Bones and Soft Bellies: Companions for the 6th Extinction

“Water, land, plants, animals, people- these spirits are crushed and consumed by settler colonial capitalism. Our air is thick with grief. How do we survive among this devastation? I don’t know. But the earth does. Nature teaches that an antidote lies in reciprocity, balance, dedication, and refusal to comply. Mushrooms compost nuclear waste in collective mycelium. Pods of orcas sink yachts. Insects metamorphose. I have been taught so much, by so many. These lessons- the protectiveness of a killdeer mother, the ferocity of grief, the silence of a hot spring, the slow devotion of carving, the inevitability of change- offer a path toward fulfillment. I pray through my actions, and I’m sustained by my relationships. These are the spirits that guide me. Some are soft, gentle, nurturing. Some are sharp, ferocious, skeletal. Most are both. If we are to live freely, if harmony is to be cultivated, we must be both- and more. We must be unapologetically everything.”