Sustainability, as we conventionally call it, is not actually sustainable. Sustainability continues to use finite resources as if they were infinite. Sustainability leads to greater harm to all life, not greater friendship with all beings. The products of sustainability—solar panels and biofuels — require Empire.

As the ravages of Empire play out, cultural recovery may become our goal again in the future — and we may find ourselves by choice or necessity living in small localized kinship groups once again, looking to our own ancestral traditions for a template to survival.

Trees are such beautiful creatures, are they not? And wise too. If you listen with a wild ear, if you watch them with wild eyes, they will share their lessons with you.

Sounds awfully romantic, doesn’t it? But as lovely as it sounds, it is also true.

Oh you'll go outside again, work at a job, hate the president. But that old world is gone, let it go and prepare for the new.

May you take care of your essence like a lioness takes care of her young, and may your heart shine with the innocence of a child, seeing the world through the hopeful eyes of tomorrow full of sweets, toys and ice cream. We still have to fight, with hope and confidence in seeing what we are in each other's eyes, even if by videoconference.

Going outside for a walk or, more daringly, a trip to the grocery store, we are more aware than ever of our proximity to others just as they are of us. Jean-Paul Sartre’s summary observation in No Exit that “Hell is other people” has assumed a qualitatively more severe level of significance.

Soon the leaves will unfurl and the cherry fruits will begin to form and grow, ripening in the heat of the summer months. But that time is not yet here and the blossoms are still at their best. Perhaps Hanami is one of the best mindfulness practices, the most easily applied.

The grim realities of the capitalist system could not be clearer right now in the United States. The sudden disappearance of labor has caused the entire economy to go into crisis overnight, for one simple reason that should have been obvious all along: all value comes from labor.

The cultural impact of ultra-processed foods is “a consequence of the desire to consume more and more as to create the sensation of belonging to a more modern and superior culture." With this, late stage capitalism has changed the concept of poverty and hunger.

What comes after COVID-19? What will our world look like? And how can we make a more beautiful world in the ruins of this crumbling empire?

While leftists craft ridiculous conspiracy theories, some people are literally conspiring to keep us alive.

It’s in this time where the fact that we’ve forgotten how to actually cook, to actually make the most of the food we have, becomes most glaringly obvious, and indeed a surprise. When I talk about how to cook, I don’t necessarily mean the following of a recipe to create a nice meal, but to actually make something using what we already have and what is available to us. This type of cooking is akin to magic.

The status Q needs that middle-class to believe that the system works for them.

Pay-What-You-Can course starts 5 April

Are human bodies disposable? Do you use them and then throw them away? Do bodies lying on the ground covered in blood cause as much damage as the plastic thrown into the ocean? If this is the problem; how many must die for the problem to be solved? Do blacks naturally have a short life span?

Once again, nothing will ever be quite the same.

Authoritarianism isn’t the exception, it’s the rule, and only our “Western” self-deception has allowed us to think otherwise.

Feeling unworthy of dignity has put many people on a perpetual state of vulnerability, starting much before this outbreak, and continuing well after this whole thing blows over.

There is a magic in nature, one that cannot be described by words alone. It is a soul deep feeling that nourishes and makes us strong. Losing that feeling, disconnecting from that nature is the root of many of today’s problems. It is what makes us use and abuse the planet, the environment, animals and other humans. We forget that all is connected, that there is one whole and whilst we all may be separate, individuals, we are also all connected. Destroy one part and we destroy ourselves.