when the time comes?
As so you might ask yourself:
What are the demands or expectations that I can in fact decline or refuse in order to give as many moments of this precious life to the experiences that I will look back on with gratitude and satisfaction?
Devotion is a remedy for despair.
To what are you devoted, and what does your devotion inspire or require you to do?
We are living through devastating and disorienting times. It seems like everyone I know is overwhelmed by the relentless headlines detailing the actions of this administration. Despair can feel like hopelessness writ large, the sense that the pain or challenges that we are experiencing right now will be permanent and unending. In the face of seemingly inevitable sorrow, we can feel powerless and directionless. When we are stuck in despair, it can be difficult to believe that anything else is possible.
Most of us are exhausted. Many of us don’t know what to do in the face of so much assault and uncertainty. In the midst of personal and political despair, what becomes possible when we return to our own devotions? What practices and responses come into focus when we reorient our lives around that to which we are devoted?
Perhaps you aren’t immediately clear about your devotions. Another way of approaching these reflections would be to consider your life as a practice or even a ritual and ask:
To what or to whom is this practice or ritual devoted? What do I revere or to what am I committed through this life that I am living?
Devotion also brings us into a temporality that is deeper and longer than the urgent crises of this moment. We remember our reverence and commitments that have guided our paths for many years before, and we ground ourselves in the ways that same reverence and those same commitments will guide our paths for many years to come.
This is not in any way to say that we ignore the crises of this moment, but rather it is to suggest that our devotion has the potential to inform our actions in ways that are in greater alignment with the worlds for which we long, rather than constantly organizing ourselves and our actions from a state of reaction to tyrannical policies and forces.
I am devoted to spaciousness, slowness, subtlety, and pleasure as some of my most sacred values.
I am devoted to embodiment, personal and collective healing and liberation, nonviolence, and multi-species flourishing on this damaged planet.
I am devoted to learning, making meaning, and producing knowledge as well as mystery questions that refuse to be fully answered or contained, and the bright black field of possibility - to use language from Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
Each of these devotions informs how I move and respond, both in moments of crisis as well as all the moments that come before and after. Each of these devotions brings me into greater alignment with the worlds I am working toward and others who are also working to bring such worlds into being. As you bring your attention again to your devotions, may they inform how you move and respond, and may they bring you into greater alignment with the worlds for which you are working and others who are also working to bring such worlds into being. - Michael J. Morris
Be in touch, community is key
Thank you Michael. Thank you Naomi. Thank you Tal and Heather and adrienne and Alexis and all of you. I hope each of these offerings are supportive of you all right now and I know how much I value this community and the knowledge of so many kind souls connected here and beyond.
With love
Norah