Finding Our Footing in an Era of Uncertainty

Our reality is saturated and clouded over with the fog of Domination. 

No, really. The current political environment is not just the product of the last few years, or even the last few decades. It is the offspring of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years of shared history. The spirit of Domination—and I’m going to talk about it like something with personhood and agency, like it’s a character in my writing, because that’s the most apt way to represent it I can find—has wound its way into nearly every aspect of our lives, from the economy to family life to love to education to how we shape our days and the food we put on our tables. It is in the air we breathe. It lurks, invisible in its pervasiveness, lulling us into this illusion of inevitability… this feeling that this–imagine me gesturing all around me–THIS is it. And there it sits, like a fog over our vision of what this world is and could be until every so often it erupts into violent politics and surprises us. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of it for us to grasp is that we are all hurt by it AND we all have a share in it. It’s a spirit of our day in the most profound way—it is in the life and breath that we all share. It has created a powerarchy and found a share for all of us in it. Yes, even those of us who feel like we’ve never come within 10 feet of power or ambition.

The bald truth is that almost no one feels powerful in a powerarchy. And that’s because Domination leads us along with promises of health, prosperity, and happiness, and it never delivers on those promises. It tells us, “The world is made up of people who have and people who don’t. If you do X, you’ll be one of the Deserving. You may even be Great.” And it lures us along with the carrot dangling forever in front of us. When we follow Domination, there is no room for the weak, the Undeserving parts of ourselves that we cannot help but bring along. And when we fail to live up to its expectations (which we inevitably do), it blames those weaker parts for our failure.

We all take part in powerarchy. We have to for survival. For me, it is education. It is a stable family in my childhood. It is a strong resume. These aren’t bad things. Powerarchy simply knows how to lure us to serve it by offering good things–things we NEED–in exchange for us giving it our power. Then gets more power by allowing only some people to have them, punishing the Have-nots by witholding and controlling the Haves with the threat of withdrawing it. Some people call it "privilege" when our needs are met by Domination, but I’m not sure that is a helpful word for explaining it to people who have worked for it. Not earned it, worked for it. And it DOES required work—Domination does not give away anything for free. It simply requires everyone to give everything the have, then picks and chooses who it will bless and calls it “merit.”

On the other hand, it is also true that all of us have one foot in the realm of the Undeserving. Sometimes it is impossible to hide, a stamp on our foreheads that we might erase if we could. A race or gender that puts us visibly in the “undeserving” category from birth. It’s whatever is weakness and failure in the eyes of Domination. It’s the times when we are sick and need help. It’s our dependence in infancy and old age, our neediness when we are sick. It’s the part of us that struggles in our society, the part that powerarchy offers up for use and abuse. For me, that is being a woman in this world. It is being fat. It is having several autoimmune disorders and dealing with less productive days. It not being able to eat foods that other people do.

We all have one “strong” foot in the fog of Domination, and one “weak” foot outside of it. Domination teaches us to lean on the “strong” foot so we can keep our heads in its cloud. I have learned that leaning on the “weak” foot can help me get my head out of the cloud, help me see more clearly.

I first began to see the smoky outlines of the fog of Domination in the wake of my failed marriage, as I tried to figure out what went wrong. I realized I had been following principles that didn’t serve me, never could have. I realized I’d been following my needs and desires into a pack of lies. I pulled at the thread of the illusions I had about love and marriage, and it was like beginning to unravel like a sweater. We hadn’t malfunctioned in isolation. There was a whole culture that stood behind the dysfunction, a history that extended much further into the past than those relationships, than my own childhood, birth… years and decades and centuries. Domination didn’t just show its face in that relationship. It was everywhere, from church to my job to my health to the food I eat (and the food I can’t eat).

At the same time, I met the second main character of my newsletter. Let’s call her Abundance. Abundance met me at what I thought was my lowest point, when I was blaming my own weakness for my failed marriage. Abundance gave me joy and purpose. She met needs I had ignored most of my life. She didn’t put any limits or qualifications on what she gave. Her simple request that I not take more than I need or prevent others from meeting their needs. I felt like I’d gotten off a demanding treadmill to rest in the palm of a benevolent deity.

I saw Abundance in the green shoots that appear in spring, the mysterious force that pushes plants and mushrooms out of the ground toward the sky, that turns air and water and light into the breath of life. (Some call her the Greening, which I think is also a great name.) I began to catch glimpses of Abundance where Domination glitched, snippets of a world where Life itself provides what is needed for life and happiness. I began to wonder whether, instead of providing for us, as it promises, Domination may actually get in the way of our thriving, in the way of the provision Abundance has made for all living things.

Which brings me to my third character in the small cast here at This Isn’t It—me. I’ve been following Abundance for about a decade now, tracing her steps away from the realm of Domination into Life. Out of those bad relationships, out of a religion that taught me to blame myself for so bad things, out of a political view that fit tidily into the ethos of Domination. And when I thought I was done, I kept going. Away from office jobs, off of social media (mostly), disengaging myself from the industrial food chain… I could go on and on. For as many ways I can label Domination, I can tell you a story about how I am struggling my way out of it and finding Abundance on the other side. Those are the stories I will tell in this newsletter.

Unwinding myself from Domination has often been disorienting. Sometimes it feels like everything is falling apart. But I have learned to hang onto love, creativity, connection with every aspect of the world around me, growth… these are the values that make sense of my life. I find truth and Abundance in the margins and cracks where the fog of Domination is thinner. I spend as much time as I can learning from the non-human world—animals and plants and rocks and wind and stars. I learn from people who have been leaning on their “weak” foot for their entire lives—people marginalized by Domination based on their race, gender, disability. I am blessed to live in Anchorage, Alaska, a land with a wealth of wisdom still visible in the land as it continues to be stewarded by the Dena’ina people. A land at the edge of the colonialist “frontier,” where wolf trails run invisibly alongside suburban roads. Where the perimeter of “Deserving” ends and Abundance flows in to feed us life. Where creeks still speak truth to eager listeners. And what I can see of Abundance, I hang onto as if my life depended on it. I have seen enough to believe that this—and here you must picture me waving my arms around me in exasperation at the ever-present cloud of Domination all around us, trying to clear it from my vision—THIS isn’t it. It can’t be.

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