I’m seeing a pattern… and it’s not what I expected.

The doom scroll does its job. We’re doomed, it’s doomed. It will take forever to recover from all the harm that is being inflicted, both here and around the world. There are people and institutions and entire geographies that will be lost or forever damaged. That’s true and tragic and infuriating, difficult to absorb. Impossible to take in in its entirety.

The reactions to this treachery are varied. There is fight, and there is fear. There is resistance, and there is withdrawing. There is standing up, and there is hunkering down.

There are questions that arise in the context of massive layoffs, corporate and industry instability, and a government gone rogue. If the old patterns and means of security aren’t secure any more, if the traditions and norms we have relied on have been razed, what is the point of playing by these “rules” that no longer apply? What might be possible if you don’t have to stay in the prescribed box?

There is what feels to me like a collective cocooning. People are turning inward so they can focus, getting clear on what is important to them right now. If what used to feel safe can’t be counted on, what really matters to me? How do I hold on to myself and those I love? How do I regulate my nervous system? How do I help my community?

This cocooning is alive with energy, focus crystalizing into clarity, the butterfly gathering itself, preparing to fly. The gift of contrast is helping to form the vision of what is possible if we did it all differently.

Here’s who is showing up for me right now at work: I’m getting some ferociously heart-centered people who are ready to take the leap and bring their purpose/mission/art/expression into the world. I consider all of these people artists, and I use the word artist broadly - they are people who want to use their voice, vision, and passion to impact the world. Sometimes they present as someone who needs to figure out their current job so they can spend the time on their actual life’s mission on the side. But by the end of the conversation, they realize that isn’t really what they want to do and they are being pulled, nudged, whispered to, KNOW that Now is the time to take the leap and Do The Thing. They are done ignoring the whisper, fighting the urge, talking themselves out of the dream. They are ready to step into their powerful mission.

The butterfly is ready. The artists are coming. I am hopeful.