Sacred Inconvenience
normalizing effervescent love and gratitude
My primary impact in my time here on earth is energetic.
That sentence came to me walking last week. As I was doing a mental scroll through what I could be doing to change the infinite number of things I've been panicking about when I lie down at night lately. Especially in regards to my kids' futures. If you need something to worry about, text at me for a list about my kids / all kids and I will provide.
My primary impact on this earth is energetic.
To my Virgo and Capricorn parts that is unsatisfying. And maybe it will not be true forever but it feels true for me right now. It feels like I need fewer panicked questions about what to do and more practice of open presence to see what might arise. To notice what I'm already doing and or have enough space that fear is not taking up to see what else is here. What else might be abiding.
When I think about what has had the biggest impact on my life in terms of guiding lights it's individual humans whose presence reminded me of the life and aliveness inside of me. And they remind(ed) me how to reconnect to that, which became easier, just by being in their presence. This happens via books and internet and art too, people’s presence carrying through and across space and time. The presence of other species in less-human-manipulated spaces aka lots of wilderness time also has impacted me hugely. These things: specific humans and wilderness, are the same thing. As in, the presence of particular beings impacts my life the most.
So in reciprocity, and in asking where and how I might have agency in my specific context, I want to devote my service resources to cultivating a presence with which others might be able to do their own remembering. Which, neatly, is also what I need to remember. Cultivating my own presence.
This brings me back to the present, and how often in the day my tone toward my kids sounds pissed, for example. The other night I was pissed at them for not hurrying more to get to bedtime, which was completely unfair because I had kept them out late to see some of my old friends hahahahaha. So I wanted them to not rush when I was trying to hang out and chat to another adult, but rush when I wanted them to get to sleep. And I was lamenting they weren't "listening." How much of parenting is this illogic??!!
I'm not saying I need to have a nice tone all the time, I'm saying the practice of my impact on human life is lived in the daily, hourly engagement with others I am with in a given moment. So I want to stop scattering my resources in questions of what I should do elsewhere in "the world" and do what is in front of me - use the tone with my kids which reflects the slower deeper truth - I love them and I want to be close. The tone which reflects the presence I want to bring to myself and others here and now. The tone is important because it’s about cultivating the possibility of our relations. It’s about normalizing effervescent love and gratitude. It’s a very humble practice of contribution to the world I want. It’s keeping track of my presence.
And! I'm on this trip / tip rn, which is also an art project, which is also a spiritual practice, which is detangling myself from google's web as much as I can. I'm realizing getting off gmail completely will probs take me a year? It’s much bigger and harder than I thought. And the other google pieces maybe longer. But I remembered this thing which is when I make it an art project it comes alive. The act of logistical tedium - sacred inconvenience - becomes my prayer toward all of you species and fellow humans I write to. I'm quitting google to be inconvenienced, to see more slowly, to see what is revealed, to de-numb myself to digital resignation.
One of my in-bed-before-sleep terrors is future tripping on my kids' screen absorption / normalization of the deadness that too much screen time seems to consistently provide. But I realize, over and over, that MY screen time is the starting point, the practice. I'm still addicted to my phone even though I am not on ig anymore. So I want to be keeping these threads of awareness weaving in my life around clarity that I am making CHOICES!
ENERGETIC SOVREIGNTY (a la Amelia Hruby)!
Also I am quitting substack because I don't want to be asked if I want to interrupt anyone who MIGHT (bless you and your sacred attention) be making it all the way through my newsletter if I want to put subscribe buttons throughout! I don't want to! I don't want to because if someone wants to subscribe they can do so at the bottom of the email. Do we really have so little faith in anyone’s ability to follow a thought that we can’t wait until the bottom of the email? If they don't subscribe because it's not interrupting them, then they don't need my newsletter! I am here to contribute as little as possible to your interruption and contribute as much as possible to your most creative, alive, intentional attention. I used to answer yes to this question of do I want to put subscribe buttons in my essay because the asking of the question brings up insecurities and scarcity - like I need to trick people into subscribing, or convince them, or if I am not inserting these buttons into my essay I am not being business savvy, etc. But lately I’ve realized - this is completely not with my values!
This move of asking if I want to put subscribe buttons in my newsletter is quintessential substack vibes to me. It feels like they are pandering / desperate, trying to turn it into a podcast company, and a social media company, and obsessed with me getting their app. I d-loaded the app for a minute and it felt like wow you are trying to replicate social media, everyone actually reading less, and shorter, more controversial hot takes etc.... I immediately started engaging with it like ig. And the longer I am off ig, the clearer I am I will not be in any digital space that feels like that. It feels so clear if I am to offer anything to anyone, it's an energetic imprint first and last, and so it can't be delivered via a method which is at odds with my intentions in so many ways.
I'm moving to buttondown as soon as I get a particular email situation sorted with dns’s etc etc, I've heard of ghost, and there are others (for people interested). But the biz model at buttondown is you pay for the service, they don't take a cut of your subscription fees, so the energy of the company is really different in how it shows up interfacing between you and others. They're not trying frantically to get everyone to subscribe because they are not making money on your subscriptions. (Buttondown doesn’t know me or care, I’m just saying this as info bc a few people asked me where I would go next.)
I'm paying for email. I'm paying for my newsletter service. It's imperfect as in I would rather the whole set up (capitalism) be different, but it's a way to not participate in a leaky energetic container (see Liliana Barzola). If it's "free" it takes so much more from me than $4 a month. It's "free" because I am leaking my energy in the form of my actions as data and eyeballs per minute count on sellable content. It in fact costs an immense amount in life force.
Again, as I've said with quitting ig etc etc I do not think everyone should do what I am doing. I do not think there is such a thing as being outside of this web of complicity I am living within. The attempt to shift things in my small sphere is energizing, and life-supporting, and that is the spirit with which I am doing this. I still joyfully read lots of substacks with subscribe buttons throughout fyi. We each need to do what fits for our specific contexts and trust others are doing the same.
My primary impact on planet earth is energetic. My legacy is nothing other than how I am living, right now, hour to the next hour. I pray it can be useful to you!
In other news I still have a few astrology readings open this month! Book here.
Blessings on your life!!!!!
Sarah