My story… our story… one of many… and unique… and the same

None of the people in this story are me, or you.

Maybe they are all us?

Anyway, the story.

For now it is called;
The Falling Apart. The Coming Home.

Intro

After the falling apart, I found the putting together, the coming home.

The person who showed me how we put people and communities together, was known as the elder.

This story is for them, and all the elders who came before and will follow them after.

Not long before they passed away, the elder said to me; 
“Love is not something that is static, nor something that blows in on the breeze. 

It is made, created, nurtured, broken, remade, recreated, every day. 

You create love from using your strengths, you nurture love from using your weaknesses.
You know love from paying attention to the quiet and small moments. 

You give love from your heart.
You receive love within your wholeness, within and beyond what you understand as you.  

You practice and model all of this, live long enough, and you will become an elder.”

As much as I know the elder would suggest they are always with me, I really miss them.   

Chapter one.

I was in my late teens when the falling apart first happened, it took around five years from start to finish, and then, all that was left was rubble and a few of us humans, who through no reason we could understand, were still alive.

We were also confused, alone and traumatised, but otherwise, seemingly unscathed.

During those falling apart years I bumped into a few of the other survivors, they were in various states of fear and panic, once or twice I had to flee and hide from them. 

We were all seeking some sort of refuge, it wasn’t easily found, and we didn’t know what it might look like.

After the falling apart, that mad destruction period, had passed, things became quieter, I am guessing there were far fewer of us left alive on the planet by then.  

So, I headed for the hills that I had known as a youngster. 

They were directly south of where I grew up. 

Having been there with my family, on holidays and a couple of times with youth groups doing outdoor stuff, I had fond memories of the area and hoped the hills and rivers might provide me with resources and some safe shelter.

It took me another couple of years to find my way there, not that it was more than a few hundred kilometres away from where I started, but just navigating the scarred landscapes, the mix of derelict rural and urban communities, was tricky and dangerous. 

Whenever I found any place where there was food and simple shelter left, I’d spend time there to rest, recover, put on some weight and rebuild some muscle again.

While travelling, I had nothing with me other than the bits and pieces I collected on the way. I managed to get some decent boots that I took from the feet of a dead person and a little later, a knife and a compass that I found in an old shack. 

I stayed in that shack for a few days until the owner turned up, chased me out of there while shouting “this is  MY LAND”.

I didn’t argue with them, but managed to get away with the knife and compass in my pocket and luckily had the boots on my feet. 

Considering this a win, I kept heading for the hills.

The idea that anyone owned anything following the falling apart seemed ridiculous now. 

There was so little left to own, somehow this made some of us still alive all the more desperate to claim stuff, land, a shack, a pair of boots or a compass. 

Others just got by with what they found that no one else was currently using, and the prospect of this being mine and that being yours, no longer counted for much.

I could see the hills long before I got to them. I think the flat plains that led to them must have once been a lake in the ancient past, they seemed to stretch for ever, and, not being great at keeping any track of time, crossing them felt like an age to me. 

Once I reached the wooded foot hills, I decided to climb as high as I could, for no reason other than wanting to get a look at what lay ahead of me and to get an elevated 360 degree view of the landscape. 

There were no markers or paths in those hills, so, learning on the way up that if I could follow the rivers upstream this would help me find my way to the highest hills, that got me all the way to the top of the biggest hill for many miles around.

Having rested there for a week or two and on my way back down the other side, not far from the top, moving towards the south east, I found a rowing boat tethered on the banks of a narrow, deep stream. 

It looked in reasonable condition and had a couple of oars still.
I pushed off and let the stream carry me until it merged into a bigger river. 

After a few days in the boat the river became broader, the water was becoming choppy and I lost one of the oars as the current got too strong for me to manage, so I lay low in the boat listening to the roaring noises ebb and flow around me. 

I was tired, exhausted and hungry. I guess I either blacked out or fell asleep or both.

Coming round briefly with a bright sun above me and the bare ground beneath me, I realised I was being carried by three or four people. 

I was not able to resist and the next time I woke I was in a comfy straw bed, there was an old person sitting beside me, offering a big bowl of warm stew.

I have only very vague memories of being carried and laid feverish and delirious onto that straw mattress in the home I now live in, and, have been told since that the old person offered to take me in, then fed me and nursed me back to health over the next couple of weeks.

It was their own self built home before I showed up. 

They had lived there by themselves for a while, they chose to take me in, help me recover and since then, became the most important person for me and many others in this slowly growing new village we share together here. 

The old person never told me why they made that choice to house and care for me, and they always treated me with love and affection, just as if I was long lost family.

Knowing them as I do now, I guess they would say;
“We are all family”.

 
Over those first few days, the old person told me to call them “the elder”. 

They said;
“Every one else does.”

As I recovered they showed me round the village, introducing me to people and places during the day time.

Each night we would cook, eat, and they would occasionally sing songs. I knew the words in some songs and not in others. 

Sometimes the words they used were foreign to me, and to others too.
It was as if they made sounds randomly, but I always felt there was meaning in the sounds and rhythms they created.

In those early months, other than the daily explanations of the layout and practices here in the village and around the edges of it, the elder didn’t share anything about themselves.

They asked me questions about how I had grown up, who with and where, but otherwise, they didn’t talk much as we first got to know each other.

Chapter 2.

One mid morning, about a year after I had landed here, I was sitting on the river bank, pretty much where I must have washed up. I was resting and thinking how lucky I was to have landed here and been welcomed into this makeshift DIY community of a few hundred other lucky people. 

Just as I was smiling to myself, feeling into this extended family village I had landed in, I noticed a change in the sounds from the river and a sense of fear rose in me as I realised that a small canoe was being paddled towards the landing spot.

I managed to settle myself and allow whatever was showing up to take it’s course, took a few deep breaths and sat still, trying to adopt a Hi, how are you vibe as two skinny youngsters bought the canoe to a stop just a few metres in front of me.

I asked them a few questions, offered my name, and smiled as much as I could, while aiming to stay as gentle and calm as I could. 

After what felt like a few minutes of them staring anywhere but at me, I turned towards the track that led the six hundredish metres from this river bank towards my home.

They both followed me and although I could hear them making noises there was nothing in what I heard that I recognised as a language.

When we got home, the elder came out and sat on one of the logs that formed a circle round our fire pit. There were only ashes in the pit as it was midday and not cold enough to need another fire building yet.

They indicated to the two youngsters to sit on one of the logs in the circle, and although they hesitated, they each took the few steps towards our circle and both sat next to each other opposite the elder, who gestured me over, and whispered in my ear;
“Go tell the medicine people to prepare a couple of welcome packs and bring the packs back here in an hour or so please”.

I nodded and walked off towards the centre of the encampment.

I reckoned it would take me twenty minutes walking there and twenty minutes back so I could get a sit down by one of the food and drink stalls in the market square. 

There were always a few others there who I knew and I was happy to spend time with them, and, I knew the old person well enough to know that if they said be back here in an hour, I should stick to that. 

As I got back and handed the packs to the old person, the two youngsters looked at me and, as they stared straight at me for the first time, I noticed my own discomfort as there was nothing in their gaze that told me anything about how they felt being here, or how they felt about me. 

I turned and walked away a few metres and felt confused by their blank stares, and, no longer the new person in the community as no one else had joined us since I had shown up, I felt a shift in the dynamic within myself and here in our small patch we called home.  

As I sat watching the old person talking to the two youngsters, it was hard to tell if they were listening to him. 

One of them was looking up towards the sky, as if they were searching for something there, a bird maybe. 

The other was looking between their feet at the ground, again with a sense of looking for something, scanning it from side to side, as if they expected something to come out of the ground.

Although I was sitting under a tree nearby, I could hear the old person speaking, but not well enough to make out what they were saying.

After a while they stood up and walked towards the simple hand made house we were living in. 

The youngsters followed them.

Hard to call the space we were living in a house. It was circular and made out of wooden uprights bending into each other at the top, woven through with long thin tree branches, and sealed with a reddish muddy clay and finished with a mix of dried fern like plants. It reminded me of a large yurt like type of thing. 

The inside was spilt by two crossed internal walls so that there were three small spaces to sleep in and one space with a wood burning stove that was used as the shared living space.

The old person had one of the sleeping spaces, I had another and the youngsters were offered the third. 

I was standing in the open entrance, watching as they walked into their room, leaving their fabric partition door open as they both lay down on the basic straw mattress and fell asleep almost immediately. 

The elder asked me to stay nearby incase they woke and then they walked off down the track that led to the river.

By the time they came back the day had stretched out and the sun was lower in the sky, they asked me to set up a small fire so we could make a hot drink and cook some food. 

Chapter 3

The elder made a herb brew in a pan over the fire, poured two cups, offered me one and beckoned for me to sit with them on the logs around the fire pit. 

We both sat there for a while watching the fire grow and glow until they spoke.

They said;

“The youngsters then, the canoe they arrived in, looks like it’s seen some wear, they say anything to you when they landed?”

“No, they just nodded a little when I asked their names and suggested they might want to meet the community here. 

As we walked from the river to the settlement, I’d asked them where they had travelled from, they linked arms and shrugged shoulders in unison, made some sounds but nothing I understood”.

“Yeah, makes sense, I can see they are able to hear and understand the ways we talk, not sure they can speak, or if they are choosing to say nothing for now, or they have their own made up language, or, maybe they have not spoken for sometime hey”?

“I guess. They look like they have been through some bad stuff, but then haven’t we all over the last decade or so”?

“For sure, lets see how they settle, you want to eat? I’ll make enough for them too if you do”.

“Yes, thanks, can I help”?

“Ok, sure, grab those root veg in the basket over there, give them a rinse, and cut them into cubes, no need to peel them, the skins are good”. 

As the the sun set blazing orange through the trees, the pot on the fire bubbled and the smells wafted through the early evening air. 

The two youngsters came and joined us by the fire. 

The elder quietly dished out four bowls and handed us each one, telling us only to be careful as it was hot.

The youngsters smiled at each other as they finished and seemed to soften a little. 

They had slept for several hours and having now eaten, sat there, quiet, for several minutes, one gazing at the ground, the other looking up towards the tops of the trees and the stars which were slowly getting brighter as the sky got darker.

We threw a little more wood on the fire, covering this in lots of damp leaf material to keep it burning low and slow and the old person suggested we all follow them towards the place we called the Maqam. 

The Maqam is a special space, not in the centre of the community, or near where we were close to the track that leads to the river. It was about a forty minute walk from our home patch, on the far side of the village.

The Maqam was where the music and dancing took place. 

Compared to the old times it was not like a venue, or a church, or a festival, or any other shared public space that I knew back then, but it did somehow feel familiar. 

I realised as I walked there with the elder and the youngsters, that this is where the elder had taken me on the first night that I was well enough to walk and move without pain. 

Maybe everyone who landed with us was taken there as some sort of initiation into our community that we have carved out in this mix of river, land, woods and hills.

That evening I learned to call the old person, she/her. 

When I first met them I just assumed they were male, a man, an old man. 

They had light facial hair, a gruff low voice and to my limited, conditioned understanding of gender and age I assumed that they were an old man. 

Watching her dancing and moving that evening at the Maqam, and as she led the youngsters to join, I felt that she could not be as old as her exterior appearance would lead you to believe.

I sat off to one side watching as she encouraged the youngsters into the middle of the dance, and the movements got bigger, faster and more extravagant. 

After some time the youngsters stepped back a little from the dance, sweating, and just stood watching the elder, who started spinning, twirling, getting faster and faster. 

As she reached what felt like it must have been a climax, the simple cloth robe they were wearing released, fell off, and they were naked. 

It was then that I realised they were definitely a woman according to my understanding of biology.

The youngsters were smiling and clapping. This was the first time I had seen them not looking towards the sky or towards the ground.

Leaving them both there, at the Maqam, with someone who offered to walk them home to us later after the dancing finished, me and the elder walked back towards home. 

They said;
“Is there anything you feel a need to ask me”? 

“Yeah, lots of things.”

“Ok, what comes first.”

“I didn’t know you were a woman, I thought you were an old man.”

“Maybe I am. I was born with a vagina, I grew up as a girl, people identified with me as they would with anyone they assumed was a girl, I responded as I was taught, like a girl.”

“So, you identify as a man?”

“Maybe I do, maybe I am a man with a vagina, is it important to you how I identify?”

“No, I guess not. 

I know you as the person who found me in the boat in the river, nursed me back to full health and encouraged me to see this community as a place where I was always welcome and could call my own.
You invited me to share not just your community, your home too.”

“Ok. 

So when you were growing up you didn’t respond or behave differently depending upon the presenting gender of the person you were with?”

Of course I did but I was struggling on this one, so, I asked to come back on that another time, another day, it was late, we were nearly home and I was still processing how I felt about the old person being someone who was now beyond gender and age stereotypes, while also recognising that I carried a lot of attitudes and assumptions that may need challenging. 

I did ask; 

“What shall I call you? I have only ever known you as the old person or the elder.”

“Most people here call me the elder, you can call me El for short if you wish.”

“And pronouns, if I am speaking to others here?” 

“She her is fine with me just now, thanks for checking.” 

That night I felt I had got to know El in a deeper way for the first time, and I went to bed feeling incredibly lucky to know her, however she shows up. 

Between awake and asleep, these words floated around within me; 

Understanding, understood, stand under, stood out, come in, come out, join in, just join, just join, just is… they played in and around me as I lay on my bed full of new feelings. 

I am not sure if these words followed me into my dreams but whatever was going on, I woke the next morning a very different person, never to fully return to the person I had been before landing here.   

Chapter 4

Did I respond to people around me differently, depending on how I saw them, as either man or woman, girl or boy, young or old, black or white? 

Yeah, definitely.

I had grown up within a relatively progressive household and community, but even there the cultural conditioning had left all us modern people living more or less within the limits of a judgemental binary world view.
Good bad, black white, dark light, right wrong, rich poor, stupid clever, man woman, gay straight, butch fem, girl boy, teen adult, baby child.
 

Over the next couple of weeks, maybe months, time passed in ways here that I struggled to keep up with… that’s not quite right, not accurate.

I guess that as I adjusted to living in a community where time and attention were the two main currencies, the rising and setting of the sun and moon marked how we felt, how we worked, played, partied and slept, rather than what day or date it was, marking time in terms of productivity… had no meaning or purpose.

I had seen, understood, and experienced, that the people here, in our community gave each other their time, their attention. 

We cared about each other. 

This was no utopian dream place, it was a working, active, sometimes messy group of people showing up having escaped, or at least left behind, a really horrible and violent global upheaval.

Many of us struggled with adapting to this new, caring sharing space. 

Me included. 

And, meanwhile, there was no sense of this is mine and that is yours, it was all ours. 

What we gave we gave only with the total consent of the person receiving. 

What we gave was our time and attention.
What we received, the time and attention of another, likewise, we received only after giving consent.

If someone, familiar or a relative stranger, sat down beside me, they might say;
“Are you ok with me sharing some conversation around how the new water wells are coming along? I am aware you work with the trees alongside the river and feel it might be useful to have your input.”

I had options on how I responded to this, I could ask to meet another time and pay attention then, or, suggest someone else who might be better placed to answer, or, to accept and say;
“Yeah, sure, I’m interested and have plenty of time for you just now, go ahead.”

If I was not it the mood to talk and just said no, that was also respected without need for me to explain or apologise, this was a space where we were encouraged to be honest about how we felt, how available we were, or not. 

We were taught the importance of being, being present, being open and being honest.

When I say taught, it was what we saw others doing, it’s how people were with us newbies, it became normal and comfortable and helped us understand each other and what it might be to be, a human… being.

This is how we learned to be, by example.

The old person, El, taught me a lot while not saying much.

She would sit with me at a small public square on a bench with a drink before we made our way home with the foods we collected in the central market.
If someone sat alongside us, I’d watch as they and El said hello, checked it was ok to chat and then might bring me into their conversation, first asking if I was up for that.

Little interactions like that happened often while I was still shadowing El, before I had found my way round and met people who were likely to become my friends, my new family maybe. 

Before I became independent I guess. 

By the time I was out from under Els’ wings, I knew my geographical way round the community and also round the social and emotional norms of this space that taught without teachers, that cared without carers, that gave space when it was asked for, and stepped in offering support when it was requested.

If this sounds very different to the lives you live just now, it might seem as if this major shift in perspective of my community here, would be complicated to set up and manage. 

The truth based on my experience here, leaves me to acknowledge that it’s not that complicated. 

We have learned to behave not in new ways, maybe rather in old ways, ways that our new borns and children know of, without being taught, being cared for when in need, and helping when able.

It seems here that we each enjoy the responsibility placed upon us to become useful, caring, thoughtful, relaxed, confident people.

It also seems living around others who are caring, relaxed and confident, makes it easy to become all of these and more. 

My skills and demeanour were settling into my internal, and our external, flowing land, alongside these rhythms of this natural nurture world here. 

I was becoming part of something much bigger than I ever knew existed or was possible in my life before the falling apart.

I had become known for spending time down by the river, checking in with the ways the trees at the edges of the river were doing, and pruning and shaping the trees either side of the path from our home that led towards the river.
I also sat by the river and carved some of the wood that I pruned or cut back from the trees.

My carvings were mostly abstract, but as I spent time at the Maqam, watching the musicians and dancers, I carved drum sticks and then moved on the making the wooden bodies for the drums. 

Someone else had seen me doing this and started to make new skins for the bodies I had made. They were known as Ye and as we worked together we became close friends. 

Between us we became known as drum makers and as they had joined me in managing the woods on the path and near the river edges, as river tree workers.

Me and Ye, the drum makers and river tree workers.

Ye was not known mainly for the making of drum bodies, that was more of a part time hobby for them. Their main skills revolved around baking, producing the daily bread that we all enjoyed. 

Ye was part of a small team that would get up really early every day, often before it was light, and would bake loads and loads of bread 6 days a week and only get a lie in on the one day they took off from baking.

Not all the team chose to bake every day, each person choose their own hours. Ye was one of two or three who liked to work six days a week.

Sometimes Ye would come to mine early still in the morning after baking, and we would go and work on the trees and the paths along the river edges until mid afternoon when it got to hot for that kind of work.   

Between us, me and Ye, we offered the produce of our skills and labours to any that needed them.

 

It seemed that every one here did the same, some people worked many hours each week while others only a few, and overall we covered our basic needs well, acknowledged and respected each act of kindness we were offered, big and small.

We all also offered our time and attention to each other sometimes.
Some people offered more than others, some people less, but no-one was keeping a tally.

We offered what we could, and, mostly, we received what we needed. 

Chapter 5

As the first several sunsets and full moons passed for the youngsters, they became more accustomed to how our community worked and what they could do here to become useful and known. 

As the currencies were around how and who you shared your time with and who and what you gave your attention to, so the ways you made choices about what you could and were happy to do in the community marked out your skills and creative expressions.

The youngsters were slowly settling in to the rhythms here, and, as they did the more I liked them. 

They started to learn my language and teach me theirs. They gave themselves new names. 

The youngster who used to constantly stare up towards the sky ( having mostly dropped that now ), chose to be called Ao, explaining that this was close to the sounds their favourite birds sang when they were a child growing up in an isolated indigenous village, a long way away across many other seas.

The youngster who used to mostly stare at the ground, chose the name Swaar and explained that this was based on the sounds that the local snakes made if you went too close to the burrow they lived in.

I knew Ao and Swaar both grew up in the same village,  but they shared very little about their birth village or how and where they grew up, or how they got here. 

They had spent some long nights talking with El once they had settled in though.

I wasn’t sure how old they were, what gender they were, whether they were siblings or whether they were from the same family.

When I asked El about this, she said;
“ If you knew all of this, would you behave differently around them?”

Again I struggled to answer that question, even though I knew that I probably would. 

One one level, maybe through a culturally conditioned filter system, I would say yes, for sure, and, with the ways this new community was unravelling parts of me that felt both new and also very old, I was inclined to say;

“No, of course not, I am just curious and don’t want to seem nosy or intrusive.”

El replied;
“Then don’t ask and maybe find other questions to get curious about, or, ask them how they feel about you sharing your curiousity and asking questions. They may chose to refuse to answer, it’s your choice to ask, their choice to refuse or ignore or to say Ok, go ahead, ask.”

This is how it would so often go with El, and although I knew she was right, and although the most important thing was that I enjoyed spending time with her and Ye and Ao and Swaar, I still carried these old embedded needs to categorise and label people for reasons I didn’t really understand.

Chapter 6

Although there was something moving within me around noticing how my cultural conditioning impacted the ways I respond and relate to all sorts of  people and situations, there was a messaging that I had absorbed during my life before the Falling Apart that didn’t just disappear once all those influences were no longer present in the same ways here in the village.

We had called our village, our shared space here, the Mesheron, we had apparently tried other words to describe our settlement here and we also had to take account of all the differing languages that were spoken in our new shared home land.. 

This openness to accommodate every one regardless of background, age, gender or colour, was one of the ways I was learning to see things from multiple perspectives. A word that I might have used casually in the past as it would have been unlikely to cause offence or be misunderstood might land heavy with some people from other cultures here.

Many of us were learning to live in ways that we had never even considered in our previous lives. It felt good most of the time, uncomfortable sometimes and, over time, it always felt liberating and revolutionary in those occasionally breathtaking moments of a new awareness and understanding.

Many learnings for me came as a result of sharing our home space with the youngsters, Ao and Swaar.  

Inevitably we all became close over the first year or so that we lived there together with the the old person, El, being also a constant guide and presence for us three.

Ao and Swaar spent a few nights each week at the Maqam.
El only went on a new or full moon and on the main days and nights in the important annual solar dates.

I joined them there now and again, but didn’t spend as much time there as often as Ao and Swaar.

I had got used to spending my time in the woods and down by the river. I would get up early, sit by the fire pit and make a drink for myself and sometimes for El too. Ao and Swaar were more inclined to going to bed in the early hours of the morning and getting up a few hours later than I did.

Every so often Ye would join me after they had finished the daily bread baking. We were working out ways to keep the paths that followed the river downstream clear and as safe as possible. The river and the woods that grew either side of much of it, was a source of so much for for us all.

For me, the woods and river was a place of beauty and solace, I loved to spend a few hours working in the edges of the woods where they met the river and clear spaces that we could all use to collect water, wash clothes, ourselves and the children.

Together, me and Ye created spaces where anyone could play, bathe and swim too.

I am not sure if my attachment to the river was a result of its’ offering me time to heal from the more than a couple of years of isolation and fear, or if was just because it was capable of being both fast and slow, soft and hard, gentle and powerful, quiet and noisy, giving and taking, somehow modelling the skills I was developing here with the support of El and the community.

Regardless, the river was healing and modelling and peace and quiet, all of those things and more… and special for me for reasons I understood and reasons I didn’t.

Some days when I got home from working I would eat and then have an afternoon sleep, others I would skip the sleep and go into the village centre to meet with old and new friends, most days though I was the first one to go to my own bed and fall asleep, most often before El or Ao and Swaar did. 

Now and again I would notice El or Ao and Swaar arriving home in the evening, sitting outside by the fire pit talking quietly together. Or, I was woken as Ao and Swaar came home in the early hours of the morning having been to the Maqam and going to their beds chatting and laughing.

Most of the time I didn’t notice anything after falling asleep as the sun set and my only knowing then was in my dreams.

One night was very different though and I feel the memories and feelings of this still.

Chapter 7

El had gone off with Swaar and a few others from our village to find new ways across the land to the east of us, inland, away from the river which ran from North to South west.

They were also going to visit some new friends we had met recently.

We had received them as visitors, as near neighbours, and they had stayed with us for a few days. 

They had told us about their group and the space they had settled in which was several days walk from us. 

When they left us, and returned home, they suggested that we would be welcome to visit them and share more about how we might all work together and maybe all learn some new skills.

It was the second day after Swaar and El had left with a few others when I had gone to bed and Ao had told me they were going to the Maqam and would be home late.  

I had gone to bed early as usual and was in a deep sleep.

It was a full moon that night. I recall El saying something about it being easier to travel when the skies were lighter in the evenings.

I remember waking up a little as someone was whispering to me, their mouth was close to my neck and they were asking me something. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but the feeling of their warm breath on my neck was nice. 

Their words were not ones I knew but they felt familiar. 

Then they said;
“Is this ok?

Can I put my arms around you.”

I think I just made a noise, a bit like a gentle sigh, and as I sighed, I moved a little so they could settle in beside me. 

They climbed under my blanket and put their hand on my belly just below my navel, it felt good to me and as I lay there I noticed my breathing deepen and slow down. 

My heart was moving faster though and I recall making a choice to keep my eyes shut and to let go of any tensions that might show up.

They asked again;
“Is this ok for you?”

And I whispered back; 

“Yes, it’s all good.”

We lay together like this for a while, then I noticed their breathing had slowed and was sure they were now sleeping. 

I was happy in those moments, curious, and noticing how it felt to be touched in this way. 

It was good to have this physical skin to skin contact, and, as questions and thoughts showed up, I breathed out, letting the questions and thoughts move through and leave me.

When I woke in the morning, I was on my side with my back to them and they were wrapped around me with one hand between my legs, or more accurately, between my thighs. 

Their other arm was under my neck and the palm of that hand cupped my shoulder. 

I lay there, still and quiet for quite a while, maybe dozing a little, on and off, not thinking, not trying to do anything other than to stay within this sense of comfort and peace and connection. 

Eventually, they started to slowly wake, I felt their energy change and move within them, expanding around us both.

 
They slowly, gently, untangled their hands and arms from around me and rolled out of my bed and walked away.

As I turned to watch them leave with their back to me, I realised it was Ao, I knew their hair, their silhouette, their rhythm and gait. 

This didn’t surprise me as somewhere, deep inside, beyond the cognitive level, I had known who this was as soon as they asked if they could share my bed.  

After rising I didn’t do my usual daily tasks and instead took off for a long walk along the side of the river, going upstream, and, finding myself sitting high on the top of a small hill that looked back over towards our village, I welcomed and allowed whatever showed up in time and space to be felt.

I sat there for a while and watching the light clouds above me in the sky, the river below me sparkling in the afternoon light, the landscape stretched out before me and beyond my own home, I lay flat on my back and whispered to the soft clouds, “hold me and breath me in.” 

I felt held, by Ao, by my home here, by my community, by these clouds in this sky, in a really rich and luxurious way. 

It was tempting to take these big feelings apart and try to understand and make sense of them. And, at the same time there was something in me that knew that the me here now, on this hilltop, didn’t need to reduce, review or understand this. 

These feelings of warmth, cosy comfort, curiousity, uncertainty, low level confusion, and quiet, gentle joy, were all welcome. 

What had happened last night was close and powerful, without being heavy or overbearing, it was humanity shared, it was a settling into this, my body, this, other body, this village, this land, this now, this new now… and I liked it.

Chapter 8

A week later, El and Swaar returned with the others, mid afternoon. They sat in the village square, just off to one side from the market place, looking dusty, tired and happy to be home. 

People came and sat with them and asked them lots of questions about the people they had visited. 

They asked about how long they had been there, was their village as well built and planned out as ours was, what equipment did they have and loads of other questions.

We were all excited to hear about the trip and the meeting with our nearest neighbours, so El stood up and said;
“Friends, we want to tell you about what we found at the other village and about the people who live there and what they might want from us. But right now we are dusty and a little tired after our long walk home.
So, we will go and rest and wash. Then we will come back here this evening and aim to answer all your questions, meanwhile, have an easy afternoon.”

El and Swaar went back to our shared home, rested for most of the afternoon, then washed in the river just before the sun set.

In the dusk light, we all, me, Ao, Swaar and El, walked to the village to find lots of people gathered there in the square.

Swaar did most of the talking that evening, they answered all the questions asked and checked in with El once or twice when they weren’t sure about some detail. 
El filled these gaps briefly and then urged Swaar to carry on.

Ao was sitting beside me while Swaar and El were talking. 
They were sitting close to me and I could feel their shoulder leaning a little on mine, at one point as the talking was coming to an end, they leaned their head in further and whispered something in my ear, I didn’t catch exactly what they said, but am sure it included the word happy somewhere.

Ao had continued to sleep with me in my bed over the nights that El and Swaar were away. 

Daytime though, we were the same as we always were, but, as soon as the sun went down and I went to my bed, Ao quietly joined me there and we both explored each others bodies with an intimacy I had never known before, falling asleep each night entangled together, tuned to each others rhythms and hearts in what felt like a cosmic choreography.

I noticed that El was looking at us both as Swaar was still talking and sharing their journey with those who had turned up to listen.

When the talking was finished and a few of those there, including Ao and Swaar, walked away towards the Maqam, El nodded at me and pointed towards the path that lead us home. I nodded back, smiled and joined them for the walk home.

After a few minutes El said;
“You have questions you want to ask me?”

“No, I kind of heard most of the details of your visit to the new neighbours, and, to be honest I am not overly interested in them.”

“ Ok, I’m fine with that, you know you can ask me anything, not just about the recent journey me and Swaar had?” 

“ Yeah, sure, I appreciate that.”

We were walking along for another few minutes before El said;

“So, what did you and Ao get up to while we were away?” 

“We spent the days doing our normal stuff, work and hanging out with people we know and like, them with theirs and me with mine. Same as always really… and…”

El was just quiet, didn’t push me, left me space to consider, and then pointed at a spot between the trees where some logs had been set aside to make this path wider and give people somewhere to sit and look out over the river.

When we were  both sitting and had time to settle ourselves, I started sharing about how me and Ao had spent the evenings and nights together.

I found myself talking about how nice it was to have this physical, warm and cosy space to ourselves and how I felt happy to be more involved this way with Ao.       

El just nodded along with me and muttered the odd aha and ok, I probably talked for ages, it felt good to share all this with someone. 

When I had finished talking we both just sat there for a while, then El said;

“Well, I am glad that you are happy. 

How does Ao feel about this new energy you are both sharing?”

“Thanks. 

I think they are ok with it, they initiated the first move and have been coming back to my bed since, so, I guess they are happy too, they seem happy.”

“Good to hear, I understand all that, and, I am conscious that you are a few years older than them… and maybe have had more worldly experience than they have. 

As much as I am happy for you both, my feelings are of being protective towards you and Ao. 

You are maybe both a little vulnerable in this situation, now, and as it grows. 

As long as you are aware of the responsibility you are holding here, I am really pleased that you are finding joy and comfort in each other.”

“Ok, I appreciate that and haven’t really thought about this like that. 

If it helps I promise I will be careful and maybe talk with Ao about how we can do this and stay open to what we both need for each other and for ourselves. 
Does that help you?”

“Yes, it does, and I trust you anyway, it’s just that is how I am feeling and want to be honest with you, for your sake and theirs. 

Can I add one other thing if you are going to talk with Ao about where you both are with this new relationship?”

“ Yes, sure, and thanks for your honesty, it’s important for me to know you can trust me and can be honest.
Of all that I have learned from you, trust and honesty are a big part of what makes us comfortable and valuable with each other… and it makes our community here work well too.”

“Good, I am glad to hear all that. 

Ok, so, I want to make sure you both know where you stand with the possibility that with this new intimacy you might both become parents, so, please make sure you both understand what that might involve.”

I nodded and smiled and then reached out and hugged El, we hadn’t done a lot of that, El was quite self contained unless they were dancing. 

I sat on that log for what seemed like a while and El wandered off a few metres away leaving me to consider and process what they had shared. 

By the time we got back to our home Ao and Swaar were not far behind, as they arrived I was just getting into me bed. 

A few minutes later Ao came and climbed in beside me, wrapped their arms around me and fell asleep almost instantly as I felt their warm breath on my neck slow and deepen. 

I lay awake for a while that night. 

Feeling my way through all this that I was now wrapped within, literally, emotionally, and with all the responsibility that I had previously not even considered. 

I wasn’t sure how I would raise this with Ao but understood that I needed to. El had never offered anything to me in all the time I had been here that wasn’t sensible, useful and important. 

I valued their support and wisdom as highly by now as I had ever valued anything. 

My last thoughts before I dropped of were somewhere around how lucky I was to be so close to El and also be this kind of close to Ao, I guess I fell asleep smiling that night. 

Chapter 9.

Over the next few weeks we had those conversations as El had suggested. 

We walked and talked, sat on the ground, on logs and in chairs and talked.
We lay in bed together and talked, and mostly, we listened.

Ao listened to me and asked an occasional question, I listened to Ao and asked a question now and again, and, we spent lots of time close to each other, totally quiet, while working through what was going on for us, feeling it, describing it, noticing the shapes, the colours, tracking the rhythm’s and flows of a cognitive process built upon a somatic response to what we were experiencing and sharing together.   

We found out lots about each other, we found an understanding, and shared what we gained from this exploration of being close as a couple and being whole in ourself. 

When Ao first started getting into my bed I didn’t really think about what was going on for them, or what had gone on for them in the past. 

I hadn’t paid attention to the fact that they were younger than me, I didn’t question how our growing closeness might impact upon people like Swaar and El, and others, who had grown to like and love Ao and me, as we both had shared parts of ourselves within this new and growing community we were building here.

The talks and walks and closeness we indulged ourselves within moved me.
Moved me in directions I wasn’t expecting, in ways that helped me realise that the bigger the feelings of connection, oneness, the bigger the need to recognise and respect my independence, and Aos’ independence too… equally.

Over these weeks of feeling and talking and listening and holding each other, I noticed that I was taking more time to myself to find quiet spaces. 

I found these quiet spaces among the trees that I worked with, alongside the river as it spoke to me in sounds that told me more than words ever could. 

I found quiet space within my own body, within my mind and within my heart. 
Space that could accommodate my internal voices that maybe had been heard but had not been listened to for many years.

As these voices and patterns flowed through me, and as I was learning to sit with whatever showed up, I became less able to describe what it was that I was looking for. 

My future felt like something that only happens in theory. 

There was a presence and an acceptance growing within and around me, alongside a background fear that I was losing myself, a fear that I didn’t know who I was or who I had been, or who I wanted to be. 

There was a naked raw uncertainty within the whole of me.

I guess I was losing so much of what I had been taught while growing up pre the falling apart. 
I was finding parts of myself that had been created in response to what I had been led to believe was what others wanted of me. 

I had, in my childhood, become the person I had been told was a good person to be, a clever person, a smart person, a nice person, a strong person, a right person. 

And, in the space that had opened up by leaving behind so many of the feelings I had around who I was required to be in order to please and satisfy others, there was now this emptiness, spaciousness… this broad and deep space that was light and available and new and… scary. 

While I welcomed and liked this feeling, even the scariness, I was not quite sure what I could do with it, not quite sure what I wanted to do with it, not quite sure if I needed to do anything with it.

So, I sat with all of this and continued to filter out these parts that I no longer needed, and those parts I was required to perform for others, and I spent chunks of time being with myself in quiet spaces internally and externally.

Ao and me were spending less time with each other now too. They still came into my bed two or three nights a week, and we still walked together and shared our thoughts and feelings, and this all felt as good as ever. 

Somehow though, without stating it, we knew we had passed from our initial excitement and energetic hunger for each other, we knew we were stepping into this new and more steady relationship, as lovers and friends, while slowly also becoming family together with El and Swaar, creating our little space here in our home in our community.

Chapter 10

I was implementing the new understanding that El had laid out for me. 

I was becoming aware of what my feelings were, rather than trying to think myself through some of the difficult feelings, I allowed those feelings, space to develop, and, as they did, I acknowledged and listened to them, sometimes asking them why they were so tense or loud or gritty or quiet or edgy… and from there invited them to share what they needed in order for them to be comfortable.

This was new to me, I had not been raised as a child to listen to and ask questions of feelings and the internal voices that accompanied them. 

Far from it, I had been encouraged to push them away, to ignore and deny them. 

Managing feelings in my childhood, for me and lots of others around me, and expressing those feelings, was looked upon as being weak, over sensitive, unreliable, immature and needy.

El had nudged and led me towards noticing my feelings and allowing time for them to be heard and acknowledged and I had been practicing this for a while now.

One day when me and Ao were sitting by the river bank with a warm sun going down in the sky, Ao asked me what I needed for me and from them. 

Then they said;
“Share what it is you need for yourself, now and generally.”

As I sat and let their question land within me, showing up as feelings and sensations, I found that words floated through me. 

Impossible to identify where within me exactly, and with no need to know or analyse this, I let the flow happen.

The words that showed up first around what I needed for me… included these,
so I said;

“For me, regardless of us, I need,

Comfort

Awareness

Love

Quiet
Noise
Stillness

Activity

Movement

Understanding.”

These were the words that showed up when Ao first asked me to share, and, I shared those words.

Ao said nothing for a while, then;
“It’s good for me to get to hear this, good for me to know what it is you need for yourself. 

I am aware that we have both been speaking and listening with El and that she is encouraging us both to be open to what shows up and to share this with each other. 

Trust and honesty are words that keep showing up for me. 

In relation to what we have between us and also for all the interactions that we are both forming here with others in this community.”

We both sat with this for a while. I was quiet in my body and in my mind, then Ao put their hand on mine and said;
“Will you share what you need from me, from us, for us… to be our best with and for each other?”

“Yes, I can do that, I might go slowly though… I need security, closeness.
I need to know you are there for me and I need to know that what we have between us is special, to us both, and precious… I need to feel understood and I need you to love me.” 

Ao, stood up and walked towards the edge of the river, they stepped into the shallow water there and raised their arms above their head, stretching. 

They turned towards me and asked me to join them, as I did and stood beside them,
they said;
“I will always love you Efee, I will always aim to find some time for you and as that happens I will always be as present as I can and give you whatever I am able to give. 

I also promise to be honest as much as I can, and, right now that honesty that I need to share with you, here, might not be what you want to hear, so, I am feeling hesitant, how does this land with you?”

We turned to face each other and wrapped our arms around each other, I could feel the cold water on my feet and legs, I could feel my heart beating and I could feel their heart beating too, and I noticed that I was smiling to myself and felt like crying… I wasn’t sure why, I wasn’t sure about anything. 

We stood there, wrapped in each other for what seemed like ages but may have just been a minute or two, then, holding hands we walked back towards the trees, found a couple of logs that I had cut recently, and sat on one each so we were face to face.

Ao said;
“The words that you shared that are the ones that are sticky within me just now are security, closeness and something you said about needing me to love you. 

Somehow I feel tension when I let those words take up space within me.
It may be that if you can describe what security would look like I might better understand, and, the way it landed with me left me feeling heavy, as if there was a large weight in my chest, or… around my shoulders.’

I sensed that they needed to take their time with this so I stayed quiet for the few minutes letting them consider what they had shared and what else they might need to share. I also felt tense and scared as I tried not to over think or read too much into what they had just said, it was a struggle though and part me wanted to scream, shout at them and run away.

After a few minutes of me sitting with my tension and them sitting with their thoughts,

they said;
“Ok, there is so much in all of this and what we have created is special to me… and precious too.
I don’t want to damage or diminish that and I also don’t want to feel that we are both dependent on each other to the extent that we are less than the sum of our parts.
So, I can’t be responsible for your security, I can’t make my own decisions based solely on how you might feel about them, or ask you to do that for me either.
I am struggling to share this with you because I fear it may feel to you like I don’t value you or value what we have made between us, and at the same time it would be cruel of me not to let you know that I am not able to live my life only for you.
I don’t know what we have ahead of us, I know that what we have now is good, and maybe this lasts forever, maybe it last until tomorrow morning, I don’t know and can’t pretend that I do.” 

They sat with me while that percolated through and within me, I wanted to say so much and felt that if I did it would all fall apart, I would fall apart, we would fall apart.

Then Ao stood up, took a couple of steps towards the river bank, turned towards me,
and said;
“Your security, your sense of self worth, your need for love, must come from within yourself and go to yourself.
If you depend upon another person to create security, love and worth for you… you only become more vulnerable and less secure, less worthy of love.
Does any of this make sense to you, I am noticing that I am feeling that I am hurting you and I don’t want to do that, ever. “

I looked them in the eyes, tried to smile, and started crying, tears ran down my face and my nose joined in and started running too, I needed to let something out but I didn’t know what or how. I sat with my head in my hands and sobbed for what felt like ever.

As I opened my eyes and wiped my face and nose on my sleeves, I stood and walked towards Ao, putting my arms around them as I whispered to them;
“I love you and I love that you can be honest with me, I am feeling a hurt but this is not a hurt that you have caused.
I am not sure what to say, not sure what I need or what to do. I do know that whatever happens in the future you will always be a part of me.
Can you tell me what we should do now, this minute?’

They kissed me, leaned back a little, held both my hands in theirs… smiled,
and said;
“Yes I can, or rather I can tell you what I need now and later this evening, and maybe you might chose to join me?”

“ Yes, please, go on, tell me.”

“I feel tired, unsettled, and kinda weirdly happy and sad at the same time. 

I feel loved, loved inside and loved by you. I feel grateful. 

I need to go back to our home, lie with you in your bed and hold you… and for us to fall asleep together for a while. 

Then I need to go to the Maqam and dance.
I would like you to come with me and for us to dance together.
This is totally your choice, you can choose to do all, some or none of this, I promise I will be ok with your choice, this though, is honestly what I need now.”

I smiled and we walked slowly back to our shared home holding hands and quiet.

Chapter 11

My name before the Falling Apart was not Swaar, this is a name I chose after landing here in this makeshift, new, post collapse, community.

Ao is my cousin, our mothers are sisters and we grew up mostly with our maternal grandmother and grandfather raising us. 

Our parents were busy working long hours in hard manual jobs in a city that had been the only place to escape to after our ancestral homes, our tribal villages, were ruined by oil companies. 

Our home lands, that had been cared for by our ancestors, and passed down for tens of thousands of years, had become uninhabitable once those that wanted to strip the natural ecosystems and turn our ancient lands into profits for shareholders and investors had destroyed our homes and means of survival.

Me and Ao left those lands when were 6 or 7 years old with our parents and grandparents. 

Our fathers parents both died on the journey from our lands to the city. 

We were attacked by people looking to rob and kill us. 

My parents both tried to protect us all but there were too many of them and after they had murdered our fathers parents, the rest of us escaped in the night once the raiders had fallen asleep drunk and stoned. 

My father didn’t speak much after that, and by the time we got to the city he was barely alive himself.

While he was alive, he did share some of the stories he had learned from his parents with us though. He said it was important that we knew them well and understood the culture and wisdoms they had passed down to him.

Our mothers parents looked after us in the city, encouraged us to go to schools in the local area, learn the languages spoken there, find ways to take whatever learnings we could from our city lives and also constantly reminded us of, and shared with us, the values and skills of the indigenous tribes we were born into.

By the time me and Ao left the city, our parents and grandparents had already died in the chaos that followed the Falling Apart.

Before they died they insisted that we leave, find refuge, and continue to live within whatever of the world was left and to embrace our ancestral heritage.

And, thankfully we landed here, initially supported by El, the elder, and now surrounded by people from similar indigenous tribes and many modern world people that fled from the cities before they were destroyed and lost. 

This place was like a collage of our experience of growing up in terms of the mix of people.

It felt a lot safer and easier than our lived city experience had been before too.

We gradually relaxed into the hospitality kindly offered, and committed ourselves to working and helping the community to develop this shared space we had here.

Chapter 12

When Efee met us as we arrived at the river banks, taking us both to meet and live with El, and as we got to know Efee better, I knew that Ao found them attractive. 

Therefore it didn’t come as a surprise when Ao and Efee got entangled and intimate in so many ways.

Although my first feelings were for Ao, as they were young and not aways great at looking after themselves, I also felt for Efee as they were carrying the modern understanding of connection and closeness that they had absorbed from their modern world conditioning that me and Ao had more or less bypassed.

I understood that Efee struggled with their own insecurity and their need for all or nothing commitments to love and romance as most modern peoples did. 

Ao told me about the relationship as it developed after I came back with El from visiting the nearby neighbours, and continued to update me most days.

I aimed to not get my own feelings too engaged in how the two of them navigated all this, it was after all, for them to manage and learn from, and I trusted they both would.

Sometimes my feelings did get tangled up though. 

I guess that was inevitable, I loved Ao so much, they were my only blood relative left on the planet as far as I knew, and I grew to love Efee too.

They both worked so hard to learn with El and showed and shared lots of valuable skills that we and the wider community gained from as a result.

El had talked to me about what they had shared with Efee about finding out what Ao wanted for themselves and what they wanted from themselves.

I guessed they had both been sharing all of that together too as they spent lots of time down by the river and I could see that the energy between them had shifted.

It wasn’t better or worse, or less or more intense, it was just different. 

I knew enough about how we all learn to manage the big feelings that show up when we are young and exploring ways of being intimate.

I went through something of this before we left the city, both my grandmother and my grandfather had separately offered me time and space and the care I needed to work that through when they realised I was getting close and intimate with a school friend.

They described the ways our tribe managed to navigate and absorb all those big, heavy and beautiful feelings and emotions that flood us when we are young and first seek adult connections with someone. 

We as tribal people placed great value on being able to pay attention to someone we were close to without losing ourselves in the process.

When that first brief love dissipated as if blown away by a breeze I learned that I can only pay attention to another if I can also pay attention to myself. 

The needs of my lover were tangled, woven within knowing my needs. 

My grandmother told me that, in the modern world, people get confused around this, they often only understand getting or giving.

Whereas for us, for those growing up in our tribe, we were shown how to give and receive as two people joining in love and respect and consciousness.

In those big, intimate relationships, giving was not losing something, giving did not deplete you or come with any need for repayment, or with guarantees, or conditions.

Giving to someone who you are feeling love with, flows towards bigger feelings, and, like the water flowing in the river to the sea, it happens regardless of the twists and turns on the way.

In the same way, receiving happens as you give, if you are both genuine in your feelings about each other, then receiving is as open as the sea, the ocean are to the rivers.

The gifts the rivers bring becomes part of you.

Giving and receiving blurs the separation between your understanding of being a self, as you explore each other and let go of any need to know where this might go, being present with the wonderful feelings that being loved and loving brings, you are both learning how to connect in ways that even the best poets struggle to describe.

As I write these words, I understand in my body, that the feelings of being loved, and of sharing that love, is much more than words can reduce in some cognitive reduction.
The same can be said for the fading of that intensity, while the quality of an intimate relationship cannot be measured or rated on how long that lasts for, and although the difficult feelings as we move on are also beyond simple words or explanations, the love we share is never really lost, it just flows from other rivers and into other seas creating new, future entanglements.

It seems that growing up in communities where intimacy is transactional, based upon vows and promises, while people are objectified and valued according to some external measure of worth, there is something about coming out of relationships ahead… not sure I can pin this down… I do understand that the moderns have needs for reassurance and validation around being lovable, being worthy of love.

The ways me and Ao were raised, we were encouraged to recognise that from the moment we were born into a caring community, we were considered to be inherently worthy as a person in our own right, and, worthy of love from all those we shared our community with.

In the same ways that soils, trees, mountains, sky, clouds, rain, rivers and seas interact and are worthy of respect and care and love, humans and all living things are too.

We knew that people came and went, that the rains came and went, the seasons came and went, and from that understanding, we learned how to mange our expectations, how to be present with the joyful and the difficult moments in life, and to engage and let go without the need to cling and control. 

The modern people often called this being present, being present with what is, but rarely managed to just be present with self and other without the need for some guarantee of the future.

Maybe that is why when the energy of intense intimacy and love settles and transforms, so many modern world people get upset and distraught as they no longer ‘have’ the other person.

And I could see Efee going through some of this as they and Ao changed tempo and Ao could not contemplate that relationship staying the same forever, or that this meant that what they and Efee had together within those magical moments, was any less meaningful for them both.

When I went through my first romantic break up back when we were still all living together in the city, my grandmother shared this ancient saying with me; 

“Good byes are for those who love only with their eyes.
Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.
Once someone is tangled in your heart and you in theirs, you are both close for ever.”

I guess Efee had not had the wisdom of an elder like my grandmother in their life. Thankfully though, they had El and I am sure she would be able offer comfort and understanding to Efee and Ao.

Chapter 13

The night that me and Ao shared how we were feeling, and then went together to dance, was the last time that they slept in my bed with me.

I knew and understood in a cognitive way, that they loved me and that I was no less than I ever was to them, and yet I still struggled to move on and imagine other equally beautiful relationships that might show up for me in the future.

I felt bereft, cut loose, rejected, dismissed and abandoned.

I felt lost.

In my lostness, I found myself walking further in the woods along the river bank. 

There was something about finding spaces that were unknown to me that offered something else to focus on. 

Those spaces that were new to me, were offering options to feel into new ways of being with and within myself. 

I didn’t realise this at the time, I was just wandering and getting lost. 

Looking back on that, I can see that I was finding new geographies in my external landscapes and these occupied me and helped me tap into my ability to deal with losing my emotional balance, to manage change, and loss, while also working with my internal self, feeling and listening, without needing to think or explain. 

Thinking about what I could have done, what Ao could have done, what we might have done, constantly struggling to let go of my need for explanations, reasons, understanding why… was like a living nightmare treadmill. I find it embarrassing to say and share all of this, somehow, there are still small parts of me that feel I should have managed this intimacy moving together and apart with Ao better.

I guess that finding peace in myself, finding peace in relationship, in community, is an ongoing life long practice and process.

Chapter 14

A couple of weeks after our last night sharing the same bed, was a couple of weeks of wandering, feeling, noticing, and in my wanderings I came across a clearing I had never seen before. 

It was two or three kilometres further into the woods from our shared home, and was not connected to any of the paths that I had trodden before. 

There were trees there that needed some care, and, the work involved in this caring, produced lots of cut and pruned wood that could be used for building. 

So, I used it. 

Each day returning and adding more to the new home that I was building without either thinking or planning.

It took me several weeks to complete my new home but I had started sleeping there just a few days in. 

Once my new home was completed it gave me everything I needed to live independently, quietly, and comfortably here. 

One evening, when I was sitting on one of the logs I had placed around my new fire pit, preparing a meal I hade foraged, and admiring the work I had done, I realised and acknowledged that I had made myself a beautiful, secluded home.

El came and found me that evening, as if they knew that I had finally finished building my living independently project.

They sat down on a log, smiled at me and nodded, saying;
“This looks like a good home for you now Efee, I’m pleased you found some space for yourself.
Can I eat with you?”

So we ate together, mostly in silence, and as the sun went down I added wood to the fire pit and fetched two blankets from my house, offering one to El.

By the light of an almost full moon that evening, El encouraged me to share with them what was going on for me. 

At first I couldn’t find any words, and after a few minutes, being overwhelmed by my feelings, and as the tears that just kept flowing every time I tried to speak faded, El said;

“There is no need for you to explain anything to me, or to yourself. 

I can see that you are feeling… I can see that you are feeling… and that is good.
It’s important for you to feel into what is going on just now, hiding and rejecting uncomfortable feelings will only result in storing up tensions in the future.
Take as long as you need to sit with these feelings, easy and less easy ones, allow them all some space to be… let them breath, shape themselves… let them know you will give them time and attention… let them know you will do this slowly… as and when you have the space and energy to do so. Reassure them that they will all be heard in time.”

With the moon nearly full, I looked up at the clear sky and smiled, with tears on my cheeks.

I stood and walked around and around the fire, around the new house, into the shadows of the trees. I moved with the shadows as the gentle breeze moved the branches and the moon light created patterns for me with the shadows on the ground. 

I felt the trees, the shadows and the moon were dancing with each other, and the shadows on the ground, on the walls of my new home, were dancing with those shadows around me and within me. 

Some of those internal shadows opened up old memories, new feelings too that were alongside old wounds, old betrayals and old injuries. 

I felt as if I had some recent damage to add to all this older stuff here too.

After a period of time that I could not calibrate or measure, I found myself squatting near the fire, watching the small flames rising towards the sky, the embers glowing, the smoke tracing shapes that I saw as a language that was way out beyond the limits of spoken words.

I noticed that El was standing next to me, swaying and humming and as they laid their hands on my shoulders, I felt something release, relax, let go.

I cried for a while there with El standing behind me, her hands gentle on my shoulders. 

These tears were different to those that had shown up when El first asked me how I was earlier that evening. 

These were tears of release, those were tears of regret.

As the tears dried, I found myself humming along with El. 

The vibrations in my chest and body seemed to align with the smoke as it turned and twisted in the breeze.

Then El led me towards the bed in my new home and asked if they could lie down and sleep alongside me tonight. I nodded, undressed, lay down on my back in my bed and closed my eyes. El lay their head on my chest. 

My memories of that evening are blurred, but I am sure El was shedding a few gentle tears too as they breathed slowly, softening into my warm body. 

I put my arms around them without thinking or questioning.

We lay there quietly for what seemed a long time, until El whispered;

“Sleep Efee.” 

And I did, I feel into a deep sleep, and as we woke together in the morning, still in the same positions, me on my back and her curled around me with their head on my chest, we were both smiling. 

After leaving the bed and having a morning brew together sitting by what was left of last nights’ fire, and sharing a few words, El hugged me for what felt like several minutes, then left for what was no longer my home, but was still theirs.

As they left, I walked around the home and space I had built for myself, as I did I spoke out loud all those feelings that had shown up within me over the last 24 hours, I honoured them, reassured them that I would listen and learn from them, that I would take them with me, forwards, use them as messages from a place of care and concern… then I sat in the doorway of my home, and allowed them all to take a break, they were all welcome, and, no longer needed just now, my body let out a sigh, and I felt a soft, warm, easy lightness in my bones.

I gave my inner feelings permission to rest and trust me. I had taken on board what they offered and was fine with managing all this change and newness, their job had been done.
We had a new home here, we had new ways to take care, and when we slip or trip or get injured, we can find ways to recover, to re-pair.

El had taught me that my body holds information, holds experiences, and, those parts of me that might worry or feel scarred, concerned for my wellbeing and safety… will show up as physical discomfort… and as quiet voices that get louder, more intense… if ignored.

Growing up, becoming a confident and relaxed adult involved being able to notice and re-view my recent and older experiences, then, to reassure them that I was learning and growing, becoming more able, more aware, and moving onwards with new skills and a new capacity for making healthy, conscious choices around what I needed, what I wanted, and as this awareness opened, I also became more able to support others share their own needs and wants too.

My new home was this space here for now. I would spend some time here alone, with all these old and new learnings, becoming each day, me, the me that would take responsibility for the ways I managed my relationships with myself, with others, with lovers… with my community… and with this land and these trees and rivers and skies and soils… and with whatever else showed up around me and within me needing my attention and care.

Something landed that day, I have a feeling I had become an adult, and as much as I still carried gritty feelings around struggles like the end of my close intimacy with Ao, I knew that as a couple, we both bought some wonderful gifts into our lives and I would always cherish that, and the love we created together.  

Chapter 15

When Efee first showed up like a bedraggled orphan, I took them in and helped them find their feet, what else could I do. 

My children, grand children and great grand children had been killed or died or lost in the falling apart, and there was something about Efee that touched my heart from day one. 

Maybe they reminded me of one of my own, lost and in need of care and affection. 

As Efee recovered they got curious and wanted to know about me. They needed a name for me beyond just, the elder, so I made up a name, El. 

When I first arrived here, several years before Efee showed up, I built myself a home. 

Back then my home was quite far away from the core of the village, but since then, the village has grown and is expanding, so that I was now living nearer to the others and had not only become geographically close, but emotionally closer to all those who lived here too. 

Back in those first weeks and months here, the others realised that I had been a healer among my own people before the falling part. I would often find someone waiting for me outside my home, looking for whatever I had that might be able to help them recover from bites and stings and stomach upsets. 

That was how I got called the elder. 

Most people here still call me that, with only a few of those close to me, like Swaar, Ao, Efee, and a few others, calling me El. 

There was no one here from my own tribe, I guess we had all been lost, or died, with me the only one making it to this space here.  

There were people here who had known of my people though.
They had lived similar self sufficient lives using the old ways too, and all of us together, probably made around 60 of us here that the modern folk called indigenous. 

The rest of our new community here was made up of around 2 to 3 hundred modern people.
They had generally arrived in a worse state than we had and as they settled and recovered with our help, realising that many of the skills we had grown up with, and they had not, were useful or essential if they wanted to survive and adapt to this new reality for them, they were keen to listen and learn from us.

As one of the first indigenous peoples here, and having set myself on the furthest edges of the original village centre, I guess that gave me a kind of semi mystical credibility.

With what I knew of the ways the modern people had mismanaged our soils and waters, I was happy to use my earth knowledge to offer them alternatives that might avoid creating the same problems that had caused the falling apart. 

What I had not seen coming was the emotional confusions of youngsters like Efee.
Using their ways of speaking, I would describe them as emotionally illiterate.

The ways that they were raised back then in the modern world seemed to set them up for lives of confusion and disappointment and heart break. 

Watching Efee dealing with getting close to Ao, letting go of that a little as they grew together and then untangling that, enabled me to understand one of the core problems with the moderns that had played a part in the disaster that was the falling apart. 

Young people growing up in the modern world had been taught to believe that there was never enough to go round, in foods, tools, homes, and most of all, in love.

Seeing this from my new experiences here, I feel sorry for the moderns peoples who were born and lived in communities that put more attention into ownership and fighting than on loving and living in peace with each other and themselves. 

I had been luckier with the people I was born to. We started off with the emotional strengths and social skills of our young people.
Once they had some understanding of how to manage their feelings and responsibilities to look after the lands and themselves and each other and these soils that feed and housed us, then they became adults.

Our young people grew up knowing they were loved and valuable and were always encouraged to find and share the skills that they were gifted with. Knowing you are loved by and within your home community, there is no need for claims on each other or ownership of things. It can be taken for granted that your community values you, appreciates what you contribute and supports you when you fall or fail.

I could never understand why the moderns sent their children to schools and told them that if they were not naturally good at something, then they should spend more time doing that. Surely no one is good at everything?  

Who came up with that idea that if you are not naturally good at something, you stay behind after school and do more of that thing you are not good at?

What did the teachers and parents expect would happen by forcing youngsters to pay more attention to skills they were obviously not born for?

From my understanding of our community, we encourage our people to find what they are good at, experiment with that, develop this, and then to share their honed skills within the community. 

That way we ended up surrounded by people who did what they did well, what they liked to do, and we all respected them for sharing their skills in relaxed and confidence ways. 

It seemed to us that the moderns almost conspired to raise insecure, under confident, damaged and lonely adults, doing work they felt little connection with or pride in.

Knowing how to find food, make clothes, build shelters and homes, is important, but not much use if you don’t know how to love and respect yourself and others first. 

Chapter 16

Supporting the youngsters around the ways they navigate and manage the transition from being teens towards becoming adults, took up much of my time for a while. 

And although Efee was in their 20’s when they arrived here, they had not managed that transition yet. 

I had spent some time when I was a young woman as a student in a college and then a university in the modern world. It was a big learning for me, in academic terms, but more so in my understanding of how the moderns lived, loved, and raised their young families. 

As a young woman in a new world and not really knowing anyone, I experimented with what I thought of at the time as a freedom from the rules and taboos of the tribe I was raised within. 

I think that my background and the ways I presented in the student communities gave me what the moderns would call, an exotic appeal.

What I experienced in the first year or two as a student was that the boys, girls and more, saw me as adding value and credibility to their attempts at being radicals and challenging the norms and taboos they had grown up within. 

And I enjoyed these opportunities to have fun and exciting relationships with many of the young and older people that I met there. 

After my studies I moved back home to be with my family and tribe. 

I used the academic credit I had earned in the city to advocate for human rights and justice for my tribes and all those who knew how to live well and in harmony with the natural energies we all needed to survive and thrive.

Looking back from the opportunity that I can find here my new community here, I can recognise that my life as a young indigenous tribal woman was difficult. 

Some of the elders in local tribes saw me as having lost touch with my true roots and ancestors, others saw me as more than I was and I often found it difficult to form meaningful, reliable, intimate relationships, or to settle down and raise a family of my own. 

I am glad that I have led the life I have had, and, I am aware that I have always had access to a few older wise people, in the modern and the ancient world that I straddled. 

Those exposures to diverse and imaginative understandings of what it is to be a human, aware that we are a new and developing species here on this planet, offers me a loving, flexible, open relationship with myself and other humans, and with the soils, rivers, trees and plants that have respected and worked on and within this living mother earth for many millions of years. 

The falling apart, the coming home, has thrown some of the few who survived, an opportunity to step back, to sit with the reality, that for a few thousand years, many humans lost touch with the Mother, lost touch with the essential essence and importance of mutual respect, honesty, humility and basic humanity. 

We are all born from the Mother as people with humanity, and with careful and loving community to grow within, we are all capable of understanding our place on this planet, and this is what those of us here are working to recall and rebuild this community around again, within a shared understanding and agreement that the directions the modern world were taking were neither sustainable or humane. 

As the community grew and we who had been here since the beginning realised that creating and curating this space as a village that works well also demanded much of our our attention and all of our abilities to learn and grow.

Being identified early on as an elder, I quickly got drawn into a group of around thirty five others who were active constantly in finding ways to manage this place as a safe home that could create it’s own DIY culture. 

We were doing well with this in terms of of making sure everyone was fed, housed and given opportunities to learn, and, we all understood that as we grew in physical size and number, there would be emotionally big challenges ahead too. We were working on the doing, aware that the shifts that were required gravitated towards the being… the human… being… re-pairing with our common gift, our humanity.

The one challenge we all agreed was a primary focus for us and everyone else here was around avoiding repeating the mistakes that the moderns had made. 

Chapter 17

One of the first friends I made here in our community after getting to know El was Ye.

They had shared some of the tree work that I had been doing when I first settled in here.

Ye had been spending more time with me since the Ao split. And we had started a whole new project developing some food gardens in the land I had cultivated around my own home.

I had a memory of reading about kitchen gardens that were often found just outside the door or within a short walk of the dwellings in indigenous tribal villages.

There was an option when I was at school before the Falling Apart to study sustainable ways to manage small scale food growing spaces. I signed up for it as it seemed like an easy option and I knew I enjoyed gardening and getting involved with plants and trees.

Ye was about the same age as me and we had both grown up in the modern world. They had taken part time temporary outdoor jobs while they were a student and as a result had developed their skills around landscaping and gardening.

Most of the work Ye did back then was more about creating fancy, easy to manage gardens that would impress the owners and their neighbours than it was about working with what the soil and local climate could accommodate naturally and, wanting more than just a job, and not being comfortable with using gardens just to show of your wealth, lead Ye towards working with the local ecosystems and soils in more holistic ways.  

So, me and Ye decided that we between us we could create some space around my new home that would provide food plants while working with the ways the natural local ecosystems nurtured mixed plant and tree communities.  

We knew enough to know that a mix of plants and trees that would be modelled on what we saw growing together in the unmanaged parts of our land, would be more likely to survive and thrive than the types of gardens and allotments that we had seen around us before the Falling Apart.

There was a small group within our community who had taken on some of the responsibility for managing the food growing areas and we went to see them now and again and help out in order to practice and check our understanding of what they called soil wisdoms.

I remembered descriptions of these approaches from my school days, some of these included, permaculture, agroforestry, mixed planting, symbiotic gardening, forest gardens, no-till farming… and more that I can’t recall.

Me and Ye agreed we would call this our super market, it felt good to be creating our own little corner of our world and as we worked together most days and sometimes sharing a bed together over night at mine, we grew to know and trust each other more and more.

On the evenings that Ye stayed we would cook and share food, sitting around the fire. We would talk about our experiences here in this new community and also about the ways we had lived before the Falling Apart.

Ye knew that I had spent lots of time with Ao and also that we didn’t see much of each over that last few months.

One night when the moon was new and it was dark other than the light from the fire, they asked me about this and I found myself unravelling the story of getting to know Ao and how that was now.
Ye said;
“Thanks for sharing all of that Efee, I understood that you had been through a lot, and you shared a little in the words you offered me and in the ways you were when around me, but I now understand how big all of that was and is for you… seems like its important for you to get something from this?” 

“You are welcome Ye, thanks for leaving the space and offering me your attention, sometimes I fear that I am just whining and off loading on you, I don’t want to be a pain or a burden. “

“Hey, don’t worry about that on my behalf Efee, I am fine with hearing whatever you need to share. I have been through some stuff too, and I know how valuable it is to have someone I trust to work through that, where did you find that other than here now, tonight?”

“Ok, and I guess most of the support I have had came from El, they always seem to know when to leave space, when to offer reflections and when to give advice… although as I think about that… El never really gives advice do they? They just seem to ask questions that help me see past my own limits and take a bigger or new perspective.”

“ Yeah, yeah, I hear all that, and El has helped me get through a few tricky times too, there is something about them that feels easy hey?”

“For sure, maybe they can come and help out with the gardening?”

We both laughed and sat together in the quiet night feeling into how familiar this community was to us just then.

It was a feeling of belonging, being home, here in this carved out space surrounded by trees, overlooked by a new moon and within earshot of the gentle river creating a sound track to our lives here, alone and together, we were both aware of how familiar this moment was and yet how foreign it was compared to anything we might have found in the communities we grew up in.

The stars seemed to sigh above as we both made our way to bed in the home I had built and we slept solid and comfy together that night.

Chapter 18 

There were now babies that had been born in the community, who were no longer babies. They were walking, talking and sometimes contributing to the work groups too.

I was still most often called The Elder, and only by a few, called El. And, being several years older than I was when I had been one of the first to land here, I was feeling older too.

There were also a few teens who had been children when they first arrived, some with what was left of their families and some who had made their own way here by themselves while still children too.

Ao and Swaar were no longer teens and I guess Efee must have been around their mid thirties now too. 

We realised a few years ago that we needed some some kind of educational space offer for the children. 

However, as many of the adults who had landed here had very few skills that were useful in terms of creating safe housing, growing and managing a healthy supply of foods, developing and helping to create the principles and behaviours that our community was to depend upon, it wasn’t just the youngest that needed to learn new skills and ways of being here.

The early conversations we first arrivals here had, were around our practical, social, emotional, collective and spiritual needs.
Very early on there was an easy consensus around not modelling our community on the ways that the modern world had been formed and managed.

Having seen the project of industrialisation, individualism fuelled via a dominance based, white bodied, patriarchy, fail, fall, and crash with devastating and horrific results for our people and planet, we knew we had to start from a place of nonviolence, peace, mutual understanding, respect for the planet and all who lived here, and inclusivity.

We agreed that the hierarchal systems of the recent past would never be welcome in our new community here.

Our core approach to education was developed on the basis that we would trust our young, and older people, to chose what they learned, when they wanted to. And choose how they wanted to do that. 

At first that worked well but as we grew bigger in number and size we agreed to set up three or four skills hubs.

In these dedicated physical spaces people would show up and work around whatever their personal skills were. What we may have called hobbies or pastimes in the past times.

These spaces were probably a cross between what used to be called libraries and work shops.

Anyone could wander into and out these spaces and if they wanted to learn how to read or write or sing or dance, or use a saw or develop wood working skills, there was usually someone around who would share, support and guide the curious.

Sometimes it took a bit more organising and we would have regular sessions that taught particular skills such as using plant medicines or cooking or soil management, and these would be shared at the end of our regular open group planning sessions.

There were certain practices that almost by themselves seemed to become common community behaviours.

 
The Maqam was an example of this. The space we had designated early on as an open space with a large fire pit in the middle and several sheltered spaces around the outside of the circle with a wide circular space between the pit and the shelters, has always been considered as where many of went when we needed to work on something that wasn’t a technical or practical project but more of an emotional or somatic thing.

Some of the modern people occasionally described the Maqam as a kind of church or temple, we who had indigenous connections leaned towards discouraging that but this was never a fixed or stated thing. 

The Maqam took on it’s own relevance and growth as we all used it. I for one felt the space knew what was best and the more we used and trusted it, the more confident it became and the more it had to offer everyone who showed up there.

Many of my own deepest understandings had arrived as I danced or chanted or just sat in quiet reflection there.

Much music, art, poetry, stories and babies had been born in some way via the energies of the Maqam. 

It was certainly my spiritual home base and there was rarely a week would pass without me being there one or two evenings.

 
You could show up there more or less any time of the day or night, and chances were, there would be one or two others there.

Most evenings there was anything from twenty to fifty people there.

So, this was our community after more than several years, settled with a steady supply of good foods, easy and accessible education centres, well built and comfy housing and young babies being born now and again with every chance of growing to become grounded and confident young adults.

Chapter 19

The only others we met outside of our community here, were those we called the Van People. They are the community I had first visited years ago with Swaar.

I had visited them since, as had others from our community.

We called them the Van People as they had managed to find a van and a couple of lorries and driven them from the city they had lived in all the way up through the hills and valleys and settled about a four day walk from us.

They used the van and the lorries to live in at first, and then started to build themselves houses in the trees around their vehicles which were in the middle with their tree houses forming a circle around them.
They had been joined by a few others after settling, but their whole community was probably less than one fifth the size of ours.

Our home community was much deeper into the wooded mountains, while theirs was on the edge of the woods and lower down, almost alongside the bottom of the valley that our river ran down though via the hills and mountains.

We had found a flat topped plateau more than half way up the hills, with the river that ran from north west down to the south east flattening out not far from where the Van People were settled.

They had visited us a few times and we them, probably about three or four get togethers of some sort each year.

Their community was not only smaller but also younger and they had all grown up in the modern world cities, there was no-one in their community bringing any indigenous experiences or wisdoms.

Recently, Efee and Ye had been to see them as they had told them both about a problem they had with an influx of hornet type winged insects when they last visited us.

Apparently these hornets had been making hives in the branches of some of their trees and although that was not a problem, when a few people in their community suffered stings, the reactions were nasty and a couple of the younger ones had something that sounded like an anaphylactic shock and almost died from lack of breath and inflammation of their airways.

Luckily, one of them had bought a few adrenalin pens with them from the city. They had told Efee and Ye that once they run out of these someone might die as a result of getting a hornet sting.

Efee and Ye had listened and promised they would discuss this within our community and we would return with thoughts and possible actions on this as soon as we could. 

Once they were back here and we had gathered and held a conversations sharing what we all felt about this, we agreed to select a small group and visit them and share our thoughts and feelings around possible solutions.

Efee had been give a couple of dead hornets, after all looking at them we agreed that none of us had seen this exact species before.

I guess that following the disturbance of the Falling Apart there must have been many species of insects that were refugees looking for somewhere new to live, just like us.

Chapter 20

We agreed on a small group which included Efee, Ye and Swaar, we also added a few of the others with indigenous ancestries as we felt that the city folk might appreciate a wider view on managing to live with whatever shows up and find ways to accommodate visitors regardless of what they might arrived with.

I was earning my name of elder as the years had rolled by, my energy and mobility were not what they had been back when I first landed here. There were a few others who had similar ancestral connections to me, a couple of them nearly my age too.

They were keen to join our group, and, like me needed the rest of the group realise the pace would be slower with us and it would take us all longer to get there and back.

I sensed that some of the youngsters might find it hard to adjust their pace to match ours, and, this opened up a chance for another sharing circle learning how we manage our space and pace making sure the weakest are included and supported here. And take that understanding with us wherever we go.

The way we manage our learnings here is open to all , the agreements we make also depend upon an understanding that these ways are not processes or instructions, they are ways of becoming, ways of being.

One of the central principles revolves around appreciating the pace of the slowest in whatever group we are in. Overall as a community of a few hundred now, it’s important that each of us are aware that we all bring different energies, different skills, different understandings, different ancestral inheritances, and have different needs.

Back in the modern communities before the Falling Apart there was a hierarchy of worth, with some people considered to have more value than others. Extending this measuring of people in terms or their worth out towards valuing the worth of the different gifts this planet could offer, was, from our indigenous perspective, one of the key causes of the falling apart. 

Before I set off with the group to visit the Van people I spent some hours at the Maqam and moved, danced and meditated on the options we might be able to access that would be useful for them to resolve their struggle with the new hornet visitors.

I had noticed that people who had been raised exclusively in the modern world communities saw much of life as a binary dynamic. 

For example, visitors were either welcome or not welcome, graded as good or bad, liked or not liked.

This sense of everything being an either or was inimical to me. I had been raised surrounded by life. 

This life was made richer by the presence of death, life and death were as essential as night and day, wake and sleep, young and old, fast and slow. It was the relational experience of these many dichotomies, the knowing that there was always a spectrum that did not start and end on any linear confined dualism, life and death and all contained by this was more than a pluralism, it was a quality and it offered an endless multitude of options and experiences.

I worked from this awareness with movement, flow, change, motion and stillness, as I danced and moved in silence before announcing to the travelling group that I was ready to leave and make the journey to meet with the Van people.

Having no attachment to the outcome of our visit I was confident and relaxed around our intention and comfortable as a collective community in our ability to offer ways of understanding the visit of the hornets as an opportunity for learning and connection as neighbours, communities, as a species, and as part of this fertile and fecund, living, constantly moving planet. 

Chapter 21

Each evening on the walk through the woods and mountains and hills from our homes towards the Van people community, El made sure we all sat and ate together.

I noticed a different energy in El as we travelled that I had not seen before. This was the first time I had travelled outside of our community with her, other than long walks along the river banks now and again. 

I had visited the Van people with Ye before and we often went off into uncharted regions together looking for new plants and trees, new ecosystems and new adventures.

This was different though, we were a small group of nine people, me and Ye, El and a couple of other older people with similar life experience as hers and five others who were a blend of new and older community people.

El’s focus each evening seemed to draw us all in, there was a focus in the circle we sat within, there was a sharing of what it was that worried us, what it was that we were scared of, what it was that we feared. We also spoke on what we valued in our home community, what behaviour and attitudes were we proud of.

El held the space in our circle, without directing or even suggesting.

It was as if El was setting up themes and offering feelings and occasionally saying something along the lines of;
“ I am noticing that as I imagine the situation that our neighbours are in, and working with the ways our community is creating a welcoming community, encouraging and supporting each other to work out ways we can live on this land as parts of it rather than owning it… I notice my own energy, my attention and what shape it takes as I see the Van community surround by visitors like the recent hornets and also visitors like us, their nearest neighbours.
How do they see us, how do they understand us, as the same as them, as different, as similar but not the same, as connected or separate, as a collective and one thing, or as individuals and independent… or… maybe… all of this, all of these.?”

El floated these questions within our circle, it felt as if we were all seeing Els’ thoughts, hesitations, manifestations… as generating curiousity within us, each finding different parts that resonated with them. El was sharing observations as they moved from them, towards us, moving between, around and within us.

Each evening we sat, held, cared for and considered by El and her energies and questions.

There was no seeking answers, analysing or questioning, there was just an understanding that as we would walk together tomorrow, our feelings and minds would tune into the surroundings and from somewhere indefinable, opportunities for understanding who we were visiting and what we had that we could offer them, emerged as questions and sensations rather than answers and solutions.

After several slow days of walking and becoming a tangled, intimate group, woven within this experience of walking with an elder, trusting them and ourselves on this mission to fall, fail, break and join together again, we arrived at the Van peoples’ community.

They were pleased to see us, offered us food and drink, and once we were settled, sat around the night fire as they shared their thoughts and feelings about the danger of living in close proximity to the hornets, their hives and their behaviours.

We said very little, the odd nod and appreciative noise.

By the time they had shared everything they had to say, we were all ready for bed.

El stood and suggested that we all sleep on what we had heard and that we could sit together again tomorrow after rising and eating and share our own thoughts and feelings about what the new hornet visitors needed from us.

While El and the others from my home community chose an early night, me and Ye went with some of the younger Van people to what was their equivalent of our Maqam and we talked and shared stories and news for several hours into the early morning.

Some of these people we had met before, we had stayed with them in their tree house homes and come to like them and understand how it was for them living here in what me and Ye had called the Vee hood.

We had all joked about us living in a tribe, and them, living in the hood.
We played around with this, agreeing that we were old school tribal sustainables, T sus, and they were more modern, V hoods, we were T sus… they were V hood.

Later, as me and Ye lay in bed talking quietly, we both felt that although we were very trad, at the same time we were much more radical and future focused than the V hood and felt they were, in effect, the old school crews now.

The upsidedowness that we had experienced during the the falling apart, the reclaiming some of the older wisdoms with El’s guidance, and using those in ways that suited these new realities we were creating, also showed up as we recognised that there were differences between us, in our tribe, and them, in their hood… and all the time the impact that El’s care and support and understanding had upon us, reassured us that there was no simple binary us and them, and we were always keen to find that common ground that we all shared together as people first.

We fell asleep full of a mix of apprehension, excitement and curiousity and our dreams swam within these emerging new and old ways to manage ourselves and our interactions with the ways we became us, together.

Chapter 22

These young people we had got to know in the Vee hood were still looking to resurrect something along the lines of the modern communities that had disappeared since the Falling Apart.

They made regular return visits to what was left of some of the cities they had left behind. They had managed to keep some of their vans running, had found more oil based fuels and used these not only for their occasional transport needs, but for running a few generators they had found and recovered too.

One of their aims was to be able to use ethanol and biodiesel to produce electricity and to gradually grow and harvest enough trees and crops for them to run an electrical grid service of some sort.

There were quite a few tech nerds here in the Vee hood, and, although our tribe included a few too, with me and Ye both having been avid gamers and capable of doing a little coding, they were always ok with our tribal commitment to only using water power and solar energy within our home community.

It felt that we were two very different communities, and yet there was still a mutual trust between us. 

Me and Ye and Ao and Swaar and all the younger people we had lived with for several years now in our T sus tribe had spent hundreds of hours sitting with, dancing with, working and talking with the older people and the elders in our community.

They had explained the Falling Apart to us from the perspective of a history of humanity that went back over a hundred thousand years. They shared the wisdoms they had inherited from that lineage via the oral story tradition of sharing knowledge.

Those of us in our tribe that had grown exclusively within the modern world order principles and practices of private land ownership, mineral and fossil fuel extraction, gendered dominance and racialised hierarchies, were always given every opportunity to ask questions and investigate other options for ourselves too.

We were encouraged to tell our stories and share what our families understanding of the Falling Apart had meant and offered us.
 

And I felt that all of us modern world people, each with our own experience, understood why the ways we would now imagine and create new communities would not be a repeat of the modern world approach that had resulted in the devastation of so much of our known world. 

I can remember talking with Ye on the walks home after we had visited the V hood before this recent visit, we were amused by the ways the V hood people were so often focussed on how they could replace the material things they had lost in the Falling Apart.
We recognised how different that was for us in the ways we were emerging into new understandings with the support and encouragement we got in our own home space.

I also remember talking with El about this too.
One evening I was sitting around Els’ fire pit with Ye and Ao and Swaar, sharing all these thoughts and feelings around our experience of the V hood.
We were all laughing when El stood up and went to fetch something for us all to drink. It was a herbal concoction that El had often made and drank now again, usually before she went to bed.

El poured a cup for each of us, nodded and drank theirs in one shot, and we all followed.

We knew El had something to say, we had learned how El understood us, offered us feedback, and left us to sleep on what they had shared, this was how we learned, this was what we sometimes used to call;
“A school moment” but only when we were out of earshot.

These are some of the words that stay with me from El’s talk that night; 

Seperation
Coming home

Others… othering

Learning by trying… experimenting and trying and experimenting again
Failing, falling, getting up again

Neighbours… ours… and theirs

Being indigenous

Being modern

The knowns the unknowns… the knowing and the not knowing
And… how to invite others to find opportunities for change… and letting go without it feeling like a lesson or an obligation, a demand, or a threat… or a loss.

Chapter 23

The morning of the first full day sitting with the V hood people, and listening to their stories of the invasion of hornets making nests near the community, this felt like a new way of being as a tribe that we hadn’t been used to before.

Although we had shared many ideas around the ways we lived and developed our two communities, that always felt social and casual, this… sitting in a big circle with maybe fifty or more people gathered here, felt formal.

El offered a grounding practice to the whole group before we began talking and listening.
She asked us all to stand, look around and notice whatever caught our attention, she encouraged us to not look for or at, but to notice what wanted to be seen, what came to us, from the trees, the sky, the few clouds, the ground.

As we stood and turned and noticed and opened up to what showed up, El invited us to hear what sounds were coming to us, noticing the sounds and noticing what and where this all landed within us… El went on to suggest we look around and notice the people we were sharing this space with, acknowledging whoever caught your eye, and maybe smile, nod, bow, do whatever needed doing to let each other know that we were seen… ready to see and hear… with each other… without judgement, analysis or assumptions.

El than asked us all to sit again and notice what was entering our bodies via our in breath, noticing the sensations that appeared as we paid attention to the physical act of our lungs gently filling with air… and after a few moments of this… El thanked us for taking part and being truly here.

We were ready and realised there was an easy energy in the space now, many of us smiling and nodding to each other.

As the V hood people took turns to explain to us the impact that the hornets were having on them as a group and as individuals, several people went on to describe how the hornets were considered, understood, as a threat to them… and their families.

One by one they told us about people who had been stung by the hornets and some who had really extreme reactions.

Many of the symptoms included swelling around the sting and this sometimes spread out like hives.
This redness and swelling was mostly on and around the sting but a few people suffered with swelling around their lips, mouth and tongue.

A couple of people had experienced difficulty breathing, and although no one had died yet, the community was worried that was just a matter of time.

It seemed that the people being stung were all ages, and backgrounds, there was no common factor between those who got stung and those who didn’t, or which person suffered badly and which just had a few hours of itching around the bite area. 

They went on to share that as it was moving towards the autumn there was a lot less activity in the hornets hives and areas.

Someone from our tribe offered that this was not a surprise as most hornets die of at the end of the warmer season, leaving just the queen and her eggs to hibernate and doesn’t become active again until the following spring.

That evening me and Ye and a few others from our tribe sat with others of the V hood. We talked about the ways that all the ecosystems’ living things around here and probably around the other places on our planet, would probably be rearranging who lived where and how they lived there.

Same for us humans as it would be for the trees, plants, insects, animals, fish and birds.

The upheaval of the falling apart was a global thing, the disturbance, destruction and repairing would be felt by those few which had managed to survive… including us.

After the V hood people had made their way to bed, a few of our tribe sat around going over what we had heard and how we felt we might be able to help.
We also talked about what we might do in our own homes as we were fairly sure that the hornets would travel and at some point in the near future, make their hives in and around our community too.

There was an agreement between us that the V people were scared and looking for ways to destroy the hornets so that they were no longer a threat. We also agreed that this was not a surprise to us… it was an understandable reaction… and we also felt there would be other ways to deal with this.

Before we went to bed ourselves, we agreed that we needed a conversation just with our people tomorrow morning and we would ask El to facilitate this so that we could seek the widest range of options before we feedback to the V people.

We all took a new energy to our beds to dream with, this being the first time we were faced with working together with others who were not part of our own tribal ways.

Chapter 24

The rest of the tribe had asked me to hold a space for them to go through what they had discussed last night after hearing the thoughts and plans shared by the V people.

I had gone to bed along with a few of other older members of our groups, but the others had stayed up to go over the days circle.

Efee and Swaar seemed to be stepping into a central role within the younger group, and, having guessed that might happen, me and the other older tribe members had shared this last night after we had left the youngsters to have their conversations.
We had agreed that it would be good for Efee and Swaar to take a lead on this as they had both spent time here getting to know the V people. We were also open to anyone one else from within our tribe who looked like they wanted to get more involved to do so.

This was the one of the ways we encouraged our young people to step into taking responsibility and making decisions. They would be doing that soon enough, as none of our small group of elders were getting any younger.

We also agreed to pay attention to the energies of the V people and the ways they responded to the facilitation and support they got from our youngsters. That way we could monitor how the process was developing and offer feedback now and again if needed.

The principles we worked with in our sharing circles… in the ways we made decisions around the ways we lived… the challenges we met… and the choices we needed to make as a community… were based upon… the more opinions, ideas, critiques, contributions and perspectives that we could bring into the circle, the more likely we were to find ways of living that the whole community could feel they owned.

Based upon our understanding that expecting anyone to commit to a practice that they didn’t feel comfortable with felt ridiculous and risky, as when someone works or behaves in ways not aligned with their values, the outcome is always weak or worse, dangerous.

In our sharing circles anyone could join in, anyone could raise a point of view, once every one had been heard, we asked for a consensus for agreement and then accepted the decision as a group. If anyone was not totally sure about this they welcome to step back and allow the decision to go through while not actively supporting it, this left space for differences while also enabling us to implement our general agreements.

Anything that was agreed within the circle was always open to review as we learned how well that decision was working for us all. Our lives and our behaviours and our practices in our own community were always considered flexible and on a spectrum that flowed as we grew more familiar with what we needed.

We hope to model some of this approach to sharing and solving difficult conversations with the V people.

That first day of our circle with them, with Efee and Swaar taking on the facilitator roles, went reasonably well. The group came up with lots of options for managing the hornets situation, probably more than thirty options were recorded by some of our team who had volunteered to take notes.

That evening we left the V people to themselves and formed our own sharing circle among our tribe to offer feedback on the facilitation skills, go over how everyone felt about the day, and to share what they thought might be useful to take forward to the next days circle.

Efee and Swaar were grateful for our feedback and several of the other youngsters suggested that the following day we could offer the V people a chance to break into small groups and and reduce the many options down to a small number of the most likely ones. We elders agreed and suggested that we might first find common directions within the options the V people had come up with so that the small number could represent as many of the options as possible.

There was agreement from all for this approach and we felt like we knew what we had to do the next day, and as is the way with facilitation, we could let go of the outcome, that was always up to those we were holding the space for, whatever the V people wanted to do, chose to do, that was their right and we would respect that regardless of whether it would have been our preferred result.
Being able to be as neutral as possible, while holding space for another, was the most difficult… and the most essential… of the facilitators skills.

I recall from my youth back when I was still in my birth tribe, an elder was helping me learn the skills of facilitation. I had been supporting a friend and struggled to avoid telling them what to do about a difficult relationship that had left them gouged out emotionally. I loved them and found it difficult to sit alongside them while they beat themselves up and carried lots of guilt and shame around the recent break up. It was so hard not start with… why don’t you just… or… have you thought of… or… but you are so beautiful it will all work out… or… well at least you still have me… and I had shared that with my elder and they said to me;
” You can do some or all of that, you can make their choices for them, distract them, tell them what to do… and then what happens next time they bump into a difficult feeling, next time they feel hurt and you are not there.
Following your temptation to fix things for them… to fix them… indicates that you have lost faith in their ability to repair and recover from a bump in the road.
One of the most difficult thing for us humans… is to watch someone we love… running into a brick wall… it is hard not to shout from the side lines, watch out, there is a wall coming, slow down… and doing that, the person you love will close their eyes tighter and run faster… until they choose to stop running into wall as a fix for feeling hurt… they will never become fully adult… that is the same for all of us… managing hurt without pilling on more pain is never easy to do.
Having you beside them, being able to ask you for a hug, or asking you just to hear their story, and to sit quietly and stay settled while they share that with you, those are the skills you may model for your loved ones. When hurt we need to find reassurance that we can fall apart while in the company of someone who will accommodate those hard and gritty feeling alongside us… if you can do that for your friends, lovers, family and community, you will always be able to offer trust in them and reassures then that you believe in their ability to manage their lives including the most difficult parts.”

Chapter 25

The following morning we sat first with our home tribe group.
We asked questions of the elders around what the next steps might be and how we would best manage the circle group, making sure we supported the V people to work with the options that had been offered yesterday.

The elders mainly turned our questions back to us and reminded us that today was about leaving lots of space for the V people to share how they felt about each of the options. They also suggested that it might be a good idea to have someone act as a scribe and keep notes on a big visible board so that we had a record of the main points. This might help the V people make choices about which of all the possible options offers the best chance of being agreed as the one to take forward.

Ye had asked to come with us on this visit and El was more than happy to have them here. And as our early morning feedback session was coming to a close Ye offered to be the person keeping the notes on the board, we all agreed that was a good idea and they seemed happy to be taking on this role as we left for the meeting.

Ye had always been one of my best friends, one of the people in our tribe who I felt easy with… it was easy to spend time with them and share what was going on for me. They were always good at being there for me and offered me lots of attention and patience when I was struggling with ending my relationship with Ao.

When we got to the circle space the V people were already there and had found seats and put out water by each place including the places left for us. They also managed to find some large sheets of paper and a stand to pin them so that Ye could keep a record of the key words around each option as it was discussed and possibly chosen as one of the most agreed upon.

Me and Swaar sat in the middle of the spaces left for us, as El had suggested to us, the rest of our tribe spread out either side of us.

El walked into the centre of the space and offered a grounding in order to settle us all before we opened the circle for sharing.

As each of the options were discussed, some were fairly quickly dismissed and others took longer to consider.

By lunch time we had around seven or eight options that everyone felt were worth looking into further. Around half of these involved long term solutions to the hornets, based mainly on finding homes for them that were not as close to the busy areas in the V people’s spaces and therefore accommodating them while at the same time reducing the dangers they bought.
The other half of the options agreed upon involved getting rid of the hornets all together, either by physical or chemical methods.

The morning session had taken us past the time when we would normally have all eaten lunch and we had agreed that this was worth it in order to complete the shared options list and that we could work on this after lunch and maybe reach some conclusion by the end of the day.

We also agreed that we would take a longer lunch break with time to rest too.

Me and Swaar and Ye chose to take time to have an easy lunch and then to skip the rest option and go over the list of options and how we might manage the afternoon session, consider the best options and offer a chance to share what they didn’t like about the options they were not behind.

Our aim as always when facilitating was to help the people in the circle find their own way of coming to an agreed option and then later, plan how to implement that.

The afternoon session started well, we got the several options down to three that had a good level of agreement, although no one of the three had total agreement yet, everyone agreed that these three were worth further discussion.

The choice in terms of being with an option or not with an option went like this;
You could agree that the option aligned with you and agree that you were happy with it and might also help implement it depending upon the skills needed.
You could also agree, with some caveats, and not call to reject it while also making it known you were not going to refuse to accept it.
The last option was to stand against it and ask for it not to be implemented based upon your reasons for rejecting it.

It became clear that there was an almost even split between those that felt the hornets should be accommodated in the best and safest way possible and those that were for the removal altogether by chemical or physical force of the hornets hives.

Facilitating this session was not easy, those who wanted to go with a chemical removal option and those who wanted to use a physical force removal option were struggling to listen to each other, meanwhile those who were strongly in favour of the accommodation option, were equally struggling to find any benefit in either of the removal options.

The energy in the space was getting louder and people were becoming less able to listen and hear what the others were saying as so many in the space resorted to shouting over each other.

As me and Swaar both took turns in reminding the group that the objective was to find ways of making our lives here safer, we were also asking for everyone to maintain respect for the differences that we held in this space here.
That had a calming effect for several minutes each time we offered it, but there was also a gradual return to the escalated shouting and division.

There was a particular intervention when one of the group stood and shouted so loud that we all just turned and watched as they put down those who were in favour of the removal options calling them violent aggressors and ecosystem destroyers… also using personal slurs naming them as bad and stupid. As they finished their rant they turned and stormed off.

No one seemed sure what to do until one of the group supporting the removal option walked into the middle of the space and started telling those that wanted to accommodate the hornets that they were putting the lives of everyones’ children and families at risk of dying… and as they were in full shouting and rant mode Ye walked across to them and started pushing them out of the circle… the person doing the shouting went to hit Ye and as they did they fell and Ye jumped on them throwing punches and trying to sit on top of them.

There was a stillness among the rest of us that felt like minutes, was probably seconds, and then a few people from the V people rushed forward and between them managed to separate Ye and the shouter. The rest of us watched as the dust literally settled and a quiet murmuring became louder and louder.

I looked towards El as they stood and beckoned me and Swaar to follow them into the centre of the circle. As we did I noticed that a couple of people from our tribe had grabbed Ye and walked them back away from the circle towards where we staying. While a few from the V people also took the shouter away from the circle and I guess off to a quieter place.

El stood in the middle of the circle and started talking at normal indoor volume, as they did the murmuring and noisiness in the circle diminished…. it got to a point where everyone could hear El as she suggested that what we had just witnessed was the intensity of the feelings of fear when being potentially threatened by something dangerous that we had no way of understanding or communicating with.

El went onto to suggest that those of us who wanted to stay for a few minutes could join El in another grounding that might help us self regulate and get settled again… just about everyone left took part… we then agreed that we would all come back tomorrow and see where we might want to take this from there.

I told Swaar and El that I was going to find Ye and check that they were ok, while El and Swaar explained that they were going to spend some time here in the common space where the V people were and see if they could help informally with the aftermath of what had been a difficult day for everyone.

Chapter 26

I found Ye alone at the place we were both staying on this visit.

We had been given a bed in a space that had been built in the trees a bit like the rest of the community housing, except our space was smaller with just a big bed sized platform with a sloping roof that doubled as tent like roof and walls.

I guess this was only ever a bedroom and probably built just to accommodate visitors.

We had slept together in the big bed the last couple of nights.

We often slept in the same bed and occasionally slept in each others arms… our relationship had never been sexual though… it was something that we had never planned or talked about… it was just a comfortable understanding that we were always close, sharing all sorts of intimacy with each other, but never feeling a need to make it more than that.

Not sure that I am ok with calling a sexual relationship with Ye more than what we had… as it assumes there is hierarchy of importance is my relationships.

Ye was the first person I would have called a friend in this community.
El was a massive figure in my life… and yet the first person my age that I met and became a close friend with was definitely Ye. 

Ye was sitting on the ledge beside our bed dangling their legs over the edge of the platform, and looking out towards the hills in the distance.
I climbed the ladder and sat next to them for a few minutes, then asked… are you ok with me being here next to you… and they just nodded… then looked at me and said;

“Do you fancy going for a walk in the direction of that hill?”
 
“Yeah sure, I’m good for a walk with you, the sun will be going down in an hour or so, lets do it.”
 
“Thanks Efee, I feel like I need to get out of here and find some neutral ground, you know what I mean?”
 

“I do, we’ll grab a few bits and go for a long walk?”

“Great… thanks.” 

We each put a blanket and some snacks into a backpack and headed out towards the hills we could see in the distance.

After about an hour or so we had reached a gentle slope at the bottom of the hill.
Ye hadn’t said anything since we set off, that was fine with me.
Having had a very heavy day I was happy to let my thoughts float through and disappear while feeling my feet on the soft ground, my lungs working… with my heart steady and quietly available for Ye… I was guessing they might need that.

A little way up the slope there was a steepish overhanging section, at the front edge that was facing us as we looked up, there was a large concave formation… almost like the entrance to a cave… we had both seen it and without words we both knew that was what we were heading towards.

As we arrived the sun was dipping down with probably another fifty minutes before it would be set and we would be in the dark.

Again without speaking we both kinda knew what we wanted to do next… we pottered about finding any fallen wood that would help us build a small fire… and once that was lit in the mouth of our cave… we laid out the blankets and food that we had bought with us and sat side by side watching the sun set slowly until we could only see each other by the light cast by our fire.

Ye let out a big sigh and I noticed their shoulders relax and soften as they stretched their arms and opened their chest.

I said;
“If there is anything you want to share or anything that might be useful for you… just say so.”

“Thanks Efee… I do need to share some stuff… I’m not sure how to start… there is so much from today… and as I have been walking and noticing what was going on for me this afternoon… I think I’ve arrived at an understanding that I’m not sure how to unravel…”

I sat still and quiet and told myself to just leave the space for them to be with whatever was going on for them that needed to be heard, I had no idea what that was and noticed as I had let go of needing to.

After a few minutes Ye said;

“ If I share what is going on for me Efee… I am aware that might be difficult for you… and as you have had a long and hard couple of days… I don’t want to just offload all this stuff on you… I love you Efee… you are important to me and I feel that I may have let you down.”

I leapt in and without giving any time to what Ye just shared I said;

“Hey Ye, you know I love you too, you are welcome to share whatever you need to. I’m sitting in a beautiful place just now and regardless of the the last couple of days I’m good to hear whatever you need to share here, now, totally your choice and if you want to we can wait until another time… or you can offload whatever you need to… I promise I’ll let you know if it’s too much for me at any point.”

I didn’t know at this point that what Ye was about to share with me… would change who and where I was… as a person… struggling to become an adult managing my life well.


Next chapters will be added here soon, if you want be contacted when they do, ping me an email or a phone text and I’ll add you to the list of followers… I wont share your phone or email with anyone.
3rd September 2025.