Grocery store supernovas...

Killing me softly: And other unknown ingredients

The absurdity of our particular moment in history is this… going to the grocery store is akin to biological warfare. I have to armor up, prepare my body mind and spirit for the eventual assault on my sense and my senses that is the modern food industry. This, this is ludicrous.

At one point the adage was “Shop the edges of the store for healthy choices.” Now, it’s more like “In the produce section, check out the organics (if there are any) and in the aisles you might find one or two items that don’t have shitty processed oils and ingredients you can’t pronounce. Good luck and God Speed!”

I’ve recently contemplated making my own crackers. This is a crisis.

I remember vividly the moment my son, Tao, looked at me innocently as I told him that we couldn’t eat Lucky Charms everyday because it’s filled with toxic chemicals that will make him sick. He simply and with all profundity asked in his 4 year old rasp, “If it’s so bad then why do they make it?” Exactly. And in that simple question lies the undoing of the entire project of modernity from the industrial revolution to 2022.

If it’s so bad, why do we make it? Why do we?

I’ve tried to assuage myself with the systems theory that the complexity is the problem. That we’re not dealing with evil humans, but poorly designed systems that perpetuate a ridiculous situation where our sources of food are quite literally killing us softly and slowly. My dad’s favorite snack was cheese that wasn’t actually cheese and came out of a can. He died of cancer. None of this is surprising.

Really contemplate that for a moment. You know it, “We are what we eat.” So, what are we when we eat poison? What are we when we eat toxic chemicals? What are we when we feed our children glyphosates – a poison that unequivocally destroys biology? What are we doing?

Our food products now have labels like “natural,” “made with real (x,y,z)” – can you believe we have to tell people that food is natural? That’s just weird.

When I tried my best to explain in kid friendly language the fact that we have an economic system that prioritizes profit over human health and planetary thriving, the absurdity became uncomfortably and precisely crystal clear. Try explaining modernity in kid speak… it’s revelatory.

What are we doing? Why are we allowing this to continue? This is not a new topic. What is shocking is that it’s actually getting worse for the majority of the planet.

As a futurist, I’ve always been most intrigued (read: obsessed) with the archetype of Collapse. For a while I assuaged my panic by telling myself that things must fall apart before they can be rebuilt. I named this justification for hope in the face of pending apocalypse: “New Beginnings”. And then I realized that what we really should be most concerned about is Decay.

Decay is the sister of Collapse. And she is crafty. She makes fast friends with the amazing human capacity for adaptation. We can take a lot. We can adjust, we can make do, we can make reality work in a variety of horrible circumstances. We can keep going despite the odds and despite the suffering. This is an incredible capacity of ours and if not appropriately paired with Gaian values and compassion, this capacity will be our undoing.

We adjust to decay. And the futures don’t come evenly. There is collapse happening all around us. It just doesn’t happen to all of us all at once. That’s the problem. If there was an event, a shocking planetary moment that we all could relate to, we might, just might kick into savior gear and get to work together on a future of collaborative, gorgeous, Gaian thriving...

Hmmm, oh yeah, we actually just had that chance. “Two weeks to flatten the curve.” Shit. From the looks of it, in the aisles at the corner Save-Mart, we haven’t learned much.

Like I said, it’s getting worse for the majority of the planet. Palm plantations expand (making more crappy palm oil available for our food and less jungle available for the orangutans), Monsanto sprays anything and everything anywhere and everywhere, diabetes and childhood obesity rise and rise and rise, fast fashion creates dunes of trash in the Chilean desert, China builds concentration camps for Uighurs and others, microplastics are found in the lungs of humans… I could go on. But I won’t. It’s all the things. And you can google it.

Yes, there are bright spots. But when it’s this ridiculous, why don’t we have bright supernovas? If we were really, truly awake and not numbing ourselves, we would change this situation, stat.

What is interesting, and possibly empowering to me, is that we’re in charge. We’re in charge! Us! Yes all of us! We created this mess. We can un-create it. I was flying on a plane the other day and reveling in the fact that a multi ton machine of metal can fly. That’s fricken unbelievable. We can do amazing, magical, unbelievable things.

Imagine a future where our magic is matched to our values and our frequency is tuned to feelings of love, abundance and joy. Imagine it.

IMAGINE IT (Imagine me lovingly yelling this at you while I give you a big hug)

We need you to. Desperately. We need you live today not in the frequency of the current reality but in the frequency of the beloved futures. We need me to. I say this to myself as much as I say it to you…This is something I’ve been re-learning and re-membering from the master mind Architect himself, Peter Crone.

As Peter says: Energetically, live your life from where you are going, NOT from where you are or where you have been. (read that a few times…)

And I want to be very clear: This doesn’t mean that we should live in the futures by not being present in the now. I know, it sounds weird but it’s really simple.

BE present in the NOW and live with the frequency as if the NOW was already the Beloved Futures you imagine.

You get that?

If we can BE in the now as if the imagined, dreamed of future has already happened, then we will BE in the frequencies of joy, abundance and gratitude. This doesn’t change what’s happening to me, but it radically changes how I react to it. And that, ultimately, is the only thing I can control. Because what do frequencies of joy, abundance and gratitude attract? MORE joy, abundance and gratitude. Yes please!

Live from where you are going, the beloved future, rather than repeat the past by re-living it in your frequencies and thoughts. Trust me, it’s actual big magic.

You get that?

Life IS abundance. Life IS joy. Life is beauty and all the things… The only thing in the way of life’s radical abundance is us. I am the blockage that life has to work around. The most important thing I can do today is get out of my own way so that life can flow through me.

You get that?

It’s soooo simple.

And it’s soooo hard to do.

I don’t take this lightly. This is spiritual warrior juju right here. When I walk down aisles upon aisles of Lucky Charms, Coca-Cola, veggies sprayed with toxins, Oreos, Pasta filled with glyphosated wheat, Doritos, Toxic cleaning products, toxic skin products… it goes on… When I walk those aisles and breathe those airs and see those sights, I am no-joke doing spiritual battle. I armor up. And almost invariably, the grocery store wins. I leave deflated. It’s an almost daily practice. I’m getting better.

And it doesn’t need to be this way. And it starts with me.

Our frequency IS our future. Live this day as if all your dreams have already come true. Because you can. Because it’s way more fun. Because having fun is a reason for living.

I know this doesn’t change the systems. But I also know it’s the only way we will ever change the systems. And that is the ultimate paradox of this moment in humanity’s evolution.

It is only by changing ourselves, by creating a pathway for the abundance splendor of life to work through us, that we will be able to transform the deeply flawed, super shitty systems that animate our physical reality right now.

Some bumper sticker thoughts from my morning journal writing to leave you with.

Your vibration is your vocation. Live it with your whole BE-ing

Your frequency will set you free!

Your frequency creates your future. Live in the vibration of your future love and you will build the beloved future along the way.

Vibration in alignment with values creates volition. And the volition of life herself is so beautiful, I can’t even fully imagine it.

Feel free to share any and all of this with attribution, aka: let them know it was me – because another thing I’ve recently realized is that I no longer want to give away my mojo by pretending to be humble. I’m here as Life Herself and there’s nothing righteous about playing small.

One last one…

Worry is simply a story of planned failure.

You are the author of the futures.

The future does not exist. It is blank and ready to be written.

Tell a more interesting story of falling in love with the world.

Tell a more interesting story.

A love story with Life herself…

I love you

“Everybody got a breakin' point kid
And they'll rat on you
That's why we gotta be prepared to take whoever out we need to”

~ The Fugees