Global Web of Lovers: A Conversation about Cultivating Intimate Communities [Episode 5]
Goddess renegade. Midwife mastermind. Holy woman edge walker. But also Lover of All Beings. These were some of the descriptions that came to mind after my conversation with Lorie Dechar. What a gift it was for me to be in soul exchange with Lorie. We talked about everything from the exact timing of the bees and sea lavender on the coast where she lives all the way to honoring the domains of the dark goddess. At the pulsing, vibrant heart of Lorie’s mission is to be a part of this “global web of lovers,” cultivating intimate communities both locally and globally.
These were some of the highlights:
(4:06) Lorie tells the story of where she lives, just south of where the sun first hits the Eastern coast of the US every morning. The “People of the First Light”, also known as the Wabanaki Confederacy, really understand/understood the sacredness of this timing. Lorie describes “how real the spirits of this place” are to her and how her books, Five Spirits and Kigo, were informed and inspired by this land.
(10:03) While our local sense of place is essential, there is also a great “rhizomatic network” being built, like “tendrils under the earth” that are creating this “global web of lovers.” In the midst of the breakdown, we must cultivate intimate communities both locally AND globally.
(12:29) Lorie speaks to how the mesh that is being created is not just in the earth but also in her/our nervous systems and that platforms like Zoom are serving as our training ground for virtual connection.
(13:18) With gorgeous storytelling, Lorie describes how her understanding of “Yi” (the spirit of the Earth according to the Five Spirit cosmology) was downloaded to her in a clear transmission while kayaking off Darling Island. Observing the very specific blooming time of the sea lavender (which only grows between high and low tide), covered in honey bees, Lorie describes how she finally, viscerally, got the true meaning of “Yi.”
(18:45) Lorie offers a definition of what “alchemy” means to her, especially as it relates to a pre-dualistic thinking when we were not automatically separating spirit from matter.
(24:24) The mission of Alchemical Healing is to offer an invitation to transform what feels really hard (the “lead,” the discarded, the shadow parts) and to turn it into “gold,” or deeper healing.
(26:32) Let us continue to find ways of living with uncertainty and navigating within turbulence. If we can’t bear the dissolution, we keep running back to the old systems that are killing us and the planet.
(33:26) Lorie quotes her teacher, Bayo Akomolafe: “What if we shift our whole way of being to: death is not the enemy?” She describes how powerful this statement was to her and how it relates to her understanding of calling in and honoring the domain of the dark goddess. In creating reverence for Her, it allows a certain breathing room to remember that we are part of a much larger process and cycle than we can even know.
(37:44) Lorie speaks to the word “fugitivity”* and her sense that it is about midwifing a new consciousness that is atemporal, nondual, and multidimensional. One of her biggest passions is being part of this emergent consciousness that is bubbling up all over and cultivating community where we can have change-making conversations. “None of us can do this alone.”
Resources:
Five Spirits: Alchemical Acupuncture for Psychological and Spiritual Healing, by Lorie Dechar
Kigo: Exploring the Spiritual Essence of Acupuncture Points Through the Changing Seasons, by Lorie Dechar
The Alchemy of Inner Work: A Guide for Turning Illness & Suffering into True Health & Well-Being, by Lorie Dechar and Benjamin Fox
*Side note: The term “fugitivity” shows up currently with a variety of interpretations but it originally emerged as a signature idiom of black diasporic culture related to slavery’s legacies and an escape from the colonial and racial hegemony of Western liberty. It feels important to acknowledge the word’s true source.
Bayo Akomolafe describes fugitivity as “the theology of incalculability and hopelessness. The fugitive rejects the promise of repair and refuses the hope of the established order. By clinging to outlawed desires, barely perceptible imaginations, alien gestures, the fugitive inhabits the moving wilds.”
bronte velez says, “we move into fugitivity when we wonder: how does it feel to choose to not participate in the systems as they are?”
