Dare Carrasquillo

Alternative title: Story, State, Action Model for a Collapsing Mythology (part 1)

Index of articles related to Story, State, Action model can be found here. 

This is in conversation with my 2023 year of the dragon article on Daoism, Degrowth & Decolonization.

Hi. I’m going to assume you know some things already.

1. that the basic cosmological View and downstream Methods/Practices of post-modern westernism are fundamentally unsustainable and consume resources faster than it allows said resources to recover and regenerate.
2. that human beings have existed for over 300,000 years and only 12,000 of those years have been skewed towards sedentary agricultural nation states and hetero-patriarchal caste systems.
3. that non-western sciences (nondual, animist) have more appropriate mental models for relating with complex, compound relational/ecosystemic webs-of-relations and environmental processes.
4. that human beings process and interpret reality through a complex network of filters based in the 5 senses, thoughts & feelings, and this complex network includes concepts such as the nervous system, perception, predictive neurology, epigenetic ancestral carry-over, socio-cultural-economic architectures & narratives.
5. that the fetishization and fixation on beliefs and believing is fundamentally bankrupt as a means by which to navigate reality.

Okay. Open your heartmind and befriend confusion as the preeminent creative state. Confusion = Creativity = Play = Learning.

Let’s talk about what I mean when I say Degrowth, Decolonization & Daoism.

• Degrowth: Consuming less than you regenerate/recover. Become less time-poor by becoming less BUSY. Learning to Cease With Sufficiency.
• Decolonization: Land Back. This is the most important policy transition that needs to be made and will take a mass societal shift. Towards that goal, there are sub-processes of decolonization that must be enacted such as:
  • neuro-decolonization – the decolonization of mental models, thoughts, emotions, narratives, Stories & States and perceptual biases. Term coined by indigenous neuroscientist Dr. Michael Yellowbird.
  • relational decolonization – the decolonization of how we perform and structure relationships including gender, identity, racialization, non-human, familial, sexual, workplace, child-rearing, etc.
• Daoism: a non-religious, nondual, animist reclamation of the fundamental tenants laid out by Daoist philosophy, rooted in neolithic lifeways, and adapted by Confucian social-political principles.Major ideas of Daoism include:
  • tending to the middle/center way between extremes,
  • having dynamic capacity to enact both yin and yang behaviors,
  • not striving to become more-than-human,
  • enacting restraint,
  • courting what is natural, inherent and sublime,
  • engaging in routine, flexible reflective processes,
  • focusing on the Involuntaries such as breathing, eating/digesting, sleeping, bathing, movement/rest in order to maintain good blood circulation and blood nourishment,
  • practicing loss instead of gain,
  • practicing dis-identification with “the self” and preferences, etc.,
  • reducing excessive efforts which waste internal/external resources,
  • poetically dialoguing with reality (life-death) without dissociation.

We engage with these major categories through the Involuntaries:

In Daoism/Daoist Hygiene we seek to regulate the Involuntaries.

Now, Regulation in Daoism may not be what regulation means in pop-instagram-psychology terms, so please investigate that in yourself as you go through this article. As in, why do you believe certain words mean certain things? Who/what determines the stories you implicitly “believe”?

In Daoism, regulation points to spontaneous adaptation in alignment with Nature, The Cycles of Time, and your current Context/Environment. This adaptation is first practiced, and then spontaneous, or at least that’s the intent. But Daoism doesn’t whine about how things are. If things don’t regulate spontaneously, we practice nudging, we change the overarching conditions little by little until symptoms subside (transform/change) or more overall vitality is expressed.

This nudging can be explained in many ways, because Daoism also doesn’t sweat the methodology. All methods may be useful, if the view is correct. And if the view isn’t correct, then any methods will ultimately reveal those aspects of wrong view.

Daoists aren’t necessarily chasing health & longevity as a means for salvation/ascension, but instead as a natural expression and celebration of what we are, which allows us to:

1. live out our allotted days (fate);
2. exhibit natural, unforced kindness and generosity;
3. and unfold our aspirations in accordance with Nature, Society and “spirit”.

So, as we work/play with the Involuntaries, we do so with a light-hearted and light-handed approach, which might include backing way way up to be able to introspect wisely, perceive the real reasons behind our actions, and be able to nudge the Will (Intent, Yi) towards what really matters.

The Involuntaries are both the Cause and Result of the practices. They exhibit and express the results of our total conduct, our total context, as well as perform the role of being the levers (leverage) by which we can act upon the state of our bodily world.

One can say they are both the actors and the stage. They are both the “Cause” and the “effect”, entwined…

Further breakdown into Involuntaries can be found here.

The Specific Involuntaries that will be examined in part 2 are: Sleeping, Moving, and Thinking through the lens of DEBT.

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you can check out the sessions tab if you are serious about getting real support to apply any of these concepts i write about in your own real life, right now. (in addition to polestar natal chart readings, I have developed a shorter, 3-4 month intensive onboarding of the practices to shift your patterns starting at around $1,000USD. email for details.).

Disclaimer:

This article and my work are directed towards people who practice cultivation deliberately.

My writing is primarily written to and for people who can take responsibility for their own life. People who work to help others – their students, clients, communities, etc. As such it may “skip over” very beginner level skills and ideas. You can search the vast archives of articles, YouTube videos, podcasts etc for more content that may help you if you are a beginner at managing internal phenomena/symptoms/pathologies. It’s my intent that by setting a higher standard your natural upright qi will follow and align to the standard! My work is for everyone, but not everyone is for my work. Thanks for practicing with me.

[Feature Photo by Frank Cone via Pexels.]