All is good, everything is beautiful, and it's a great day to die.
Honoring the Shadow, giving no more fucks, and not turning away from evil in our world. Happy October?
Hey Galaxy, not to sound like a broken record, but I was on a long bike ride a couple weeks ago, riding back from LaCrosse over three days with my bike crew (I’m in a bike gang now, we’re getting tattoos and everything), and my friend said, at the beginning of the second day, that his grandpa used to say “It’s a great day to die.” And I felt like that was a pretty good phrase to craft the October Dispatch around. So here we are. Yet another reason why bike rides are the best thing ever - they give me the inspiration for these monthly musings.
And actually, while I was double-checking my sources and the accuracy of the quotes, I received the following clarification: he actually used to say “All is good, everything is beautiful, and it’s a great day to die.”
As in every October at the studio, we honor the shadow-self: the parts of us, or of life, where we may experience shame, fear, or aversion when we bring them to the forefront of our attention. This concept was popularized by Jung, and the idea is that the more we can integrate these shadow-places, the more contentment we may experience, setting the conditions for us to appreciate and truly embrace things as they are, in the now.
And I don’t know how to sugar-coat this: there is a lot in our world, right now that is incredibly unpleasant, and that desperately needs us to not be too afraid or too ashamed to look away from. We only need to look as far as Chicago to see images of ICE violently detaining people with no more cause than seeming to look like an immigrant (in a country where the vast majority of us are immigrants), images that include a Chicago Alderwoman being unlawfully detained, people being dragged from their cars, and apartment buildings being ransacked and invaded in the middle of the night. If this doesn’t scare you - it should. Because one thing that yoga teaches us is that we aren’t separate. The ugliness that exists in people who would commit such senseless brutality exists in us, and the justification to detain someone based on a spurious definition of “otherness” will be twisted to apply to us one day, too - if we’re too scared to speak up and fight back.
It occurs to me that one of the reasons that people may retreat to social media, or dream about leaving the country, or numb out in consumer culture rather than face the slow progression of fascism is that THEY ARE SCARED. That’s valid - there’s some genuinely scary shit happening right now. But the only way to move beyond fear is to stand up and look that scary thing in the eye and say, “I give no more fucks about being scared of you.” If you were in my class this first week of October, you will know that is exactly what I talked about all week.
Working with the shadow teaches us that we can stand up to uncomfortable and evil realities in our world - that we can hold two very opposed ideas in our hands and our hearts, and we don’t have to look away. We can be uncomfortable. We can learn to hold the truth that the ICE agent in the mask doing terrible things could also be someone’s father, or brother, or son - worthy of love, but making terrible choices, maybe in the veil of delusion. And we, too, might be capable of making terrible evil choices and being equally deluded. That’s the only way we can move past our fear and become the type of people that form human chains that stop ICE agents from approaching schoolyards and little league practices, who speak up when a citizen is unlawfully detained, who can be brave helpers in a damaged, but still very beautiful world.
Sometimes I think things seem more beautiful when they’re on the brink of death. It’s like the world is begging you to look at it, and see all that is sacred and worth being brave for. Are you brave enough to open your eyes?
All is good.
Everything is beautiful.
And it’s a great day to die.
Giving no more fucks,
Anna
What I’m Reading…
Let’s just continue with the theme of “this Dispatch has no chill,” and allow me to recommend Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay “Ur-Fascism,” on what the fundamental characteristics and traits of fascism are. The essay draws on Eco’s personal experiences growing up in Mussolini‘s Italy and his extensive research on fascist movements, and the essay offers his insights into the nature of fascism and its manifestations, including the most well-known part of his essay: The 14 Features of Ur-Fascism.
Read the whole article here. If you google it, you’ll find the list of 14 features of Ur-Fascism very easily.
