[0] Welcome to Abundant Futures
(podcast transcript)
Professor, author and activist Audrey Lorde says that we cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools. And when it comes to capitalist imperialism, the tools of the empire are ownership and control that challenge of our time today, as we make this paradigm shift away from scarcity, away from capitalist imperialism, and towards abundance, towards love and liberation is the human condition.
We are humble spirits and human bodies, and so we are succumbed to the human condition. The human body is designed to subconsciously internalize our environment, and because capitalist imperialism is the dominant paradigm really at a global scale, in this moment in time, we subconsciously internalize the myth that ownership and control is our ticket to safety.
However, the very pursuit of ownership and control is the thing that most threatens our safety. Humans are social creatures. Ownership and control are antisocial behaviors. Real safety is rooted in trust and consent.
So if our conscious intention is to invest in peace on Earth by divesting from capitalist imperialism, it is important that we bring to our conscious awareness the ways that we are unconsciously giving life to the capitalist empire, through the ways that we relate to ourselves, each other and the world around us.
Welcome to the Abundant Futures Podcast, where we aid the collective transition from scarcity to abundance by divesting from imperialist relationship norms. I'm your host Forest queer witch certified relationship coach and disciple of love.
May you be filled with hope by expanding your awareness and understanding the actionable steps you can take to day for a better tomorrow.
May you feel inspired by the real world examples of what's possible outside of capitalism, imperialism.
May this be in service of collective liberation. And so it is.
Welcome to the Abundant Futures Podcast. I am so excited. I am so excited to get this off the ground. I have been planting seeds for over a year now and been watering them. It's taken so much patience, so much care and love.
Oh, and now they're sprouting and ooh, maybe you can relate to how delicious of a feeling that is. It's a good feeling. But it's not just about me, you know? Like, this is the time for what I have to say, because so many people are resonating with this inside podcast form that I need to actually stop having all of these one on one conversations and start scaling it out larger because the soil is fertile right now for the messages that I'm relaying from Spirit.
Most of what I'm going to share is just observations of how capitalist imperialism sneaks its way into our everyday relationship norms, because there's obvious ways that capitalist imperialism dominates us. We can look at the genocide in Palestine or really just the genocide anywhere in the world, historically or present. We can look at the policing and the jail system and the U.S. empire. My goodness, what a disaster. So violent. Those are more obvious ways because, you know, physical violence is the easiest to notice. It's really in your face. But what about the less obvious ways that capitalist imperialist violence sneaks its way into our relationship dynamics with ourselves and each other? What about the emotional violence, the spiritual violence?
A lot of what we consider, quote unquote, normal today, those are really just norms of the empire. And the same thing goes with traditions. I really often hear people say, oh, I'm more of a traditional kind of person. I'm not open to X, Y, Z. I'll give you a more concrete example. So
I was talking with someone who was really sad that she was going to lose her name, her heritage, because her parents emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. and she was marrying a white man and she was going to take his last name and she was like, oh, I just feel so sad. I feel so stressed that I have to, like, lose my last name. My heritage is so important to me. And from a place of genuine curiosity, he asked her. I was like, Well, has he considered taking your last name? And she immediately laughed that off, as if it were not even a possibility. And she said, Oh, no, he's too traditional for that. Those traditions, traditions of patriarchy, empire,
the things that we default to as normal or traditional, these are not things that our ancestors were practicing. They would not consider this normal.
But because we've been born into this paradigm, it's really hard to notice those things because it's all that we know. It's all that we see reflected back to us in mainstream media and really just social norms everywhere. It's just constantly reinforced.
Abundant Features Podcast is here to inspire hope for what is possible outside of capitalist imperialism, because it's very much possible. If you haven't noticed, it's already on its way out. The Empire is collapsing in on itself and I don't just mean the US Empire. Yes, that's true. It's very visceral. It's a little chaotic of a feeling, honestly. But you know, it's temporary. We'll cross this line.
But really, empire is a world order. It's just done that's composed to create something new, something life giving is literally if we continue on this path of capitalist imperialism as a world order, but really just anywhere, this is an energy that is destructive, it is not life giving, and it will destroy life on Earth. It will destroy the planet that's already in the process of doing that. And it's interfering with our relationships with ourselves and each other. No more of that. I know all of us are sick and tired of it. Whether or not we have the words to articulate what the thing is that we're sick and tired of. But you know, it literally doesn't even matter which side of the political spectrum that you're on. Like everybody hates the system. They just call it different things that they point their fingers at different people. But we're all sick and tired of this. So hope is so damn important when it comes to a paradigm shift. Hope is the fuel really. Without hope, there is no action. Without action, there is no future.
So what you believe becomes reality, what you imagine becomes reality. If you don't believe that peace on Earth is possible, then it won't become possible. But if you choose to believe, if you can envision in your hearts, I like, what would peace on earth look like? What would it feel like? Let's dream of that possibility together.
Then it actually creates the possibility for it to become true.
Hope is a practice. It's not something that's just there or it's not. It's not something you're born with or you're not. It is a flame that we continue to fan and keep alive. Hope is really just a choice, and it takes a lot of courage to choose to engage with hope. So many people I know, myself included, not today, but historically, so many people are too afraid. Too afraid to open their hearts to hope. They say, well, what if what if I get my hopes up and then it doesn't come true? I would be devastated.
Part of why Hope is so courageous is because it requires the courage to risk your heart breaking, to risk that feeling of disappointment and devastation. But ironically, if you take a look around at the world, chaos, just the global crises and the local crises happening at the hands of capitalist imperialism,
my heart is already broken. I'm pretty sure so many people's heart is broken. Whether or not we're able to name that. But if you feel angry at what's happening at all the injustice in the world, something that Lama Rudd owns taught me is that all anger is rooted in heartbreak, and anger usually points to a boundary that has been crossed.
So anger is a very healthy response to what's happening. I mean, all emotions, you know, there's no good or bad or emotions. They all hold their own wisdom. Anger has a time and a place. Anger in the presence of hope leads to individual and collective boundaries. If we all choose to engage in hope and meet our anger at the intersection of hope, then we have a revolution. We can set a collective boundary and we can change things.
If our anger is in the absence of hope, it just leads to more destruction.
When we're angry and we don't believe a better future is possible, we don't believe change is possible. Then 100% will not become possible. And so what happens to that? Anger does not get channeled towards setting a collective boundary. It becomes destructive of it becomes self-destructive. We start to emotionally implode in on ourselves. It leads to severe depression. Maybe even suicide. It's not the ideal outcome. The ideal outcome is like, Let's hold this together. We don't have to be in isolation in our big feelings. We can all come together, hold each other, and facilitate collective change together in the name of collective liberation. May it be so.
Hope is a practice. It's a choice to have courage. It's a choice to dream. And I will say, you know, the Empire conveniently does not teach us the skills to cope with big emotions. So it doesn't hurt, you know, to have the ability to handle big emotions when they come up. If you don't trust yourself that you can feel the depths of your heartbreak, that energy will turn into destructive energy because that anger will have no place to go. It's going to implode on itself. It's going to destruct.
So emotional skills are very revolutionary. It's part of an abundance paradigm. Imperialism is the scarcity paradigm that we're leaving behind.
This podcast offers inspiration by providing real life examples from everyday people just like you and me. People who are born into the same mess. And you know just how their own journey of awakening one little thing leads to another. You know how it is. You can never predict how your life is going to go. Maybe when you're younger, you think, Oh, this is how my life is going to go. This is what I'm going to work towards. And then life will just take you where it does. And you're like, Wow. Who knew? Like, who knew this would be so. You know, so there's so many examples of that that you don't see in mainstream media because it would directly threaten the world order.
But there's so many everyday examples of people living outside of capitalist imperialism in the way they relate to themselves and others. So that is going to be highlighted here in this podcast. May it inspire you as to what's possible.
And the cool thing about that is that there's no commodified cookie cutter way of like this is what it looks like. You know what I mean? To exist outside of capitalist imperialism because literally capitalist imperialism is just one way of existing in the world. And there's so many other ways, so many other ways.
So I'm excited to share with you some of my real life examples from my life stories that I have,
but also, you know, I've, you know, just through being myself, my courageous, self loving, so courageously, so open heartedly, the people I attract into my life, the people I commune with, like, my goodness, we're an inspiring bunch of people. So I'm excited to share my social ecosystem with you and to inspire you as to what's possible. There's so many possibilities of what it could look like. It's not just one way and there's no right or wrong. There's no better or worse. There's just love and liberation and everything in between.
This podcast will also help you integrate what you listen to because you know, hope and inspiration. Those are just foundational, but it's all about action. How can we shape change towards a better future? How can we embody abundance paradigm today as to bring the future closer to us? It's like, how do we bridge the gap between the present and the future? We can embody the future today. We can fast forward time even. You know, it's like I'm saying the the empire is collapsing in on itself. Things are changing. Pluto's an Aquarius. I'm not in astrology, so I'm not going to go into the details of that. But I do follow astrology and I know how revolutionary that is. So go look it up if you need to. I recommend Jessica. Leonardo is a queer non-monogamous astrology. I don't know if she's non-monogamous, but she's very poly friendly, so I vibe.
What does it look like to practice Hope? What does it look like? To
heal from internalized imperialism. You know.
What does it look like to shape change in your life, but also for the sake of the collective through the ways that we engage with ourselves and each other. It's really exciting to think about,
Oh my goodness. And the mind is so powerful. I'm already talking about it because, you know, talking about hope as a practice. But what you believe becomes reality, what you imagine becomes reality. Capitalist imperialism. This is the imagination of the 1% of the oppressors and ooh, they're really powerful at their witchcraft practice, ironically, because they are always demonizing. Witchcraft are like, Ooh, it's scary. You don't engage with it. But sneakily they're really tricking us to like, live in their version of their fantasy. So like, really twisted reality, we're all bending over backwards to live in the oppressors imagination and we're just outgrowing it collectively. We're done. This is coming to an end.
James Baldwin, author and activist, says not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. This podcast is an invitation to face what is to bring into your conscious awareness. All of these quote unquote, norms that are really just the empire. So it's going to feel confronting. You can expect that. However, you know, so many veils have already been lifted, starting with 20, 20, maybe even before that. That was the obvious one. Ooh, 2020 was a hell of a year.
And there are more veils that will continue to be lifted. So the more we can lean into that confrontation of like, wow, all these truths that I wasn't feeling consciously aware of. Whoa. When you consent to having your mind blown,
it just creates a different quality of experience, you know? I guess we could call it a kink, as long as it's consensual and it's within the container of the podcast.
Uh, I have a lot to say about kink, not as a sexual thing, but as consensual role play and as a means of healing. But, you know, this is just the intro, so we'll get there.
Oh, goodness.
So part of imperialism really is any mindset or system of supremacy. It's a domination paradigm rooted in scarcity. So the I feel like imperialism is an umbrella term for all of these subsystems, like human supremacy, white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, mono normativity,
heteronormativity, and more.
I almost want to call them an ecosystem. Like, all these things work together to uphold imperialist order.
But the prefix eco means life. And these systems, they're the opposite of life. They're facilitating death and destruction. So
we're going to be looking at how do all of these the web of imperialism, how do all these subcategories like sneak their way into our relationship norms? And then what does it look like in practice to actively divest from those? And when we divest from those, we are actively healing ourselves. So much abundance. Healing doesn't have to be this painful, excruciating experience. It can be if you want it to be, you know, and you know, the mind is so powerful so we can actually choose our experience. This is witchcraft. We'll go deeper into this. This is just a preview. I'm also a student at the Boulder Psychic Institute. So I'm learning so much here about, you know, how to manipulate energy or work with energy in a collaborative way as to facilitate change. It's really rocking my world. My goodness. So I want to quote Adrienne Marie Brown, another author and activist who I really admire in their book, Emergent Strategy. They say what we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system.
I find this reminder to be very inspiring. It reminds me that I am the collective that you are the collective that we are the collective.
I've been suicidal many times in my life. It's been a hell of a journey for me. I've lived many lives, even within this one life, many deaths and rebirths and transformations
and, you know, way back when I was in a really dark pocket of feeling hopeless, feeling depressed, feeling so fucking angry, angry at all the injustice. And how small I felt in these big systems.
And a lot of my anger was like resentment towards society. It's like, Oh, I don't have to participate in these systems in order to survive. Like, this is so fucked up. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? All that you're making me do this? But then I was like, Oh shit. Like, I am also part of society. And if I am society and I am feeling this way, then damn, I wonder who else feels this way? Who else is non consensually participating in systems of death and destruction for their survival? Like what a mindfuck. Talk about the oppressors' imagination. Like we do not belong there. That's a sick fantasy.
So the flip side of that coin, you know, feeling powerless because our society so big and I'm just one person, it's like, well, from an abundance perspective, if I am society and I have the power to manipulate my energy, if I have the power of choice, if I can choose hope, if I have the power to learn the skills, to have the courage to face my emotions, to confront truths that might shake up my worldview, that might create a paradigm shift within me, If I am society, then I directly influence society. When I hear myself, I am healing the collective and we need that. I am medicine. You are medicine. But only if we believe it. So choose to believe and with the choice to believe, we plant a seed. And when we practice hope, when we surround ourselves by inspiration, when we can find the ways to help our imagination dream of what's possible, either through just inventing it in our minds, dreaming or by seeing models, seeing possibility models,
then we are creating something so beautiful and so much bigger than ourselves. Because liberation is contagious. It has a gravitational pull. Trust me, I understand this from both ends. That's how I got to where I am. And my goodness, I have quite a gravitational pull myself, which is why I'm podcasting, because this is the time for it.
It's time to scale my work because it's revolutionary and it is medicine for Earth. So as the empire collapses, as we compose systems of death and destruction and shape change towards a life, towards love and liberation, we each have an active role to play.
If you engage with this podcast, if you choose to say yes, to hope, to inspiration and action rooted in abundance, then it will be so. And look, choose your own adventure, right? Like I'm saying, there's many avenues to facilitate change. Relationships are just one, one of many. But you know what is life but a web of relationships? Like, wow, what a potent place to facilitate change. So here's to the future. And thanks for joining me on this journey.
That's all for today. Thanks for being here. If you have any questions about today's episode, you can reach out to Abundant Futures. Eight, eight, eight at gmail.com. You can also check out my website Abundant Futures dot net to see my other offerings. I do provide one on one guidance. I facilitate workshops and I also write a blog. And if you want to spread the seed of change and hope and inspiration, consider sharing this with a friend. Peace be with you.
