NOT ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
In my last post I talked about Saturn in Aquarius themes. For the record, my Saturn is returning and I’m especially salty about Saturn subjects like leadership and authenticity and willingness to do any actual work.
THAT SAID, Saturn in Aquarius understands what community looks like - and what it does not.
As an exercise, go to the search box in your e-mail and type in the word “together”. Count how many e-mails have this word in them from the last 2 weeks.
I’ve received 41, not including e-mails from social justice organizations that have been talking about this topic for a long time.
I first started to get angry when I got an e-mail with the subject line “We’re all in this together”, sent to me by Planoly, a project management software for social media. My anger curdled to rage when I began to see healers I have generally respected speaking to their large audiences about togetherness
a) without acknowledging the unique impacts of this situation on different individuals and communities,
b) without really defining what togetherness means,
and c) using the concept of togetherness to get me to buy something from them.
We are all affected by this crisis but we are not all affected in the same way or to the same extent. Read that again.
We are NOT all having the same experience.
When we fail to acknowledge that the circumstances of individuals in our audiences are unique, we place genuine togetherness on the top shelf; in the hands of the few and out of reach for the many. We make it available only to those who fit some cookie-cutter version of the people we want to address. This cookie is often white, financially-resourced, attractive, thin, able-bodied, cis-gender, heterosexual, educated, literate and english-speaking.
Speaking only to this version of people in order to be “accessible” means participating in the erasure of anyone who doesn’t meet the centered norm. In wellness, this version of togetherness is basically reserved for privileged, ignorant white ladies.
Leaders in the wellness community cannot continue to make blanket statements as a substitute for togetherness. We are not all “exactly where we are supposed to be.”
We don’t know who has coronavirus. We don’t know who has asthmatic conditions from living in a poor neighborhood that was picked as the appropriate spot to dump air pollutants. We don’t know who has a sick parent or child in another state that they can’t help. We don’t know who is sheltering alone in their home with a long history of disordered eating. We don’t know who can’t get access to vital medication. Who is an “essential worker” without health insurance. Who doesn’t have a roof or a shower or electricity or clean water.
We cannot talk about death and sickness as purely political ideas that “bring us all together” under god’s grace if we’re not willing or able to sit with the tangible challenges that affect our audiences. We cannot treat them simply as opportunities for our audiences to “learn and grow”. How dare you tell a chronically-ill black single mother who just lost her job that her situation is a “manifestation of spirit” and that “this is her moment for expansion”. It’s an act of capitalism and of a collective that is unwilling to confront it. This and every moment should be hers to be supported. Support her by refusing to use narratives that erase her. Also send her some money and make your wellness offering free for her.
I want influencers to interrogate the language they use to unite people. I want them to explore why they want to bring people together in the first place and stop if it’s an ego trip. If you’re an influencer reading this, I hope you take responsibility for nuance. I hope you commit to learning about and consistently acknowledging the plethora of stories that make your audience amazing. I hope you can use any clarity this brings you to change the way you think about engaging with your audience. I also hope you can be gentle with yourself because it’s easy to get swept up in the corona craze. I hope you can evade the vat of self-hate by jumping into action. Guilt is rarely helpful. Instead, I hope you can ask yourself what empowered collective discourse actually sounds like and begin to offer it. I hope you can use your platform to be more permissively radical. I hope you continue reading.
Let’s be real, ^this^ is an issue in the hands of a few and isn’t likely going to change soon.
In light of this, I want you, the audience, the people who are reading and listening, to get curious about the language your wellness practitioners are using. Question your guides. Wonder what is missing. You can be curious and critical and remember that critique has a purpose: so you know what to change.
To be clear, togetherness is a beautiful ideal that is very useful in the midst of crisis. The etymology of togetherness comes from Old English togædere "so as to be present in one place, in a group, in an accumulated mass”. Obviously, this is out of reach in many ways right now. It was also an adjective that meant ”self-assured, free of emotional difficulties”, a nod to the healing quality of true belonging.*
Togetherness is about collaboratively addressing the needs of the people around you. It doesn’t leave anyone out. It brings distinctive threads, stories, and ideas to a specific place, literally or figuratively, to change something.
I’ve been meditating on the latin phrase solve et coagula, meaning dissolve and coagulate, oft referenced by Carl Jung to describe an important psychological process.
Step 1: solve - you must first break down and separate the unique experiences, aspects and issues that are very real for you
Step 2: coagula - unite the separated elements, thereby creating a higher form
This process works on both the individual and collective level.
The key is that separation comes first. Togetherness can’t be genuine or complete without recognizing the distinguishing lines that make each of us and our experiences remarkable.
Sameness in community is not only boring, it’s absurd. Part of truthful and loving discourse is acknowledging that we are not the same and we are better for it. A visionary doesn’t dismiss what a group of unexceptional people decided is wretched. A visionary offers new ideas about how we lift up the floor when the ceiling is far too high for most to see. A visionary recognizes that we are only as healthy as whoever is most ill.
A reminder before I continue: Community is worth pouring one’s heart and soul into.
People in panic are superficially, perhaps even falsely, preaching togetherness, seeking the reaction of their audiences or worse, the purchase of goods and services. “Togetherness” has become another healing buzzword on which to capitalize.
Capitalism knows no boundaries.
We are in the middle of a financial crisis. It’s not wrong to ask for support, financial or otherwise from your community. It’s not even wrong to ask for help from the masses. But using a surface-level idea of togetherness in the middle of an international pandemic when you a) don’t know what togetherness means and b) have no prior, current or future intent to actually perform the cumbersome labor of community building, is disgusting.
It is a confusing and misleading message to tell people you are “in this together” when you are not. It’s manipulative.
When shit hits the fan, you are either together out of physical circumstances or desire, hopefully both. You are together with the people in your home or on your block. You are together with the select community that you have probably already built, trust and care enough to call and check in. You are together with the people you are willing to be with in conflict and ease.
I’m not denying the reality and importance of love for the collective. However, I think true expressions of that kind of love are VERY rare. More frequently, I see people expounding an idea of which our individuated culture has given little to no example.
On a related note, the word “tribe” should NOT make its way into most newsletter subject lines. Aside from being culturally appropriative if one has no ancestral lineage in tribal cultures, telling people you don’t know that they are family to you is weird. And in some cases, it’s abusive. It says we are together without giving some person WHO YOU’VE NEVER MET the choice about whether or not they want to be connected to you in that way.
A list of newsletter subscribers is NOT a tribe.
An instagram audience is NOT your family.
The internet, much as it may be a tool for connection, is NOT your sisterhood.
It’s okay to say “we are one”, but you have to also acknowledge that we are many.
In my experience, true togetherness is built with attention, consistency, resources and often, physical presence.
I’m not saying that everyone who has used the word together in the last two weeks is fake. Far from it. I know a lot of people talking about togetherness who are doing the work. But Saturn in Aquarius requires us to confront questions of authenticity in our leadership.
Togetherness isn’t something you purchase. It’s something you invest in.
I dream of a world so completely invested in togetherness that billionaires don’t exist.
That everyone has enough because there is enough and it’s being shared.
That we are all happy to stay home right now because it’s a gift to each other’s health.
That rent is obsolete and everyone experiences homefulness.
That people can be afraid but not be fearful of sharing how scared they are.
That vulnerability is a quality we value.
That death is embraced as lovingly as a newborn child.
I dream of belonging to a society that listens to the person having the hardest time because they most know what is needed.
That uplifts the wisdom in the experiences of the chronically ill.
I dream of a community that recognizes when someone commits a crime, there’s a deeper and larger problem that needs a remedy.
That seeks to help rather than hiding the hurt away in a cage where we can’t see it.
I dream of such a profound sense of belonging with our earth that when we make a vaccine to save our lungs, we also make a plan to stop destroying hers.
I dream of a such intra-connectedness that humans are not the center of everything.
That looking out the window is more interesting and nourishing than staring at your screen.
That rest not some far-off ideal, but something that the structure of my community supports so every single member receives it regularly.
I dream of a world where healthcare is not designed to make a profit, but to heal people.
I want to know every one of my neighbors by name and I want to feel comfortable calling them in the middle of the night in an emergency. I want them to feel safe to call me too.
I want a world without police.
I want leaders who steward rather than govern.
Who care rather than control what caring looks like.
Who won’t wrap togetherness up in a neat and pretty little box but instead lets it sprawl out all uneven, messy, filthy enough that nobody thinks they’re not allowed to touch it.
This world is a long way away and we might not see it in our lifetimes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t contribute to it.
Beginning to reach for that world starts with being honest about the one we live in. It might mean taking more time. Listening longer. Letting silence settle beyond what you think you can bear.
When slowing down becomes urgent enough that you can be alone for a while, ask yourself, who is your true community? Who are you really in this with?
The beautiful thing about this question is that the answer is generally very clear when you ask it. You know already who you have invested in and who has invested in you. You also might see open doors to groups with whom you aren’t yet united, but might like to be. Action becomes obvious. Words flow with little effort. Change arrives at your fingertips. And community is right there.
*https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=together
Here are some examples of togetherness I’m currently loving:
Toi Marie Smith and Business for the People
Jen Lemen: Noon-time Metta (ask on IG), 31 Things you can do in the time of Coronavirus and Path of Devotion Basics
If this resonated with you and you want to talk about the ways you cultivate real togetherness through the lens of your personal astrology, you can book a natal chart session with me.