Slow Motion Temper Tantrum
If you like the topics discussed in this newsletter, you can buy a copy of my Patchwork Manifesto here.
My investigation draws on ancient teachings to explain why we stand at the edge of radical change.
It’s a challenging read. Consider this tiny manual if you are just starting your journey.
There’s a real “mad scientist” quality to the zeitgeist as we begin to move out of the eclipse window.
This can go a couple of ways, though perhaps it’s more interesting up front to discuss the “bad” ways it can go.
Everybody’s curious about a quirky villain, you know.
The mad scientist archetype goes beyond the recent “Oppenheimer” fetish. We’ve seen him experiment on himself, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—a story later retold with more levity in “The Nutty Professor,” where famous comic Jerry Lewis plays a dopey teacher who turns into a smooth, chain-smoking playboy.
But we also see mad scientists experimenting on other people—particularly women.
“Weird Science” was a 1985 film by John Hughes, but more popularly know as a TV series during the 90s. The plot is classic: two horny teenage boys cook up their ideal version of a woman with a computer. In 1982 as well there was a hit song, “She Blinded Me with Science” in which a scientist goes from a cold emotionless robot to deeply in love with his assistant.
A lot of this stuff is cute, but it has dark undercurrents in our post-pandemic world.
For one thing, these narratives generally show science—and the awakening of emotions—as a generally harmless thing. Yes, there are consequences and drama and serial plot points. But for the most part, the cosmos stays intact. It’s just shown to be a little, uh, weird now.
But what happens when extreme dogma seeks to tamper with the order of things, and won’t back down?
We have a few instances of this, particularly in the Batman legacy. In “Suicide Squad,” the Joker leads Harleen Quinzel, his psychologist, to a precipice—then she tips herself over into a vat of transformative acid, to prove her love. The Joker dives in after her, kissing her as she becomes his new Frankenstein: the deadly, and decidedly insane, Harley Quinn.
In the 1992 “Batman Returns” we see Selina Kyle pushed out a window by her boss, when she uncovers his corruption (not quite a mad scientist, but once again, a powerful figure literally pushing a transformation onto another). She falls to her death, but through an occult phenomenon is resuscitated as Catwoman clad in black leather.
The most potent example I find, though, is Pamela Isley, a kind-hearted botanist and assistant to Dr. Woodrue, who pushes her into a rack of acids and concoctions, hoping to kill her after she rejects him. But she too is resurrected—as Poison Ivy. She carries venom on her lips, and when she kisses Dr. Woodrue, he dies.
After her revenge is enacted, she begins trashing the lab, setting it on fire and shouting these words:
"I am Nature's arm. Her spirit. Her will. Hell, I AM Mother Nature, and the time has come for plants to take back the world so rightfully ours because it's NOT NICE TO FOOL WITH MOTHER NATURE!"
You want to cheer for this kind of thing, but there’s a dark undercurrent as well. It would seem like Poison Ivy is the advocate for a Mother Nature that has been spoiled by rapacious mad scientists. You see a LOT of this on Twitter/X, with people seething over polyester clothing or companies who produce pesticides and GMO foods. You want to cheer for them, but there’s a very poisonous current of resentment and revenge within it all.
How do you know that you, dear onlooker, will escape their kiss of death? Poison Ivy is seductive, after all. She can make friends with anyone.
Likewise, there will be a strong networking effect on the heels of a great abundance that has come your way recently, during the eclipse. Some of these actors may want you to support or join a cause or a war. It may be Ukraine or Palestine related, or simply a war on GMO foods.
It all looks good and appealing from the outside. I would keep your eyes peeled for seductive animal rights headlines, or human rights, or even “earth rights”—maybe an environmental degradation or weather engineering story.
But from my vantage point as someone who studies cycles, at this time I believe we are called to look deeper into these causes, to see the venom below the layers and alchemize that into durable change—rather than burning everything down like Poison Ivy for a chance at freedom or communal togetherness.
Indeed, the risk is getting sucked into mob-like anti-social behavior.
We have the chance now to really examine our future hopes and dreams, and see that the tools to realize them are already in hand. It’s very possible that many of you reading this had a breakthrough or two in a certain life area recently that made you realize that you have a garden to tend, not a war to join.
If a seductive promise doesn’t come your way, it’s possible on the flipside that there could be some head-butting at this time that seems to limit your freedom or push you in a direction you don’t want to go.
It may be important to stand ground, but at what cost—and FOR what?
Again, you don’t want to burn everything down for a hazy cause, like a frenzied Poison Ivy who wants to rattle the bars of her former cage. It’s more like you want to purge and remove waste, any kind of unnecessary element in your garden, like moles who tunnel below your beds and disrupt your crops.
In that sense, the next two weeks could be great for drawing secrets out of the background, or detecting something wrong in a multi-step system (including your own).
Listen to your gut. Are you angry at a slow spring harvest, cursing the rain, but not yet realizing that you’ve got a mole problem?
Or, on the flipside, do you realize there’s a mole problem but you’re taking the nuclear approach to solving it, rather than the targeted approach?
What I’m essentially saying here is that we’re at a checkpoint. It’s not really a question of “do I have abundance in my life or not? Let me nuke everything to find out.”
Circumstances may lead you to ask that question, but that’s ultimately a distraction.
Because if you’re not having faith in your immediate abundance, which has likely been already shown to you, then it’s possible you’re slowing yourself down or taking steps back.
You could be overlooking some key point to troubleshoot. Or, you may see that key point but just going nuclear over it.
The important thing now is to accept that, yes, some conditions may be forced on you at this time. That does not negate your abundance. And the solution to freeing yourself from these constraints may be accepting the evolutionary push, and becoming more powerful as a result of an encounter with your deeper perceptions or feelings—just like Pamela Isley is pushed into a more raw, more powerful version of herself.
Let’s keep going.
Safecracker, Lockpicker
The other important concept to keep in mind over this week into next is tied to the first concept.
If you find yourself in a slow motion temper tantrum, with enough space to decide that you want to burn it all down—well, how do you use that space to slow down and step back?
It’s a little bit like being a safecracker, or a lockpicker. That’s not to say it’s like going behind your own back, but you may catch yourself—and others in the process—of engaging in some activity where “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
For that reason, we may see some whistleblowing in the news, or corruption revealed by some slip up, like a politician hitting “reply all” on his message containing a scheme.
Indeed, any kind of glitch or “more than coincidental accident” will be prominent now if this energy isn’t consciously directed.
There’s a lot of freedom and fresh air that wants to rush into the space, feed the current abundance and remove waste.
And it will do this, if you don’t.
That’s again the forcefulness aspect we’ve been discussing, of feeling that something is being pushed on you—and wanting to violently push back.
So if some kind of hang up hits your plate—or a snag or a glitch—step back before smashing your phone or your relationship to bits.
What is it telling you? Is it letting you know that you’ve got a left hand doing something that the right hand doesn’t know about?
Are you working longer to provide for your partner, believing that will solve the issue—when your left hand knows full well that your relationship health really depends on that uncomfy conversation about in laws that you’ve both been avoiding?
So that when there’s a complaint about working long hours and being absent, and you blow up about how you’re doing this for the sake of the relationship—is that the full truth?
It’s a prime moment to catch yourself, so you can get out of the bind of feeling caught and pushed—and get right to the abundance that you’ve been feeling blocked from (a happy relationship).
For many, this might come in the form of introspection, solitude, solving puzzles and journaling. For others, it may take the more dramatic form of “the only way out is through”—perhaps pushing past inner resistance by exhausting the body through immersive exertion, like swimming, hot yoga or martial arts.
The goal is to see the opposite of some belief you hold, and to understand that is the key to your lock.
“I’m working harder to make my relationship happier”
Opposite thought: “It’s really not about the money, or showing that I can provide by being absent. What can make my relationship happier is more presence and communication.”
It’s not an either/or game, or a choice between being domestic or feral.
It’s about seeing the full picture, and not leaving some bit of data out of reach because you stubbornly believe it’s irrelevant.
Now, reading this, I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next: collectively, get ready for extreme ideologies that don’t bend.
Hardcore calls for war, Israel vs Palestine, Trump vs Biden, Pepsi vs Coke, raw milk vs seed oils.
The chains will wrap tighter and tighter around each camp, until they feel compelled to explode and push back—each believing they are justified like Poison Ivy in exacting their revenge, scorching the earth for a “new world.”
Most of the time, though, their chains will hold them back. So don’t expect their drama to spill into your backyard. Although it may seem scary on the world stage at times.
That’s the beauty of the 2020s: you can continue building, uninterrupted, if you decide to see beyond the Us versus Them spectacle that wants to drag you into a slow motion temper tantrum.
If you like the topics discussed in this newsletter, you can buy a copy of my Patchwork Manifesto here.
My investigation draws on ancient teachings to explain why we stand at the edge of radical change.
It’s a challenging read. Consider this tiny manual if you are just starting your journey.