Across generations, two great animation houses have given global audiences their earliest images of what it means to have — or to be — a mother. For many viewers, Disney and Studio Ghibli form parallel mythologies: one born from American mass entertainment and fairy-tale capitalism, the other from Japanese auteurism and a more contemplative, ecologically inflected sensibility. Their films do more than entertain; they supply emotional blueprints. And on the subject of mothers, those blueprints look strikingly different.

The missing mother and the American child

In the classic Disney repertoire, the mother is often not there. Sometimes she is dead before the opening credits feel dry, sometimes just conveniently absent, sometimes replaced by an evil stepmother or a scheming surrogate. The pattern has been documented for decades in critical and popular discourse: the lionized widowed father, the plucky orphaned or half-orphaned child, and the maternal figure who exists largely as memory, threat, or plot device.

That absence serves several narrative functions at once. It clears the field for adventure; a watchful, emotionally attuned mother is bad for high drama. It also gives concrete form to a more diffuse cultural fantasy: that the American child becomes fully him- or herself by leaving home, shedding dependence, and proving worthiness in a world where safety cannot be guaranteed. Disney’s missing mothers mark the moment when the stabilizing comforts of early childhood fall away. The child-hero — whether a princess, a woodland creature, or a street urchin — steps into a landscape mapped by risk and reward, guided less by enduring maternal presence than by sidekicks, mentors, and the occasional magical helper.

In this world, maternal energy tends to split into extremes. On one side sits the idealized, often deceased “good mother,” remembered as pure love but inaccessible in the present; on the other stands the stepmother or witch, controlling, envious, and sometimes literally monstrous. The child must navigate between nostalgia for perfect care and terror of engulfment. Psychologically, this dramatizes an all-or-nothing attitude toward dependency: nurture is imagined as either total safety or total threat. Ordinary, imperfect, but fundamentally reliable mothering rarely makes it on screen.

The socio-cultural implications are subtle but pervasive. These films teach audiences — especially children — how to feel about care. If mothers are absent, or present mainly as villains, the path to maturity is framed as a lonely, heroic detachment, a climb out of a feminized, domestic sphere and into a world of action, romance, and institutional power. The emotional labor that sustains daily life is invisible. Independence is won not through negotiation and relationship, but through escape and conquest. For many, that story resonates with broader American ideals: rugged individualism, suspicion of dependence, and a willingness to sacrifice intimacy for mobility and achievement.

Ghibli’s ordinary mothers and extraordinary worlds

In Studio Ghibli’s films, the starting point is different. Mothers are usually there. They cook, they commute, they get sick, they argue, they worry; they are neither flawless nor demonic. They exist not as narrative obstacles but as part of the emotional weather of the story — a reliable climate, sometimes stormy, rarely catastrophic.

The children in My Neighbor Totoro, for example, are not motherless. Their mother is hospitalized, but her love is palpable: in letters, in promises, in the way the family organizes itself around her anticipated return. The fear is not of the mother as destroyer, but of a world in which a beloved, good-enough mother might be lost. The drama unfolds in the space between that fear and the enduring sense of connection the children feel toward her. Magical beings appear, but they do not replace the mother so much as help the children metabolize their anxiety.

Elsewhere in the Ghibli canon, mothers embody a recognizable, contemporary mix of frailty and ferocity. The young mother in Ponyo drives recklessly through a storm to reach her husband and neighbors, radiating both exasperation and devotion. Kiki’s witch mother in Kiki’s Delivery Service is busy, skilled, and proud, capable of backing away to let her daughter leave without collapsing in despair or spiraling into villainy. Even when mothers are offscreen, their presence is felt as a kind of emotional infrastructure: a background assurance that someone loves you and will still be there, in one way or another, after the plot’s crisis has resolved.

Ghibli also extends motherhood beyond the human. Wolf goddesses, sea spirits, and tough older women with no biological claim on the protagonist all carry aspects of the maternal: protection, discipline, hospitality, initiation into danger. But here, power is not automatically coded as corruption. A wolf deity can be terrifying and tender in the same scene. A pirate matriarch can menace and mother in the same breath. The result is a world where the “feminine” and the maternal are allowed complexity, including political and ecological power, without being narratively punished for it.

These choices carry their own cultural weather. Ghibli films are steeped in Japanese contexts — extended family networks, postwar trauma, urban-rural transitions, Shinto-inflected reverence for the natural world — but they have traveled globally. For viewers everywhere, they offer an alternate picture of growing up: not as a sharp break from the maternal home but as a series of negotiated expansions, where autonomy and attachment develop together.

Two psychologies of growing up

Put side by side, the studios’ treatment of mothers suggests two different psychologies of maturation.

In the Disney model, the self comes of age through rupture. The maternal figure is absent, idealized in memory, or cast as an antagonist whose defeat becomes a condition of freedom. Emotional work focuses on overcoming loss and resisting control. The child who internalizes this pattern learns to expect that adulthood requires some version of going it alone — geographically, emotionally, or morally. Care becomes something to outgrow.

This logic can be thrilling. It valorizes courage and initiative. Yet it also risks normalizing emotional isolation. For children who do have attentive mothers, the recurrent image of “good” mothers as dead and “present” mothers as suspect may sow quiet confusion: is reliable care even compatible with adventure and self-discovery? For those in less stable homes, the pattern can reinforce the idea that security is a fantasy and that real life begins only once you have escaped.

In the Ghibli model, the self comes of age through relationship and return. The maternal is not a stage to shed but a ground that can change as you grow. Leaving home is important, but so is recognizing that home, and the people who inhabit it, continue to exist as complicated others with their own needs and vulnerabilities. Conflict with parents is expected, but so is repair. Power is negotiated, not simply seized.

For audiences raised on more adversarial narratives, Ghibli’s stories can feel disarmingly gentle. They insist that it is possible to become yourself without turning those who raised you into villains. They also distribute maternal functions across a web of human and nonhuman figures, reinforcing the idea that nurture is not the sole responsibility of one sacrificial woman but a shared cultural and ecological project.

Cultural echoes and future myths

Both studios are changing. Recent Disney and Disney–Pixar films have begun to foreground complex mother-child relationships and multigenerational maternal lineages; more recent Ghibli works continue to explore ambiguous guardianship and shifting family forms. The dichotomy is no longer absolute. Yet the older patterns still echo. For many adults, the first emotional shock of a mother’s death came via a Disney film. For others, the first time they saw a harried, imperfect, still-adored mother on screen was in a Ghibli one.

These differences matter not because children consciously analyze them, but because repeated exposure to certain myths shapes what feels normal. A culture that grows up on stories of absent or dangerous mothers may be quicker to treat caregiving as invisible, feminized labor to be escaped or outsourced. A culture that is also exposed to stories of flawed but enduring maternal presence, to mothers with agency and anger who remain loveable and loved, has more narrative room to imagine generational conflict as something other than a zero-sum battle.

The future audience will likely carry both sets of myths at once. On one shoulder, the orphan hero, forged in the absence of the maternal, racing toward a destiny away from home. On the other, the child who leaves but can also return, who learns that parents can change and that the world itself can act as a kind of mother — dangerous, sustaining, never entirely under control. Between those two visions lies a question that neither studio can answer alone: what would it mean to grow up in a culture that honors independence, yet does not treat care as something that must disappear for adulthood to begin?

In January 1776, a little pamphlet printed on cheap paper changed the course of history. Common Sense did not introduce new facts about British rule, nor did it unveil secret conspiracies. What it did was far more dangerous to the status quo: it named plainly what millions already felt but had not yet said out loud — that monarchy was not merely inefficient or unjust, but absurd. Illegitimate. Unworthy of continued consent.

Its author, Thomas Paine, understood something essential about political transformation. Revolutions do not begin with radical policies; they begin when ordinary people are given language that makes existing arrangements impossible to defend. Paine’s genius lay in translating diffuse frustration into moral clarity, and moral clarity into coordinated action.

Nearly 250 years later, the United States is not facing a crown. But it is facing a crisis of legitimacy no less corrosive. Across ideological lines, Americans sense that the system no longer answers to them. Elections feel predetermined by money and incumbency. Markets reward consolidation rather than competition. Political power circulates within families, donors, and gated institutions while everyday citizens are told — again — to wait their turn.

The problem is not that Americans disagree too much. It is that they increasingly agree on what is broken and disagree only on whether it can still be fixed.

What is missing today is not outrage, nor policy expertise, nor even popular support for reform. What is missing is a unifying framework — a common-sense account of why the system no longer works and how it can be repaired without tearing it down. Paine provided that framework in 1776. We need its modern equivalent now.

Losing moral legibility

Every durable political order rests on a quiet bargain: citizens accept outcomes they dislike because they believe the system itself is fair. When that belief erodes, legitimacy collapses long before laws do.

In the United States, this erosion has been gradual but unmistakable. Consider the patterns most Americans now recognize, regardless of party affiliation:

Political offices increasingly function as lifetime appointments in all but name, passed between family members or protected by structural advantages that render serious competition unlikely. Markets, once justified by innovation and consumer benefit, now concentrate power through mergers, monopolies, and rent-seeking behavior that raise prices while hollowing out local economies. Campaigns depend less on persuasion than on capital flows invisible to voters but decisive in outcomes. Electoral systems punish moderation and reward extremity, forcing citizens to choose not the candidates they want, but the ones they fear least.

None of this requires belief in shadowy cabals or hidden puppeteers. The mechanisms are visible, legal, and normalized. That is precisely the problem. As Paine understood, tyranny does not always announce itself as tyranny. More often, it arrives disguised as inevitability.

When institutions persist primarily because they are familiar rather than justified, they cease to command loyalty. Cynicism fills the vacuum. Extremism rushes in to supply meaning where legitimacy has failed.

The question, then, is not whether Americans are polarized, but whether the system they inhabit still deserves their consent.

Common sense as democratic repair

The most striking feature of contemporary politics is how popular many long-discussed reforms already are. Term limits, antitrust enforcement, campaign finance reform, ranked-choice voting — these ideas consistently poll well across ideological lines. They are debated endlessly and implemented rarely.

Why? Because they are usually presented as partisan weapons rather than structural repairs. Each side frames reform as a way to defeat the other, rather than as a means to restore legitimacy itself.

A common-sense platform reverses that logic. It begins not with ideology, but with first principles: no permanent rulers, no permanent monopolies, no bought elections, no forced binary choices. These are not radical demands. They are the minimum conditions for a system that claims to govern by consent.

What follows is not a utopian vision, but a practical program of democratic maintenance.

Ending dynasties

The idea of term limits is often caricatured as naïve or destabilizing. Critics warn that limiting tenure would empower unelected bureaucrats or lobbyists. But this objection confuses permanence with competence.

Term limits do not require the elimination of expertise; they require the rotation of authority. In practice, limiting consecutive terms — rather than lifetime service — would preserve institutional memory while preventing the entrenchment that turns public office into private property.

A legislature designed for circulation rather than consolidation would shift incentives immediately. Lawmakers would govern with an eye toward legacy rather than longevity, stewardship rather than survival. Power would be understood as temporary custody, not permanent possession.

This is not an attack on experience. It is a defense against entitlement.

Markets without monopolies

Few Americans identify as anti-market. Far more identify as anti-extraction. The distinction matters.

Competitive markets are among the most powerful engines of innovation ever devised. Captured markets, by contrast, function as private tax systems — extracting value without producing commensurate benefit. When corporations grow not by serving customers better, but by eliminating alternatives, both economic and democratic vitality suffer.

Revitalizing antitrust enforcement is therefore not an ideological project, but a civic one. Breaking up monopolies, blocking predatory mergers, and curbing rent-seeking behavior restore choice, lower prices, and reduce the ability of private power to dictate public outcomes.

In sectors where consolidation has become structurally irreversible — utilities, digital platforms, care economies — cooperative and public-interest ownership models offer a pragmatic alternative. These are not experiments in central planning; they are tools for aligning essential services with public need rather than shareholder extraction.

A democracy cannot survive indefinitely alongside private empires larger than the states meant to regulate them.

Elections that belong to voters again

If elections are the beating heart of democratic legitimacy, campaign finance is its circulatory system. When money overwhelms voice, representation becomes performative.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision did not create corruption; it constitutionalized it. By equating unlimited financial expenditure with speech, it ensured that those with the most capital would enjoy the loudest voices. The result has been predictable: declining trust, escalating arms races, and the widespread perception that outcomes are purchased rather than earned.

Other democracies have chosen differently. Public financing, strict caps, and real-time transparency have not silenced debate; they have broadened it. A system that provides every citizen with a small democracy voucher — redeemable only for political participation — would amplify ordinary voices while reducing dependence on private wealth.

The aim is not to equalize outcomes, but to equalize access. A democracy in which citizens cannot meaningfully compete for attention is not a democracy at all.

Escaping the politics of fear

America’s electoral system does something peculiar: it consistently forces voters to choose against rather than for. The result is a politics driven by fear, resentment, and negative partisanship.

Ranked-choice voting offers a simple, proven correction. By allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference, it rewards coalition-building, discourages extremism, and frees citizens to vote honestly rather than strategically. Candidates must appeal beyond their base to win second- and third-choice support, shifting incentives toward moderation and competence.

Paired with open primaries, ranked-choice voting would weaken the grip of factional extremes without disenfranchising anyone. It does not advantage one party over another. It advantages legitimacy.

When people believe their vote genuinely reflects their will, participation rises. When participation rises, democratic confidence follows.

Accountability at the top

Extreme concentrations of wealth are not merely an economic issue; they are a political one. When fortunes grow so large that their owners can shape markets, media, and policy simultaneously, the boundary between private success and public power dissolves.

A narrowly targeted wealth accountability mechanism — applied only to the most extreme concentrations — would serve two purposes. First, it would function as a deterrent against the accumulation of unaccountable influence. Second, it would fund the very institutions that safeguard democratic integrity: election security, education, and anti-corruption enforcement.

In light of the Epstein scandal, support for the end of elite impunity is now widespread and bipartisan. An “Epstein Tax,” or just “Ep Tax,” could bring accountability for crimes and serve public justice, while providing a 2028 platform for all candidates with a new wrapper for familiar proposals: A billionaire tax (re: corrupt Ep elites), roll back of Citizens United (re: Ep enabling domestic policy), elections reforms, and restored diplomacy (re: Ep impacted geopolitics).

But punishment is still secondary to reciprocity. In a system that enables extraordinary accumulation, extraordinary obligation follows.

Why this works where ideology fails

The strength of a common-sense platform lies not in novelty, but in resonance. Each of these reforms has supporters across the political spectrum. What they lack individually is narrative coherence. Together, they form a simple proposition: no permanent rulers, no permanent monopolies, no bought elections, no forced binaries.

Conservatives can recognize in this agenda a defense of competition, restraint, and institutional integrity. Progressives can see a path toward fairness, accountability, and inclusion. Independents can finally glimpse a politics that prioritizes function over theater.

Paine succeeded not because he appealed to a faction, but because he articulated a truth too obvious to ignore once stated. Monarchy fell not when it was defeated militarily, but when it became indefensible morally.

Our present arrangements persist for the same reason monarchy once did: habit, not justification.

The work ahead

The United States does not require revolution. It requires maintenance — deliberate, disciplined, and collective. Democratic repair is less dramatic than rupture, but far more demanding. It asks citizens to insist not on ideological victory, but on institutional health.

Common sense, Paine reminded us, is not simplistic. It is clarifying. It strips away inherited excuses and asks a single, destabilizing question: does this still make sense?

Applied honestly, that question has toppled empires before. It can still renew a republic.

The choice before us is not left versus right. It is legitimacy versus decay. The tools for repair are already on the table. What remains is the courage to name what no longer works — and the discipline to rebuild what must endure.

That, now as then, is simply common sense.

**

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Dear Reader,

Since sharing the #solarpunk flash fiction opening of The Green Pill in December, 2021, technological acceleration now allows for inferred narrative speculation and bifurcation, as never before.

With foggy pretense and critical faculties, I’ve dubiously authorized an LLM agent to continue with an informed versioning of our tale. Honestly, not totally into how the style reads or some word choices. Perhaps others will draft theirs?

Long live Story!

The Humans braced for a Vulture flyby that didn’t come.

Mouse sniffled in their wake. The world’s daylight persisted, a rebellious spark in a cave. Diana brought herself back into the Garden with thoughts of wild tomato.

Orpheus made a breath and headed for the trails.

The pill’s effects were steady now, coursing through Orpheus with a quiet urgency. Each step along the trail felt like stepping into a pulse, an ancient beat running beneath the surface. The trees, at first silent and still, now seemed to lean in, their branches trembling as if in anticipation. Orpheus walked deeper into the wood, past the well-worn pathways into uncharted parts of the forest.

Somewhere behind, Diana’s presence faded into the rhythm of the garden, her concerns narrowing to soil health and the balance of water and light. But out here, Orpheus sensed a different kind of balance being tested — a delicate one, fragile as thin ice, teetering between life and collapse.

The forest opened its breath wider, letting Orpheus deeper into its lungs.

The trail wound sharply to the right, dipping into a hollow where the trees were twisted, their trunks warped as though trying to escape their own roots. The air changed here. It grew denser, hotter. The smell of decay hung thick, not the natural composting of fallen leaves, but something far more toxic. The forest wasn’t just alive — it was suffering.

Orpheus stopped, eyes widening. The pill had opened them to the frequencies of the forest, and now they could hear it — not in words, but in pulses and hums. The vibrations of the earth below quivered with pain. Somewhere beneath the layers of soil, something sick had festered for far too long.

As Orpheus pressed forward, the trees seemed to grow darker, their bark discolored by patches of black sap oozing from their trunks. The sap glistened unnaturally, like crude oil. A chorus of crows took flight from the branches above, their cries sharp and discordant, as if warning Orpheus to turn back. But Orpheus didn’t. The pill had stitched a new kind of awareness into their veins. They could feel the forest pulling them forward, and they followed, deeper still.

The trail opened into a clearing — if it could be called that. The ground was wet and marshy, slick with a strange viscous substance that pooled in shallow craters. In the center stood what remained of an old factory, a relic of an era long past, its walls crumbling, overtaken by rust and grime. Towers of machinery jutted out from the earth like broken ribs, skeletal and haunting, half-consumed by the encroaching forest. The poison of industry had seeped into the soil, transforming the landscape into a war zone between nature and humanity’s toxic legacy.

The hum in Orpheus’ mind grew louder, sharper, twisting into an almost metallic shriek. It was here — the corruption of the land was strongest here.

As they walked further into the wreckage, a sudden movement caught their eye. A creature, lurking in the shadows, dragging its body along the slick ground. Orpheus froze, breath caught in their throat. It was a deer, or what had once been a deer, but its body had become grotesque, its legs bent at impossible angles, its skin mottled and torn. Its eyes — once wide and gentle — were clouded with a milky white film. Chemical burns scarred its hide, and it staggered as though barely able to stand. The sight of it sent a shiver through Orpheus’ bones. This was no longer a part of the natural world — it was something humanity had twisted beyond recognition.

The deer’s gaze locked onto Orpheus for a moment, as though recognizing their presence, and then it turned and limped back into the underbrush, a shadow swallowed by the poisoned forest.

Orpheus felt a tightening in their chest. The worst of humanity’s errors had taken root here.

Suddenly, a crack echoed through the clearing. Orpheus looked up to see a drone — a rusted remnant from the past — hovering overhead. Its purpose, long forgotten, had devolved into mindless activity. It scanned the ground below, its sensors flickering erratically, occasionally spraying a burst of chemicals into the soil. It was continuing its task of deforestation and soil “maintenance,” unaware that the world had moved on and that its actions now only brought harm.

The drone spotted Orpheus and buzzed down toward them, its mechanical arms extending. Orpheus ducked behind a collapsed wall, heart racing. The pill had heightened their senses, but the drone was a leftover of the technological world, an enemy not easily silenced by the whispers of the trees.

As the drone swept the area, Orpheus glanced at the broken factory. Rusted pipes jutted out from the ground, leaking oil into the poisoned earth. This was it — this was the origin of the sickness. The factory had spilled its toxins here long ago, and nature, struggling to reclaim its own, had been warped by the chemicals it was forced to absorb. The creatures, the land itself, had mutated, transformed by this festering wound.

The drone let out a low whirr, moving in for a closer scan. Orpheus had no choice now but to confront it. Taking a deep breath, they stood up, eyes narrowing as they focused on the drone. They were the keeper. The forest had entrusted them to heal this place, and that meant facing these remnants of humanity’s neglect head-on.

With a sudden burst of energy, Orpheus grabbed a fallen pipe and hurled it at the drone. The metal clanged against the machine, sending it spiraling briefly off course. Sparks flew from its damaged rotors. Orpheus could hear the forest’s hum grow louder in response, as if it, too, was fighting back.

The drone faltered, its sensors flickering, but it quickly righted itself, now more aggressive in its pursuit. Orpheus sprinted toward the remains of the factory, dodging the bursts of chemical spray as the drone bore down on them. The air was thick with the acrid scent of chemicals, but Orpheus’ mind stayed sharp, their vision focused. They weren’t just running — they were navigating, attuned to the rhythms of the earth below, the pulse of the trees around them.

Orpheus skidded to a stop near a patch of twisted roots, half-dead but still clinging to life. There was power here — a connection to the earth that the factory had not yet destroyed. Placing their hands on the ground, Orpheus closed their eyes, feeling the faint pulse of the land beneath them. The green pill surged through them, awakening something deep within the soil. They could feel the forest’s will, its desire for healing, for balance.

And in that moment, the hum of the forest became a roar.

The roots around Orpheus began to shift, trembling as if awakening from a long slumber. The drone, unaware of the change, hovered closer. But the earth beneath Orpheus erupted. The roots, twisted and sick, surged upward, coiling around the drone’s frame, pulling it down into the poisoned soil. The drone struggled, its mechanical limbs flailing as the roots dragged it deeper, but it was no match for the force of the forest reclaiming its own.

The drone’s whirring sputtered and died, its once-menacing form swallowed by the land it had sought to control.

Orpheus stood there, breathless, watching as the roots slowly settled back into the earth. The clearing was silent now, save for the faint hum of the forest. It wasn’t over — the land was still sick, still scarred — but this was a start. The forest had taken its first step toward healing.

Orpheus turned their gaze back toward the trail. The coast was far, but it called to them. There were other battles to fight, other remnants of humanity’s mistakes to confront. But now, Orpheus understood their role. The forest had gambled on them, and it was up to them to prove that humans could be trusted with the task of restoration.

As Orpheus began walking again, the pulse of the earth grew stronger beneath their feet. The journey was far from over — but they were ready.

I never produced an episode of Ride.

I ain’t no “Creator” of HTCYM, DM, Explorer, or the other series.

Only developed their stories & materials, JA

Born in Iran now age ten on a lawn

At Meyergrove and Hesston Plains

She stands in silk green suit

with red trim, no socks

Little brother holds a key

To their Texas sea of sidewalks

And attached garage homes,

which they tread trustingly

Phone in hand

While Neighbors in sweats buff trucks

And schoolmates take turns hovering by

in cherry blossom prints

She leads him along a fenced path

Between their backyard and stern mother’s

Warnings, where far off troubles

sail the Sunday suburban breeze

My background in designing regenerative futures began in 2009, as co-founder of NYC’s TINY’s, an experimental digital currency and service exchange platform based on banking and spending time dollars. Within a year, our timebank hosted thousands of accounts, earning TINY’s for providing skills and spending them on services offered within the online membership community. It was eventually absorbed into Timebanks USA.

Also that year I wrote Civil Disobedience 3.0 as a call for social and economic reform in light of the 2008 crash.

In 2009, I produced Beyond the Benjamins: The Future of Money, a panel between leading futurists Charles Eisenstein, Douglas Rushkoff, Daniel Pinchbeck, and Alex Gorden-Brander. A sausage-fest to be sure, but a memorable discussion nonetheless.

During the Occupy Wall St. movement in 2011, I regularly visited Zuccotti Park with my friend, Jean-Claude, and participated in discussions to advocate for transitioning away from the growth-bound US PetroDollar.

In the summer of 2015, I organized The People’s Xchange with Minds founder, Bill Ottman. We held the event at the Bitcoin Center directly adjacent to the NYSE, including a talks by gift economy maven, Genevieve Vaughan, author Daniel Pinchbeck, and Dr. Neil Theise. Guests each received 5 BTC, which were worth less than a dollar at the time. I forgot to claim mine!

Jan, 2016: HackerNoon publishes On Opportunity in the Creative Sector.

Sep, 2016: HackerNoon publishes AI as Magic Mirror.

In 2018, I received grant support from the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture to “Dare to Imagine” a community garden in Manhattan as a #solarpunk vision of gift economics, art, and community. We called it “The Emerald City.”

In April, 2019, National Geographic publishes Making peace in the Golan Heights — between humans and wolves.

September, 2019: Began my first #crypto HODLing strategy.

From 2019 to 2020, I conceived The Green List, an impact marketplace for indexing and investing in the ecological restoration economy. During that period, I also joined a working group that formed at the Bretton Woods @75 conference to develop and launch a Social Wealth Index (SWI) and the Partnerism portal with the Center for Partnership Systems and sociologist Riane Eisler. Inspired by her efforts to replace domination hierarchies with economics of care and partnership, work developing the SWI continues.

In January, 2020 the International Wildlife Coexistence Network is launched. I’m a founding Council member and direct the launch video.

Apr, 2020: What If We Stay Home for Now? is published.

Nov, 2020: The Green Pill, a #solarpunk short story, is written.

May, 2021: The Open Mind: A Phenomenology is published.

In 2021, became a conservation strategist and part of RESOLVE’s social entrepreneurship incubator to launch The Green List as a digital platform and develop emerging nature finance standards and practices.

Durina the first internal pitch, a Google Earth executive praised the app’s conservation potential in conjunction with other RESOLVE tools, like Global Safety Net, Quick Response Fund for Nature, TerrAdapt, and TrailGuardAI. Author of Environmental Debt, Amy Larkin, added, “This is money for the next economy.” In early 2022, still preparing to raise seed funds, I began to separate aspects of my proposal into a triad of agencies: an ecological services treasury, a credit ratings agency, and the original impact market app. During this time a ReFi explosion of startups and DAOs began to enter the space. Since 2022, I’ve watched as much of the information science and digital public infrastructure necessary to an ecological civilization is now being built.

In October 2022, I presented FinTech for Coexistence: An Integrated Market Architecture at the International Wildlife Coexistence Network’s conference near Yellowstone National Park.

In this presentation, lead actors are identified across finTech spaces, as a key diffusion network for cohering an ecological finance system that can drive and deliver global climate and biodiversity targets.

Now, these actors are coordinating into a network that understands ecological function and condition as critical infrastructure for a sustainable humanity and planet.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Dear Reader,

Surely you have many narratives and readings requiring your attention, so I will be brief. Attached for your consideration is my new story The Green Pill at under 900 words. The picture at the top is of a crow wearing an earbud. Why?!

I wanted to explore a Solarpunk scenario, since I haven’t encountered it much yet in literature. It got me thinking, «What about an alternate reality from the red pill/blue pill choice in The Matrix?» So the tale opens a portal into an Earth clearly altered by climate change, yet life is on the rebound through a strange new agreement between nature and humanity.

**

THE GREEN PILL

When they thought of it, Orpheus walked over to the package on their desk, and began opening it. Unsure if they’d ordered it delivered themself, or it had come from someone else, they removed a sealed metallic box. Scanning the grounds nearby, uncertainty abound. Unlatching the box, Orpheus found a single gel capsule the color of ripened avocado skin.

Without any label or directions enclosed, Orpheus scoured the lone pill, holding it up into the era’s slowly draining permacover of sulphur dioxide cirrocumulus. The typical afternoon gloom only enhanced this capsule’s orblike quality. Mutely it spoke to Orpheus’ grip, until placing the pill on their tongue, Orpheus resolutely swallowed.

Latching the box closed, Orpheus caught a taste of spruce. Looking outside across the woody decay and bric a brac of a long suffering lawn, a scurrying thread of scales and fur pulled them within reach of a window sill. Watching with a forgotten softness, Mouse humbly clustered in a rare patch of clover, combing through it with paws and teeth like a floss. A few buds digesting, she slouched toward food comatose.

Orpheus imagined her a lullaby, dancing the melody through their fingers along the glass. Feeling the pane’s coolness, an act of sublimation, transmuted the day’s soggy sunlight into a cascade of reflections arriving from the Forest’s outer realm. Orpheus summoned scents of taiga and mangrove.

Then out of the tattered treeline, a familiar, resounding cry came from above the yard.

Orpheus filled a water bottle, slid on a VO2 mask, activated it, put on gloves, raised their focal contrast, opened the door to the backyard, and stepped outside.

A subsidiary pocket of six Crows perched in a multi-branch crescent formation, while Mouse slouched into the crevice of a boulder. No Vulture.

The Crows announced themselves with a popular morning cröpera. The fine three-eighths ‘caw’ to ‘purr’ structure pulled Diana out of the Garden.

“Oh,” she contorted, like a tennis player completely misjudging a ball. “We thought you were coming later today,” she evened things out.

The Crows replied that the Rain had sent them earlier than expected. To which, Mouse squeaked in their general direction, then headed into a reddening thicket of berries after new scents.

“Well go ahead,” said Diana, watching Mouse go.

The pocket went inside.

With eyes mossy against her general glow, Diana turned toward Orpheus. Orpheus sought oxygenation, their inhaler granted it. Into the Garden they went.

“Our transpiration rates are up quite a bit this week. Soaking up lots for char and potash, while feeding plenty of rain and pollen. Phosphates and dioxins trending down. Looking forward to quite the flower yields throughout the northern corridor this summer. We’ll be swimming in bugs by solstice and squash through first snow. The hoppers and crawlers, well, the flyers too, really, so many. They’ll have a field day, yes, so many. It’ll be a good string of seasons if the sunshine picks up at all,” Diana said.

Mouse chomped bullishly at a confused strawberry. The permapeppers and root vegetables agreed from their rows. Ant colonies shuddered. The leafy greens caught un petit peu applause sur le vent. A buffalo stopped chewing.

Their outlook turned bucolic, so long as things went well with the Crows.

Looking inside, all the lights were on.

“Soon the trails will be open all the way to the coast,” Orpheus realized.

“Yes, I’ve been out a bit already today,” encouraged Diana, “If you’re going far, you can keep compression settings low. It’s pretty clear out.”

Orpheus turned toward the trailhead picturing a baleen. They began selecting a course.

“So so many out there today. Some flyers, yes, lotta herd. Lotta herd. Really. Surprising amount of canopy, strong cover too. Seeing new succulents now. They may actually be sent up from Coyote. Plenty of seed though, nice grass work. Hemp, graphene, Solana steady. Bolettes, chanterelles, chaga, reishi checked-in, a decent count on predators too. Starting to see the many invitations and exchanges play out to increase carrying capacity. Water cycle is seventy-four percent less toxic, soil forty-six percent more complex microbially and twenty-four percent more mycologically. Enough old fashioned sunshine and we’ll be flush come winter.”

“No tomato, no honey, no highways, no rice, no chocolate or plums,” Orpheus confirmed.

“Well.”

Diana reached into a bin and began handing out dried figs.

Thoroughly stuffed, Mouse presented hers with a kind of alley oop to one of the Crows, as the troop trotted back outside onto their pinetop perch.

They seemed satisfied. Breaking into song, the full accord of their voices became immediately apparent. From the hedges of Orpheus’ lawn to the slaggard heathrow’s pulpy depths, a rousing qawwali tribute to ‘Sanu ek pal chain na aave’ rang clear and true into the leavening sky. The Sun p{[(iqued)eeked]eaked} at the troop scaling through its rounds. The yard flinched momentarily between night and day, allowing Diana to access enough intermittent feed to gather a solid bump in charge.

Song concluded, the Crows indicated they would follow up soon to check on humidity levels and infiltrations. They flapped away.

The Humans braced for a Vulture flyby that didn’t come.

Mouse sniffled in their wake. The world’s daylight persisted, a rebellious spark in a cave. Diana brought herself back into the Garden with thoughts of wild tomato.

Orpheus made a breath and headed for the trails.

The Green Pill was originally published in Shantigar Press on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

10–29–2017 //

My grandmother had passed away days before.

I returned to California from the Long Island funeral to meet my friends in the lost canyons south of Hollister.

Arriving late at night I wandered into an unwelcome Amerikan yard, where I was greeted at gun point.

The flashlight of my friends shone the way just in time to get the hell out to the right campfire.

They had been in an Aya ceremony all day. The night found them grateful and unwound.

During the night my sleep was interrupted by a game with a fox after our food supplies. Half-conscious, I’d hear her rustle into our snacks and I’d flick her away with repeated yet playful bursts of my flashlight. Soon it was sunrise.

By 8 a.m. the lagging fire had been restored, and the ceremony began.

We received words of courage, wisdom, and humility from our young guide. He smiled through the logistics: pull in the medicine for a minute straight, no stopping the inhale. The effects will hit early, but don’t get get stuck. Break through.

Out of the group of ten I went first. Another participant would go after I’d hit to make each round into a pair.

Wrapped in a red red rebozo blanket in the dry dry crisp California canyon air with two dear dear friends on either side of me, I took in our guide’s flame through the pipe.

I met the sapito 15 seconds in and held up a moment. As the husk of my life peeled away, I managed to fulfill my dose to the end.

Notoriously the ravens around us barked loudly as I finished inhaling.

Like a breaking body in revelation from a bullet, I lay back into my friends’ hands, who helped me find the ground.

For the next 20 minutes I’d stay there in zen like shivasana, while my consciousness was dissolved and resurrected.

Looking up into an open cyan sky framed with gentle tree tops, my eyes immediately discovered three hawks circling in formation 100 feet directly above me.

Taking their presence as an auspicious omen I ejected my awareness through the center of their ring with all my might as far as I could imagine.

I ended up in orbit directly above our ritual grounds, but beyond reach of the earth’s gravity. Remembering the Christopher Reeves Superman movies of my childhood, I elected to do a few laps around the planet.

I felt the curves and radiance of a satellite’s exhilaration. My liberation surrounded the earth without giving up my place on the ground.

Then the young woman from across the campfire, who had finished her dose began to shriek.

Her screaming ran through the canyon like a banshee on fire, like a child being separated from her family at the border. And it didn’t stop.

It began to overwhelm my sense of transcendence, tugging to pull me into her torment. Though I was cool I felt the well of sweat readying within my pores. And she kept screaming bloody murder. A cry pitious enough to atone for all life’s suffering.

My friends lightly took either hand of mine, and I caught my breath from a thousand miles up.

Below the importance of our gathering, the trust in our task, and the common desire to heal guided me back into unity with my body between the mountains.

She screamed still but we began to sing. She languished while we smiled, a gentle band holding our ground. She exercised countless demons, and we pulled our souls through the eye of a needle.

The doses wore off and all were silent. I lay still, completely spent, and without a nerve of resistance. Like coming through the Valley of Death with a whistle.

The tip of my tongue tingled with a taste of burnt copper or magnesium. For days after I’d feel as if I’d been injected into a new skeleton and skin.

I sat up to see tears streaming in my friends’ eyes. They hugged me completely. Whatever I was now.

Re: Have you ever tried toad medicine? was originally published in Shantigar Press on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Written July, 1, 2001

Have you noticed the memes circulating about the end of normal? Claiming that we can’t go back to the way things were before the virus spread.

Have you seen these claims, and felt scared that once the lockdowns and quarantines are lifted that’s exactly what will happen? We’ll go back to living the “Story of Stuff,” the production-consumption cycle, and the rat race. Back to business-as-usual.

I’m concerned that we’re about to miss a critical window for lasting transformation, capable of honoring all the suffering, trauma, and loss. I wonder if we might consider our options together a bit more before we simply follow orders from our supposed political leaders (of any affiliation).

They’re sure to tell us it’s our duty and present a buffet of low wage jobs, while a deluge of ads entice us with once-in-a-lifetime deals. Can you hear them already preparing to stoke soundbites of triumph and profiteering? Why? The 1% know that if they don’t get us spending and “living our best life” right away, they’ll have a very big problem on their hands.

You see, the markets don’t work without us.

Since last year the U.S. Federal Reserve had already been injecting huge sums to keep shares afloat. 2020’s emergency stimulus funds only exist at all to prolong the illusion of confidence long enough to reach an orgiastic consumer spending spree — that taxpayers and citizens could intentionally, wholeheartedly deny in solidarity.

If this pandemic carries with it any possibility of cultural awakening or mythic initiation of consciousness, then it’s very likely that the moment restrictions are lifted is the moment our people and planet’s future depends on mass economic disobedience.

No protests in the streets waving weapons, slogans, or flags required. No claims of revolution. No traffic. We could all go sit out on our roofs and stargaze. An uprising of stillness. A silent revolt.

We’ve done our duty staying home to protect each other’s health. Now, perhaps, we have a duty to stay home to restore our civic bonds.

As the governors unveil their plans and the Administration blisters, it seems clearer, that should we fail to take action now, the levers of disaster capitalism are poised to ensnare, siphon, distract, betray, censure, confuse, poison, and dominate future resistance.

We’ve seen pollution levels drop worldwide as non-essential travel was grounded. We’ve marveled at the return of wildlife to even the most congested of habitats. We’ve seen that a world in balance with life is merely waiting for our invitation and devotion.

Why not stay present with seeing things as they are? Why not let our ecosystems and social lives enjoy the downtime until we take the time to figure out a common path forward? If Covid-19 is an accelerator of broken conditions, why not embody paradigm shift now?

Here we are: Stuck between rehabilitation and extinction. Endless growth and resilience. The current future is under funded. It’s despoiled and toxic. It’s under educated. It’s under cared for. Fractured. Broken apart. And the corporate power dynamics are bent only on making this pandemic a tool for more social fracking: like 9/11, like Kristallnacht, like the Inquisition.

When it comes to liberating humans against corruption and exploitation, doesn’t history reveal that it pays to go beyond operating system updates, and rewrite the principles. In fact, justice demands abolition.

So why step outside in the age of the Great Turning for anything less than a fully-loaded Green New Deal? A bailout for the people both rural and urban. A regeneration of the biosphere. Universal Basic Income. An economy that cares. Elected representation that serves public good. At least!

Maybe other moments would come. Maybe collapse and chaos are inevitable. Yet ask yourself: What happens if we choose staying home as the new normal for now? What happens if we don’t shop, commute, or jet set the rest of the year away, but rather float further down the river of this new pace of life? Maybe focus more on planting gardens and forests than chasing stocks? When did we last have a chance to listen deeply to our families’ troubles, enjoy a walk, or pluck something from an orchard?

What happens, some of us are wondering, should we give ourselves permission to get used to living more essentially? Some of us call this new minimum impact lifestyle permaculture. It’s more host and hospitality than parasite. It’s focused on creating a more biodiverse planet where humans are reconnected with the web of life by restoring it through science, biomimicry, and improved land use. Permaculture asks us, “What happens if we exchange momentary gratification for a long term investment in commonwealth? What happens if we focus on growing food with our neighbors instead of reinforcing supply chains? What happens if square one is to effectively reform society into a holistic partnership?”

It. Might. Not. Be. Fun.

Or maybe so? Why not? We still have Sondheim and raga, right?

But the sacrifice now just might help us open our hearts, minds, and hands to something better. Or even many better options than business-as-usual… again. Who knows? There’s still 12 minutes left to play. Plenty of time to make a move. This isn’t even overtime yet. We still live with wild packs of wolves in the mountains, and pods of whales in the seas. For now we can still snail mail votes and hashtag boycotts. There are possibilities. Have we really considered becoming a generation of foresters, seaweed farmers, and tidal energy harvesters?

The wheels of industry have finally clamored to a halt. Can’t we let our front line workers rest and recuperate a bit. Can’t we all take a breather from the last few centuries of civilization building until we’re able to look at things with fresh eyes? Maybe volunteer to pick up some shifts or make sure our neighbors have enough groceries for the week. We just got here. What if we’re just not ready to launch back into the incessant conquest of Mars, robots, and awards seasons?

If we can shelter-in-place to overcome micro contagion, we can keep our pajama fashion and Zoom schedules on lock a bit longer to boycott the attempts by Gates and Zuck at digital macro feudalism. If we can flex our mindfulness muscles and sit tight awhile longer, the new normal could give tyrants and oligarchs everywhere a fateful case of penitence. If we can sustain our Great Retreat into the summer, we could demand a world that works for all of us.

If we can imagine voluntarily quarantining through November, we could mobilize a strike powerful enough to earn back more than mere rights — we could regain our faith in humanity.