Everything feels like it is breaking right now.
Maybe someone you love is in the hospital. Maybe you are sick yourself, or tired in a way that sleep does not reach. You watch the news, the wars, the protests, the decisions that harm the living world, and you wonder how much more can fall apart.
And underneath it all, there is a question you may not have said out loud: is this the end of something that needs to end? Or are we lost?
I had a long conversation about this with a friend here at Damanhur. We talked about developing the inner senses that recognize the subtle signs: the ones that say this chaos is part of a necessary process, and the ones that say we are feeding an insanity that holds us back from evolving.
So many people around me are living this question at the micro level. In the Naturally Conscious Community®, Sprouts are caring for sick or injured loved ones. Many students in my Damanhur classes are sick. You may have your own version close to home.
Here is the trap: when the old way breaks, no matter how much we wish it were different, we tend to drift back to it because that road is already paved. We know where it goes, even when we do not like where it leads. Or we decide we have to suffer through the breakdown, because growth is supposed to hurt. No pain, no gain, and all that nonsense.
You do not need to suffer to grow.
Look at the wisdom of plants. When humans stop maintaining a road, kin begin to reclaim it. Roots find the cracks. Seeds settle in the dust. Year after year, the road becomes living, thriving ground again.
What grows there is new. Ecologists have a name for the communities that form on land humans have changed and then left: novel ecosystems. They differ from anything that grew there before. The new forest is new because the space itself is new.
The world coming in will be new, too. You cannot sit back and do nothing, expecting that a new tomorrow will arrive when you are the same old you. You are invited to grow into what will be. When you evolve with the change, it becomes part of you. You become attuned to how it develops, and it develops in harmony with you. Best of all, the collaboration creates a bond that allows you to feel when you are on the right path. When you only watch, you are pushed and pulled—often painfully—without ever feeling the certainty that what is coming will lead you where you want to go.
This is a season for questions. What in you is useful to the forest coming in? What can be left to compost? What can evolve alongside the new species arriving to create the world you want to live in?
And it is the right season to ask them. Across thousands of years and very different cultures, from ancient Egypt onward, people have come to the same conclusion: death is a transition that the living actively support. In the coming days, many will honor Samhain, All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, and Día de los Muertos. In Guatemala, families tend the graves of their loved ones and fly giant kites, Barriletes Gigantes, to send messages to the dead.
When we support what is ending, we keep the lessons it taught us. We call in the wisdom of our elders: human, plant, and otherkin. And we bring that wisdom into what is growing.
Change can be exciting. It can be empowering. It can even be fun. A new era asks for our hands in the soil and our place in the forest that grows in.
Hit reply and tell me: what is one thing you want to see compost and one thing you want to see grow in the new forest? It can be a habit of your own, a cultural norm, or a system the whole world lives inside. As Above, So Below.
Vegetal Entanglements,
P.S. This conversation is also growing inside our community. Join the conversation → And if you need to talk through what is happening in your own life, book a free Tea & Plants chat →.
