The past few weeks I’ve been at a loss for what to say here, so I haven’t said much. There is so much pain and so much inhumanity and so much grief, so so much wrong, it’s made me question what the point of my own life is, or at least the point of my work which I sometimes confuse with the point of my life. I’ve felt out of my depth in trying to understand reproductive rights, gun laws, minority rule, gerrymandering, climate change, all of the things that are happening around us that swell and show up like a million points of dust blotting out the entirety of our existence. When so much is wrong, where does one even begin.
I love how you weave the personal and political together in such an elegant, seamless and poetic way. Steve Van Zandt, long time Bruce Springsteen guitarist and organizer of artists against apartheid which did so much to take that system down in Sputh Africa once said: all politics is personal. It is also said that in order for evil to succeed, it takes good people to do nothing (paraphrase) we all need to act: whether it’s your beautiful writing, music, voting, organizing, protesting, whatever. Thank you for your voice
"This system is built on addiction: to money, to power, to drugs, to materialism. It is a system that prizes production and things over human life, that counts on our emptiness (caused by that prizing) to be satisfied by an unending parade of cheap externalities that never satisfy because they couldn’t. It is a system that creates and then bets on hungry ghosts, and therefore bets on sickness, and therefor bets on detachment and survival and scarcity and self-interest and indifference."
THIS. So. Much. This.
Well put!
Thank you so much for the gift of your writing, the gift of yourself. ❤️
You never write anything less than the truth Holly. The whole fucking system is powered by ‘not enoughness’ - we are conditioned to believe that we are not enough, that we do not have enough, that there is not enough for everyone. We are not thin enough, lovable enough, sexy enough, thin enough, smooth enough, white enough, straight enough, and on and on the machine churns spewing misogyny, sexism, racism, able-ism, addiction, depression, suicide and privilege and entitlement in its wake. Recovery matters because recovery is about breaking the trance and discovering that we are enough, that the lives we have are enough, and that the system no longer has us in its power. It does fucking matter and so do you and all the seed scatterers 💜
Also I loved this from Chanel Miller: “so many of the oppressive forces in the world are just waiting for us to give up. If I just keep showing up, and you can’t make me feel ashamed, that should be pretty intimidating.”
Thank you for your words Holly!! Also just want to hard second Caliban and the Witch, which I have thought about every single day since I read it the first time some years ago now. <3
I remember when the pandemic hit and everything shut down; everyone was so distraught and up in arms about the brakes on all we knew day to day. I will preface this by saying that I wasn't in a financial situation that scared me although my family is not 'set for life.' I was actually very happy about the world coming to a halt. I had been feeling like traveling, purchasing, working yourself to exhaustion...was insane and I knew in my gut that something had to give. I didn't anticipate the magnitude or ubiquitous spread of political polarization, climate change, gender rights, gun control or number of lives we would lose to covid and of course these , in themselves, made me fearful and ungrounded and has been what I have navigated since May 2020.
Continuing to work on my sobriety during this time was everything. Everything I learned about recovery gave me the tools to walk through all of this other muck. I have also decided that the only thing I have control over are my words, actions and thoughts towards other people and situations and I am committed to awareness of those parts of myself and making sure my energy adds to the impulse towards love.
Your last line absolutely resonated with me - “recovery underwrites what is possible for us” (paraphrasing).
That is so true! I’m almost three months alcohol free and I am experiencing life in very raw, clear, vivid ways-because things were so blurred before. And my newfound clarity has opened up so many doors for me, in this relatively short amount of time.
I want you to know that none of this would have been possible if I hadn’t read your book. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!
I love you. You were one of the most important people in my life when I needed you most. You walked me out of that terrible dark place and back into the light. Back home. You'll always be so important to me.
This newsletter is a beacon in my mailbox, and seems to arrive there whenever I need it most. I am not concentrating at work and googled a symptom of my burnout, one of the slides in the non-professional tips I found says this:
Alcohol is simply bad for you no matter what your condition. And not only that but it can also exacerbate many of the most common symptoms – by making you more dizzy for instance when standing and by upsetting the heart rate further. Just avoid this one!
It makes me smile in the non research backed way it is written and I would have hated it and clicked out of the site in 2002 and then again in 2013. But here we are and I decided to share it.
Thank you for everything Holly. Mentally welcoming you back to the West Coast.
You mentioned Viola Davis & I knew I wanted to read her book, but when I heard that she had also done audio for her own book...I knew that I wanted to hear her powerful voice vs just read the pages. I listened driving up from FL to NC on vacation & it took most of the trip to complete. I certainly wasn't disappointed & I loved at the end where Viola Davis suggested that if you loved the book....buy a copy & pass it along to a friend. Every chapter was full of endless wisdom. I ended up buying a copy to have in my permanent library. Thank you for including the quote from her. I'm a big fan of Viola and also You, Holly! Thank You for all you do.
I love how you weave the personal and political together in such an elegant, seamless and poetic way. Steve Van Zandt, long time Bruce Springsteen guitarist and organizer of artists against apartheid which did so much to take that system down in Sputh Africa once said: all politics is personal. It is also said that in order for evil to succeed, it takes good people to do nothing (paraphrase) we all need to act: whether it’s your beautiful writing, music, voting, organizing, protesting, whatever. Thank you for your voice
Thankyou so much. Just read this on the brink of relapse and I needed the reminder of that last sentence.
I read this post as I sat on the steps outside of the clinic after my first time ever getting Botox. 😂
Anyways…thank you for this post and the links. Keep going. Don’t stop. 💗💗
Thanks for the bump
"This system is built on addiction: to money, to power, to drugs, to materialism. It is a system that prizes production and things over human life, that counts on our emptiness (caused by that prizing) to be satisfied by an unending parade of cheap externalities that never satisfy because they couldn’t. It is a system that creates and then bets on hungry ghosts, and therefore bets on sickness, and therefor bets on detachment and survival and scarcity and self-interest and indifference."
THIS. So. Much. This.
Well put!
Thank you so much for the gift of your writing, the gift of yourself. ❤️
You never write anything less than the truth Holly. The whole fucking system is powered by ‘not enoughness’ - we are conditioned to believe that we are not enough, that we do not have enough, that there is not enough for everyone. We are not thin enough, lovable enough, sexy enough, thin enough, smooth enough, white enough, straight enough, and on and on the machine churns spewing misogyny, sexism, racism, able-ism, addiction, depression, suicide and privilege and entitlement in its wake. Recovery matters because recovery is about breaking the trance and discovering that we are enough, that the lives we have are enough, and that the system no longer has us in its power. It does fucking matter and so do you and all the seed scatterers 💜
Also I loved this from Chanel Miller: “so many of the oppressive forces in the world are just waiting for us to give up. If I just keep showing up, and you can’t make me feel ashamed, that should be pretty intimidating.”
Thank you for your words Holly!! Also just want to hard second Caliban and the Witch, which I have thought about every single day since I read it the first time some years ago now. <3
I remember when the pandemic hit and everything shut down; everyone was so distraught and up in arms about the brakes on all we knew day to day. I will preface this by saying that I wasn't in a financial situation that scared me although my family is not 'set for life.' I was actually very happy about the world coming to a halt. I had been feeling like traveling, purchasing, working yourself to exhaustion...was insane and I knew in my gut that something had to give. I didn't anticipate the magnitude or ubiquitous spread of political polarization, climate change, gender rights, gun control or number of lives we would lose to covid and of course these , in themselves, made me fearful and ungrounded and has been what I have navigated since May 2020.
Continuing to work on my sobriety during this time was everything. Everything I learned about recovery gave me the tools to walk through all of this other muck. I have also decided that the only thing I have control over are my words, actions and thoughts towards other people and situations and I am committed to awareness of those parts of myself and making sure my energy adds to the impulse towards love.
Thanks Holly. I so enjoy your writing.
Thank you so much for this Holly!
Your last line absolutely resonated with me - “recovery underwrites what is possible for us” (paraphrasing).
That is so true! I’m almost three months alcohol free and I am experiencing life in very raw, clear, vivid ways-because things were so blurred before. And my newfound clarity has opened up so many doors for me, in this relatively short amount of time.
I want you to know that none of this would have been possible if I hadn’t read your book. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!
I love you. You were one of the most important people in my life when I needed you most. You walked me out of that terrible dark place and back into the light. Back home. You'll always be so important to me.
This newsletter is a beacon in my mailbox, and seems to arrive there whenever I need it most. I am not concentrating at work and googled a symptom of my burnout, one of the slides in the non-professional tips I found says this:
Alcohol is simply bad for you no matter what your condition. And not only that but it can also exacerbate many of the most common symptoms – by making you more dizzy for instance when standing and by upsetting the heart rate further. Just avoid this one!
It makes me smile in the non research backed way it is written and I would have hated it and clicked out of the site in 2002 and then again in 2013. But here we are and I decided to share it.
Thank you for everything Holly. Mentally welcoming you back to the West Coast.
You mentioned Viola Davis & I knew I wanted to read her book, but when I heard that she had also done audio for her own book...I knew that I wanted to hear her powerful voice vs just read the pages. I listened driving up from FL to NC on vacation & it took most of the trip to complete. I certainly wasn't disappointed & I loved at the end where Viola Davis suggested that if you loved the book....buy a copy & pass it along to a friend. Every chapter was full of endless wisdom. I ended up buying a copy to have in my permanent library. Thank you for including the quote from her. I'm a big fan of Viola and also You, Holly! Thank You for all you do.