2023 best of: highlights of my learning journey

Slowness, integration, and connecting to Earth

Oregon coast sunset, from a late summer camping trip

Ahh… wintering. I love the period between solstice and the new year: an interregnum. A season of reflection and stock-taking on the year behind, and grounding and intention-setting for the year to come. It’s part of how I integrate: looking back on a year of learning, and curating—for myself, and for you—those resources that most contributed to my ongoing growth and transformation. Things that influenced or changed me in some way, that somehow encapsulated the year. This inventory always precedes my new intentions; you can find my 2024 intentions here.

Key themes and learnings

1. No parts left behind! This was the key takeaway from my first facilitated psychedelic medicine journey in August: a reclamation of the various aspects of my self. I’m so accustomed to not being fully “seen” by people that I don’t give them the chance: I hide pieces of myself to avoid the vulnerability of being fully witnessed… and perhaps rejected, in my fullness. I’m not willing to do that any more: I will no longer participate in my own lack of belonging. If others can’t see me… so be it. My work is to be more integrated, embodied, and congruent in myself, and invite others to see that self.

2. It is dangerous to forget that I am White. It belatedly occurred to me this year that almost all of my relational rupture and repair work—when I want to take accountability for my impact—can fit under this heading. What I mean is that I get in trouble when I forget how I am read/seen by others, sometimes even by those who know me well. My shorthand here is White, but really I’m talking about all my socially perceived identities: race, gender, nationality, size, class, sexual orientation, etc. If I am insufficiently attentive to these dynamics in an interaction—especially because I am almost always working with people holding more marginalized identities—it creates the potential for a dangerous gap between my intent and my impact. For example: I had a difficult interaction with a woman of color this year, where I spoke too freely. I assumed that my words would be heard as I intended them… but we didn’t have enough relational trust built for her to interpret the words coming out of my mouth (in my large, White, American, presumably cishet-male body) the way I intended. I forgot I was White, and the consequence was relational rupture and the need for repair.

3. Slowness: no more “emotional averaging”. I played a lot with “slowness” this year, at the encouragement of my somatic therapist. It took perhaps its clearest form in my commitment to no longer participate in “emotional averaging.” Leela Newman coined this concept and introduced it to me, and this year I found it so helpful in my personal feeling practice. It’s about slowing down and tuning in long enough to feel the full range and complexity of my feelings. So instead of “I’m fine” (which might be a truth), a more complete truth might be “I’m feeling sad, some grief, also some happiness, a sense of compassion and understanding, and on balance I feel fine.” This process allows me to better understand myself, relate to others, and find solutions that account for multiple needs; honestly, it feels revolutionary.

4. Bridge… and beacon. These metaphors also emerged in a new way for me in Medellín, and were a core piece of my medicine journeys. Following john powell’s work, I’ve long conceived of myself as a “bridger.” These days I mostly talk about bridging in the context of the 3 Horizons framework: the need to bridge from the status quo to the world we long for. Which implies that there is a definable point on the other side of the bridge: what I now conceive of as a beacon. It’s a subtle but important point: we need both… and they are different roles. Some are called to be beacons, to invite others into the world we long for. Others are called to be bridges: to help create pathways to access that future. This year for the first time I began to entertain the possibility that I could play both roles; that in addition to my lifelong work of bridge-building, I might also lean in more to embodying the invitation—to being a beacon, at least for those who might see me. Much of my personal exploration with gender this year played with this possibility.

5. “Anything that is taken by force must be remade.” Pat shared this sentiment in Medellín, and it reverberated throughout the year for me. It came back to me following the tragedy of the October 7th attacks, and watching the bombardment of Gaza, and thinking about what liberation requires: there is no path to justice inside of domination. There is no path to healing without reparations. Repair was a powerful theme for me this year, and the centerpiece of my new declaration.

6. Ser Terra. This theme emerged powerfully from the Belonging @ Scale gathering in Medellín in July… and provided a unifying thread to my second plant medicine journey in August. For me this landed as an imperative to be more connected to Earth, and to source. I’m still integrating this one, but it feels foundational: belonging is territorial; we belong to a place. So if we are serious about belonging, we need to re-imagine our relationship to place… and honor Earth’s truth that we all belong, that there is space for all beings.

---

Best of the Best (if you only choose one…)

1. BOOK: Myles Horton (with Judith & Herbert Kohl) — The Long Haul: An Autobiography. Teachers College Press, 1997.

• I’ve been following and learning from Myles’ legacy for several years now; this book formed the cornerstone of this year’s exploration into what it means to be a “good white man.” My review here, and here’s a taste:

If your aim is to change society... you have to work with those people who can multiply what you do... you have to think in terms of which small groups have the potential to multiply themselves and fundamentally change society.

2. ARTICLE: Culture Hack Labs — Land Back to Right Relations. Self-published, 2023.

• I often talk about the three horizons framework, and the importance of anchoring in the “3rd horizon” (the future we long for) in order to ensure that our efforts today are leading toward liberation. There are a handful of groups that in my subjective opinion do this visionary/strategic work well, and Culture Hack Labs is near the top of the short list. This essay collection is a masterclass in visionary strategy: building from a future vision, cognizant of present conditions, with a strategy for how to move from here to there. Highly recommend.

Structural inequalities, social injustice, climate, social and spiritual polycrisis have at their foundation the separation between people and the network of life –  between communities and their territories, between our being and the earth. Can we think of ourselves beyond an individualistic and human-centric identity? Returning to relationships of interdependence with the land and all beings that exist on it, is the root of any cultural change.

3. PODCAST EPISODE: Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom For Living Spirit-Based Change, with Sherri Mitchell. Love Radio podcast, 2018: 59 min.

• I spent a lot of time integrating indigenous wisdom this year, and much of those learnings are summarized in Sherri’s work. I resonate deeply with how she sees her role, the teachings she offers, and the humble way she conveys that wisdom as an invitation to collaboration.

We can’t claim a right to life without extending that same right to all other living beings… we can’t expect to have any of the things that we need in order to live our lives in a dignified secure way that is just and humane unless we are willing to take responsibility for creating that reality for all.

4. SPOKEN WORD: Andrea Gibson — What Love Is. 2023. Oof. I first came across Andrea this year, and this performance just knocked me flat. All the themes of life beautifully woven into five emotional minutes; if you haven’t seen, do yourself the courtesy of taking some quiet space to experience this.

5. MOVIE: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Hayao Miyazaki, 1984. As a parent to two young children I spend a lot of time curating content for them: mostly limiting access to the firehose of toxic messages that mainstream culture sends (Paw Patrol ugh, anything by Disney pre-2018, e.g.) That quest led me belatedly to the work of Studio Ghibli, and this early offering from Ghibli co-founder Miyazaki. I was spellbound: rudimentary animation telling a complex, honest, and emotional story. The title character is herself the single best cinematic example of nonviolent leadership I’ve ever encountered: utterly compelling.

6. AUDIO/STORY: Queer Creation Story, by Justin Natoli. 2023. I first encountered this via the Open Deeply podcast, but it exists as a gorgeous 3.5 minute audio story on Justin’s website. It’s just gorgeous: perhaps my favorite creation story I’ve ever heard (along with Skywoman Falling, and others). My six- year-old requests it frequently :-)

But the Queer essence of the world could not be contained.  For in the beginning, God said, “let there be light.” And you see, light has this peculiar quality. It is both a particle and a wave. Matter and energy. It is two-spirited, and its beingness transcends being just one or the other. Light is Queer! So in the beginning, Queer energy was the spark of existence that ignited this universe into being, and it can be suppressed but never extinguished.

And one day, light returned. It broke through the darkness of sameness and appeared as a rainbow. The glimmering beauty of diverse colors captivated the hearts of the humans and reminded them that the world is a tapestry, woven from many threads, each adding its unique color to the pattern. Each thread necessary to hold the cloth together.

7. SONG: Some of us are Brave, by Danielle Ponder. 2022. Mmm. I found this at the end of last year (hat tip to Peter Harrison for the share), and it featured heavily in my Spotify Wrapped for 2023: a powerful anthem to the promise and pain of liberation that I returned to repeatedly when needing inspiration. I can’t wait to see her live.

And to those who fear leads them to hate

What a pity to be locked in that place

I know you see me though…

I do believe that the power in me

Frightens you, that's your problem

---

Best Books

These days I rarely read books cover-to-cover: instead I go where my muse calls and search for the insights that want to emerge. I am working on tolerating my own discomfort at leaving a book perpetually on my Goodreads “currently reading” shelf, or claiming “read” for a book that I haven’t yet progressed through linearly. I want to highlight three here that moved me this year in different ways:

1. bell hooks — All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow: 1999.

• This year I spent more time thinking (and feeling!) about love than I have at any other point in my life. I started this book in January, and it accompanied me straight through to October, when I finally finished. It’s not her best work (that in my view is The Will to Change) but it is nonetheless utterly profound. The most shocking thing is of course her definition of love itself (a commitment to one's own or another's spiritual growth) and the accompanying implication that most of us were raised in households that were not fundamentally loving. My full review here.

Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care… Awakening to Love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat…

When we choose to love we choose to move against fear--against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect -- to find ourselves in the other.

2. Jen Lumanlan — Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection and Collaboration to Transform Your Family—-and the World. Sasquatch Books: 2023.

• Jen is a personal friend, and I have been privileged to benefit from her learning journey and the gift of her profound parenting work these past few years. I was delighted to celebrate with her the release of this new book: essential reading for anyone trying to raise children without resorting to power-over / domination / coercion. Difficult work inside a domination system, but so gratifying in those moments when we find a better way. This quote from the preface reminds us of the stakes for those of us who are parents:

You can’t have power over someone without hurting them, even if it’s unintentionally.

3. Jessa Zimmerman — Sex Without Stress. Self-published, 2018.

• As I have been more open with friends about my own erotic journey and learnings, they have reciprocated with more candor about their erotic lives. The news isn’t good: many in my peer group of upwardly-mobile-early-40s-with-kids are stuck in unsatisfying sex lives without a clear way out. It’s not surprising: sex under patriarchy sucks. But it is tragic, and it’s not inevitable. Jessa’s book is eminently readable and full of simple-but-difficult advice for how to navigate common pitfalls. This isn’t “go buy lingerie”; it’s “learn how to be an emotionally mature and relationally skilled partner.” Highly recommend, though it is best accompanied with relational support via therapy, and particularly a somatic sexologist, if at all possible. My full review here.

The key to intimacy is letting yourself be seen... if you want true intimacy and look forward to enjoying your best sex life, you need to reveal yourself to your partner… You'll need to tolerate the anxiety of letting your partner see who you are and what you want, as well as the anxiety you may have when you get a clear look at your partner.

Best Articles

In no particular order:

1. James Baldwin — An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis. Originally handwritten in 1970; subsequently published in the New York Review of Books, 1971.

• Baldwin was one of those rare people who see things more clearly than the rest of us. This essay is majestic: like his best writing, searing and compassionate at the same time, telling hard truths to an audience he knew wouldn’t understand. He’s still an inspiration, and this essay touched on some of the key themes I grappled with this year, especially in the context of Israel/Palestine.

As long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war.

2. Robin Dembroff — Nonbinary identity is a radical stance against gender segregation. Aeon, 2018.

• In a year where I did a deep dive into my own relationship to gender, this article really resonated. This:

Nonbinary identities force us to place binary gender categories under scrutiny, but with greater attention to moral and political considerations. We must ask not only what these categories are, but also why and whether we should continue to use them.

3. Ted Rau — Beyond hierarchy and dysfunction: Sharing power in groups. LinkedIn, 2023.

• I love Ted’s clarity of language and commitment to the work: so simple yet so incredibly difficult, and he consistently shines a light toward the path we need to take. This particular article resonated with some of my own key learnings this year around how we access and wield power in collective contexts.

Improving group process is a two-pronged approach:

Power-within: supporting people’s capacity to develop their personal power and responsibility. Figure out what you need and let us know.

Power-with: improving the group's governance structure so the group can hold power collectively and distribute it.

4. carla bergman, Hari Alluri, & Nick Montgomery — Friendship, Freedom, Ethics, Affinity. Chapter in Joyful Militancy, AK Press, 2017.

• I love community, and for me its key feature is interdependence. It is one of the things I detest most about oppressive systems, that they seek to atomize us and keep us separate from each other… and therefore community is also one of our most powerful antidotes.

Empire works in part by constantly attenuating and poisoning relationships… If relationships are what compose the world and our lives, then the “free individual” of modern, Western capitalism (an implicitly straight, white, able-bodied, cis-gendered, property-owning man) is a sad and lonely vision: a strange fiction invented by a violent and fearful society, walled in by morality and self-interest. This is an uprooted being who sees his rootlessness—his very incapacity to make and sustain transformative connections—as a feat of excellence.

5. Miki Kashtan — Beyond Horizontalism: Co-creation within a Led Field. Self-published, 2022.

• Miki is truly unique: I’ve never encountered anyone simultaneously so thoughtful and so committed to living her values. This is a great essay exploring many themes that I find personally challenging, and deeply resonant.

I never ever want people to give up their own being in order to be with me; it grates on my soul that anything I do or, worse yet, just the sheer beingness of who I am, can lead people to give up on their own power… Growing the capacity to express dissent from within trust is key to our future.

6. Samantha Slade — A Little Secret to Participatory Leadership: The Art of Invitation. Enlivening Edge Magazine, 2021.

• I’ve been thinking about the power of invitations for several years now, and this piece ties many of the core ideas together in a way I find compelling.

Good invitation can actually be a catalyst of change… A strong invitation is at the core of building a culture of shared leadership, both on organizational and personal levels: it is a practice that can foster systemic change for a culture guided by conscious, courageous, creative, and collaborative values.

7. Freddie DeBoer — I Assure You, I Am Permitted to Oppose the Existence of Any and All Nation-States. Substack, 2023.

• I really enjoy Freddie’s writing, even as there are clear points of disagreement. I appreciated his moral clarity in the wake of the October 7th attack; it helped me better understand my own thinking.

I am an internationalist; I reject ethnonationalism; I think religion should have no part in government; therefore I must be an anti-Zionist… If you want Israel to live in peace and prosperity, the only way there is through justice for the Palestinians.

8. Clementine Morrigan — What is gender? What about the children? Substack, 2023.

• Clementine is a delightful read: provocative, smart, and willing to go places most of us—myself included—fear to tread. Having already suffered the pain of cancellation, she gives herself more freedom to say difficult things… and I find her courage inspiring. This essay is a good example, and resonates with much of my own thinking.

The issue of “gender ideology”, as the Right calls it, or what I would call social justice culture’s current orthodoxy on gender, is now important not only in its own right, but because it is being strategically used to strengthen Right wing movements…

My concern is that social justice orthodoxy has made it a social crime and cancellable offence to think critically and openly about these topics. Not only am I against censorship and the suppression of critical thinking and open discussion on principle, but I am also very concerned with the impact of the Right being the only place where people with questions, disagreements, or concerns can speak.

9. Angela Peoples & Connie Razza — Belonging In and To America. Topos Partnership, self-published, 2023.

• This narrative research study is an important contribution to the moment. While there are pieces I take issue with, the overall messages are vital. This section in particular feels core to much of where I will be taking my work in 2024:

…American identity feels alienating and exclusionary. That’s because, for many, “American” means “white.” In particular, [what the research typologizes as] Tentative Visionaries and Disconnected Non-Identifiers associate “being American'' with whiteness, which causes them apprehension or shame. For some immigrants and young BIPOC, American identity means assimilation to a white culture, often under pressure to give up other valued identities. And many from historically marginalized groups are not interested in an identity tied to oppression and victimization.

Podcasts:

1. Let This Conversation With Mariame Kaba Radicalize You. Movement Memos podcast, 2023: 62 min.

• Contender for my favorite of the year; Mariame Kaba is in my view the best visionary organizer in the country, and listening to her wisdom is always an exercise in expanding my consciousness. This episode is a delight.

It’s important to align ourselves with people who are trying in ways that we think are important… be bold, go out there and build something. And don’t do it alone… everyone has the power to build the things they wish existed.

2. Luna Matatas on Pegging the Patriarchy. Strippers and Sages podcast, 2020: 58 min.

• It’s rare when I encounter a single episode that fundamentally changes how I think about something; this was such an episode. She speaks with such groundedness and clarity that I found myself changing my mind in real time, and nodding along to subjects I had previously deemed either taboo or never given real thought to. It’s a provocative and brilliant listen. I bought the shirt :-)

Ass play for men is the final frontier in dismantling patriarchy.

3. Alnoor Ladha & Lynn Murphy on Post-Capitalist Philanthropy. Frontiers of Commoning Podcast, 2023: 50 min.

• Alnoor and Lynn are among my favorites trying to bring a more transformative lens to the fraught terrain of philanthropy; their book (which this podcast elaborates on) is a gift, and their intellectual and moral clarity is always inspiring. Highly recommend.

If you don’t have a critique of capitalism you are contextually irrelevant; if you all you have is a critique you are spiritually impoverished.

4. adrienne maree brown on Emergent Strategy and being in right relationship with change. Leadermorphosis podcast, 2023: 52 min.

• adrienne remains in my view among the foremost sages of our times. I always learn something listening to her, and enjoy hearing her update her analysis/vision in real time.

One way to understand privilege is the ability to choose comfort and avoid the tension of discomfort… Leadership is the collaborative art of letting go of my way to find the way.

5. Mara Glatzel: What Do You Need? Insights at the Edge podcast, 2023: 59 min.

• One of the best things about being alive in this moment—despite, or perhaps in response to the crises we face—is the amount of creative content being generated pointing the way home. I loved this episode (and her book); essential listening for all of us, but especially those socialized female under patriarchy.

We don’t often ask for what we need. We only ask for a tiny fraction of it, or what we think we can get or what we think someone might be wiling to give to us, or what we can stomach allowing ourselves to ask for.

6. Finding Co-founders and Creating Collaborative Culture with Yana Ludwig. Inside Community podcast, 2023: 69 min.

• I listened to this episode shortly after finishing an internal Building Belonging retreat process where we aligned on the “key capacities” we would ask community members to aspire to… and found deep resonance in Yana’s learnings.

That’s the scary part for people who have a lot of privileges, well, what am I going to give up? What am I losing? But there’s also: what am I going to get out of it? That’s really what has driven me to get deeper and deeper into this work over the years, it’s just that we have more to gain than we have to lose… being able to live in a place where I have deep, authentic relationships with the people around me, and I’m actually living with a really low carbon footprint. And so I feel good about my life on a fundamental level… that kind of peace of mind is pretty invaluable… when you actually get in there and are able to actually like have that kind of support in your life. It’s huge.

7. Why Do We Have Sex? Asexuality with Angela Chen. We Can Do Hard Things podcast, 2023: 63 min.

• I’ve been on a journey in recent years to better understand sexuality and the realm of the erotic, and a big piece of that has been integrating asexuality into my consciousness. Angela’s contributions have been invaluable. This episode helped me better understand myself, though I don’t identify as asexual.

There are as many sexualities as there are people in the world.

8. Your Brain on Boundaries with Juliane Taylor Shore. Making Polyamory Work podcast, 2023: 44 min.

• I have encountered a lot of content about boundaries—it seems to be everywhere these days. So I don’t often prioritize listening to podcasts on the topic, but was glad I made an exception for this one: deepened my understanding in provocative ways, especially her concept of a psychological boundary. I bought the book!

Being respectful, deeply deeply respectful of who you are is so much more important to me, getting to be honored by bearing witness to who you are, is so much more important to me than avoiding grief, that I am willing to do any amount of boundary work so I make it more okay for me to hang in there and discover more about you… it’s so deeply respectful and loving to say yes to my own grief, so that I can say yes to how you show up more.

9. How to Deal With Emotionally Immature People (Including Maybe Your Own Parents) with Lindsay C. Gibson. Ten Percent Happier podcast, 2022: 67 min.

• This was such a helpful, clarifying, and even cathartic listen; it had never occurred to me before that some people are afraid (for good reason, based on their trauma backgrounds) of emotional intimacy.

When you express something to an emotionally immature person, you are not expressing so they will change, but for yourself... Focus on the outcome you want, you are not trying to improve the relationship, you're just trying to have a successful interaction. Because if you try to improve the relationship, you've gone into emotionally intimate territory, and that is what they can't do, it will make them more defensive.

10. Beyond Capitalism Now with Donnie Maclurcan. Denizen podcast, 2023: 58 min.

• I’ve been looking for a good definition and coherent discussion of capitalism for several years now; it’s vanishingly hard to find. I thought Donnie did a brilliant and accessible job describing the system we all live in, and did so without the hyperbolic critiques that often alienate listeners newer to the topic.

The problem with capitalism is that it extracts money from circulation in the real economy.

11. Embodiment and the Journey of Soul Initiation: A Conversation With Bill Plotkin. Embodiment Matters podcast, 2020: 70 min.

• I listened to this at the right time, as I was myself deep in contemplating and integration around my plant medicine journeys. I loved it, and found it personally clarifying as I tried to locate my own role in the world. I appreciated in particular his definition of “adulthood” for one who has been initiated—wouldn’t this be nice?

An Adult is someone who experiences themself, first and foremost, as a member of the Earth community, who has had one or more revelatory experiences of their unique place in that ecological community, and who is embodying that unique place as a gift to their people and to the Earth community.

---

And that’s a wrap: 2023 in review. I’d love to know what else you would add to this list: anything that moved or transformed you this year.

A closing bonus, for those of you who made it this far: a short clip featuring Civil Rights era icon Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) explaining in a way you’ll never forget the difference between peace and liberation. This is why I am for liberation (which I understand as synonymous with belonging, in the fullest sense of the term). I long for a world in which everyone understands what he is saying… and works to make that vision a reality.