#34: slow sanctuaries
Plus doppelgangers, researching colonialism and making America magical again
You’re reading This Might Resonate, a monthly-ish newsletter from me, Emily.
I've been in a long state of mourning for most of this year after reconnecting with work around collapse. My shock and grief the past few days post-US election is for how the next four years will likely accelerate collapse and force it to be harsher and more brutal than it otherwise could have been, and for how unequally the horrors will be distributed. I've been doing a lot of lying on the floor while staring at the ceiling, pondering unhelpful things like Fermi's Paradox. Some slightly more helpful coping mechanisms have been: reading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein (see below), yin yoga and other grief practices.
I am grateful also to be living in South Devon and slowly building community there (a long-term project). I'm grateful to be working with a regenerative economics organisation. I'm grateful to be building
and co-stewarding as glimmers of different words. I'm grateful for the many people doing the hard, unrecognised, person-by-person work of creating better futures.
Speaking
I took part in a conversation in October 2024 with the wonderful
and , hosted by New Ways, about the transformative powers (and tensions) of creating spaces for grief and joy in organisations. Poonam talked about the importance of creating “slow sanctuaries” where we can decelerate and listen more deeply. A beautiful concept and phrase that has stayed with me. Watch the recording here and read ’s takeaways from the conversation here.I have work capacity coming up for the new year. I help teams to collaborate, develop and approach endings in regenerative ways through facilitation, organisational design, coaching and grief work. I also have two coaching slots opening up in January. Read more and get in touch here.
Reading
I’m trying to understand what’s happening by filling in the gaps in my knowledge about the history of colonialism and its repeating patterns. The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates has a helpful and affecting essay about Israel-Palestine and how we should resist the framing of “it’s complex” (morally, it isn’t). I’m also reading The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi, which has me in awe of the Palestinian people’s resistance and resilience through over a century of being rendered invisible and stateless by Israel and Western Governments.
I bought Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World on Wednesday lunchtime in response to the US election result. If you need a calm analysis of how colonialism, capitalism, fascism and disininformation meld to birth “mirror worlds” that elect demagogues, this is the book for you. It’s also fantastically well-written; wry, subtle, personal.
If you know of an engaging book or documentary about English colonialism in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, please let me know in the comments! I’m also after a book/ documentary about the Roman colonisation of Britain which focuses less on their engineering brilliance (“what have the Romans ever done for us” etc etc) and more on their suppression of British tribal cultures.
Love’s Executioner. If you can put aside the author’s rather jaw-dropping 1980s stereotyping, this is an excellent book for anyone that does 1:1 work (I’m a coach, Yalom is a psychiatrist). Yalom details his work with ten patients, delving into his own triggers and errors of judgement and practice, a comforting reminder that we’re all human, no matter how experienced or credentialed we may be.
Mirrors in the Earth: Reflections on Self-Healing from the Living World. I enjoyed this exploration of Suler's journey from New York city girl to Appalachia-dwelling herbalist. Her approach to connecting with plants is compassionate and accessible.
Dart. Alice Oswald spent three years with people who work on and enjoy the river Dart (not far from where I live), recording their conversations. Her poem reads to me like a 21st century version of T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, weaving the voices of real people, mythical characters and Oswald's own relationship with the body of water. It's very beautiful.
Sorry I'm Late - I have shingles: and nearly killed a man named Gregg by
On Cancer and Desire by Annie Ernaux
How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals.
Watching
Agatha All Along. This show was designed in a lab to appeal to me, specifically (witches! Kathryn Hahn!). Accordingly, I enjoyed it.
Rivals. I'd always thought Jilly Cooper’s novels were unadaptable due to dialogue unhingement, but they've done it, by god! It's a well crafted period piece (smart decision to leave the 80s attitudes intact). Danny Dyer's performance is wonderfully tender, give that man a Bafta.
Cheaters. Tone-wise, a bit like Starstruck, if you enjoyed that, but with a slightly dodgier script. A good premise, though: what if you cheated - had a one night stand with someone abroad - and then it turned out you lived opposite each other?
Shrinking, which increasingly makes less sense (I don’t believe this group of people would be friends!) but it’s an easy watch. As is Doctor Odyssey — millenial women may wish to know that Joshua Jackson stars.
A Luca Guadagnino film club while on holiday: Challengers, A Bigger Splash and Call Me By Your Name. The Outrun, a lyrical adaptation of a beautiful memoir. Silence, a slow, thoughtful meditation on missionaries, colonialism and morality. Don't Look Up. A satire that renders even sharper a few more years into the pandemic and the climate crisis, and in light of the recent US election. Israelism, a brave and necessary story from an American Jewish filmmaker questioning everything she's been taught about Israel.
Listening
Still charmed by…
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You might enjoy my other newsletters: GriefSick (about chronic illness grief) and Foregather (about women’s creative energy). Yes, I agree that three newsletters is too many newsletters.
Lastly, I write about my facilitation, organisational design and coaching work in LinkedIn weeknotes every Friday.
An academic book, but very readable and completely upended my English worldview - Human Encumbrances: Political Violence and the Great Irish Famine by David Nally.