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Ophelia by Paul Albert Steck
A few weeks ago I gave away all of my clothing.
I do not mean that I did a closet clearing. I mean that every single piece of my clothing was given away.
Every. Single. Piece.
The details aren’t important - the key thing is that there was an environmental emergency which required me to give away all of my clothing for my basic physical health and wellbeing.
I have lived minimally for a long time. There is a joy that comes from simplicity for me, an opening to more time and energy when there isn’t so much excess.
And yet, this has been a much more advanced pose to hold.
Our cultures LOVES choice. Endless possibility. The forever chasing of better. The elusive “more”. Of course, I am a big fan of the infinity possibility of life. I step into the world with open arms and ask of God “how much can I receive today?” I remember to reorient toward the eternal nature of the universe and its provision. I am actively unlearning years of limitation and scarcity.
And.
We do lose something when we are oversaturated with choice. We forget the foundations of happiness when we are told (and when we believe) that the next best thing is right around the corner. For as helpful as visualizations and manifestation practices can be, what gets bypassed is the present.
In his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz speaks to the consequences of the never ending, always increasing amount of daily choice we have. The beautiful fact that we have more choice in our consumption than we ever have in human history also has a devastating impact on our long-term happiness with our choices. Schwartz states, “The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.” We delude ourselves into thinking that the more choice we have, the better our decision will be and the happier we will be with it.
Multiple studies, however, have shown that in many cases, the more choice we have, the less happy we are.
“The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.”
- Elise Boulding
The other issue is that often, the more choice we have, the less likely we will be to actually choose. An experiment by Sheena Iyengar demonstated that when customers in a grocery store were presented with six kinds of jam, 30% of them bought jam. However, when customers were presented with 24 choices of jam, only 3% of them made a jam purchase. This is one example (among many other studies) which points to the phenomenon we call “analysis paralysis”.
Analysis paralysis can show up in every aspect of our life. Too many clothes in the closet and it can be hard to figure out what to wear. Too many ingredients in the fridge and it might feel overwhelming to make a meal (recipes and meal plans are a perfect remedy to this, as they create less choice and therefore require less energy expended). Too many matches on online dating and it can feel boring to choose a person or feel limiting to commit (for learning more about this realm, I recommend reading Aziz Ansari’s book Modern Romance). These are just a few ways in which spending too much time with choices often makes it harder (or impossible) to actually make one.
When we are inundated with an unlimited amount of choice, we can’t see the “good enough” and are therefore caught in a limbo while trying to find the seductive “perfect”. The search for perfection is a losing game; in the process of the grasping, we become hungry ghosts. Always consuming and never full.
So there I was, lovingly placing each item of clothing into a bag. Many of my clothes are more utilitarian than fashionable, but there were a few special pieces. A silk dress that I wore while living at an ashram in California. A pair of socks that I knit myself. A woven shirt from living on the Colombian coast. A jacket that kept me warm while camping cross country, looking up at the smattering of stars. A sweatshirt that reminded me of love.
Each of these pieces held such memory for me and as a particularly nostalgic person, it was hard to let them go. I noticed the gripping, the clinging, the sadness as I saw threads of my life dwindle.
But I also noticed something else: an alchemical initiation into surrender.
A future newsletter will be about this process as an experience of the descent of Inanna. Of the devotion to the bigger thing that must be present as we take off layer by layer of what we have been carrying.
Of the trust that is required in order to let go.
But for today, I will end with sharing that I feel a lightness, a joy from this practice. I feel a deeper sense of gratitude for what I have. I feel a clearer sense of what I need and truly desire versus what is simply conditioned and compensatory. A inner peace that comes from the “nothing extra”.
WATCHING:
I don’t know what to call this - dance, music, spoken word - but it is a beautiful honoring of the Malinke tribe of Baro. We are told that “everything is rhythm” and I invite you to be moved by the music of this life.
READING:
I have decided to extend My Year of Fiction to 2024! This excites me greatly, as I have spent so much of my life reading nonfiction - to the point where at times, fiction felt like (ugh, I hate to even type this) a “less valuable” use of my time. That breaks my heart greatly and even though it has been many years since I’ve felt like that (thank God), I still find myself not reading as much fiction. With the amount of energy and time I put into teaching heavy and deep topics, it is essential for me to be fed with creativity, play, and wonder. Fiction is not a “treat” or a “guilty pleasure”. It is just as important as any other kind of reading and when we relegate it to the back burner, we lose the possibility of being more creative, well-rounded, and joyful people. My commitment to myself is to read at least one fiction book a month this year and we are starting with a banger.
The Centre is a speculative fiction foray into a number of things. Linguistics, colonialism, alchemical possibility, and the hidden cost of a magic bullet. I listened to the audiobook, which had an excellent narrator, and I really enjoyed the story. Set in a secluded “language learning center”, we discover that nothing is what it seems. Although some of the political conversational pieces were a little heavy handed, it is a creative story with a fascinating twist.
LISTENING:
I have recently been loving Spotify’s “Songs to Test Headphones With”. Although I don’t enjoy everything on here (I am NOT a Beck fan), there are some beautiful songs, including Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley which is perhaps my favorite heartbreak song. I also just realized that everyone’s playlist is different so forget what I mentioned and go enjoy your own!
ALSO!
my feet returning to the soil I call home. peppermint tea by the potful. starting the 2024 cohort of DEATHWORKER. holding hands while sleeping, there is nothing better. the best ramen egg I’ve ever had in my life. a handful of podcasts that I wouldn’t normally listen to. watching season two of Reacher, which is horrible but also a great distraction. facetime with my little old babycat. friends who are truly happy for me. tithing, no matter how small. diving right into a new book and feeling exhilarated. citrus in winter. sleeping in. wishes. blessings. miracles. me and you and all of us on this rollercoaster of life together.
HOLY: A PILGRIMAGE TO THE SACRED HEART
I am here in the mountains of Chiapas for the Feast Day of Guadalupe. And on my drive through the forested roads, hundreds of people are honoring Her with altars, paintings, cars covered in flowers.
There are dozens of people walking up the mountain, young and old. Young men running down the road with lit torches.
A pilgrimage of the most loving kind.
A remembrance of what so many have lost.
See, what happens when you get carried away in the new age, “women’s empowerment” spaces is that you lose a certain frequency of connection to something outside of yourself.
It isn’t “cool” to be devoted to the Holy Mother.
It isn’t “embodied” to pray to God.
It isn’t “empowered” to be devoted to your partner.
This is just the extreme swing of the pendulum. Centering ourselves at the cost of something deeper, something bigger.
Why is external devotion so threatening to these teachers and systems? If someone is truly embodied and connected to their divine channel, being in devotional practice to something other than themselves isn’t a threat.
Instead, it is nourishment. The most delicious slice of humble pie in remembering that there is truth outside of what is running through us. That the Mystery is beyond anything we know, “download” or teach.
If you are wanting to fall to your knees in DEVOTION…
HOLY: A PILGRIMAGE TO THE SACRED HEART
Is beginning in March. This round is all about finding the threads of devotion in our lives to the external world. Our partners, the land, non-human creatures, the Holy Mother, and more. Because these practices and ways of being need to be remembered. The ancient ways of prayer. The ancestral waters of devotion.
Apply below or reply to this newsletter ❤️
A blessing: May your ears hear the sweetness of those around you. May your eyes receive the insight needed on your journey. May your mind be at peace with what is. And may your heart be forever opening deeper and deeper to the Mystery.
Love, Binyamina Aisha
So beautiful, Binyamina. I'm excited for the external connection to holiness (I've been feeling some expansion in that direction recently.) I'm also moved by the letting go of clothes; it seems so hard, but a wonderful invitation into a shedding season. Angelina jokes, "but wait, what is she wearing" 😜 Love you