“Life is a gift we have
Only by giving it back again.”

— Wendell Berry

It’s funny to sit down and write my first newsletter in a minute. I feel a little nervous, rusty, awkward, like a kid returning after summer break. Except instead of a new haircut, I have new, partially reconstructed boobs.

For those who missed it, I’ve been going through a blessedly brief breast cancer journey—I had a double mastectomy in June. I devoted three podcast episodes to the experience: Episode 1 (“Taking Your Foot Off the Gas”), Episode 2 (“A Life Update”), and Episode 3 (“Do You Need to Put Yourself in Order?”). You can also find my list of mastectomy resources here.

I’m doing great; I’ve had exceptional care at UCLA, my body is strong, and my spirits are high. I had a wonderful summer: Quiet, horse-y, and many moments of deep presence (and parallel play) with my husband and kids. I read a lot, I worked without interruption on my next book, and I’ve been recording some exceptionally beautiful podcast episodes that will be coming to you this fall. (Angela Duckworth, Naomi Klein, Antonio Damasio, Terry Real, and more.) I’m grateful that the universe “pruned my roses,” to quote my friend Richard Christiansen; I didn’t know how much I needed it, even though I’ve been given a version of this lesson before.

Back in early 2020, in the months before COVID, when I was rushing, rushing, rushing, Carissa Schumacher told me that if I didn’t make space in my life, the universe would start canceling things on my behalf. I didn’t make space—I wasn’t brave enough to make space—and this came to pass: While abrupt, and not what I would have chosen, these changes ushered in some of the best months of my life. I loved the stillness: I sat quietly at home, with my family, suddenly grounded, with only one thing to do: Write On Our Best Behavior. These past few months have had a similar tenor: I wouldn’t have picked cancer, but apparently I still need an intervention, or crisis—or opportunity—to refresh the board. (I’d make a terrible gardener because my instinct is to cram one more plant or project in, rather than giving everything the airtime and resources it needs.) In these past few months, I’ve felt so peaceful, so equanimous, so calm.

The week before my mastectomy, Satya Doyle Byock and I led a retreat at Omega—after my diagnosis, I asked my doctors if they could delay my surgery for a couple of weeks so I could honor this commitment. Not only did I not want to cancel on people who were traveling to be there, but I also felt like the experience held something I also needed. Its focus: Letting go of parts of ourselves that need to die so we can bring in something new. I’d set the syllabus not knowing I needed to take the course. You really can’t make this stuff up!

Satya opened the retreat by reading “The Rainmaker,” which is a story that Richard Wilhelm—who translated the I Ching and brought it to the West—told Carl Jung. Here’s Jung’s recounting in Encounters with the Soul (according to Satya, Jung believed this story should be read at the beginning of any gathering).

There was a terrible drought in that part of China where Richard Wilhelm was living. After all the ways to bring rain that the people knew had been tried, they decided to send for a rainmaker. This interested Wilhelm very much, and he was careful to be there when the rainmaker arrived. The man came in a covered cart, a small, wizened, old man who sniffed the air with evident distaste as he got out of the cart, and asked ot be left alone in a small cottage outside the village; even his meals were to be laid down outside the door.

Nothing was heard from him for three days, then it not only rained, but there was also a big downfall of snow, unknown at that time of year. Very much impressed, Wilhelm sought the rainmaker out and asked him how it was that he could make rain, and even snow. The rainmaker replied, “I have not made the snow; I am not responsible for it.” Wilhelm insisted that there was a terrible drought until he came, and then after three days they even had quantities of snow. The old man answered, “Oh, I can explain that. You see, I come from a place where the people are in order, they are in Tao; so the weather is also in order. But directly I got here, I saw the people were out of order and they also infected me. So I remained alone until I was once more in Tao and then, of course, it snowed.”

I talked about this on the podcast (“Do You Need to Put Yourself in Order?”), but this story affected me deeply. I left Omega in May changed, however subtly, or at least in a process of change. I feel like—magically, alchemically—I’ve put myself in order, and now that I’ve touched this feeling of the Tao in myself, I do not want to lose or disturb it.

We’ve been experiencing a stretch of environmental disasters—it’s hard not to see this “weather” as an extension of our own collective storming. And so I also want to do my small part to bring this Tao to the world. If enough of us do this, can we see it reflected back? Can we change the thermostat through our own internal calming?

As I’ve re-emerged in the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing that yes, between environmental catastrophes, war, and A.I. shenanigans, things feel ruinously bleak. But something else also feels like it’s stirring: In a time where force is on full display, power is breaking through. As David Hawkins writes in Power vs. Force, “Light cannot enter a closed box; the upside of a catastrophe can be an opening to a higher level of consciousness.”

This past weekend, I went to Daisy Chain FIelds, a music festival that Olivia Rodrigo started planning only a few months ago. Dedicated to 10 organizations focused on women and girls—Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Baby2Baby, Center for Reproductive Rights, FreeFrom, Jhipiego, John Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood—Olivia asked her musician friends to donate their time and perform. She was joined by Chappell Roan, The Breeders, Doechii, Santigold, Garbage, and so many other great female artists, and collectively, they raised $10 million dollars for these organizations. Melinda French Gates matched this feat with an additional $10 million grant.

More importantly, we all got to gather in Irvine, California to watch together, to participate in a joyful protest.

Now first, I am not a festival person. I don’t own a clear plastic backpack. Or a neck fan. But my dear friends Michelle An (one of the greatest people I know, and the one of the greatest people in the music industry) and Sarah Harden (also one of the greatest people I know) convinced me that I could do it. For most of the day—it was 95 degrees and steamy—I felt like one of those adults at Disneyland. I don’t have a daughter! I don’t really even listen to pop music! What was I doing there in the sweltering heat like a weirdo?!?! And then it started to cool down and Olivia took the stage with Sarah McLachlan, then Alanis Morissette, and finally Stevie Nicks. Olivia did duets with all of them: ”Building a Mystery” and “Angel” with Sarah (the latter, dedicated to Dolly Parton); “Ironic” with Alanis, and then “Landslide” with Stevie. I cried. I never thought I’d get to hear that song live—and definitely not in sea of 45,000 other people who are hoping for a better world. I ran into so many women I love—and I saw so many women I admire. It was a Daisy Chain: a cross-generational turn-out of artists, activists, public intellectuals, writers, and music lovers, holding hands across timelines. We need our elders, the women who have weathered storms before and have some wisdom for endurance to offer; and we need our daughters, brimming with hope, and idealism, and expectations that things can and should be better. It was all there.

And then, on Monday night, I went to the premiere of Practical Magic 2 (coming September 30), which my friend Denise Di Novo made (one of the greatest producers of all time—you have her to thank for movies like Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, and the first Practical Magic). Friends, I loved it. LOVED. I laughed, I cried; I was deeply moved. And, in a fit of synchronicity, “Landslide” is part of the score. Nicks wrote “Landslide” when she was 27—heartbroken, lost, dumped by her label, and poor—it’s a song about rebuilding your life in the face of uncertainty. It’s the right anthem for this time, from one of our greatest witches. Like Daisy Chain Fields, Practical Magic 2 is an intergenerational film: The irrepressible Stockard Channing and Dianne Weist lighting the way for Nicole Kidman and Sandy Bullock, who in turn stretch their hands back to Maisie Williams and Joey King.

Both of these cultural moments are GIRL POWER, but in a totally new iteration, one that I haven’t experienced or seen before. This is not pink logo tee girl power. It’s not “anything boys can do girls can do better” girl power. It’s something else entirely: A grounded femininity that beats the drum of joy and beauty. This is power that moves—with kindness, love, and compassion. This is power that stands for something rather than against people.

In Power vs. Force, Hawkins makes the point that we mostly experience force in our world—force that feeds on low-vibration energies like fear, shame, anger, and desire. Force cannot withstand real power, which is channeled from energy currents like love, peace, and joy—in time, power always prevails. As he explains, “On examination, we will see that power arises from meaning. It has to do with motive, and it has to do with principle. Power is always associated with that which supports the significance of life itself. It appeals to that in human nature which we call noble, in contrast to force, which appeals to that which we call crass. Power appeals to that which uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles. Force must always be justified, whereas power requires no justification. Force is associated with the partial, power with the whole.”

He continues, “Because force automatically creates counter-force, its effect is limited by definition. We could say that force is a movement. It goes from here to there (or tries to) against opposition. Power, on the other hand, stands still. It is like a standing field that does not move. Gravity itself, for instance, does not move against anything. Its power moves all objects within its field, but the gravity field itself does not move. Force always moves against something, whereas power does not move against anything. Force is intrinsically incomplete and therefore has to constantly be fed energy. Power is total and complete in and of itself and requires nothing from outside of itself. It makes no demands; it has no needs. Because force has an insatiable appetite, it constantly consumes. Power, in contrast, energizes, gives forth, supplies, and supports. Power gives life and energy. Forces takes these away. We notice that power is associated with compassion and makes us feel positively about ourselves. Force is associated with judgmentalism and tends to make us feel badly about ourselves.”

I don’t quite know what’s happening yet, but I am curious, and, as-ever, optimistic. It feels like magic is afoot. In the interim, I have every intention of staying in the Tao and keeping myself afoot.

Before I go, I wanted to share another bit from the late, great Wendell Berry, one of our wisest stewards, who died on Monday. See you next week.

“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. ... We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . . We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”
― Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

September 11th, 6:30pm (MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA): I’ll be at MECCA Bourke Street, come hang. You can get tickets here.

September 19th, 10am (ONLINE): Quarterly Energy Bath with Uta Opitz for paid community members. Link to register is here.

September 27th, 10am (MISSOULA, MONTANA): I’ll be doing a Q&A with Athena at the Missoula Public Library. You can get tickets here.

I’ll be announcing an October Office Hours for paid subscribers shortly. Stay tuned!