Us...

We are more than consumers. We are creators. We belong to each other.

I first wrote these words in a social post the day after the tragic Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, CA, in December 2016. As I remember it, the air was still pocked with psychic shrapnel from the presidential election the previous month, the blunt force shock of it all having yet to soften in any meaningful way. For me, at least. And then I woke up that late autumn morning to this: One of the few remaining wild arts spaces in the Bay Area had burned to the ground taking 36 lives with it. 

A good deal of press would gather in the aftermath of the fire on the torrid irresponsibility of hosting a show (illegally mind you) in what amounted to a tinder box. But how many such places had I seen bands in or performed in during my time in the Bay Area punk scene and as a touring musician? Too many to account for here. And as I gave myself over to sorrowing that December morning, I remembered: the generator shows and the grossly less than pristine bathrooms, the thrifted couches—boozy and carnal, the silk-screen studios turned show space turned impromptu potluck locale.

And I remembered those holy show nights when we were collectively redeemed—not by our coolness, nor by our detachment—but by one another. By the shared experience of rock-n-roll. We’d slipped past the guards of pop culture and commodification, for the moment at least. We’d tapped into something ancient in the sound and rhythm, and something we may not have even known we needed: US. We were more than consumers. We were creators. We belonged to each other.

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about the notion of an us lately. What does that mean now, in an orphaned culture such as ours and one so obsessed with the self? What happens when connection via one glowing rectangle or another comes to stand in for connection? What becomes of our commons?

These are interesting questions to ask for someone who coaches individuals and couples in the exploration of the self. I’ve made this joke with clients more than once, that: “…until we change the clown show in here, we’re not much use changing it out there.” Until we have some concept of our unconscious patterns, they will run the show. Until we transmute the broken behaviors we inherited from our families, we will transmit them to the next generation. And from personal experience, I know this to be true. Any service I offer now—any relief or mercy or generosity I’m able to impart—this arises from the unspeakable grace that met me in my own my most humble confrontations. My own “foul rag and bone shop of the heart,” as Yeats put it.

And … and … I want a new healing commons. I want more us. To gather together with intrepid, brave individuals who are generously doing the tender and what can often feel like thankless work of healing. To create a hub—or several—where people who are breaking wounded patterns and transmuting ancestral trauma can come together and where together, we can begin to dream up what healing this incredibly broken culture looks like. Not because I’m certain we can heal it in my lifetime. But because I know this work is powerful and meant to do more than help us have better isolated lives. We’ll need each other if we're going to build that.

Come this fall, I’ll be sending out an invitation to join me for such a circle. I look forward to sharing.

With love,
Julianna