Arachnean Wisdom

I read Catherine Keller’s 1986 book, From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self a couple of months back, and it made my heart sing. (A big thank you to Glenys Livingstone for mentioning it to me, and to Esmée Streachailt for asking me to write it.) It’s so much what we need right now when there is a reactionary conservative push to reinstate harmful gender roles—as if that’s the cure for all our ills—when what we really should do is keep defying them.

It’s a complex and difficult book, however, so I’ve written a short review which distils the essence of its arguments, and it has just been published on Medusa Rising, a new radical materialist feminist project. It’s a subscription-only publication (though subscriptions remain free until April), so in time I will share the review here so it can be read freely also.

In the meantime here are some inspiring quotes from the book.

Not Knowing

Considering the complexity of the situation we find ourselves in, it’s hard to say anything because I know that what I write can only ever be provisional. And yet there’s still so much I’d like to be able to express, if only to explore uncertainty and reach towards what cannot be grasped. Expanding further into the not-knowing beyond knowing is a way to find both solace and new vitality.

Civilisation is a trap we walked into several thousand years ago, and it clanged shut behind us. None of us is actually free in the way that humans are meant to be free, sustained by kith (land) and kin (humans and nonhumans). (Take note: freedom ≠ doing whatever you want.)

I agree with Iain McGilchrist when he says that the world is not a problem with a solution; it’s a predicament that cannot be solved. (This is not the same as saying that there is nothing we can do, but it does mean that many, if not most, things are out of our control.)

I think often of what Derrick Jensen has said: “Unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of any culture.”

And what Susan Griffin has said: “A rebellion ultimately imitates that which it rebels against, until the rebel comes to understand himself.”

Many of the “answers” that we are finding have emerged from the wrong questions, which have come from the wrong foundational beliefs. Many of the ways we have chosen to “rebel” against the system have in fact taken us full circle back to the same unfreedom and harm.

I have biases and blindspots just like everyone else. I don’t have the answers, and I’m hardly a rebel. I do know, however, that sitting patiently with not-knowing, whilst also pursuing greater provisional understanding—especially self-understanding—is crucial.

After the collapse, and in a thousand years or so, when the wild has returned (fingers crossed) and we’ve earthed ourselves back into reality, perhaps we’ll know and not-know better. Until then, we humans really need to remember that we’re still in the trap, our thinking is shaped by that, and we can’t truly understand who we are until we escape it.

This Year

The past 18 months has been exceedingly strange and difficult.

Since it has been just over a year since my last post, I think an update is needed.

At the end of last year I was cocooning, hoping to rest and recover from burnout, only to find that as 2024 began my energy continued to slip away. By February I was spending much of my time in bed, doing very little, and this became the pattern for the first half of the year.

During that time I started seeing a naturopath who told me I had a thyroid issue. This turned out to be a valuable realisation, because within a few months I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease.

The naturopath’s dietary advice left a lot of be desired, however, and after losing weight and an only slight improvement in my condition, despite spending many hundreds of dollars on fancy supplements, I gave him the boot. (He was quite rude to me at my last appointment, so I knew I’d done the right thing.)

I re-read Medicine Woman by Lucy H. Pearce to remind myself of my ability to take my healing journey back into my own hands—even if that meant accepting the way things were for a while, with the bouts of depression and mood swings and lack of will or motivation to do anything.

From Medicine Woman by Lucy H. Pearce

After a while my energy did improve slightly, and I could sit in bed knitting madly, and listening to music or Manda Scott’s Boudica series on audiobook.

By July/August I was much improved from the deeply fatigued place where I had been. I started to see a dietitian, and to eat and regain weight.

I have also been voraciously re-reading books this year—When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone, The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, Diving Deep and Surfacing by Carol P. Christ, and At the Root of this Longing by Carol Lee Flinders, and much more—and revisiting these feminist texts has been so enlivening. I also treated myself to a discounted bundle of four issues of THE RADICAL NOTION (since print issues will no longer be available), and I’ve been impressed with the quality of the writing and thought in the articles—perfect stimulation for my hungry, restless mind.

Though in spite of feeling better (though still far from my ‘best’), the last few months presented another diagnosis of possible thyroid cancer. Thus I had surgery at the beginning of December to remove part of my thyroid (which turned out to be far less traumatic than I thought it would be—virtually no pain!), and while the suspicious lump in question turned out to be benign, two small incidental cancerous lumps were found. There is, therefore, some chance that similar lumps might be found in what remains of my thyroid. So, decisions will have to be made in a couple of months about what to do next, which means this particular adventure with the medical system is not quite over yet.

While everything remains a bit uncertain, thyroid cancer is rarely life-threatening, so I am not particularly worried about it. I am even feeling better. Whether as a result of the surgery or just a happy blip, I don’t know. But I wanted to write here, when I haven’t wanted to write anything for a very long time.

I still have little desire to return to art-making, and writing will likely remain sporadic. Yet I am beginning to feel more animated and interested in engaging with people and the world. As yet I will probably continue my hiatus here, until I am more certain about how I am feeling and what my meagre energy permits. For now I am still most active on Instagram: @offeringsfromthewellspring and @the_wild_nun, and Facebook.