Every Storm Runs Out Of Rain
What Stanley Milgrim Found
Addiction A Different Theory
“Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles. One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.
Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.”
So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water.
But here’s what’s fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction.
What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong.
The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard.
The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked.
Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.
Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can’t bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, sex, shopping… We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that.”
Credit: Johann Hari
The Vision Pulls You
The World Will Not Be Destroyed
There will always be those who do evil. We need to increase the number of people who recognise it, call it for what it is and fight back,. That is, after all, the price of freedom. Constant alertness, constant willingness to fight back.
If You Know The Truth
There was a person on Facebook who commented the following under this post, “I speak it and nobody I speak it to wants to hear it. I post it and I’m censored and shadow banned.”
I replied, “Keep speaking your truth Eileen, you do not always know who reads your posts then goes away and thinks about them or who sees another post corroborating it and changes their view based on multiple exposures.
I read many years ago from marketing materials that it took 6 exposures of a message to get through to people.
In the intervening 50 years I cannot imagine it now takes fewer, probably many more.”
Into The Weeds – Sponsored Showing
From our Founder
Mackenzie Feldman
Project Director of Re:wild Your Campus
If you don’t know Lee Johnson’s story, I want to take a minute to explain how important this hero is to our organization.
Back in 2018, Lee Johnson took Monsanto (now Bayer) to court, claiming that his non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer was caused by Monsanto’s herbicide, Ranger® Pro (containing the active ingredient glyphosate) during his time as a groundskeeper when he used the herbicide daily.
I attended many days of the trial, and on the day of the closing arguments, I was moved to tears, and wrote Lee a letter, telling him what an inspiration he is, and how Bridget Gustafson and I were trying to ban herbicides at UC Berkeley. I also told him that many people in my home state of Hawai’i were watching this trial, as Hawai’i is ground zero for pesticide-use and if he wins, there is hope that we can change regulations back home. I handed the note to one of the lawyers sitting in front of me (thanks Michael!) and asked if he could pass it to Lee. On the day of the verdict, after the judge announced that Lee had won the case, I introduced myself to Lee and congratulated him. He said he got my note and he was going to write me back, and that he wanted to get involved in what we were doing. Fast forward to today, and as I write this, I can’t stop smiling about all we have done together to advocate for change, and all we will continue to do.
Bridget and I brought Lee to UC Berkeley for a panel shortly after the trial for his first public appearance in the U.S. We worked with the Protect Our Keiki Coalition to bring Lee and his family to Hawai’i, and we got all herbicides banned from every public school in the state! This trial put the issue of pesticides in the public eye, and together we have catalyzed a movement of students and community members wanting to end the spraying of herbicides so that no other groundskeeper, landscaper, or agricultural worker has to go through what Lee Johnson continues to go through.
Lee, you have made a profound impact on my life, and all of our lives at Re:wild Your Campus. With this film, your story will get to impact countless others.
I really hope everyone reading this will join us in seeing the film on Tuesday.
Get tickets to a theater near you!
Give Life
The Departed
Expected Death ~ When someone dies, the first thing to do is nothing. Don’t run out and call the nurse. Don’t pick up the phone. Take a deep breath and be present to the magnitude of the moment.
There’s a grace to being at the bedside of someone you love as they make their transition out of this world. At the moment they take their last breath, there’s an incredible sacredness in the space. The veil between the worlds opens.
We’re so unprepared and untrained in how to deal with death that sometimes a kind of panic response kicks in. “They’re dead!”
We knew they were going to die, so their being dead is not a surprise. It’s not a problem to be solved. It’s very sad, but it’s not cause to panic.
If anything, their death is cause to take a deep breath, to stop, and be really present to what’s happening. If you’re at home, maybe put on the kettle and make a cup of tea.
Sit at the bedside and just be present to the experience in the room. What’s happening for you? What might be happening for them? What other presences are here that might be supporting them on their way? Tune into all the beauty and magic.
Pausing gives your soul a chance to adjust, because no matter how prepared we are, a death is still a shock. If we kick right into “do” mode, and call 911, or call the hospice, we never get a chance to absorb the enormity of the event.
Give yourself five minutes or 10 minutes, or 15 minutes just to be. You’ll never get that time back again if you don’t take it now.
After that, do the smallest thing you can. Call the one person who needs to be called. Engage whatever systems need to be engaged, but engage them at the very most minimal level. Move really, really, really, slowly, because this is a period where it’s easy for body and soul to get separated.
Our bodies can gallop forwards, but sometimes our souls haven’t caught up. If you have an opportunity to be quiet and be present, take it. Accept and acclimatize and adjust to what’s happening. Then, as the train starts rolling, and all the things that happen after a death kick in, you’ll be better prepared.
You won’t get a chance to catch your breath later on. You need to do it now.
Being present in the moments after death is an incredible gift to yourself, it’s a gift to the people you’re with, and it’s a gift to the person who’s just died.
They’re just a hair’s breath away. They’re just starting their new journey in the world without a body. If you keep a calm space around their body, and in the room, they’re launched in a more beautiful way. It’s a service to both sides of the veil.
Credit for the beautiful words ~ Sarah Kerr, Ritual Healing Practitioner and Death Doula
Beautiful art by Columbus Community Deathcare