Hello dear readers,
with an extra warm welcome to those whom I subscribed without their consent,
It’s official. It’s been 365 days since I fell off a sidewalk in Istanbul and wrote my first Substack newsletter, The Tyranny of Choice. It’s the one year anniversary of this blog.
I can’t tell you how painful it was, keeping up the discipline required to produce a regular newsletter. My ego fought me every step of the way, but I didn’t give up.
And now here we are.
Looking back at what I’ve accomplished, I feel it was worth it. The gnawing angst of creation has passed, and in it’s wake I have over 40 original blog entries including braided essays, photo memoirs, podcast interviews, poetry, news pieces, political commentaries, philosophical musings, and film analyses.
I also had the supreme honour of publishing one guest post this year, courtesy of the incredible Donna Clark. (I’d love to do more guest posts—don’t hesitate to reach out.)
This exercise of sending out regular newsletter has scared the shit out of me. Constantly putting myself and my thoughts / opinions / research on display has forced me to continue deepening my relationship to truth, perspective, and reality.
I have a sense that I will be more prolific in the next year than I was in the last, but only time will tell. Either way, I am committed to holding the bigger picture, to peeling back layers, and to connecting the dots.
I am committed to uncovering the bias in all narratives, especially my own. And I am committed to becoming even more gentle all the while deepening my relationship to reality.
Thank you to everyone who’s expressly supported this newsletter (deep bows) and thank you to everyone who’s passively supported this newsletter (high fives).
Thank you for your attention. It’s an honour to have you here.
365 Days of Substack
What vision was I holding? What did my heart truly want? What did my gut have to say?
Don’t Call Me Sweetie
At the root of all this pain: Patriarchy
Love is time and shared experience and dedication and it requires a certain kind of discipline—a lack of ego—a showing up again and again and again, despite the [pain].
Lest Faith Turn to Despair
What has to die in order to reconcile warring sides?
It is my personal opinion that the world is on fire because we seek love outside of ourselves.
The Magic of Paris
Returning to the place of my dreams...
The goal I’d set for myself on this trip to Paris was to explore its esoteric underbelly.
What is Measured and What is Owed?
Reading Sarah Polley's "The Woman Who Stayed Silent"
What have we been willing to accept that is deeply unacceptable? And what, now, will we do about it?
Self-Deprecation Can Be Ego Too
Ego is so much more than your pride
Many people, even thesaurus.com, conflate the concept of Ego with the behaviour of arrogance.
Why Are My Groceries So Expensive?
Because career politicians have failed us
I will go as far to say that we are no longer living in a democracy, that we are living under a corporate, industrial regime.
Where Are The Air Filters?
What the film Interstellar offers us
What is the difference between raging against the dying light and giving in to the dark, not with a bang but a whimper? What is the cost of a convenient narrative?
So Where to Next?
a poem about timelines
There is a challenge here, one without name.
It is new and it requires patience.
We Live in a Pluriverse
Saying goodbye to the Multiverse
To understand the difference between the “multiverse” and the “pluriverse,” we first need to understand that human perception is limited.
The Pluriverse is Always Talking
Are you listening?
When we receive signals, signs, and synchronicities from externalized consciousness, the impulse can be to take them as reinforcements for truth.
We Need to Talk About the Evolution of Consciousness
“We need to hurry up and evolve.”
35 & Broke
Living on borrowed time
Who am I? What is my purpose? What am I reaching for? If I am fulfilled—if I don’t need to be validated externally—then what is driving me forward?
Ley lines. Ley lines. Ley lines.
Those are the words running through my head the summer I started sleeping diagonal: corner to corner, occupying the maximum amount of space.
Something happens to you after sleeping on couches. Something happens to you after sleeping on slim air mattresses in slim rooms. Something happens to you when your home is entirely something you are and own and are never separate from.
Ley lines.
That summer I slept on the gravel under a tarp. That summer I slept in the forest. That summer I slept in an abandoned tent and woke up every hour throughout the night listening for someone returning home, listening for night raids by the RCMP, listening.
Unpacking the Stories Handed To Us As Scripts
Dating in the Multiverse: When the angry commenters on YouTube are kind of right
I was a fool for the feeling of love and a fool for the possibility of partnership.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
"Climate" activists have never felt so seen
It is a privilege to be afraid of the future and not the present.
You Can’t Strike From Your Sofa with Chuck Tatham
Kelly chats with her cousin, prolific sitcom writer Chuck Tatham, about the WGA strike, his time working on Arrested Development, how the industry has changed over the past 30 years, AI, mini-rooms, and the best part of working in TV: snacks.
Don't Forget, I've Been Hurt Before
You Have to Keep Breaking Your Heart Until It Opens
What does it mean to be courageous?
The Real Problem Is in the Hearts of Men
We must realize that we cannot simultaneously plan for war and peace
We must remember that the world has ended before—for countless species and cultures and civilizations.
Do Not Fear the Abyss
Understanding that which haunts the world
If all fear is a fear of death, then we must learn to discern between the fears that could legitimately lead to our death and the fears that play into our fear of death, but won’t actually lead to it.
The Real Lord of the Flies
Now that we know dystopia is not inevitable, can we investigate why we’ve come to believe that it is?
… the Stanford Prison Experiment, just like Lord of the Flies, was a work of fiction.
There Are Two Kinds of Love
What is Love? (Part One)
It is through love and lack of love that we will understand the true nature of reality. For love is simply a metaphor for wholeness, an entire completeness, a sense of one’s meaning in the Universe.
Twitchy Witch and Learning to Love the Exponentially Increasing Infinity of Life
Kelly shares conversation with alchemist, shapeshifter, and TikTok star “Twitchy Witch” elianne el-amyouni. They discuss depression, Jesus, the paradox of suffering under Capitalism, solve et coagula, being a fool for love, and the fear that the world is ending.
What Do You Want?
The four most confronting words in the English language
As it becomes more and more expensive to stay alive and thrive in this world, as the wealth gap widens and the economic engine of separation forces more and more people into worsening fear and stress, will “what we want” begin to change?
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Kelly reads Ursula K Le Guin’s haunting short story.
A Lineage of Guilt: Part One
Aren't we still Kings here too?
Tequila. Mezcal. Gin. Ron… that’s the Spanish word for Rum. Cigarettes. Drinks pile up in front of me. Somewhere between a hand crafted cocktail and a top shelf sipping spirit, a shot of fireball appears. The women are rolling dice and telling me to take my turn. I don’t understand the rules, but I play anyways…
The Carrier Bag of Barbie
Greta Gerwig's take and the power of cultural devices
Culture began with a bone—a stick, a spear, a sword, the blade that cut to the bone. A bone, found and used to kill. At least that’s how the story goes: the Hero’s Journey, the popular narrative, three acts, five acts; a beginning, a middle, and the end.
The Most Spiritual Thing We Can Do Is Be Human with Molly Jane
A Lineage of Guilt: Part Two
Kelly speaks with oracle and world traveler Molly Jane about swirling energies, portals and vortexes and vortals (oh my!), the electricity of certain grids, accepting the choices we make, and the Guatemala-Venice Beach connection.
A Misunderstanding of the Feminine
The subtle shift in awareness that changes everything...
The feminine has nothing to do with what body you’re in or whether you’ve put on a three piece suit or a glittering ballgown, the act of creative expression is a principle of the feminine.
What is Whiteness?
More than skin colour, whiteness is a frame of mind
Comfort is not a privilege afforded to everyone in our society.
We Need to Talk About the Evolution of Consciousness (Part Two)
How do we become different?
What if we killed the concept of the human before the concept of the human kills us?
I Do Not Recommend Living With An Open Heart and Mind
Pain is the price of our freedom but we don't want to pay the cost
Stay in your lane.
Trust what you know.
Trust what feels comfortable.
Play hard to get.
Make them earn it.
Stay rigid. I promise. It’s worth it.
Be Kinder to Yourself, Save the World
Every time you’re too hard on yourself a Cheeto dust Voldemort in a parallel universe gets its wings
Colonial-capitalism thrives on our willingness to beat ourselves up.
Getting Out of Survival Mode with Amrita Ahuja
We have all the solutions -- what's holding us back from implementing them?
Meeting Amrita feels like the synthesis of everything I’ve been working towards and talking about for years. Getting deeper in touch with my underlying pain is unravelling me in so many ways. I am seeing and learning all the stories my ego has fed me, the layers of doubt and confusion, all the sneaky ways my perfectionism manifests…
You Still Have Feelings for Your Ex
Let's talk about some of the lies we tell ourselves...
Anger is a feeling.
Frustration is a feeling.
Guilt is a feeling.
Midnight at Moonlight Jungle
A short story about love, regret, and finding your own magic
Oh dear sweet jungle lord, it was him. Walking out of the trees towards her, him. Shelley stood, hand slipping from Beryl’s like rain on a metal slide, rolling down, down, down until she pooled at the bottom and the entire world was him, eyes fused, all else around her darkness and quiet.
What Going on in Iran with Kia Zahrabi
On the one year anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death, an overview --
Kelly speaks with Kia about the history of the Islamic Regime in Iran, hijab laws, the non complacency of the younger generation, and the growing fire of the Women Life Freedom movement.
A Conspiracy of Love to Protect the Sacred
Logging company Teal Cedar sues Ada'itsx/Fairy Creek forest protectors
Guest Post by Donna Clark
Lawyers representing 8 of the 16 forest defenders submitted applications to have their clients removed from the suit on the basis that there is insufficient detail on why they are being sued, stating that the ANOCC consists of a fishing expedition to obtain information about forest defenders in order to sue them.
Taylor Swift Convinces Kansas City "Chiefs" To Change Racist Name
Swift's romantic relationship with KC tight end Travis Kelce inspires team to change long-contested name (satire)
Taylor and Travis’s relationship highlights the importance of using our voices for positive change, and shows us the need for continuous growth and evolution.
Demand Ceasefire Now: Free Palestine
If you have the ability to speak up or stand up, I encourage you to do so. What Israel is doing to Palestine is genocide. The more of us who refuse to look away or carry on as normal, the likelier it is that we will be able to stop it.
The World Is Built Out of Stories
We have the tools at our disposal to create a society where everyone is taken care of.
It’s the trauma of colonialism and the refusal to acknowledge white supremacy within our systems and structures that holds us back.
The Truth Emerges: Free Palestine
It's not complicated, it's colonial-capitalism
Israel’s regime of apartheid and military operation over the Palestinian people has been going on for decades. And all these years of captive subjugation of innocent people has been funded by the United States of America.
Since their founding, Israel has received over 250 billion dollars in US military aid.
Please continue to advocate for a ceasefire. Protect the children. Free Palestine.
This is the journey of unravelling, of recognizing that each of us is a book of individual truths in a multiverse of infinite truths… That we are all built out of stories — stories rooted in fear of the past, dreams of the future, and an ever-deepening relationship to the present.