Yes!

02.02.2025 21:49 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Welcome to Meditations in an Emergency Rebecca Solnit 02 Feb 2025 — 6 min read We are very clearly in a lot of emergencies right now. They demand action. But action demands thought and thoughtfulness: who are we, what are our values, our goals, our allies, our possibilities, and our powers? What can we learn from those who've faced similar crises, what's distinct about this one, and what equipment is at hand? The title of this newsletter I'm launching today, the lovely oxymoron of "Meditations in an Emergency," I borrowed from a poem by the great gay poet Frank O'Hara. It felt like exactly the description for what I hope to do here: think for and with you about the emergencies we're in and what to do about them, to meditate on causes, meanings, openings. Sometimes even in an emergency, or rather especially in an emergency, meditation as gathering ourselves and deepening our understanding is exactly what we need to do. It's worth noting that the word emergency is built out of emerge, as in to exit or rise out of something, the opposite of merge, when things come together. An emergency is when things come apart--it can be breakage but also opening. and it's related to the words emergence and emergent. "Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of multiplicity of simple interactions," writes Adrienne Maree Brown in her book Emergent Strategy.

The first paragraphs of the first essay, just up a moment ago, very much about this moment and its larger context and where our powers lie in the face of this coup attempt.

02.02.2025 20:26 — 👍 193    🔁 26    💬 5    📌 4

I always like your spin. Spatula is so good!

22.01.2025 14:09 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0