The medicine of understanding the assignment
For a bunch of years (like, billions of them) the energy and matter that make up your body and soul were committed to other assignments.
Now, you are here.
For millions, billions, trillions, or infinity years after your time here – I am not the expert on the exact timing – the energy and matter that make up your body will be committed to other assignments.
But, for now, you are here.
You fall into a lineage of people, yes. You also fall into a lineage of all living beings. We all started from one emergence into life. When the Natives in your life say “all our relations” we mean it quite literally. That rose bush you love to sniff? You share a common Ancestor.
For now, I want you to ground into your current assignment. The energy and matter that make you came into human form to complete a 0-135ish year term as a human being. The conditions of this assignment are daunting. They include conditions of genocide, the climate catastrophe of late-stage capitalism, the deep tentacles of colonialism, and so much more.
This assignment also includes some very dope elements including, but not limited to:
Pictures of outer space
A very connected internet to build the power of justice-minded coalitions
Libraries
Soft-serve cream
Nick and Vanessa Lachey’s dating shows on Netflix
Memes
Ceiling fans
Trains
You are here now, and this is the assignment. This assignment comes with big questions. Questions like:
How do we set up individual and communal structures to be resourced through capitalism, while also finding ways to dismantle it and build something more just?
How do we manage the mundane parts of this assignment that are also interwoven with larger efforts? Like, we gotta file our taxes and submit to the rules of carceral systems to stay out of carceral systems…even though our taxes fund that system.
How do we imagine and build a free world when imagining takes time and ease, and time and ease are in short supply given the conditions?
This time on Earth in a human form requires us to hold nuance, grayness, and contradiction. We are required to feed systems that destroy us. We trade our time for money and trade that money for supplies that are extracted from our planet.
Let us not forget that we took this assignment alongside others. Our matter and energy could have chosen anything, and here we are choosing to alchemize this moment on this darling little rock we call Earth. Our Ancestors laid the groundwork. Let us be remembered as the Ancestors that understood what had to be done and did it.
I am in the process of creating a communally written prayer throughout this spring and summer. I invite you to comment, email me, DM me, text me, or mail me your addition(s) to this. The format is loosely:
We so loved the Earth so we ___________________________
and/or
And we so loved our planet while we ___________________
Please share the invitation with the young people in your life, the elders, the partners, the neighbors. When you submit them, please share the following information so I can include you in the credits of this creation:
What you want to be called
Your age
Your location
All parts of this prayer will be shared on ourmedicine.substack.com
A course I created titled Elder in training is up for grabs on my website.
Being an elder – and not just an old person – requires a lifetime of preparation and intentionality around your legacy. Eldership means healing and cleaning up your side of the road in your younger years so that you can guide the youths with clarity and from a well place. This course is designed by me, a hopeful future elder. Throughout the course, you will be invited to carve out time, space, and resources to imagine a future filled with elders who are well, centered, nourished, and woven into communities of care.
I, of course, don’t have all of the answers. Instead, I invite you to find your own unique set of answers as you plan toward eldership. I want a community to explore this with.