The Pluriverse is Always Talking
Are you listening?
Growing up in and around Vancouver, Canada (unceded Coast Salish Territory), Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller has always been a part of my consciousness. Science World (pictured above) is one of the most iconic landmarks in the city and is one of the many geodesic domes around the world inspired by Bucky. One of the past century’s most visionary thinkers, beyond designing and championing geodesic domes, Buckminster Fuller was a futurist, a philosopher, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor… and mystic.
For several years now, Bucky’s worldview has been my guiding light. (Which, in this modern day and age, means that I quote him at the bottom of my email signature.) So when I heard that The Philosophical Research Society was hosting a talk by Benjamin Lowder on “Myth, Math & Magic: Buckminster Fuller's Legacy & Hall's Hermetic Wisdom,” I bought a ticket immediately.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
Buckminister Fuller
I learned of this Bucky quote and guiding philosophy while spending time organizing for climate action with Extinction Rebellion at Metabolic Studio in Los Angeles. It was fall 2019 and I was bereft, overcome with climate grief and hopelessness for the current state and predicated future of the world.
I turned to Extinction Rebellion because their Theory of Change stated that if enough of us took to the streets and demanded action, we could affect the change necessary to prevent catastrophic disaster and societal collapse. They assured me that we could turn this ship around. That we could save the world. And I wanted to believe them. I really, really did.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t see enough people leaving their comfortable homes and “safe” worldviews. I couldn’t see the government being bold enough to enforce real radical change. I couldn’t see any of it unfolding and I also couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the messaging, Change or Die! Act now! Tell the Truth!
It kept ringing in my head: Which truth? What truth? Whose truth?
Being the wonderful, open-hearted people they are, the organizers at Extinction Rebellion Los Angeles accepted my questioning with open arms. I proposed a Philosophy Club to discuss the concept of “truth” and Metabolic agreed to host it.
One warm evening, dozens of us came together to sit, share space and discuss. I began the conversation by addressing the state of urgency and reiterating Extinction Rebellion’s first demand: Tell the Truth. Then I shared insights about human consciousness and how we only perceive a small fraction of the near-infinite information that’s present around us. I went on the explain that once we conceptualize this, we have to acknowledge that “truth” is a much slipperier concept than we’ve previously collectively agreed upon.
Together we discussed and debated “truth” and together we came up with a new word: intraverity.
intraverity (noun)
in·tra-ver·i·ty | ˈin-trä ˈver-ə-tē
1: an internalized, personal truth dictated and shaped by an individual's socialization, biology, and environmental influences
Now that I’m looking at it with fresh eyes, “intraverity” feels like just another word for “belief”—which is perhaps a word we need to unpack alongside “truth.”
Throughout Benjamin’s Myth, Math & Magic Buckminster Fuller talk, I had the biggest smile on my face. Benjamin, a visual artist and Buckminster Fuller scholar who works with Bucky’s grandkids, made reference-after-synchronicitous-reference. It gave me the feeling of all paths converging, of everything coming together at the exact and perfect time.
In a place like The Philosophical Research Society, you expect to see sacred geometry and symbols like the ouroboros during lectures (and Benjamin did not disappoint, opening his talk by acknowledging Bucky’s biggest inspiration, his Aunt Margaret, a brilliant literary and theosophical mind and author of Woman of the 19th Century, a book with the merkaba inside of an ouroboros on the cover), but the “coincidences”—or, rather, what we’re here to point out as the “Pluriverse is always talking”—went beyond the realm of chance and into the world of certain synchronicity.
Amongst the myriad subjects covered, Benjamin referenced two specific cultural works—one that has been inspiring me recently and one that has deeply impacted my thinking over the past several years: Interstellar and The Alphabet vs. The Goddess, respectively. And he made reference to a terminology that popped into my head recently, which I had no idea what it meant, but I wrote it down because I knew it was important. He also shared stories of his own experiences with a chatty Universe—synchronicities and alignments he’s experienced over the years, including the appearance of a scarab beetle and a compelling argument on the power of the 90th meridian.
There is nothing that this kismet talk reinforced for me, other than my entire worldview. It gave me a needed boost because while I know that the Pluriverse is always communicating with us, I’ve been nervous to talk about it. While most of us agree on some level with the notion that our environment is in conversation with us, that sentiment is a surface layer concept and there are deeper layers to explore.
When we receive signals and signs and synchronicities from externalized consciousness, the impulse can be to take them as reinforcements for truth. But since we know that there is no truth—or, rather, that there are infinite truths—the question remains, how do we learn to read / interact / receive these signs in “a good way” i.e. for our highest growth and evolution? Instead of reading into them as ways to stagnate us or reinforce old beliefs and behaviours. Because we can do either just as easily.
Remember:
The Pluriverse doesn’t care about your ideology,
but it will bend to it.
Did you miss the last newsletter? Read it now: We Live in a Pluriverse