The Volcano
the volcano
I know things are scary right now, and I wanted to offer a framework for thinking about the moment we’re moving through, and how to manage that on a day-by-day-basis.
Over the next weeks, months, and years, we are going to be seeing a lot of scary, angering news. And trying to metabolize all that at once is going to be overwhelming. And this is not a moment where we can afford to be overwhelmed.
So consider this: Consider that there is a volcano that has erupted.
When a volcano erupts, it sets fires, causes shockwaves, and spews ash into the sky, creating darkness. If we look at each individual fire and shockwave and dark cloud as its own individual crisis, it will seem like the crises never end, and that there is too much.
But they’re not new crises; they’re not new emergencies. It is simply the volcano continuing to erupt.
What we do in a time like this is we put out the fires, we ride out the shockwaves, and we light the darkness.
What we don’t do is get angry at every new fire, shockwave, and dark cloud the volcano spews forth.
Now feel what you feel, clearly. It is just as damaging to pretend we are fine when we are anything but. But do not allow the breadth of the crisis to steal your peace and so overwhelm you with its constancy as to make you feel there is nothing to be done. There is a lot to be done.
And we are not meant to do it all alone. There are many people in our corner; our communities, our familes, the networks of support we create. We cannot allow the volcano to scare us out of confronting it; to overwhelm us out of confronting it.
All that is required of us in this moment is to put out the fires, ride out the shockwaves, and light the darkness.
🌺