10 Oct 2026
S7E3: 🌑♎️ Memos with Friends- “It’s a sad song, we sing it anyway”- Connecting in Collapse w/ Carmen Spagnola
Y’all. I have been dragging my feet on releasing this podcast. Partially because I was tending to my October 1 commitment to self and spirit to release Feral Diaries, but also because this episode activates all the emotions that come up in me around the question and developmental task of- “How do I connect with people in down-power positions in times of collapse?” The hope for this series was for Carmen and I to companion one another in the release of our upcoming books, and specifically to promote hers. In episode 1 of this miniseries, Carmen and I discussed how important an analysis of power is to being in good relationship- or “How to connect with people in down-power positions?” In episode 2, Carmen’s dog Mona had died, and that episode felt like a huge developmental task of grappling with “how do I connect with people in their times of personal collapse?”
But the events included in these voice memos for this podcast, July 27-September 14 include Carmen’s home and farm destroyed by the BC fires. And the dissolution of her Co-Op Publishing House- 9th House Press. There is so much grief and rage around this tragedy, as well as moments of clarity, joy, and satisfiability (See: Carmen’s Instagram)
This episode is really shining a light on my deepened sense of yearning to discover, “As a person with enough resources to be comfortably cushioned by the worst effects of collapse, what does it look like to meaningfully connect with those bearing the brunt of collapse?”
I don’t have a definitive answer. A part of me cringes that I am even centering my feelings here on my podcast and substack. “The world is on fire! Carmen lost her home! October 7th has come and gone yet again and Israel is still genociding Palestinians! DO SOMETHING!”
That part of me is wise, and hurting that there is nothing I can realistically do to solve the predicaments of collapse. But then I remember this concept of “Small and Delicious Life” that Carmen and Ruben practice and teach. Sustainability-Behavior Change= Small and Delicious Life. Ruben said once in a collapse AMA “We can’t convince people to change with information and pleads for behavior change, our best hope is offering social proof. Don’t tell people all the reasons to recycle and demand they recycle, just be a person who recycles.”
“We can’t convince people to change with information and pleads for behavior change, our best hope is offering social proof. Don’t tell people all the reasons to recycle and demand they recycle, just be a person who recycles.” (Words to that effect)- Ruben Anderson
I suspect that this is the direction I am heading. I want my life and my art to be in service of offering social proof that the privileged white and owning class can value their shared humanity with the global majority and working class white folks as well as their place in the larger animistic world more than hoarding more power, comforts, and conveniences.
I still grapple, I still feel uncertainty, I still doubt. But what if I do it anyway, the best way that I can today knowing that it can look different in a month or a year or a decade. What if I can be compassionate with the uncertainty, but still proceed as though I know where I am going?
Because I do. I am reaching for connection. I am reaching for healing. I am trying to live my life, be with people, and make art in service of softening the hold that oppressive systems of domination have over us— keeping us doing their dirty work.
The perfectionistic, image-concerned, “woke and wealthy white lady” in me doesn’t want to release this podcast episode, because it is opening up messy questions and big feelings with no happy ending. But I have sat with this part of me and assured her there is safety and belonging ahead, even if it might not be with who we expect, and even if the path ahead is messy, we have many beloveds holding us in their care.
Because I do. I have already begun sending memos back and forth with two other Numini who know
