Held in Motion

Have you ever lost the experience of knowing? I have the intellectual understanding of what I do well, but the substance that fills that out, the experience of knowing? I’ve lost that.For me, the experience is embodied, the knowing is developed and nurtured in collaborative, generative conversations. They’re like a gym & garden, in one. A place where I can exercise my strengths in different ways. And a place where I (and others) witness being co-creators & participants in a living ecosystem; an ecosystem alive only for as long as the conversation lasts.However, over months and years, I’ve observed group dynamics have shifted into more and more verbal transactions and extractions by way of subtle and overt games of dominance. Speaking at one another, cornering, leveraging, asserting positionality over one another. I’ve wondered, is it me? Am I seeing more clearly than I once did? Are larger social patterns more accentuated, now? And then I wondered, surely there are still gym-gardens just waiting to be discovered? Maybe, all of the above? When I see the signals being dropped, redirected, & (frankly) obliterated, I don’t experience myself as part of the whole. Instead, I find myself wondering: ‘Am I really here?’ Not just in this conversation, but existentially?For years, podcasting has served a need that followed knowing my thinking abilities. A weaving of self-expression & thought. Not in comparison to anyone, but as my own. With the experience of knowing sucked out of my intellectual understanding of self, I feel unmoored. I need to step away for a time.I’m going to wander, contemplate, be — for a bit. When I find the experience of knowing again, I’ll be back.If you’ve been listening all along, thank you. If you decide to remain through this quiet season, thank you.

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Understanding through communication, how do we even do it? How effective are the attempts? If someone claims they have this figured out, I don't know that I believe them. Then again, I'm an alien under the influence of technology, & certainly don't know. Words, analogies, paradigms, hierarchy, severed feedback looping; lions and tigers and bears, oh my! 😵‍💫

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Through time, the colonizer mentality became metabolized, laundered, normalized. It's the operating system obscured by innumerable sanctified explanations. The operating system that shapes our governments, economic systems, education, relationships with land & the rest of nature, social & cultural patterns, one on one conversations, & internal patterns. How do we make it more legible, begin to decompile/deprogram it, & replace it with something different?Resources & Notes:Glass of dark liquid.Latest on the Nolan Wells' case.Tall grasses flowing in the wind.

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When hierarchy creates the conditions, the environments we're mired in, how do we reconcile choosing this shit vs the uncomfortable & temporary shit that is engaging with that memetic, that architecture? The bottleneck that leads to liberation? Resources & Notes:"The Illusion of God" (This is Justin's video discussing knowledge & the tower, I mentioned. It is not about God.)Marshmallows!Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Introducing new pop-up episodes that will bubble up from time to time. Where the journey, the being, is more important than the destination or result. So, it may be whimsical, silly, cool, or a flop. Unexpected, a bit like Pop Rocks™ candy. 💥🤪

This first FizzyPop is a twofer. Inspired by indigenous women I've read or listened to, I ponder a not so new kind of marketplace. And then comes the addendum, the "oof" moment, where I heard my own white, colonial programming.

Resources & Notes:

Pop Rocks™

Cadbury Dairy Milk FireworksDescription: "Milk chocolate with candy coated pieces and popping candy." (Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an official webpage. It might be a special recipe brought back for Canada Day, July 1st.)

Song: Bubbles by Yosi Horikawa

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Brown Girl Pride & Indigenous/Gift Giving Economies (Initial explanation. | Clarifying example.)

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Is cognitive empathy moral? Indicative of one’s humanity? Or is it a sloppy substitute slotted in with other Jenga blocks in an attempt to hold hierarchical society, together?

Yet again, I find myself wondering about cognitive empathy; from depedestalizing it to questioning if the entire idea is colonial shit. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Resources & Notes:

Preference for hierarchy is associated with reduced empathy and increased counter-empathy towards others, especially out-group targets.

Clubhouse: Empathy: Save the Species

How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Édouard Glissant’s The Right to Opacity

An Immense World by Ed Yong

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"Hierarchies exist everywhere in nature!" It's interesting how a memetic handed to us, 1,000s of years ago, is so powerful as to shape how we perceive and make sense of the world, today. Without question, without pausing, 'it just is what is'. We presume and assume a lot when we decide who or what sits where in a hierarchy. Is this as neutral as we believe?Resources & Notes:An Immense World by Ed Yong Édouard Glissant's The Right to Opacity

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It's incredible how, whether an internalized understanding of self or external messaging about self, the cognitive architecture we construct shapes our perceptions. Which is scary disturbing to think how systems of power can and do shape us, but it's also incredibly liberating to realize we can play a role in shifting the scaffolding and thus our literal, bodily perceptions. Or at least, this is my takeaway.Resources & Notes:Congressional hearing with neuroscientist, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. (Instagram reel. | Congressional testimony.)An Immense World by Ed Yong (Apologies, I may have mispronounced Yong's name.) Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently by Beau LottoDr. Barbara Tversky on gestures & spatial language. (Her Columbia faculty page lists her book & papers on this topic. | Instagram reel.)

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There’s the bare bones architecture of power. Then, there’s the tissue for what that particular iteration of power looks like in that particular intersection of time & space. And then, there’s the sociology of power that behaves just like a cult. The propaganda, the “right” or “proper” frames, the steadfast beliefs. And then, the psychology of the cult is intertwined with identity & ego to defend & assert, requiring the cult member to prove & earn their validity, their worth, continually and without end. How can we choose or do differently before seeing the bones, tissue, sociology, & psychology of the Cult of Power?

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What if the question of free will or determinism was flawed to begin with? What if this is why the question persists? Why it's been debated, for-ever? What if unfurling & reintegrating our understanding shifts the camera lens? And what if the tangential concepts that connect to either free will or determinism become, almost, noise? What if when shaken out, relational integrity reveals a more congruent conceptual understanding?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com