To wax and wane like the moon...

Navigating overwhelm; deportability as labor discipline; and more

From my most recent therapy sessions, podcast interviews, and Green Dreamer's internal team meeting, a common wisdom has been bubbling up: More than ever, this time calls for our need to practice “pendulation” — moving between states of comfort and discomfort, withdrawal and extension, contraction and expansion, tapping in and tapping out.

“Be like the moon,” my therapist tells me. It is okay to wax, then wane, to show up fully, then to retreat. It is okay, and in fact vital, to move through these different phases.

But that movement is key.

Navigating a historic overwhelm…

Historically, political affairs and social organization were much more localized in nature. Never in the course of human history have people had to simultaneously grapple with this many crises happening at the same time, dotted across the world map — and tend to the sense of urgency they all create. It can be a lot!

But a globalized economy with the continued centralization of corporate-political power requires that we tap our tentacles of awareness into all of these interconnected issues.

We grieve for losses well beyond our tangible circles. We’re asked to rally for communities, human and more-than-human, that we have no direct ties to. And we’re called to stand up for our collective planet’s wellbeing at scales unfathomably larger than our selves — against world-wide webs of extraction and exploitation.

From the ongoing militarized ICE raids across the U.S., to continued genocide in Gaza, Congo, Sudan, to threats of oil expansion in the Ecuadorian Amazon, to industrial mining for minerals in Indigenous territories, … trying to be an informed, engaged member of the Earth in this day can feel extremely overwhelming.

I haven’t fully figured out how to process all of the overwhelm I experience from dedicating the majority of my media curiosities on these immense topics.

But I think one way we can navigate these feelings is to keep digging deeper to a lot of their underlying roots — as I explored in my past essay on “The Mushrooming of Catastrophes.” Understanding the shared, mycelial networks of power relations driving the mushrooming of crises in different places can be helpful in gauging what it means to take meaningful action towards reclaiming power.

We can also shift more of our focus towards what is already “going right” — looking to wins already achieved, and the more loving and life-affirming worlds that are already being nurtured, seeded, and mid-wifed.

At the same time, I think another practice that feels necessary is pendulation.

As Camille S. Barton shared with me (Green Dreamer EP427):

“I don't think there's anything wrong per se with dissociation or numbing. Sometimes, that is a supportive response. Sometimes that keeps us safe. Sometimes that keeps us alive.

The issue I find with it is when that becomes the normative default state and we don't understand that we're there all the time. I think that's the difference for me.

When people are consciously like, I can't deal with this right now, I'm gonna check out, there's an awareness that that's happening and there's some agency over that, which suggests hopefully, people might have strategies to also come out of that state if and when needed.

For me, it's about being able to move between states and have the capacity and the skill to do that.”

This is by no means easy to do — especially when the core part of many people’s overworked lives is already defaulted to exhaustion. In these contexts, people may have to practice intentionally swinging in the direction of ease whenever possible.

Still, I think it's important to develop a greater self-awareness on the states that we might find ourselves in, and to reflect on the different levels that we can practice pendulation — to build more capacity to be able to tend to “all of the above.”

Meeting ourselves while meeting the world

At a more micro level, I think about my voice coach having me practice feeling more comfortable with my nerves by simulating an involuntary bodily shiver — then learning to breathe and find a sense of calmness within it. I also think about my therapist inviting me to notice when I feel any of my trauma responses being triggered, encouraging reactivity — and learning to shift to modes of greater mindfulness.

The idea is that the more I practice moving between and with these states, the more capacious I might feel wherever I am, and the more adept and agile I become at honoring my needs while I try to meet those of the world.

In a different dimension, I think this need for all-of-the-above is what I was trying to get at when I critiqued a form of “depoliticized slowness” that is unresponsive to the world-at large — as a tuning out that is stagnant in its state of self-absorption.

It is also what I and Sasha Davis of Replace the State chatted about just this Wednesday in terms of our need to tie efforts of nurturing alternatives with resisting injustice. It speaks to the fact that no, we cannot just “intentional community” our ways out of state violence and structural injustice. But we also can't just focus on resisting against what we don't want, without simultaneously supplanting the status quo with what we do want. (This episode will publish in August.)

For now, as I try to produce mindful media while remaining responsive, I want to land today's newsletter on my past conversation with A. Naomi Paik on “Immigration, deportation, and military recruits of the disenfranchised” — originally recorded in 2022 but newly re-published in our Green Dreamer podcast feed.

In our discussion, we chat about:

• why Naomi pushes back against the “nation of immigrants” narrative;

• how immigration policy is labor policy;

• the meaning of “national security” in the context of climate change and climate migration;

• how the military targets disenfranchised communities, and increasingly, migrant workers, for its new recruits; and more.

For those maintaining a scarcity mindset of blaming the loss of U.S. jobs on “immigrants,” Naomi also debunks this talking point that is commonly weaponized to pit workers against one another.

The part that stuck with me the most, though, is this idea of deportability as labor discipline.

“The point of deportability isn’t to actually deport everybody. That’s a really big myth that we have to grapple with.

It's more of a labor discipline. It's the fact that you can be deported. So you better keep your head down and not make too many waves. Accept what you've got, and don't organize with your colleagues. […]

Deportation and deportability operate as a check on the formation of organized labor and the demands of workers.”

Naomi shared this back in 2022, so I’d be curious to speak with her again to get her thoughts on the recent developments.

But her point remains — that such times are terrorizing not only for those who have been taken (and their families), but also for those who aren’t currently being targeted for deportation but who can be. It might feel counterintuitive, but the capitalist system actually relies on exploiting undocumented labor. Sustaining fear is a part of the game.

Side note, did you know that an estimated 48% (and up to 70% or more) of labor in agriculture in the U.S. come from undocumented farmworkers? No one’s humanity should be reduced to their productivity. But this is a really important topic as well pertaining to worker rights and food justice. My past interview featuring farmworker and rural justice leader Rosalinda Guillen spoke directly to this, so I will be revisiting that soon as well.

For now, I welcome you to tune into my discussion with Naomi here or via Spotify, Apple Podcast, or any podcast app.

“If we can't even produce the things that are necessary for life without exploiting millions of people globally, then that’s not a sustainable economic system.” –A. Naomi Paik

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episode-inspired artwork by art twink; musical feature by M!tch

“I want to think through sanctuary in the most capacious and expansive way possible. I'm trying to think about the migrant justice slogan ‘Sanctuary for all, sanctuary everywhere.’

What would it actually mean to create a sanctuary for all? What would it mean for that sanctuary to exist literally everywhere, planet-wide?” — A. Naomi Paik

Invitations into reflection & action:

• When you take a pulse on how you’ve felt these past few weeks, what are some of the different states of mind that you notice yourself shifting between? What does a balance that honors your needs and “all-of-the-above” look like to you?

• What practices of pendulation might support you to move between states with greater ease and flexibility? How do the movements of waxing and waning like the moon resonate with your current state?

• How might you and your community define “security” differently than your nation-state institution does? What is one small action you'd like to take to nurture the former a bit more?

Dive deeper…

• Learn more about ~alchemize~: radical imagination for collective transformation

• Rosalinda Guillen: Ending settler-colonialism in the food system (EP147)

• Camille S. Barton: Tening grief and rebuilding our capacities to sense more deeply (EP427)

• Abby Reyes: Engaging “the slow work” in the face of urgency (EP450)

What’s next?

My long-awaited conversation with Paul Hawken has published! I will be sharing personal reflections from that episode in my next newsletter.

After that, you can look forward to my round two interviews with Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta, and with Sophie Strand.

For supporting subscribers, I'll also be writing more about the personal practices I’ve been engaging with, and other working thoughts.

Thank you for your continued presence and support!