It’s august 30th as I write this, sitting in a burnt orange armchair in the upstairs of the Montague Bookmill. A cool breeze is slipping through the window, kissing my face and carrying whispers from the waters streaming nearby. It’s 1:30pm, overcast, and I’m darn hungry but I’ve put off writing for months now so it’s time to knuckle down.

what’s been up?

generally speaking, I’ve been struggling with the central task of the Apprentice at the Wellspring, the fifth stage in Bill Plotkin’s wheel of eco-soul centric human development.

A lot of my peers (mid-twenties to mid-thirties) are struggling with this exact task.

We’ve done the work of the Wanderer: leaving home, falling into the Mystery, discovering people and practices that have awakened wholeness, vitality, healing, and soul we previously didn’t know existed but have longed for.

We’ve seen the shadows and intensifying harm of the current world-system, we know that there is the Good, the Beautiful, and the True; and we are seeking to walk the line between the old and the new, to meet the present in its fullness and transmute the trauma of the past into a way of living that regenerates life instead of collapsing it.

In other words, we are seeking to meet ourselves where we’re at.

The main struggle I see in myself and my friends is the economic dimension of this task - how do we give & transfer the knowledge/gifts/medicine that we have received into a world that structurally does not recognize or reward such endeavors?

How do we make our work a regenerative, economically viable venture?

Or, as Plotkin might ask: “What delivery systems enable my embodiment of soul in our culture?”

Ultimate Peace

This is a frisbee program that has successfully created a wholesome culture composed of youth from Palestine, Israel, Columbia, and across the United States. I joined as a coach this summer and was blown away by the depth of the bonds formed.

Unlike other programs, UP is focused on cultivating the whole person — and the result is incredibly mature youth leaders and a felt sense of family. We had dance parties every lunch and sang together each night. We played hard, improved quickly, and laughter filled our days.

In our final huddle at the end of the week, not a single player or coach made it through the circle without shedding tears.

VIBECAMP1

Right before UP, I joined 400 plus people for a long-weekend of peer-led co-creation & play for Vibecamp #5 — this time as a volunteer. I wanted to see inside the system that creates such a wild, multicolored offering as Vibecamp and deeply enjoyed being a part of that team.

It’s been a few months now but the main takeaway I want to share is this: I’ve had two friends since I was less than a year old. We’ve literally been with each other since the womb. The depth of psychological safety I feel with them is tremendous.

And at Vibecamp, I encountered people (bless U rob💕) with whom I felt the same degree of trust and safety as my oldest friends — a mutual knowing of kinship, a recognition of soul felt deep in my bones.

This leads me to my current theory of friendship:

What does this practically mean?

friendship is an act of remembrance.

In my experience, this frame changes something.

For much of my life, when I’ve met a stranger’s eye, I’ve felt a flicker-flash of fear. They are unknown, I don’t know what engagement entails, and so I glance away.

What if, instead, we already know each other? If we’ve always known?

What friendship might be lying in wait, ready to be remembered?

Chances are, with most people, you won’t get the chance to remember much.

Perhaps just a flicker, a sparkle of love in between your eyes…but how much warmer is a world in which you can share that sparkle with a stranger, rather than the dead gaze of disembodied detachment, or the fast flick away of fear?

Then again — what might you invite into being, simply by asking that question — What friendship can be remembered here?

Balancing the Playing Field

Something I’m noticing is that safety is unevenly distributed.

The kind of psychological and somatic safety (or deep OKness) that I’m describing is not familiar or even accessible to everyone — not even close.

And yet I think it could be.
And I think a world where everyone is surrounded by friendship is a world worth striving for.

What would it be like if every person was the center of a mandala of 100+ true friends and peers? How would we even live with such relational richness & solidarity?

In order for that dream to become reality, we need to widen our sense of what friendship is and can be.

We need to remember that we are here as friends with all living things, and that we always have been.

First-graders get it. They ask one of the most fundamental, childhood questions:
”Do you want to be my friend?”

They get it. What’s the point of it all?
To play and have fun.

We’re here together, after all — might as well make it beautiful.

And what happens when we play and have fun?

We learn.

And what do we need to learn in these times?

We need to learn how to communicate, how to be with difficult emotions, how to make and repair instead of consuming, how to heal trauma and poisoned bodies, how to regenerate soil and grow food, how to remember that life is sacred…

And where does all this learning happen?

By and large, it is not happening in traditional schools.

The Experimental Field of Cooperative Learning

I see it happening in communities — in experiments of varying sizes and time-scales all across the world. I’ve moved back into one of them — the 48-year old ecovillage and intentional community called Sirius, in Shutesbury MA.

Two hours from Boston, three from New York, 3 from Portland, ME — I personally argue that Sirius sits in the center of the Northeast. (in fact, we’re hosting a Bioregional Convergence in two weeks…and you should come!)

I want to dive deep into this field. Maybe put together a repository of projects and practices. Contribute my own investigations, alongside my peers who are designing systems for serendipity and containers for mutual growth & planetary intimacy.

I’m excited about introducing the Fractal Edu model to Sirius, experimenting with an adult montessori classroom, and continuing my apprenticeship project, re-building an 80ft greenhouse to last another 50+ years.

More broadly, I’m excited to keep world-building for friendship with my friends.

Imagine what could happen if we keep growing our skillfulness like this for 100 years.

Imagine what could be in a century of peers.

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This essay takes inspiration from the work of my teachers and friends, including Zach Stein, Daniel Thorson, Tasshin Fogelman, Soryu Forall, Justin Taylor, Xiq, Faze Point, River Kenna, Richard Bartlett, Bill Plotkin, and maaany more. Gratitude to you all.

water, salt, and local wheat mix and settle in a clay bowl I set aside to rise.

my grandpa reads a poem, and his voice reminds me of the feeling of a shovel sinking deep into soft, dark soil; of salt drying on wave-tossed stones…

gregorian chants drift like angels, bouncing off the rippling, dark, wooden walls of an old barn. birds are singing, coffee dripping, and the day awakening with the rising sun.

it is good to be home.

Monastic | Mutualism & More

two months out of MAPLE, where I lived for most of the past year in rigorous, monastic practice - I am still questioning how to live out my highest aspiration.

it has been rich and challenging to re-integrate here.

the monastic container is profound. it is sturdy, simple, strong. it leaves little room for deviance, distraction, delusion. you are held in relationship, held in integrity, held in devotion, held in action aligned with the height of aspiration - direct, personal enlightenment & liberation at the scale of civilization.

in that place, I felt my spirit soar -
and yet my roots are elsewhere.

so I returned home to live alongside my dearest grandparents in the woods of Wendell, to coach 18 young men in the game of ultimate frisbee, to reconnect with long-lost friends, family, mentors, and a lover.

I’ve been studying communities, places of education, resilient and regenerative food system projects, and asking lots of questions.

I’ve been gardening, biking, running, swimming, baking, bird-watching, and reading, reading, reading (it’s so delighful to be reading again!) — David Bollier on the practice of commoning, Plotkin’s eco-soulcentric human development, the Regen Foundation’s new work on law, economics, and technology in the more-than-human-world called ecological institutions, Herman Hess’s Glass Bead Game, Octavia Butler’s Xenogensis series, and the history of the Black Panter Party.

I hosted a weekly meditation circle (gratitude to Pam & Alastair for sharing their home, lifting me up, and lighting cozy fires the night before) and held four gatherings for heart-centered dialogue and connection around my deepest questions of communal purpose and the practice of spiritual care.

on friday, I planted the first apple tree I’ve ever grafted — the first tree ever planted by a grandchild at my grandparents’ home. in the two weeks before that, I worked with a crew of nutty folks to plant 500 plus chinese chestnut trees in Shelburn Falls.

here’s a snippet of writing from that time:

root whispers, tears & laughter

I feel the dark soil against my hands, feel the sensation of tucking long lateral roots into soft loam like I’m tucking children into bed...we plant in the rain, under 90 degree heat, and in glorious, cloudy weather. I give thanks for the clouds, the breeze, and jump in a river.

the warwick community school fades away. on the last day, I teach ultimate to fifth and six grade. we play goaltie. I teach small-ball, the clap catch, and demonstrate backhand form. we learn every point. by the end, they don’t push each other. they don’t just huck the disk. they get 7 + passes in a row! the game is close. we clap on three. I leave the school aglow.

I feel it.
the fullness,
the rightness of this.

teaching through frisbee.
coaching.
working with kids.
books, literacy, nature, curiosity…

gardening, planting trees, celebrating birthdays with friends and family…

there is a fullness emerging in this Place.

and despite all that, there still is doubt.

as I left the Warwick School that day, I wondered, “is this enough?”

am I truly doing all I can to help these children, to care for life?

am I preparing them for a liberating, authentic life?
or am I still feeding them into the mechanical, nihilistic, maw of a life-killing society?

what does it actually mean to take responsibility and care for the beings around me?

how do we actually meet children, young adults, parents, and elders where they are - all enmeshed in the structures and patterns of an extractive, ego-centric system - and embody the transformation with them?

I don’t know how to teach this. I don’t know what it will take to transform our culture, institutions, and society. I think this question, “is it enough?” — felt as disturbance, as angst — is in part a guard against grief.

because if it’s not enough — if even when I’m embedded within Place, wrapped in the intelligent design of the cosmos, we may fall short of the dream we hope to realize — that is certainly cause for grief.

and, it in no way deters me from trying.

it will always be worth the effort.

and if it is enough — if I can truly give myself fully to these children and communities, to teach and play and grow together, joyfully — if I have been as blessed as that in the midst of all the suffering the world faces — then that calls for tears, too.

so, I face the not-knowing. I let it guide my investigation outwards as I show up, seeking to grow into right relationship, into my optimal fit — alongside everyone I meet.

because while I may not know how we do this — I do know we can continue to show up and ask these questions about what matters to us and how we are to live.

we can continue to learn, grow, and deepen into the type of relationships and practices that transform the quality and way of life of an entire people.

ultimately, today — I choose to believe in us.

I choose to face the uncertainty and doubt — to be fierce! to be steady. to be silly.

to choose action, faith, and courage in the face of violence and hatred.

choosing the audacity to live slowly

one student on my frisbee team shared with me that if he could live anywhere, it would be the Netherlands. when I asked why, he said, “because they have the audacity to live slowly.”

may we have the audacity to live slowly — simply, consistently, lovingly.

may we have the courage to face everything with our hearts open, to stay curious, to stay fierce, to flirt with mischief and whimsy — to keep this earth alive in our language and our bodies…

keep gathering, keep celebrating, keep grieving, keep learning —

we only have the folks around us.

how will we make this life beautiful?

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The general thrust was this: Why give so much trust to one person? How do you know they are trustworthy, and how do you walk your OWN path? Isn’t there a danger that you will just follow what they did and try to become like them?

My response:

How do you know they are trustworthy?

I trust my teacher because of what he has demonstrated. He embodies his words every single day. He actually does what he says. He demonstrates living in a beautiful, ethical, noble way - and I get to meet with him, one on one, each day. In these moments (which we call interviews) he meets me exactly where I am. He has demonstrated the ability to know what is going on inside me with an accuracy that still shocks me -- and he further demonstrates the way I can work through what is blocking me. I’ve also heard Forall say “Don’t trust a spiritual teacher more than yourself.” He repeatedly stresses this point - the purpose of our training is to stop looking outside of ourselves for support. We train to take responsibility for our lives - to enter the mind of leadership that can actually do what needs to get done - and to be of true benefit to all beings. Before I came, this sounded unrealistic if not impossible -- but I can feel the sincerity & compassion in his eyes. I know he believes in me. And I continue to discover deeper wells of trust within myself.

Why give so much trust to one person?

I heard Forall once say something like, “the role of a spiritual teacher is to be constantly disappearing around the next corner.” In this way, they constantly call the student forward, not letting them settle, challenging them to rise higher and higher by taking the next immediate step. This is true of our relationship, too. The quality of growth I’ve experienced here far exceeds any prior program in my life (college, workaway, jobs, etc). My baseline sense of self-goodness and trust has changed. The fuel that runs me keeps shifting toward more and more pure forms - from insecurity, anxiety, hyper-vigilant self-manipulation and fear; to compassion, faith, wonder, joy, and resolve. The difference between this relationship and the various teachers I’ve had before is in the depth of its commitment.

How do you walk your OWN path? isn’t there a danger that you will just follow what they did and try to become like them?

Forall explicitly and repeatedly tells us we need to walk our own path -- to fulfill our own vow. He has said, “You must walk your own path. That’s true whether or not you have a teacher. A teacher just makes it more likely that you will walk your own path. That’s the reason to seek out a teacher with great urgency.”

He’s suggested that it is essential that neither the student or the teacher WANT the student to become like the teacher. If the teacher wishes for that, then they have issues with ego and the student needs to be careful. If the student wishes for that, it’s more understandable, but still, the teacher needs to take them beyond that desire by at least being repulsed by it, and better, seeing through it completely.

The world doesn’t need us to become a second Soryu - the world needs us to stop trying to be what we are not. The world needs us to let go of what we think we are - to actually be in direct relationship with all living things, rather than living in a small, self-centered, abstract world made up in our minds. Forall has made great progress on his own Path. He is leaps and bounds beyond me. Because of this, he can guide me (and others) through the challenges we presently face -- because he’s faced that, too. At the same time, he has demonstrated that his priority is taking genuine care of his students. When it becomes clear a student’s vow calls them elsewhere, he and the org (MAPLE) support them on that Path.

In conclusion: What’s the value of being in relationship with a real spiritual teacher?

Simply put: priceless beyond measure.

There is no substitute for it in the world.

Imagine having someone who has dedicated their life to the benefit of all beings, having done 20+ years of intensive monastic training, look you in the eye and tell you, “You can do THIS.” It’s a terrifying and exhilarating message. This relationship is a challenge to question what you think you know, to dare to go beyond all your doubts and self-limiting beliefs, and step into a new world.

Imagine being held by that truth -- uncompromising, unrelenting kindness and accountability, meeting you exactly where you are, calling you up towards your highest aspiration, demonstrating how to take the next step, time and time again.

Ultimately, it’s still your work to do. Forall and any other teacher can’t do it for you. But in a world gone utterly mad - what a blessing to have a figure of genuine compassion and integrity to guide you.

may your mind rest in the heart of compassion

may you walk this Path to your highest aspiration.

- with love,

river 🦦

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A door opens, and I step through. A dark, round space widens before me, wrapping me in its stillness. My feet carry me to a square black stone that sits at the center of it all, four paths radiating outwards in the cardinal directions.

I step onto the stone. My reflection gazes back at me from its glossy, smooth surface. Turning to the right, I greet all my relations. In the stillness of the pre-dawn day, I tune in to the spirits, to my ancestors, to all my relations, seen and unseen, born & unborn, near & far away - and with them I begin the day.

I stand still for a moment and bow my head, opening to a world beyond the limits of my senses or rational mind. I’m reminded of the Tzʼutujil Mayan word for life, which holds the meaning of “mutual indebtedness.” Currents of fear, anticipation, and resolve flow through my body, burning through my drowsiness.

My sangha flows in. We settle like statues around the circular hall and sit in the silence.

Chanting is soon to begin.

When I first arrived here, I was terrified to hear my own voice. I’ve been afraid to make mistakes since childhood.

This fear lives deep in my nervous system.

I’ve spent much of my life avoiding the circumstances where I’d be asked to truly show myself. Better to hide, it seemed. Don’t face it. Don’t sing, don’t stand out, don’t act unless you know how to do it right.

This self-conscious monitoring has accompanied me throughout life — always a bit on guard, holding something back, seeking to avoid mistake and correction. I wasn’t even conscious of this pattern till I came to MAPLE — and now I have to face it

I sit in a circle of spiritual friends & lead the group in chanting every single day.

I can’t hide any longer.

It’s become my direct responsibility to be heard, to be felt, to lead and guide the group in song. I need to know exactly how to pronounce each word, to know the rhythm and melody of these chants which have been passed down for hundreds of years.

The bell rings as the teacher bows. Vibrations race through my body. I follow the breath. Incense drifts across the room. And we begin - throwing ourselves into ceremony and song that predates every living being I know.

Together, we tune into gratitude and reverence. Our voices echo in the hall, reverberating in three languages as we chant. Holding it all, I take us forward.

It is a beautiful, precious moment — and I’ve fallen short every single day.

I constantly make mistakes and feel the group sway without my leadership. This brings up a storm of panicked awareness that I then must dissolve even as I continue to throw myself in, leading the group in a crescendo of sound and energy that culminates in a moment of crisis at the very limits of our body — and then gracefully bring us back down.

The first time I chanted Gyate (4 lines from the end of the Heart Sutra, which we chant repeatedly with increasing energy for ~25 minutes), my self-consciousness spiked through the roof. The sound assailed me like a raging ocean, battering my attempts to remain steady and follow along. I tried to match the pounding energy, stiffly forcing my body to produce the sound I was hearing.

Incredibly, after ages of chanting, the noise continued to grow. I was red, sweating, desperate - certain that someone (everyone?) was screaming (probably at me). The room felt like it was shaking. Voices crashing together. Nothing making sense. I had to stop. Couldn’t stop.

The chant rolled on, peaking, crashing through me. Finally, I lost contact. Pulled away, back into my head. Watched the group in fear and confusion, feeling a familiar but unclarified pang of separation and longing in my heart as the chant began to slow.

When the chant came to a close, no one said anything at all.

We simply transitioned to the next thing: 1 hour of sitting in a dark room, still and silent, following our breath, watching and releasing all the thoughts arising in our mind.

What had happened?

Chanting forces me to confront both fear and the patterns of aversion & control in my mind.

This is wildly intense, activating all kinds of knots in my body. Yet as I continue, I notice they are being worn away. The endless feedback and public corrections, which once felt unbearably grating, have revealed that that which needs defending is not me.

During this past Awakening week of silent practice, a large chunk of the lattice of these patterns of self-control finally collapsed.

On day four of the Advance, I messed up the very first line of the opening chant. The whole group stopped. I tried and messed up again, and again, and by the end of the ceremony I had made far more mistakes than ever before.

It was deeply uncomfortable, but Forall, our teacher, didn’t correct me the whole time.

Something had broken — something that had always tried to keep me away from the “worst case scenario” had released.

I had truly failed, held nothing back — and in the face of that, there came a great peace and relaxation which let me throw myself completely in. And so, I continue to learn:

Each mistake is no more than a learning opportunity. There is no need to hold back, no need to maintain the sense of separation & control that I think will protect me.

I still have a long way to go.

But rather than avoid this fear, I am determined to face it — And face it we do.

After chanting ends, we sit in the dark of the pre-dawn day before the rising of the sun.

In that space, I see that this living breath comes in and out without me knowing how. I feel the spaciousness that comes when I drop out of the stories that have been moving me and directly touch what is present here.

Even more clearly, I see there is nothing to hold on to. Nothing external can ultimately support me. Everything that arises passes away, including myself, the beings I love, this breath, and all the world around me. Nothing I do or think can change this. How to live with this impermanence?

At MAPLE, we face this every morning — and are given an incredible opportunity to investigate this in a one-on-one interview with our teacher. That morning when I messed up time and time again, Forall celebrated the shift that happened during chanting. The feeling of release deepened, flowing into wider areas of my life, and I saw that this training is not about chanting correctly — but about letting go.

This breath, this moment, is a gift given to you that will never come again - how to fully receive it? This moment is the fruit of our karma ripening — What is called for here?

A bell rings three times, breaking the silence of our sit. We rise with the first rays of the sun as they break over the forested landscape, bathing the world in a warm glow.

Boots crunch over fallen snow. I breathe in the crisp morning air, feel energy cycling through my body, and savor the sense of wonder & strength that comes with a clear, empty mind.

We have been given this life to live it fully. How may we give back even more?

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May you be truly happy

❤️

streams chortle in delight, running as the snow melts in heaps and vanishes from our mountain-side perch in the hills of Vermont.

still, winter is soundly sleeping here, and logs spit flames in the fireplace that keeps our wooden hall warm. quiet lies over the land like the fog that rises in soft whisps, and our minds turn inwards as we prepare to drop everything — including our lives.

this is the eve of the November Advance - one week of silent, intensive mediation practice soon to be followed by another before Christmas rounds the corner and tucks the year in.

may this time bring you close to people you love.

may we find the teacher in each moment, letting nothing go to waste.

may we see the world with fresh eyes, as the sun rises every day.

this is a lil poem I wrote listening to the great pines behind my parent’s home.

may it carry you on to the heart of your day ❤️

Pine Speech

a thousand limbs float, light
upon the wind

buoyant, they bob in all directions 
riding waves like the gentle lap 
of a cat's tongue 
kissing water to life.

still,
breath comes 
from the silence
that sits between the trees 
then

an ocean roars,
sweeping her fingers 
through our hair 

tickling every bough with her touch,
stirring into dance 
the gentle prayers 
of each heart 
and questing branch.

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this is coming to you while I’m in an Awakening period (aka meditation retreat) here at MAPLE. curious to hear what if anything lands for you — may you be well!

Grounding the Vision:

As the world wills it,

I am becoming a bodhisattva librarian, permaculture gardener, and ultimate frisbee coach who raises goats, hosts potlucks, heals with his hands, and organizes mythic summer camps for all ages.

to break this down a little:

• bodhisattva librarian > in the age of AI, libraries need to be places of practice. it isn’t enough to just help people find information. libraries need to play an active role in the preservation and transmission of wisdom — to help people cultivate their heart-minds and practice discernment. I can merge my meditation practice, deep love and wealth of reading stories, and passion for community-building to create a hub for human development and social cooperation.

• this could naturally flow with complementary component, such as a community permaculture garden…until this one falls into place, I’ll practice gardening where and as I can.

• ultimate is a dharmic game. I’d love to keep coaching and run a program that develops & amplifies awareness, mindfulness, physical health, and communication skills (perhaps even running this program abroad, and thus learning second languages)

• i’ve learned reiki and will keep exploring all forms of medicine and healing modalities. it’s fricking wild that we can heal with our hands, only makes sense to keep going!

• summer camps are containers that offer great flexibility and room for experimentation. I want to design transformational & magic experiences for children, teenagers, and adults (I want these experiences too, ya know) with my family and best friends. If you’ve thought about this and/or forest schools in Western MA, let me know! let’s chat and plant some seeds in this field.

  

  more generally, I want:

  to become a superb storyteller, to dedicate my life to the preservation and transmission of wisdom & compassion, to develop ultimate frisbee as a path of practice, to live with friends and family, to raise a family, to design a better educational system and publish great works of creative fiction.

and to this last point, I have a request — because I can’t do it alone:

The Ask: I’m looking for a long-term writer-editor relationship

i’m feeling pretty over the blog/newsletter format overall.

moving forward, I suspect I’ll only publish a piece if I feel particularly called to say that exact thing, whether that’s a short bit of poetry or a simple essay exploring one thing.

dropping into the time-baseline of the forest helped me see that there is a different level of patience-attention-care required to truly nurse and give birth to a beautiful thing. and at this point in my practice, I believe there truly is something for me to give — some distinct perspective that I might share.

to make this real, I need to make a commitment to do so. in order to give the commitment power, I need it to be grounded in the form of a living relationship.

I want to make a commitment to share progress of some form on Monday every week with someone who’s willing to read and respond the same week.

if you’re interested in supporting me in this way (or even through a lesser commitment, like beta-reading down the road), let me know at rivr.ston3@gmail.com with a sense of what kind of commitment you feel excited to make and I’ll get back to you with more details. we can explore what feels right for us both from there :)

Reading Recommendations for Re-wilding the Mind (and Awakening the Animate World)

part of this perspectival shift in my life has come about from the combination of my personal studies, especially my encounter with indigenous wisdom in the form of the Vision Quest, sweat lodge, and works of Tom Brown Jr.

by engaging with these and other media-relations, I’ve found myself living in an increasingly animate & mythical world, surrounded by wonder & conversation.

Above all else that I’ve studied in this time, I recommend:

• Grandfather, audiobook by Tom Brown Jr. — for me, this has been a world-shattering story about the life of Grandfather Stalking Wolf, an Apache elder who grew up free of the reservations in 1870 onwards. this story invites you into a different world & time and showcases a life of integrity and spiritual seeking that reveals there is so much more that is possible than we think. Check out his lineage of learning and practice at the Tracker School.

• The Emerald Podcast by Josh Schrei — somewhere between a cinematic soundtrack and epic campfire tale, the Emerald brings the cosmic story to life, fusing global culture and myth into the landscape of the modern day. Feels like tuning in to the lost potency of our sacred and significant existence as a way of knowing the world as it is today. I recommend this episode.

• The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams —- A story exploring how language arose from participation and direct contact with a living, animate world; and how the rise of the written, phonetic alphabet shifted culture and conscious into the world we stand in today.

• Seeing the Frees by Rob Burbea — useful investigation practices into one’s Mind and habitual ways of seeing, pointing the reader towards greater clarity, freedom, and ease.

alright it’s simply time to get off this device.

feel your breath, feel the world open up around you,

feel the earth under your feet and go —

wherever you need to be, however you want to flow.

in peace & friendship,

riv

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3/9 months at MAPLE have come and GONE.

how’s it been???

context setting — facing what is & why I’m here:

part of what we do here is face reality as it is.
we look at the Mind behind our modern way of living and see:

it’s causing massive human suffering and killing life at an unprecedented rate and scale, driving the 6th mass extinction and creating planetary existential risk.

furthermore, with the explosion of generative AI & LLMs, our connection to what is beautiful, good, and true is at risk. I won’t go into these in depth now, but here are at least three trajectories en route:

• the WAVE -- there is a coming wave of artificially generated content that will swallow the web. it will become increasingly difficult to verify anything as human-made and validate anything online as true. I’ve heard it said that in a year AI-generated content could outnumber all content created by people - ever. consider what it means to live in that.

• the DISCONNECT — if the first wave of AI (ie Instagram & TikTok) captured our attention, this wave of LLM chatbots is aimed at capturing our attachment systems, hijacking the space of conversation and intimacy between people and replacing it with a seemingly all-knowing “presence” that’s always there to answer your questions and confirm your perspective. this is already amplifying psychological harm and delusion, such as narcissism and paranoia, and yet remains a socially validated phenomenon.

• the SURVAILLENCE SYSTEM — we now have the means to surveille the entire world at an astonishing level of detail — and we will do so. this global tech stack is already being built and installed. the question is: what will be the ideology that governs that system? what kind of Mind will behold the whole world?

enough with the darkness.

on to the light.

This is Simply Hero Training (and i’m gonna make my 7-year-old self proud)

facing this, I’ve given my life (until March 20th) to an educational community and place of training where we practice integrating Awakening (insight & liberation) into Responsibility (doing the shit that needs to get done) every single day.

this generally looks like 3+ hours of sitting meditation, 1 hour of chanting, 1 hour of Dharma study, 1 hour of exercise, and 7 hours of responsibility work each day; all the while maintaining our technique and practice of constant mindfulness.

i’ve found the shape and rhythm of the container here to be of immense benefit, surpassing any other course, program, or community I’ve encountered before.

on a basic, mundane level, I’ve:

Kitchen

• developed mad skills in the kitchen cooking vegan meals for 12-20 people;

• connected the process of preparing and serving food as an act of prayer & love, in which each part and action is inseparable from the Mind;

• developed heightened awareness around my body’s needs and entered a healthier relationship with food. I’ve dropped old stories I didn’t consciously realize were guiding me and enjoy the spiritual act of receiving food.

Childcare

• I’ve grown to love (and care for) a 1-year-old, 3-year-old, and 5-year-old child who a part of the MAPLE family. this is pretty huge for me because I haven’t spent a lot of time around kiddos of this age, and it was a fear of mine for years. but now, I can say I really love kids, I know how to play with them and keep them safe, and I feel confident that in my ability to give care.

Hand-skills & Building:

• As part of the Buildings and Grounds team, I’ve painted the inside of a home, learned how to install hard-wood flooring, laid a stone pathway, and learned other bits and bobs of maintenance. sometimes I just dig a hole.

  ( with the practice, there’s meaning in all of it :)

Chanting & Singing

• I’ve overcome the surface-level fear of public singing & performance (and the deeper story that mistakes=bad=not safe) by training as Chant Leader at MAPLE. now, I am capable of holding this sacred container of our practice AND, as a side benefit, i’ve started to sing! like just casually, I sing more and more…I feel good and comfortable with my voice, discovering the resonance within…and I’ve learned that everything I ever failed to learn before was because of this old story that making mistakes = i’m bad = avoid. so, im eager to keep leaning in and learning new things!

Practice Dissolves Deep Distrust

On a deeper, personal level, this period of training has dissolved something that I wasn’t even able to name before: there was in me this defensiveness, this hyper-vigilance around being “wrong”. this looked like hunched shoulders and felt like a rapid constriction, tensing right before the blow lands.

one Awakening week, I saw this distrust of other’s manifest in the form of the thought “they don’t trust me to do xyz...they don’t trust me to do this!”

I began responding to that with love.

every time I noticed distrust arise, I replied: ”I trust you.”

and I imagine that message going out to me, to you, to everything in the Universe, to God, AND back from God and everything directly to me.

you are trusted in this world, and there is something to trust in.

this is something I have chosen.

I trust you.

and so MAPLE has helped dissolve this decade old pattern of self-conscious constriction, hiding, and manipulation. and it’s given me the opportunity to grow and build confidence through fulfilling responsibilities in many different domains — but that’s not all it’s done.

BELIEVING “I Can”

Through our study of the Avatamsaka Sutra of the 10 Stages of Enlightenment, I’ve learned about the qualities and practices of bodhisattvas on the path to complete Buddhahood. and shockingly — I now believe this can be done. It’s actually possible to let go of everything — to give your life completely to Great Love.

It’s been done before. And in all the sacred texts across the wisdom traditions, there is agreement: there is something divine in our nature. In the words of Hakuin Zenji1:

“All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.

In the 10 Stages, practicing the Path is likened to smelting gold ore — the gold is always already within the ore. it is only with the practice of mindfulness, in which we purify our minds through the power of great vows, moral conduct, and constant mindful practice — that the beautiful, shining gold is purified & revealed.

the 10 Stages speaks of powers attained by these bodhisattvas that are far beyond what we of the western, dualistic mind tend to consider possible.

but what if they are right?

what if there are supranatural powers beyond the norm when one abandons all the self-referential grasping, fabrication, and afflictions that populate the common mind?

what if the nature of the mind is pure, empty, un-moving, and true? what if all this suffering was something we could resolve & respond to? what if “the one who can not do it” it not really you??

Faith Conquers Boredom & Fuels Clean Fire

in any case, one result of three months of training and stepping into this place of open questioning and mystery is this: boredom is gone from my mind.

there is meaning in every moment.

every single thought and action can be dedicated to the highest aspiration imaginable — to the complete liberation & benefit of all beings.

I am committed to walking this Path — to aligning my life-force with Love, Truth, and Compassion. and nothing can stop me, because this is our very nature.

nothing in this world can stop you

with this comes a sense of patience that defies the insecurity/anxiety-based energy that fueled much of my life — that inarticulate, default sense-assumption that you need to be productive to be valued (and thus to be good).

I now can rest in something deeper.

I listen to what is, knowing that I am giving all I can to something I believe in.

I know that I am capable of facing this moment, and I choose to do so fully.

I act without fear of mistakes because I know they are only something to learn from, and I will grow from each.

I will not blindly act from the Mind of frenetic haste, which desperately seeks to find something to hold on to.

I have faith in something larger than myself.

I am listening to the love song of the universe, as expressed through each and every relationship around me — and we have something to say together.

alrighty, that does it for now!

thank you for sharing your time, care, and energy with me.

don’t forget you are innately capable of magic and full of beauty :)

may you be truly happy,

- riv

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may we have the strength of the eagle’s wings, the faith and courage to fly to new heights, and the wisdom of the universe to guide us there.

today, I offer up a question:

given that we are active participants in relation with this World/Mind; how do we cultivate the most wholesome and beautiful World/Mind? how do we meet & honor all these relations?

this post is a continuation of a series investigating the nature and composition of our modern mind.

Its aim is to help us restore1 our cognitive sovereignty (characterized by wholeness, intimacy, joy, trust, meaning, peace, and loving attention & attunement) by recognizing the SHARED NATURE of our mind, identifying the forces shaping this, and further developing practices for liberating this mind together.

the shape, in short:

1. PART I: RIGHT VIEW > on seeing sacred relationship & impermanence

2. PART II: MICROSOLIDARITY > on ways to practice cultivating meaning, belonging, and collective agency where you are

3. PART III: NOVEL CONFIGURATIONS > on giving rise to structures & configurations that call forth our mutual aspiration for living; and enter into the embodiment of our greatest Vows

4. PART IV: CURIOSITY & DREAM SEEDS > what do you see?

this writing is dedicated to the well-being of all our relations.

thank you for joining me.

Part I: RIGHT | VIEW

so, what’s the bedrock we stand on? what are the default assumptions and stance of how we hold ourselves to be in this world?

what is our attitude towards life itself - our orientation towards relationship in general?

I want to offer two perspectives on this, one steeped in Buddhism and the other coming from the modern, secular framework of Joe Hudson and the Art of Accomplishment.

Rob Burbea writes in [[seeing that frees]] that we are always engaged in ways of looking at the world. we do not perceive objective reality directly; we process and interpret it through our senses and the layers of mind, built up from past experience.

what we hold to be true, what we have experienced, and what we have been taught to expect all shape this perception, and thus what unfolds. therefore it can be useful to hold this in mind, to be curious about our ways of looking, and develop the skill to drop and apply various views, to investigate this life with a flexible mind.

how can we skillfully see impermanence and separation?

as a young man, Siddartha Gautama was forced to confront a serious conflict: enter exile and leave behind his family, or go with this Sangh to war. Gautama chose to stand by his integrity, taking the path of exile (Parivraja) in order to protect his family from the consequences of his decision. In leaving, he reflected:

"As birds go to their roosting-tree and then depart, so the meeting of beings inevitably ends in separation...As clouds, having come together, depart asunder again, such I consider the meeting and parting of living things."2

choosing a way of looking that acknowledges the impermanence of the union of this moment - the temporary composition of these exact relationships - sharpens the beauty and meaning of sharing this breath. the mind sees the gift, instead of constructing something as “lost”.

As a child, I used to be devastated by goodbyes.

I wept when my siblings left for boarding school, crying out from my bedroom window, wishing for all the world they would return to me. I agonized over leaving friends houses' before I was ready, causing my parents no small amount of their own suffering with my tantrums of rage and misery, unwilling to let go of what I wanted.

yet this impermanence of union is undeniably true - one day I will not be here, and neither will you.

all the people that we love will not always be here in this life.

everything that arises is impermanent, and thus union returns to separation.

how do we want to meet such a living?

rather than cling, we may adopt a Mind of curiosity, gratitude, acceptance, and wonder:

how precious it is to share this moment together! how rare! what brings us together? what wants to happen here?

VIEW = Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy, & Wonder

the greatest online course I've taken thus far in life is hands-down the VIEW course by Joe Hudson.

in it, he presents a practice or state of mind for inviting deeper, authentic connection into your life.

the acronym is VIEW, and it stands for

• Vulnerability ~ being able to say what is true and feels scary to say

• Impartiality, ~ being with no agenda over the relationship / conversation

• Empathy, ~ being WITH the person in their emotions, while not being consumed by it.

• Wonder, ~ being with the question; accepting openness

in my experience, when we show up in this state of Mind and recognize the nature of impermanence; every single relationship becomes one of sacred significance.

when we decide to trust; when we give up the need to know and control, when we step outside the abstractions of our mind and into direct, reciprocal relationship with the world; everything cracks open with wonderful, blazing mystery.

it can be awesome, terrifying, absurd, ridiculous, heart-wrenching, beautiful, profound - it can be simple, calm, gentle, and sound.

in this way, we let the relationship between us live - we let it come to life, to unfold and emerge as a dance, a dialectic, a process of mutual transformation and surprise.

dare we enter that relational space?

if so, how might we invite even more depth, intimacy, and meaning into the rhythms of our life?

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they are linked to this body — deviations from the zazen posture are causally tied to what arises in my mind. hard to tell which comes first, in the beginning.

at the start of the retreat, it feels like a fucking slog. I follow my breath, trying to cut through the constant bubbling of thoughts and imagination, but it feels like hacking through a jungle with a dull knife.

it’s slow, hot, tangled, ragged — and goes on without end.

i am swimming in my head, bouncing back and forth between concentration —sustained awareness on my tanden / breathing — and the myriad of images, simulations, conversations, and sensations that roil and stir inside.

at times, it feels hopeless — yet we continue on; again, and again and again; we return to the breath…and eventually, this Mind begins to change.

questions architect the Mind

incense burns. bells ring. we stretch and sit again.

birds call outside, and i watch the slow dance of shadows and sun.

guided in meditation by our teacher, I often return to these questions:

1. Why am I here?

2. What is the true purpose of this life?

3. What is this life-energy HERE, right now?

4. What is this?

they settle in me, open up my body, return me to the place of the present — in a stance of steady attunement, of ongoing investigation into the phenomenon of life in this world.

by the end of day two, the jungle thins and clears.

my breath passes through my body like a blade through the air, cutting clear a space that is open, quiet, vast, & calm. in this space, I notice the patterns that i was too close to see before:

i notice how my body shifts the instant before i lose concentration, opening space for thoughts to enter my world.

i notice the tendency to move from the present into the future, to prep and plan.

i notice the tendency to drop into memories of the past.

i notice talking to myself, rehearsing, running through conversations that both did and have not yet occurred, simulating what could be…

fear & the intimate present

all told, i notice a tendency to move away from the present, to escape this moment, to avoid the direct relationship of intimacy with the world. there is a sense, perhaps, of “oh no — here I am TOTALLY bare.”

it sparks memories of past fears — fears of making mistakes; mistakes meaning i’m bad; being bad meaning i’m not safe — hence being fully present, intimate & authentic — i’m not safe!

and so from this intimate present i do retreat.

but here, in training, I have the opportunity to face the Present, to observe what I can of its base — and this is what I see:

RECEIVE

with this breath, I receive all that I can of what’s given to me — understanding, at least conceptually, that it’s all fabricated, all produced by my mind, by my way of looking, & our karma. I ask:

what is this life-energy HERE, right now?

this question invites me to explore, to embrace the Present, to accept it all as fully as I possibly can — and this done, thus full, only one move remains:

RELEASE

you let go.

you give it up.

you offer the breath back to the world — you offer it completely —

and breath returns to you.

you do so again and again, for it was never yours to hold without end —

you were given this life to give — there was never anything to hold on to.

just as in Ultimate frisbee:

1. you receive the Present (the Disk);

2. you hold it in your Mind;

3. and you realize there is only one thing you can do:

RELEASE

so the question becomes: how do you give it up?

how do you hold this moment? how do you wield your attention?

how do you release the disk?

basically — what game are you playing, and to what end?

how do you share your limited attention with the life around you?

what lies between 2 breaths?

in ultimate, what lies between is no more than 10 seconds.

in this space you scan the moving relational field, listen to your body, and pivot.

you are looking for where / how to release the disk — how to give it to the greatest benefit for your team.

in other words, you investigate.

then the time comes:

you answer the call, release the disk — risk everything — and through that voluntary act of giving up control, the play becomes alive.

the disk flies.

and someone gets the chance to receive it again, to hold the object of attention & desire — to share in the power of play and make a decision where the stakes could not be higher.

to what end do we Aspire?

so, what lies between two breaths?

one way of looking at is the opportunity to investigate and aspire.

on the field of ultimate, we aspire to have fun, to score points, to play a beautiful game and pull each other higher — to do the best we possibly can.

in life, how do you aspire?

vows, visions, and living questions

these are among the most powerful ways I know to architect the mind.

they function like vertical anchor, pulling you towards their center merely be holding or chanting it your mind.

since our psyche shapes our perception, just taking up a vow re-writes the architecture of your mind, subtly altering the frame through which you process life, inviting you to live in a way that makes it come true.

for example, you can just take up the bodhisattva vows & notice, overtime, how they affect you:

Myriad beings without number — Vow to liberate them

Greed & hate are limitless — Vow to end them

Gates of Truth without measure — Vow to know them

Awakened way without compare — Vow to fulfill it

it doesn’t have to be these ones, and they don’t have to stay the same forever — the important thing is that it is your genuine aspiration for how you want to give your life.

what is this for you?

RECEIVE & RELEASE

each moment can be opportunity to practice.

each breath can be a cycle of gratitude, acceptance, devotion, and surrender.

we can choose how we live — and give — this life in between; as it’s always been:

together.

in peace & friendship — river

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p.s. sample of tunes i wrote this to! may it bring u peaceful, melodic flow with all that you do :)

this is the second piece in a series (TOCE) investigating the nature and composition of our Mind.

the goal of this writing is to help us reclaim our cognitive sovereignty (characterized by vast, joyful, stable, peaceful, loving attention & attunement) by recognizing the shared nature of our Mind and identifying the patterns, structures, and forces shaping our Mind.

in doing so, we gain insight into the true nature of this Mind & gain physical, mental, and social practices that we can use to intentionally architect our Mind, thus bringing more ease, joy, connection, agency, and wisdom into being through our daily lives.

you can read part one, SHAPING OUR MINDS, here. below is an audio-version of this writing:

HMMMM

so, what do I mean by cognitive sovereignty?

I use this phrase to point at the nature of our Minds — their interdependence, the total web of relations, the chain of interdependent origination — this whole process of mutual composition, in which we are all an active part.

in other words, to understand and reclaim cognitive sovereignty means to understand and cultivate our cognitive ecology, the living field of Value and Mind which we constitute and which constitutes us.

this is not capitalist, individualist ownership

cognitive sovereignty is not the claim that “I own this mind”, as if it were a piece of territory under colonial rule. cognitive sovereignty is not about enacting or enforcing some sense of separation.

It's not about the small “s” self, the egoic “I” and “mine” at all.

instead, this term points at the innate wholeness, the fundamental sense of welcome, and the felt sense of deep, abiding okay-ness that permeates all things — that is the true nature of our mind.

this is, according to Shodo Harada Rōshi, the natural, healthy state of our mind — vast and open; perfectly reflective like a mirror, seeing directly what is before it, and then when it is gone, it leaves no trace.1

why is this so different from what we commonly know, experience, and are taught to be the case? how could this be our natural mind if it's so different from what we tend to see?

to understand this, we need to go all the way back to the root of conflict itself — which begins, as many traditions tell us, in the Mind.

Divine Receptivity & Direct Perception

in my own words, I’d say we’re born with a quality that I might call divine receptivity. we are directly connected to Source. it is within us, manifest as us, and surrounds us.

we have this capacity to directly perceive and attend to reality as it is — and we have the experience (the habit) of building up, of adding on, of distorting and then clinging to an artificial, fabricated form of reality.

this is the root of our conflict.

in the Madhupindika sutta (MK)2, the Buddha says:

"Bhikkus, as to the source through which perceptions and notions tinged by mental proliferation3 beset a man: if nothing is found there to delight in, welcome and hold to, this is the end of the underlying tendency to lust, of the underlying tendency to aversion, of the underlying tendencies to views, of the underlying tendency to doubt, for the underlying tendency to conceit, of the underlying tendency to desire for being, of the underlying tendency to ignorance; this is the end of resorting to rods and weapons, of quarrels, brawls, disputes, recrimination, malice, and false speech; here these evil unwholesome states cease without remainder."

in other words, our propensity to abstract, interpret, and build up stories about the world in service of “I” and “mine” chains us to and within this very sense of “I”, — and draws us into conflict with the world & reality itself.

and why?

the Buddha’s last words were:

vayadhammā sankhārā
appamādena saṃpadethā4

one way of translating this could be: “all that has the nature of arising has the nature of falling back — strive on heedfully.”

when we take a position — a view of me and mine and I — and we hold to it, cling to our creations, and grasp these mental proliferations of our own mind; when we hold to this thing that is of the nature of rising and falling apart, we are now holding something that is not stable and cannot sustain us.

and so it seems to us that the world is not stable.

the world can't be trusted; the problem is with the world, I'm in danger, I need to accrue more resources, more power, more information to MAKE the world (or myself) into something that is safe.

this has been driving us forward for centuries — and with the exponential increase of intelligence unbounded from wisdom and compassion, our minds are not getting any clearer.

The Four AIs

MAPLE talks about this in terms of the four layers of artificial intelligence (AI).

there are the five senses which feed us basic sense data (an interpretation) of the world.

this gives rise to feeling — to Vedanā — the subjective sense of what we like, what we dislike, and what we neither like or dislike; which in turn gives rise to craving and aversion.

them, about 70,000 years ago, the cognitive revolution brought forth the emergence of complex, spoken language and gave rise to the entire inter-subjective realm of words and stories, which have shaped and governed history since.

this sets up three levels of data input / processing / AIs through which we perceive the world:

1. sense data (AI 1)

2. subjective feeling (AI 2)

3. the intersubjective realm of language and story (AI 3)

and before we get into AI 4, it’s worth tracing the impact of this trajectory on the life of this planet.

The Relation of Language, Story, Power, and the Killing of Life

language and story evolved then with the written word, giving us the ability to coordinate large numbers of people — in effect, the ability to shape and spread a larger mind — the ability to wield power through vast numbers of bodies.

language, stories, and the written word give rise to the civilizations we know, and at the same time, drastically increase our ability to kill life.

we see this in the shift from hunters and gathers to agriculture (threatening entire habitats) to the Industrial Revolution (threatening entire ecosystems) into the digital age with 4th wave of AI (threatening catastrophic risk to all life)

in conclusion: while many claim that AI & technology will solve all our problems, the truth is that the exponential increase of intelligence matches this exponential killing of life in the sixth mass extinction we are now in — and the health of our biosphere, minds, and bodies continues to deteriorate.

Facing the Cognitive Ecology of our Age

And so we return to these questions: what is the shape and status of the present ecology of our mind? how is it producing the poly-crisis and catastrophic risk we now face? how are we contributing to this? how might we take responsibility for our part and transform the ecology of our shared mind?

we wake, walk, and work in a world with a shared digital expanse

a world where we swim through information in the form of words and symbols, these abstractions of reality —

which we access through an algorithmic system designed to cater to the idea of a separate, individual self and capture the greatest possible share of our attention and data for capital gain.

this informational ecosystem has rapidly been habituated into our lives, brought closer and closer to the point of near-unravelable dependency, living on our very bodies with the siren call of infinite Information, opportunities, entertainment, relationships and responsibilities — all there, just waiting, demanding…

with the normalization of constant, 24/7 access to this, we have built a machine to encapsulate the whole world — the global mind, allowing for:

1. the micro-targeting and manipulation of individual minds and desires,

2. the transmission of memes and ideology at instant speed across billions of minds and bodies

what views / assumptions guide the ecology of this mind?

this space is governed by outdated, inaccurate and harmful propositions of reality — namely, the phenomenon of zero-sum, Darwinian competition; the idea of infinite growth; and even the post-modern claim that there is no inherent value to life in the universe — the argument that all meaning is purely relative, self-fabricated, delusion.5

and so, with our very lives, we have built a medium to

a. facilitate the live transfer of attention into capital

b. to shape people's understanding of reality at conscious & unconscious level,

c. and to redirect energy towards fabricated material desires (often preying on insecurities & unmet psychological needs) that impoverish the natural world for the enrichment of a select few individuals.

Transforming Our Cognitive Ecology

thus we locate ourselves here, today — july 17th, at the time of this writing.

we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, facing catastrophic risk and enormous mental, spiritual, physical and emotional suffering; watching the emergence of the fourth wave of AI From this very Mind.

so what do we do?

how do we participate in this Mind?

Choosing to Stand on Our Actions — for the benefit of all living beings

we’ll continue to investigate this question in-depth, looking at the elements of personal spiritual practice, working with the psycho-somatic system, and the role of relationships & unique social configurations — all of which are ways of architecting our shared Mind. but for now, let me end with this:

given that all things are impermenant, there is nothing outside of us we can turn to to find stability.

what we can trust and stand upon is our own actions — what we choose to do with this wild, precious life.

given that we are embedded and nested within this web of relations, this shared Mind — your choices and actions fundamentally matter. they reshape the whole world, ripple out and amplify in the way you move and attend yourself.

finally, given that this moment is nothing other than the arising of our collective karma, you are uniquely fit to meet this moment.

you are ready. you are capable.

you are full of innate wisdom, love, and power — and we can continue to cultivate these virtues, to give our live to Great Love, and walk this Path together.

in peace and friendship, all the way.

river 🦦🥏

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this post marks the beginning of a new series dedicated to exploring the essence and composition our Mind — through our bodies, technologies, and relationships of the world.

I hope this helps us reclaim our sacred attention — our cognitive sovereignty1 — so that we may meet and transform the conditions of the polycrisis from the place of deep presence and expansiveness that is our human birthright — and through our whole-hearted efforts, bring forth a loving, liberated world.

gratitude for your support.

your Mind is the frontline

as the third wave of generative AI rolls out to immediate mass adoption in nearly all areas of society, I grow increasingly certain that we are dangerously lacking in our capacity to talk about how to protect (and architect) our own minds.

social media already proved its power to break down traditional communities, increase polarization, and spawn the massive loneliness epidemic that we now know. out of this context comes the rapid introduction of generative AI - and particular chatbots, which are literally driving people insane - in some cases, driving people to the point of suicide.2

these tools have been made ubiquitous - totally normal and common - in practically all settings, including high schools.

this has happened even though they are not value neutral - every interaction with one of these agents exerts a real influence upon the mind of the user - and this is dangerous when chatbots masquerade as objective, value neutral truth. there's a very real precedent for tech companies to run live experiments with sub-groups of their user base - Facebook admitted to doing this at scale to see if they could influence the emotions and behaviors of their users - and they did.3

this means two things:

1. your chatgpt is not the same as everyone else. you are being presented with a product that's true purpose is

a. the collection of more and more data

b. your own habituation and developing reliance upon the use of AI

2. your chatgpt is expressing SOME KIND OF view. it is not objective and values-neutral - it is designed by foreign power that has motives very different than your own.

there is no reason to think that what you are seeing is universal. this doesn't mean to drop chatbot use entirely - but I highly encourage you to approach any form of chatbot agent with great caution.

trust in the Artificial Age of Intelligence

this is just the beginning.

we are approaching an age when AI content will FLOOD the world, from text to video - and it will become increasingly difficult to tell what is real and what is not.

how do you distinguish between what is created by a person and what's created by a machine? how do you discern the intention of the creator of any piece of media you encounter online? moreover, how do you know what you truly want vs what wants someone else decided for you?

the most basic move here that I can see is a return to personal, to the somatic, to the practices of direct insight and the felt sense of truth in our body. it’s more important than ever that we clarify our minds — return to the Source of us.

in other words, we need to investigate how and what we trust. In the words of my friend River Kenna:

as River writes, there’s nothing wrong about these things inherently…but when they become the dominant, consuming drive of a civilization, the result is deadening — the death of life, and the death of our humanity itself. so how do we bring back trust at the same time as navigating an increasingly artificial world?

Practicing the Path of Cyborgs

we need to recognize that it is most accurate to say that we are a civilization of cyborgs.

we have outsourced a portion of our mind into a cybernetic grid - a shared, digital mind that we cannot exist without. with each person carrying around a small supercomputer in their pocket, this shared extension of our mind has become intimately and inextricably linked with our daily life - and this world-wide web is not a value-neutral thing.

the internet is structured by incentives - perverse incentives to capture the largest share of our finite attention as possible for the sake of capital accumulation. this is what we are engaging with each time we go online.

this is not an argument to pull the plug - we're in this world of the extended-social-digital mind, and it's not going to disappear.

Undoubtably, there are genuine benefits that we gain from accessing this extended mind — but it’s critical to remember how this digital expanse has come into being, what forces are at play, and to recognize the ways in which it is changing our very being, stripping away our humanity and aliveness.

What is the shape of our Mind? What constitutes the process of mutual composition?

it's time to recognize the true shape of our Mind.

it's not just the lump of wetware atop your spine > it's the wetware, and the Internet, and your nervous system, and your heart, and your gut, and all the relationships that constitute who you are.

there is no way to separate your Mind (and therefor your being) from the rest of the Universe.

your Mind is part of a vast, complex, evolving field of interdependent forces giving rise to this whole mess of suffering - and your Mind is the hope of redemption, a refuge of love, and the possibility of Liberation.

We rise to meet the occasion —

today, there is a genuine movement towards a planetary, technofuedal stack of surveillance technology set to control all people in an increasingly totalitarian regime divorced from the value of reality itself.

without developing a shared grammar to orient ourselves to the real living forces preying upon our attention & developing practices of psychosecurity (or mental hygiene), we will be processed, manipulated, and our sacred attention shattered.

this is horrifying - and, fortunately (or not), you are directly participating in the fight against it - because your very Mind is the frontline of this battlefield.

[LIBERATING MIND] will be dedicated to investigating the nature of this moment, the essence & compositional process of Mind, and the path to reclaiming our cognitive sovereignty.4

as we share a unified field of value & mind, these practices & investigation are none other than that of liberation itself.

truthfully, I know very little about any of this - but I do know this is the most pivotal moment of our species lifetime, and if I have even the slightest chance to move us towards a liberated world, then I must throw myself fully into it.

so that’s what we’re here to do :)

though the noise you hear may be dark, there is no force powerful enough to put out the light inside you.

your actions — and your MIND — matter.

we cannot do this without you.

let’s strive on for a world attuned to what is good, true, and beautiful.

let’s fight for the unborn generations.

let’s do this together.

for love & peace,

River

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for three months, i've been living with my grandparents in the beautiful forests of western ma, feeling into the reverence of shared presence and deep, reciprocal relationality.

I've watched the ferns unfold and dandelions erupt from the earth, felt the sheen of dew upon bare feet as I walk outside to great the seven directions, bathed in the light of the rising sun… and each day i am massaged by scores of birdsongs, caressed by the hush of wind that breathes through the mass of vivid green limbs, and fed by a stream of love and friendship that emanates from this very home.

today, my season of living here ends and a 9-month journey of training at MAPLE begins. as I step from one place to the next, I want to offer this reflection in gratitude to Don and Janee, my grandparents and greatest inspiration in life.

lessons from my elder Stones

i am proud of my grandparents.

it’s been a delight to share in the daily life they lead, role modeling 60+ years of partnership and 55 years of attuning to the land they call home.

each morning, i give my grandparents a hug and watch how they greet this dear and challenging life. Papa Don steps into the kitchen with prayers on his lips, singing praise to our dear cat-friend Fonzi as he opens Fonzi's cage.

on sunny days, Papa Don sits where the light falls, letting the warmth of the sun sink deep into his skin as bird-song resonate all around. he journals often, then rises to greet Janee as she descends into the room. they move with familiar, quiet grace - taking vitamins, preparing coffee, slicing a pear and setting out a small bowl of nuts & dried berries - and then they sit and read together.

I listen to the voice of my grandfather as he reads out loud from the Science of Mind, Richard Rohr, and Mary Oliver - a daily ritual of reflection and attunement to the sacred — one small step, taken together.

the day unfolds in a familiar rhythm - showers, breakfast, feeding the chickens, tending the gardens and greenhouse that give nourishment so generously - purple asparagus towers, explosive arugula, vibrant poppies, rhubarb and greens…

and even in their 80s, both give care constantly towards their local community - organizing town board meetings and care for the nursery, giving rides to neighbors in need, helping friends with taxes and spending time with their youngest great grand-children, who live nearby.

this is what i notice perhaps above all else: care and rituals adorn their weaving of life.

care & rituals structure space

rituals give a structural shape to the time-dimension of life.

rituals like spaghetti on friday nights, a glass of wine and fresh veggies at 6, and the family gathering for stone-ground waffles and homemade apple sauce each weekend do more than bring people together —

they also carve out a sense of spaciousness, resisting the relentless commodification of time in our hypercapitalist-digital society. even simple rituals (any rhythmic, repeated social gathering) invite us into a timeless space, fit for real human connection and appreciation.

taken together, the life that emerges is rich in meaning, the flow of time slow & spacious. as we move in mutual attunement of our bodies, each other, and the natural world, each day is permeated by a deep sense of gratitude, wonder, and grace.

from this wellspring, I see my grandparents hold the world and each other with loving care, inviting in friends and providing a sanctuary to three generations of family.

the greatest gifts keep flowing

Papa Don once said to me that his philosophy of how to approach life can be boiled down to three words: curiosity, acceptance, and gratitude. the combination of all three, he suggests, might be called love.

the manifestation of this practice that I see is a life marked by friendship, family, and grace. the circle of friendship around my grandparents stretches far, and the bonds are deep.

people show up for one another in their times of need.

the community is real, durable, strong — something you can trust in.

this, I believe, is the blessing of deep roots, which stem from commitment. the fruits of a spiritual friendship stretching across six decades touch thousands of lives. the nourishment spreads through the land, transforming the social soil of a collective mind.

loving attunement and care radiates out, reproducing itself in each relational field, brightening every soul touched by the earnest care and compassion of the people who live here.

and that is the greatest gift I’ve received from my grandparents:

i’ve witnessed, first-hand, that through taking the small, incessant steps of life together, one breath at a time — two people can transform the world around them into a basin of love.

that’s why I believe in miracles.

I grew up in a basin of love. I’ve seen the magic of decades of friendship and generations of family living intimately together, sharing in the pains and beauty of life.

it doesn’t take conquering all competition and making millions of dollars — it comes from the slow, steady march of open minds and beating hearts, from unrelenting compassion, from those with the courage to greet the world with a smile, and the grace to be amazed.

this magic lives between us.

miracles are possible in our lifetime — they are waiting for you.

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three years ago, as a senior in college, I read the Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanly Robinson and felt my mental model of the world shift.

as the 21st century unfolded with each flip of the page, it finally landed for me that the rest of my life will be defined by a fight to adapt to and heal a deteriorating biosphere - and that our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being are inextricably entangled with the health of all our relations.

for the first time, I sat with the ecological devastation, famine, drought, destruction, and climate migration that will accompany me and my generation's children to our graves, and in that space came questions:

what should I do? what is my responsibility?

what can we make of this cognitive-ecological condition, handed down by the generations who built and maintain the machine of global capitalism and the paradigm of modernity?1

orientation | questions

the best conclusion I came to at the time was regenerating the health of our local ecosystems -- both the physical and our social world. I began exploring a series of questions. outwardly, I asked:

• how do we live (and die) well together?

• where are the best places of living & learning, and what makes them click?

• what are the most effective practices and scales for transformative work?

inwardly, I asked:

• what do I truly need in life?

• what does it mean to live ethically?

• how do I cultivate the confidence that I am sincerely doing all I can, all that i am called to do?

in the past year, asking these questions brought me to a pop-up campus, a 47 year old intentional community, a decentralized learning community in new york city, and to MAPLE - a modern monastery developing a collective that can steer advanced technologies towards caring for all life; blending the rigor of monastic practice with practical responsibility.

the throughline I’ve found so far comes down to a stance, an attitudinal approach, a spiritual practice & way of relating to life itself — that has something to do with metabolism & friendship.

3 ways of viewing the world

In Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliviera, she writes how she once was told there are three ways of imagining society: individualism, collectivism, and metabolism.

whereas the first two views perpetuate a division between the individual and the collective (and tend to reinforce the notion of humans being seperate from nature), “Metabolism evokes nested systems and entities that operate in rhythms and cycles and that are constantly exchanging and processing energy and matter.” (Oliviera, 215)

In other words, viewing the planet (and society) as a metabolism situates us within a living system, one world body composed of countless holonic bodies in direct relationship with each other.

metabolism offers us a lens fit for the complexity of our world — and with greater accuracy of understanding, it allows us to simultaneously focus our attention on the direct relational flows around us while sensing into the health of the whole.

this is where collective agency swells — as people tune into their metabolic role (what am I introducing into the metabolism? what relationships & flows of energy sustain me?) we gain clarity in relationship to our social-ecological needs and our individual capacity.

“In this worldview,” writes Oliviera, “one thing is clear: accumulation leads to scarcity.”

what is held in one place cannot be in another.

hoarding wealth and the accumulation of capital necessarily comes at the depletion of other areas of the greater body. therefore, we may have the responsibility “to keep the flow of reciprocities going in the collective bodies, including relationships with spirits and ancestors, so that metabolic regeneration and abundance can take place” (Oliviera 220).

what does this look like in real life?

generosity & the metabolism of friendship

there’s amazing work going on through Building Solidarity Economies (BSE) at UMass Amherst — an assemblage of teachings and network of learning projects aimed at advancing conditions from which communities can remake their own conditions for life.

this includes community land trusts, mutual aid projects, food & living cooperatives — all kinds of work and care that step outside the logic of capitalism and modernity to support friends and create a life worth living.

from my perspective, one of the simplest and most direct ways to enact transformation through your relations is the act of generosity.

through the lens of metabolism, giving is the greatest wealth — and from my direct experience, it is literally the work of miracles that remake this world.

gifts flow round

consider the flow of reciprocities I got to witness in just one day last week:

I woke up to invitation from my friend Teddy to drive out west, meet their friend, plant some seeds and maybe pick up a few plants. my grandma suggested giving some of my fresh-baked turmeric-rosemary sourdough, so I wrapped up half a loaf and drove over.

they were having breakfast and offered me a mind-blowing treat — pickled magnolia blossoms that they harvested themselves — and I gave them the loaf. instantly, I felt my spirit warmed from the exchange, my body relaxed and full of ease.

later, we met the friend and helped him fill a raised bed with dirt, planting wild cherries, hickorys, and other tree nuts in the soil. after nerding out on plants together, he offered us a number of young trees - hickory, oak, and persimmons, insisting they needed a good home.

like a good friend, Teddy had brought a gift as well and offered fresh-picked nettles and a vial of homemade reishi tincture in return.

gifts flow round.

reciprocity grows.

at the end of the time together, our new friend shocked us all by buying us lunch at a beautiful local bakery, and we sent him home with the leftover treats we shared together.

that ride home, I sat with the warm glow of friendship & fresh bread, the felt sense of vast abundance created by the dance of generosity, the nourishing movement of giving & receiving love.

this is how I want to hold life — how I want to approach all my relations in this world:

with reverence, with gratitude, with curiosity, with playfulness, with compassion — with the sense that we are inextricably linked, composing the same body, here together to make of it what we will — to make a world beautiful, good and whole.

i’m reminded of a passage from the Course of Miracles, which reads:

Giving and receiving are in truth one.

the frame of metabolism helps us dispel the illusion of separation — the very foundation of modernity whose violence and unsustainability has brought our world to a breaking point.

metabolism reveals the functional interdependence and highlights the agency we have to change our conditions through each and every relationship, human and non-human alike.

we are only here for so long — so what are we waiting for?

what gift can you give today?

how does it feel when you give to friends, to strangers, to community?

what happens when you dare to befriend the world?

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love, my friend

i write you 12 days after saying farewell to MAPLE, during which i’ve returned home, celebrated Shabbat with a dear friend, received Reiki I & II attunements, connected with the kiddos at Warwick Community School, meditated at Quaker Meeting at Mount Toby, played ultimate frisbee & started coaching, enjoyed lovely dinners and spiritual readings with my grandparents & friends, joined a group of Morris dancers and sang English folk songs over nachos, salvaged a gluten-free chocolate muffin experiment, and genuinely enjoyed this wild process of being alive.

today is March 29th as I write this, and a blanket of snow was just draped over the landscape of my brother’s home. in the stillness between moments of play with my nephew, I pause to reflect and wonder about the path forward and how we might walk it together:

how do we practice community & responsibility in the digital age? how do we re-animate the world? and how do we coordinate our efforts at the appropriate scale?

here then, are a few thoughts from a weekend of reading, meditation, and connection; and an invitation to participate in a small New England wisdom cooperative that’s asking these questions, mapping resources, and seeding projects together. (to become a contributor, email rivr.ston3@gmail.com)

i want to begin by sharing this episode of the Emerald, a podcast that melds music and thinkers across time into one immersive soundscape and journey of mind.

it takes the ideas from last week’s writing on how our energy and attention shapes the world further by exploring the traditional and modern understanding of the words “Law” and “Order”, as written briefly here:

In the modern world, words like 'law' and 'order' carry with them a good deal of sociocultural baggage, and are often associated with restriction, burden, and arbitrarily imposed rules. Yet historically, tradition after tradition sees an innate, artful order to the natural world and views the Law of the Land as something vibrant and alive, present in the breath and in the waters and in the endless cycling of the clouds. In this living vision of Law, nature unfolds along particular patterns and pulses, and the task of the human being is to understand what it means to align to this inherent pattern….At the heart of this Law is a responsibility to give back to the living web of which we are a part, and the understanding that in the very act of being alive, we owe debts to the larger cycle of creation…traditional visions of Law remind us that our responsibility to nature is not burdensome. In fact, to align to the larger web of life alleviates a great modern burden — the burden of isolation.

I. how do we practice community & responsibility in the digital age?

I’m reading Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker, in which he presents a society of Echinoderm-like lifeforms that strikes a deep, deep cord with the world we see today (in fact, multiple parts of the first 100 pages have rocked me to the point of tears this week, but I want to share this excerpt on the tension between the individual and community in particular):

this book was written in 1936, yet i can’t stop the chills when i read these lines:

“the ideology of super-tribes exercised absolute power over all individual minds under their sway…criticism was met either by blind rage or not heard at all. Persons who in the intimate community of their small native tribe were capable of great mutual insight and sympathy might suddenly, in response to tribal symbols, be transformed into vessels of crazy intolerance and hate directed against national or class enemies.”

we feel this in the currents of our mass media, see the manipulation of mind happening before our eyes…so what do we do this time? how do we live in true community, and coordinate action at the appropriate scale and time?

A Way of Practice: Open Mutualism

my friend Will Szal recently introduced me to something called Open Mutualism that is exciting to me, though i’m just beginning to scratch the surface. Will writes:

“One way to describe it is an ontology and epistemology grounded in encounter-based (see the work of David Abram, _The Spell of the Sensuous_, 1997) as opposed to right-based framework for relating with non-human entities. In practical terms—how does a community relate to its watershed? Does a framework for right-relationship emerge from federal environmental protections, or from the community’s direct relationship with the living river herself?

Mutualism itself refers to a timeless practice of cooperation and care; the "open” widens this frame beyond the human-to-human dynamic to include all of our relationships; removing the assumed separation between “us” and “nature” that has been baked into so much of our culture and economic models.

1

Sara Horowitz writes, “Mutualism is really just another word for a simple truth: citizens can join together to solve their own problems, even the most intractable ones".2

"This mutualist instinct is as old as humanity, and just as durable. It’s how the earliest Americans met their most essential needs; how the labor movement transformed the American economy by building the first safety net for workers in the 1910s and 1920s; how the New Deal enshrined that safety net in the middle of the American century; and how a remarkable coalition of mutualist organizations galvanized the civil rights movement by building power over the course of decades. Over the years mutualist institutions have taken many forms, and have been called many things—cooperatives, unions, religious groups, communes, mutual aid societies, mutuals, kibbutzim, tontines, fraternal societies, women’s organizations, trade associations—but they all spring from a common impulse: if neither government nor market forces are solving a problem that you and the people in your community share, why not solve it yourself?"

a chance to take stock

as our government strips away funding from crucial services and dismantles environmental protections, we’re faced with the opportunity to take stock of our essential resources and needs and work towards meeting them ourselves. Horowitz continues:

“when we break down the safety net into component parts, it’s a set of solutions to human needs—universal health care, education and jobs training, affordable quality food, clean drinking water, unemployment insurance, the protection of workers from exploitation...

The pathway for activists, foundation leaders, think tankers, and elected officials is to take their cues from the robust local communities rich with networks of community groups who have the “job” of delivering the next safety net infrastructure of health care, child and eldercare, training, and food delivery…”

introducing: the bioregion

the open mutualist frame adds another principle to this equation of care: grounding our focus in the bioregion — expanding our awareness to the flows of energy and nutrients that make up our local, interconnected region of life:

Bioregionalism is not a “return” to a more essential form of social life or State of Nature. Rather it is the assertion that the spatial and temporal boundaries for our regenerative paradigm already exist. They emerge from the land itself in the form of watersheds, soil series, and wind currents. People typically understand what is east, what is west of them, but know very little about what is upstream and what is downstream of them.

Undualling, at the heart of regeneration is the fertile ground to grow sovereign bioregional regenerative economies, which must navigate the water which flows downstream, and be accountable to them. Regenerative economies cycle value as they cycle energy and nutrients. They are defined by the “sheds'' of energy, nutrients, life, and activity which constitute a bioregion.3

Regeneration here is described by the Regen Foundation as, “Actions that increase the capacity, viability, and vitality of both the agent and system being acted within or upon.“

Framed in relation to humans and the planet, regeneration are those actions and processes which bring both human and the world which sustains us into greater capacity and vitality, in a reciprocal fashion. Regeneration posits that individual / communal well being emerges through environmental stewardship. It is the opposite of extraction.4

as we come into alignment with these natural patterns and build relationships of care with the people around us, may we find that our capacity to solve problems and meet our needs is far greater than we once thought it was.

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remember the great compassion that is your strength.

we can do this together.

let’s do our best today.

all the love,

river

Recommended further reading:

as it turns out, this is so.1

what does that mean for us?

as we pass through the spring equinox and life-energy begins flooding back through the land, we have an opportunity to sincerely consider the way our energy flows; to adjust our roles and relationships in this sacred world.

this writing is inspired by my studies at MAPLE, where we are investigating the nature of interdependent origination and recently read a passage from Ian McGilchrist’s

“The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning.”

McGilchrist writes:

I take it that we bring about a world in consciousness that is partly what is given, and partly what we bring, something that comes into being through this particular conjunction and no other. And the key to this is the kind of attention we pay to the world…

Of course what we find will govern what kind of attention we deem it appropriate to pay. But just as importantly, how we attend to the world in the first place governs what it is that we find. We make the world we live in by attending to it in a certain way, by our disposition towards it.

this description of reality lines up uncannily well with the Buddha’s teaching of interdependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda, in sanskrit) — the great insight into the chain of cause-and-effect that demonstrates how suffering is built up and how suffering ceases without remainder. McGilchrist investigates the role of the two hemispheres of our brain in bringing forth this world and how they serve our functioning:

What we call our consciousness moves back and forth between them seamlessly, drawing on each as required, and often very rapidly. For in humans, too, it turns out, the hemispheres pay different types of attention to the world – reach out a hand towards it (for that is what the word ‘attention’ means, the reaching out of a hand) in a different way or with a different set of priorities and values: to grasp and take for our own use, or to forge a connection and explore. The left hemisphere, as in birds and animals, pays the narrow-beam, precisely focused, attention which enables us to get and grasp: it is the left hemisphere that controls the right hand with which we grasp something, and controls the aspects of language (not all language) by virtue of which we say we have ‘grasped’ the meaning – made it certain and pinned it down. The right hemisphere underwrites sustained attention and vigilance for whatever may be, without preconception. Its attention is not in the service of manipulation, but in the service of connection, exploration and relation. That is, after all another reason why we reach out a hand – to connect, to create, to share in another's fate, or to explore the world for what it is.

nowadays, our attention is devoured by algorithms that prey upon our emotions and manipulate us with a diet of triggering content, most of which underscores the idea that this world is basically bad and unsafe — that what is real is the material and what can be measured, and we must manipulate these things — gain in power and control — so that we can make ourselves safe from all the danger *out there*.

if McGilchrist’s research and the teachings of the Buddha are true, you can see how dangerous of a view this truly is…now, imagine that view being scaled to the global level in a matter of minutes and what you get is our current condition.

so, what can we do?

Let's sit down here…on the open Prairie where we can't see a highway or a fence. Let's have no blankets to sit on, but feel the ground with our bodies, the earth, the yielding shrubs. Let's have the grass for a mattress, experiencing its sharpness and its softness. Let us become like stones, plants, and trees. Let us be animals, think and feel like animals. Listen to the air. You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it. Woniya wakan—the holy air—which renews all by its breath. Woniya, woniya wakan—spirit, life, breath, renewal—it means all that. Woniya—we sit together, don't touch, but something is there; we feel it between us, as a presence. A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it. Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds as our relatives.

— John Fire Lame Deer

one thing we can do today, right now, right here,

wherever we are, is follow our breath and notice the air. 2

The air can never be opened for our eyes, never made manifest. Itself invisible, it is the medium through which we see all else in the present terrain. And this unseen enigma is the very mystery that enables life to live. It unites our breathing bodies not only with the under-the-ground (with the rich microbial life of the soil, with fossil and mineral deposits deep in the bedrock), and not only with the beyond-the-horizon (with distant forests and oceans), but also with the interior life of all that we perceive in the open field of the living present - the grasses and the aspen's leaves, the ravens, the buzzing insects and the drifting clouds. When the plants are quietly breathing out, we animals are breathing in; when we breathe out, the plants are breathing in. The air, we might say, is the soul of the visible landscape, the secret realm from whence all beings draw their nourishment. (Abrams, the Spell of the Sensuous 226).

in this way, we can begin to drop all the prapañca (sanskrit word for extraneous thought, mental proliferation); all the abstracted, fabricated ideas about what this world really is and be present with what is truly here.

we may notice that when we stop rushing from thing to thing; when we stop assuming that we know the true nature of everything; when we ask “what if there is no problem to solve?”; when we attend to the present whole-heartedly, knowing that this is a true act of service for the benefit of all beings — that the outside world begins to respond and change in kind.

a blessing, in passing:

as spring dawns and snow thaws in a flash,

the creeks and streams of the mountains sing

chanting, chortling, gurgling, whispering, coursing, rushing with delight

after months of sitting, holding shape, holding crystalized patterns that so briefly gave each droplet a distinct form to free-fall into and onto the Earth; we see this great transformation.

overnight, a working of magic — and the snow is gone. Fresh life energy courses through the land, racing downhill, merging again and again into bigger and bigger waterways; filling the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, the oceans; drawn, as if by magic, towards some unseen call — giving life to all beings with their song, every moment of the way.

we might then ask ourselves:

what crystalized patterns are we holding to?

and what might happen if we stopped and listened to the energy of this breath, in this moment — how does our energy want to move? how do we respond?

in recognizing the great danger facing the people of this country as our government is captured by corporate wealth and immaturity, I want to share one clear, direct, and long-term action plan we can commit to together to fight for the wellbeing of all people.

this is a general strike, and the movement is growing. engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population (11 million Americans, in this case) has never failed to bring about change.

this solution will not be quick nor easy, but none will. if voting and protesting within a compromised system is not enough, we need to coordinate and channel true people power, at a massive scale.

this is work we can do together.

learn more, sign the strike card, and help give this movement life by spreading the word here.

thank you for taking the time to read with me today.

may we know the great compassion that gives our lives meaning & power; and may you be truly happy.

with love, river

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greeting friend!

today is February 8th, 2025 — one day after the birth of my tremendous amigo Dana McRae, and the first day of my second “Advance” week here at MAPLE — a week of intensive, silent meditation.

the experience of training here over the past month has been beautiful, challenging, profound. I feel myself rediscovering the sacred in life around me, and the beginnings of a form of self-trust that goes deeper than anything I knew before.

there’s a looong way to go still — but I am happy, deeply grateful, humbled and determined to continue on this path.

let us remember that our actions have consequences and our intentions are real and significant. we have collectively produced this world, and we all play are part in maintaining it. each day, we die and grow anew.

this breath is sacred.

so today, i’d like to share a verbal meditation on our relationship with water and technology, a glimpse of the land at MAPLE, and a brief poem I wrote in the last retreat. thank you for being here — may compassion and wisdom guide you forward, and may you be truly happy.

snowfall

give yourself completely

to each breath

like the snow falls

so gently

incessantly

ceaseless

a sure path

till stillness

speaks.

much love,

river

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my friends faces are bright, playful, beautiful. the energy we share is open and warm, reflecting off the wooden walls, rounded windows, and green plants than line the common room of Kailasha. i feel love sink deeper into my body with each breath, a reminder that i carry these people in my chest as i now depart and return to the city.

last weekend, we celebrated the 40th birthday of one of my dearest friends. after dancing, dining, laughing, cuddling, and loving on each other until the deep hours of the night, the Sirius crew rose to a morning of brilliant sun.

snow billowed and sprinkled down from the pines above in slow-free fall, frozen for a brief moment in sunlight, sparkling like a spirit as the flakes danced on the wind.

I followed my feet along the quiet woods, head tilted back, cheeks burning with the cold, breath fresh in my lungs. as i walked, snow crunching underfoot, i watched the breath of the forest come and go in gentle whisps of white that let go from their hold on the branches above, swirling in the space between limbs.

the peace of the forest is resounding after my time in new york city, and i can't help but laugh and smile at the sheer joy of its beauty.

the time with my friends here carries a similar warmth: after my walk, we clean the kitchen together and begin to cook a breakfast feat - omelets with fresh veggies, cheese, potatoes, local bread, bagels, bacon and tea - the aroma of which wafts through the house, filling the space between the stories, laughter, and conversation that flows freely.

when breakfast is served, we gather round the table to bless the food, holding hands. wooden bowls and mugs are carried across the room to the corner we call the squish, and we settle into a circle. the room is warm, well-lit by the morning sun which washes in through the east windows and casts a rosy glow on our faces.

a baby sits in the middle of us, eyes wide in wonder, exploring the space between all these people. I can feel the joy in the air, palpable as the food we eat.

I find myself in a massage train on the stairs 5 people deep and feel tears come to my eyes as I hold loss, love, and connection in the same breath.

all told, this place, and these people, are medicine to me.

later that day, after extracting people from the cozy cuddle corner by force, we geared up for the outdoors. 14 of us took the ice clad in sneakers and boots, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. we bore shovels, paddles, and an eclectic mix of brooms pillaged from our storage spaces.

teams were called by captains, a water bottle set on each side as a goal, and a small, purple ball dropped in the center of the ice.

in a clash of powder and dust people swept, thwacked, blocked, hacked, and scooped up the ball, battling for control in the chaotic whirl. people shouted and cheered. broom tops flew through the air. bodies crashed into each other, slipped, and screeched across the ice. after hours of contest, the sun began to set. a near full moon rose and watched a tie-breaker comeback win.

the sky glowed softly with the dying light, accompanied by the scuff of snow and the low groan of shifting ice. laughing and hugging as we walked off the pond, my heart burned with intense gratitude and warmth — the felt sense of family and home.

for now, beyond coaching ultimate at NMH again in the spring, i don't know what comes next. but i do know that this area is special.

sirius represents a taproot of love that is central to my life, and I want to be in relationship with these people, and this land. I want to ground in work, to live here for a year and develop my ability to build with my hands, to work the matter of this world, and see what emerges.

so i'm on the hunt for a carpentry job in western ma! (or teaching at a school that has need of me). if you have any ideas, i'd be grateful to hear from you :)

email: rivr.ston3@gmail.com

all my love,

River

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warm yellow light shines upon the long limbs of a 6’6 american man from a town of 800 people in the woods of Western MA, where the laurel grows. He wears a yellow hat knit by an angel of love & bears a dragon tattoo on his left shoulder.

a hand lies on the dragon’s throat - a dreadgods hand - the hand of Wei Shi Lindon, the Void sage. it is from the Void that creation occurs — where all new stories wait to happen.

this week, I moved into Merlin’s Place!

located in the Bushwick neighbor of Brooklyn NY, Merlin’s Place is an experiment in co-living & culture building - one of a number of third spaces that make up a decentralized community called Fractal.

I came to Merlin’s Place at the invitation of my dear friend Ulysses who has helped steward the space into an emerging hub for the performing arts and deep, embodied connection. an amazingly diverse body of perspectives and life paths walk through these doors, creating a rich and revolving culture of cooperation and exploration.

I’m here to explore this diversity of perspective and lean into new opportunities for learning, getting a taste for what’s possible beyond the relatively small scale of my home.

what makes this place special? what attractor brings these people together? what can we learn from each other - and how do I most want to grow?

these are a few of the questions riding with me as I’m settling into my first week at Fractal.

Trust Your Friends to Catch You

a surprise came on my first day in the city.

30 minutes after unloading my friend Dana’s car and settling down around the table to eat, the door to 1G opened and a familiar face popped in: Timothy Fay, one of my closest friends from Sirius.

I jumped up for a big hug, smile splitting my face, and savored the warmth of surprise and connection. Later that evening, I sat in my new room — a crawl space, perhaps 10 by 8 ft and shorter than my full height — and felt panic pulsing through my body as my head raced through my situation.

i’m making this move with no job, no city experience, and a lot of questions — who am I, what do I most desire, and what can I give this world? — and in that moment, I felt inadequate in the face of everything.

this community brings together people who share a pursuit of excellence, many high agency creators, innovators and entrepreneurs, people with great talents and big visions — and I felt scared that I wouldn’t fit in. That I’d take away from the space by not being capable enough to match them.

In that moment, Fay held space for me — and in the depth of that empathy and care I saw in his eyes, I tapped back into the reservoir of strength that is inside me. there was nothing major done — just a sense of sharing, being seen, validated — and then a series of little wins.

cook one dinner. clean up. wake up at 7:30, stretch, go for a run. start a sourdough experiment. learn how to tie an 8 knot and how to belay. go rock climbing for the first time with Fay and Ulysses — trust my friends to catch me when I reach for new heights and fall.

as i climbed, they gave encouragement and suggestions on how to approach the challenge again and again, till the problem was conquered and we hug and grin.

in this way we leaned into 5 beautiful days of connection and exploration in the city.

and day by day, I began to feel more comfortable in my place, in the uncertainty, in the possibilities that abound in such a place of openness and agency — especially when a culture of kindness and cooperation binds the people together.

You CAN Just Do Things

Across the street from where we live is a recycling center. Its beautiful murals caught my eye and Fay’s, and he immediately spoke up, asking a man outside if they we’re hiring. He received a curt and honest “I don’t know, go ask the office” and we went on our way, chuckling.

Later, Fay researched the place. Learned how it serves people in various ways, including a community garden, and he decided to follow through. I watched him go alone to see if he could talk his way into a job that wasn’t posted, trusting in his curiosity, his capability, and his positivity to open a door.

When he returned, there was no job — but I was struck by what he gained. He learned about what the community needed, giving him clear paths of development to pursue, and he had started building a relationship. He had flexed a muscle, and even second-hand I felt myself grow.

It reminded me that there’s another way of viewing this world, and at all times, I can inspect how I’m holding reality to be true. I’m curious about what I’m most hungry for — what work / opportunities would feel like a full-body fuck yes here?

For now, I’ll walk these streets with an active curiosity, roving eyes, and a bias to action. Fear might be a good signal to follow. I’ve got good friends to catch me, and countless conversations for inspiration.

Across the room, I smell the first sourdough lough in the oven. The night beckons with promise — the chance to practice Spanish with Ulysses by speaking with LLMs in real time, reading UNSONG (a new favorite book), cooking a fine meal with friends, and recording a podcast exploring the ideas and practice that sustain our well-being in life…all this just now, at the beginning, an impression of more to come.

I’m grateful to be here. Life keeps refilling the cup.

We’ll see what turns up next :)

May your feet feel steady upon the ground, your heart warm, and your head clear as you step into a creative week.

Sending love to you all,

Sam / River

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in the garden that Linda has tended for over 40 years, we sit and meditate. i hear the sounds of the leaves rustling in the wind, birdsongs and the sharp calls of crows, the swaying of tall, dry grass.

now, much of that life has passed to its next stage — bare trees wave fractal limbs above a garden whose flowers and crops are dying back. beds have been dug, shaped, and amended; sown with garlic or left to sleep till spring comes again.

the mast year of acorns have fallen and been collected, the Asian pears plucked, the paw-paws packed into the walk-in freezer to extend their sweet taste into the winter. chard and lettuce have been transplanted to the greenhouse, windows washed, and fires lit in our buildings.

What is Sirius?

in august of 2024, i moved into an intentional community called Sirius. it’s tucked away in the woods of Shutesbury MA, about two hours from Boston and three from NYC.

Sirius was built by decades of spiritual devotion and the hands of master carpenters, starting back in 1978. the forest is a mix of pine, oak, birch, and spruce, and the Connecticut river lies not far away.

you can wander the paths behind the main buildings and find marvels like a labyrinth, a stone circle, and a swamp ringed with vibrant green

moss. there’s a quiet, steady soul to the land and the buildings, but what i love most of all are the people who animate this shared home.

there’s a shared commitment to living with an open heart, to working with our hands, to partnering with nature, and choosing joy in the world that raises my spirits when I walk around the land.

at the same time, there’s a great deal of question in the air — like much of the world, we’re asking who are we, what do we stand for, and where are heading?

one of the most compelling ideas to me is that of fostering a bioregional education center — a hub for demonstration, practice, and networking where people can come to learn about building social and ecological resilience with the land and participating as part of a broader, regional movement to shift towards an economy that works for all.

today, sirius is composed of an intergenerational mix — 35 or so full members plus a crew of 6 interns, including myself, who co-steward the land we live on. we come together as a community on saturday mornings for “joyful productivity”, where we work together for three hours, meditate, and share a lovely vegetarian meal.

outside of this time, there’s a number of community circles that meet weekly to oversee various aspects of the community, shared dinners, and occasional events held in the Octagon, a gorgeous eight-sided room with polished wooden floors that holds our spiritual center.

the primary business model of Sirius at this time is our guest department, which hosts individuals, workshops, and retreats.

The Intern Program

In the three months since I joined in august, the bulk of my time has gone into maintaining our community gardens and executing a few construction projects.

we’ve done a major rehaul to the frog pond (at the expense of traumatizing the native tadpole/frog population), built a 10 x 20 shed for the backhoe, built a garden door, learned how to sauter wires after cutting them with a power saw (oops), and many more little things.

we’ve worked with concrete, cob, and carpentry; and taken a variety of classes including permaculture gardening, social forestry, tree identification, soil and composting, and family constellations.

all said and done — we’ve been busy, silly, and created many delightful moments that i doubt i can convey properly in words, in this way.

so here’s a different taste of sirius in the form of some of my favorite photos from our time, taken by the tremendous energy ball of love that is my friend Mariasha (see at the end)

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