17 Comments

The proclivity to self-embellishment and self-aggrandizing among humans (and other primates, I believe) is quite universal across cultures, wealth, genders, and age strata. You observed it among teenage girls, whose parents were not unfamiliar with the phenomenon either. I see it among my academic colleagues, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and, why not, Substack contributors. If played moderately and modestly, unlike your example, I accept that this is how we are, but what bothers me is that it often comes in place of, and suppresses, our existential passion for living our lives authentically, enhancing life on planet Earth in general, and doing so in meaningful and constructive ways.

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Yes, Jan, they are herded digitally toward how to change, how to compete in looks, to be sexy, exhibiting their young lithe vulnerable bodies … for whom, for what? Profit for and abuse of the sleazes at the upper echelons of military, government, corporations, political parties….. And I am shown how it can be otherwise in many homes, communities. And I don’t mean squash their sexuality, just remind them it’s theirs, that it’s against their erotic power that the political sleaze direct their abuse.

Why is so much abuse sexual? Cos that is where the power and rootedness lies….

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I love what Robin Kimmerer says about indigeneity in Braiding Sweetgrass: That we should treat wherever we are as if we are passing it on to our children, and in that way, we make ourselves indigenous. I think that can apply not only to the natural world, but to any corner in which we find ourselves working, writing, living.

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Really appreciate your view as I sense it all too. Especially colonisation mindset and how digital colonisation validates it. I feel that we need to be more conscious and self aware so we fully inhabit our present moment. 🙏🏿

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"a global north people being dependent, now, on violence, having been enclosed from their own land and customs many centuries before" - I wonder how many people realise this, how they would feel if they did, and whether it's possible to claw back some remnants of what has been lost. I think I need to read The Lie of the Land by Guy Shrubsole.

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First time I listen so I owe you a huge "Thank you" for this inspiration I really needed as I head back into yet another year of unsuccessfully attempting to change the world. The break was rejuvenating because I spent it in the "here" -unfortunately grayer and colder than yours- but reconnecting today with the "there" was violent and gave me a dire sense of how hurdles to change keep piling up. It sometimes feel like the climate community is playing Sysiphus but the rock is getting heavier, the slope steeper and the mountain higher every time. So thank you for the hopeful note which changed my day and will hopefully shed a positive light on this year.

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Such a powerful piece and so heartfelt. I hear you. No answers, but asking the same questions x

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This is a bit tangential, but as I was reading this I kept thinking of something from Cheyenne and Arapaho writer Tommy Orange's novel 'There There', where an Indigenous character relates Gertrude Stein's phrase 'there is no there there' to his experience of a land transformed beyond recognition by colonisation.

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What an insightful piece on land, culture, belonging, and the destructive layers of colonization! It's so important to have such clear articulations for what otherwise lives as dread in the pit of one's stomach....Thank you for this, and all your work with Planet: Critical and now Planet: Coordinate.

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Wonderful piece, deeply insightful, and, I fear, right on the money. Let kids be kids. But I guess it is still up to the adults who are charged with their care.

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This essay makes me want to weep for so many reasons. Our world is in an extreme moment of danger, of chaos, on the precipice of enormous change. Some of us are taking up our new work as Wisdom Keepers, to support those as they begin awakening from the long dream of separation from Source, from our true selves.

For you there in the cloud forest, Gaia's magic is so alive and present. I thank you for sharing those glimpses with us. May we all find moments of magic in the natural world daily. To keep us humble and awake.

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What a beautiful and sad piece. It makes me wish I was young again and I don't think anything has ever had that effect on me. I'm 60 and spent part of my 20s and all of my 30s farming in the woods and feeling a strong attachment to place. But for the last 20 years I've been living in two different cities. That has been absolutely amazing for my social education but I no longer have a sense of place and it feels too late to start over. I will be following your project with great interest!

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It's never too late!

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As someone who has never lived anywhere long enough to feel indigenous I envy those who feel a sense of belonging and being part of the history of a place. What I now know, of course, is that a sense of belonging is as much about your relationships to others where you live as the physical surroundings. I speculate when I suggest that social media has taken away both a sense of place and meaningful relationships and amplified both the natural discontent of those trying to find their way in the world and the need to belong at any price. All cheered along by a consumerist wave that businesses have been surfing for too long.

Finding our sense of place where we are and committing to our community is perhaps the next big task for the restless north - the furtherance of which may provide the necessary defences to the coming storm.

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Powerful piece Rachel! As someone Ireland born, Gaelic tongued, and still, after 40 years in Canada, yearning for the land my ancestors’ bones compose, living with an indigenous worldview roots each moment in Earth awareness.I am grateful to my daughter who learnt from my mistakes as well my strengths. Her son, 16, and daughter,13, are half Irish and half Colombian, from the Spanish taken city of Cartagena, slave trading centre , home of Inquisition and now a place for Western men come to buy sex with children, dressed and painted to look like those Instagram pieces.They have those wild Moorish black curls, hers sephardic and his negroid. And they dress their own way, cool but practical so one can do cumbria or run, paint, walk the forest

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Eimear, thank you for your kind words. I’m disturbed by your mention of child prostitution in Cartagena—is this an open secret in the town, and could you give me more details?

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columbia, like costa rica, is a known hot spot for western men seeking young ones for sex…Check UN figures. In Costa Rica there are now signs saying it is illegal and there will be prosecution

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