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How to Challenge Deceptive Imaginings

10/18/2019

PEGI EYERS

Recently I was in the position to help a young person who has a pattern of "hypochondria," or creating dangerous situations that don't really exist. This syndrome can arise from the embedded trauma associated with life-long health issues, such as a peanut allergy and the very real fear of deadly exposure. This type of threat in combination with irrational thinking, can make life difficult both for one's self and others. Here are some ideas and actions for addressing the issue ~!

We can have a thought about something or react to something, and it can be totally IRRATIONAL.

The trick is to not let those irrational thoughts rule the day~!

Humans have a habit of infusing a thought with overwhelming feelings, but we can also control those thoughts. Soon it becomes second nature - and we don't let our irrational thoughts ruin our day~!

Of course, our upset is usually triggered by, or based on a deep-seated fear or trauma that keeps coming up. We can say, "Hi Fear~! There you are again - I see you - but I choose NOT to respond."

I choose to focus on a rational response. It might take time, but it will work ~!

I also know that LOVE is the opposite of fear. Going into my heart, I feel the always-flowing love that is ALWAYS there, both for myself, other people, and the natural world itself.

I sink into my heart, a place of love, I embody that love and protection, and I choose NOT to let irrational thoughts ruin my day.

I AM SAFE
I AM LOVE

I feel my true essence, and there is no place for irrational thoughts.

There are enough dangers in the world, without needlessly creating more dangers that are essentially the work of my own imagination.

When irrational thoughts arise, I:

Don't add fuel to the fire with a bunch of worry, or "what if?"

Look the situation in the eye, and see there is no real danger.

Remember that it's good to have emotions and cycle through them every day, but the overwhelming fear or danger "fight or flight" response is NOT useful (unless I see a bear), and is probably an insult to my own integrity.

Switch to the other quadrants on the circle of self.
"Feed all four ~ go into each room every day."

                                              MIND
I put my mind to work on a creative or technical problem - online chess, graphic design, writing a novel, or whatever.
                                                   BODY
I spend time in the physical by feeling and focusing on each part of my body - toes, ankles, knees, hips, solar plexis, shoulders, arms etc. with my FULL attention; play sports; walk while chanting a mantra over and over (i.e. "I love the world and the world loves me"); sing; have a soaky bath, or sex.
                                                  SPIRIT
I seek the spiritual by experiencing the wonder of nature; thinking about the immensity of the universe; or wondering about the mysteries of life. I shift to that side of myself that holds synchronicity and dreaming. Be a philosopher~! "How did we get here and where are we going?" How are the pieces of my life experience fitting so far, into my overall personal mythology? What is the big picture, or purpose of my life?

In other words, you want to derail, distract or shut down the little gremlin in your head (irrational thought) and his little sidekick excess emotion.

The little gremlin (what some call the ego) loves drama~! Don't give in to his nonsense.

Other distractions and ways to shut down the over-active mind include tapping and earthing. Get grounded ~!

Drugs or alcohol are a temporary diversion, but we must not evade the imperative to examine our core beliefs. There are no shortcuts for digging deep into who we really are, and what we need to be content and productive.

GET FOCUSED~! On an essay, cleaning the house, some activism or community work - the fastest way to lose unwanted irrational thoughts is to engage with real issues in the real world.

Over-emotion leads to self-sabotage~!! Learn skills for self-discipline.

And be kind to yourself ~!!

We all have irrational thoughts - gradually find the best way (for you) to stop your irrational thoughts and over-emotionalized reactions ~!!

RESOURCES

A Guide to Rational Living - Albert Ellis

Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way - Rick Carson

Outfoxing Fear: Folktales From Around The World - Kathleen Ragan

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com
Stone Circle Press

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(Immaculate) Conception 1955

10/15/2019

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Pegi Eyers

Dedicated to all the “illegitimate” children who were born in the 1950’s and given up for adoption, before women obtained sexual and religious freedom and the right to choose a single parent lifestyle.

(Immaculate) Conception 1955

These are the children,
in sound & fury
that have been unleashed upon the world,
the offspring of untapped wombs
that wait at the end of desire.

Father Church & Mother Culture
block all ripe awakenings.

And yet, a new generation appears,
shaped from confusion,
born from discontent,
speaking of all things

under heaven, close to the earth

They have caught a glimpse
a divine spark
held secret
“keep it quiet, keep it safe.”

Sired by a cataclysm of authority
springing from an ova of fear
nurtured by the unaware,
cloaked with the black robe of belief

These children
- reborn as miracles -
are hearing the bells of inner truth.

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Categories for Massive Change and Climate Disaster

10/6/2019

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Current information, op-eds and discourse on climate change and collapse continues to expand, and as a scholar and activist I thought that listing the categories I use for storing links on my browser under "COLLAPSE" might be extremely interesting (if not shocking). If you want to see any particular links just let me know ~!

5G
A Green New Deal
AA Apocalypse Studies
AA Apocalyptic Art
AA CLIMATE CHANGE NO ACCIDENT
Affects Those Living in Poverty First
AMAZON FIRES
America Stupid
......Randy Rainbow
......Socialism
ANTHROPOCENE BS
ATTACKS ON NATURE
BANALITY IS TERRIFYING
Basic Income Supplement
BEST
Big Oil Will Die
Canada 150 NO
Canada Resource Colony
......Racism in Canada
......Canadian Solutions
CANCEL CHRISTMAS
Capitalism is the Problem
Christianity STUPID
......Pedophile Priests
Civil Disobedience
Climate Action for Baby Boomers
Climate Change
Climate Change ~ New Terms
Climate Change ~ Solutions
Climate Change ~ ACTION
Climate Change and Violence
Climate Change ~ BOOKS
Climate Change ~ Denial
CLIMATE CRIMINALS
CLIMATE NECESSITY NEW LEGAL DEFENSE
CLIMATE REFUGEES everywhere
......Displacement Worldwide
Collapse Timeline
Consumerism
Declare Climate Emergency
DEEP ADAPTATION
DEGROWTH
Demonizing Nature
Disgusting Space Race
Disinformation and Denial
Doomsday Maps and Billionaires
Doomsday Prep
Earth Remediation
Eco-Extremism
Ecocide
EMPIRE
Environmental Racism
Environmental Sensitivities
EVIL BRITISH EMPIRE
EXTINCTION REBELLION
Failure of Cities
FALSE PROGRESS NARRATIVES
FIGHTING BACK
First Nations Affected
First Nations Solutions
First Nations Warnings
Focus on Individual Instead of Corporation
For Our Grandchildren
FUCKING BABY BOOMERS
Geoengineering HAHAHA
GREENWASHING
GRETA THUNBERG
GRIEF
Guy McPherson
How Humans Became Consumers
How to Talk about CC So People will Listen
Human Population
Deciding NOT to have children
Human Supremacy
Immoral To Be Rich
INDUSTRIAL FARMING FUCKERS
CC KILLS WHITE PEOPLE
LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND
Livestock Taking Over Planet
LOCAL ACTIVISM
Luddite
Mega Fortress Capitalism
Artificial Intelligence
Military Biggest Polluter
My Apocalypse Blog
Nature Decline
Nature Rebound
Save the Last "Scraps"
NEOLIBERALISM
No More Water
Nobody Wants Your Parents Stuff
Normalization of Perpetual Disaster
Nutrient Collapse
ONLY THE SUPER RICH CAN SAVE US
OVERSHOOT
Overtourism Meets Climate Change
Peer Pressure Enables Denial
PLASTIC BANS
PLASTIC EVERYWHERE
Psychological Trauma
......Cognitive Dissonance
......Cult of Celebrity
......Dumbing Down
......Fucking Control Freaks
......Healing?
......Modern Psychology Fucked
......NARCISSISTS
......Overprotected Kids
......Technology Addiction
......Fear is Appropriate
Toxic Masculinity End Stage Cap Patriarchy
Scientist Warnings
SEA LEVEL RISE
SHIFTING BASELINE THEORY
Smokestorm
So Called Green Technologies
Speaking Out Blowback
STOP FLYING
The Case Against Civilization
The End of Capitalism
The Leap
The Long Emergency
The Methane Monster Roars
The Privilege to Travel Wherever You Want
THE RICH WILL SURVIVE
THE RIGHT STUFF
THE WRONG STORY
Transition Town
Underestimating Collapse
VEGANISM?
Water for Life Not Profit
We Are Killing Our Own Planet and for What?
WE NEED AN ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION
Wetiko Windigo
Will Humans Survive?
Would Human Extinction be a Tragedy?

Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for decolonization, rejecting Empire, social justice, ethnocultural identity, Apocalypse Studies, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.

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Helpful Hints for Dying Well

5/10/2018

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PEGI EYERS

It’s time we stopped ignoring, denying or being afraid of death. If we are old enough to die, then we are old enough to be mature about it.

DEATH TIP #1
Once you are gone, no one is going to care about the details of your life.

DEATH TIP #2
Once you are gone, your belongings will become a burden to the world.

DEATH TIP #3
Once you are gone, your egoic struggles will amount to nothing.

DEATH TIP #4
Once you are gone, the world will not be significantly altered. Let's hope it continues to be the green planet that it was meant to be.

DEATH TIP #5
Once you are gone, your life will be mythologized.

DEATH TIP #6
Once you are gone, your bones will either be dust, or ever-fading, ever-hollowing artifacts.

DEATH TIP #7
Once you are gone, the masks you valued in life will fall away, one by one. And for some mysterious reason, after you are gone the impressions that others held of you, will consolidate into their memory of the "real you."

DEATH TIP #8
While you are still alive, resist the urge to avenge your mortality on others, and be kind to those who care for you in your last days and hours. Do we not all share the same fate? Impending death will lay bare the core of your truest self.

DEATH TIP #9
While you are still alive, instead of worrying about death, why not contemplate the miracle of being born into this place and time? What are the chances of that happening? What is your role in this world? Is it to be a witness, or to leave a mark?

DEATH TIP #10
While you are still alive, consider the possibility that all your trepidation about death is probably for nothing. Chances are, the spirit world is a glorious, comfortable and wonderful place.

DEATH TIP #11
While you are still alive (and as humans have done for millennia) it is our challenge to come to terms with the existential angst of "being here/not being here." The best and most time-tested response to what we cannot comprehend is courage. And grace.

DEATH TIP #12
While you are still alive, just because you love a person, pet or other being, doesn’t mean you can stop them from suffering. It’s astonishing how little control we have over natural processes, such as the breakdown of the body. Isn’t it time we recognized this fact?

DEATH TIP #13
While you are still alive, cultivate your intuitive, dreaming and visionary skills, and practice remote viewing and shapeshifting between the worlds of past, present and future. As all the great mystics have known, these are the aspects of YOU that will move forward into the spirit world.

DEATH TIP #14
While you are still alive, don't wait for your final days to realize that our souls, or spirits, or that ineffable parts of ourselves, are made up of LOVE. And that LOVE is the currency, or vibration of the universe and all of Earth Community, including us. Our society has tried to obscure this sacred fact in countless ways, but that doesn't make it any less true.

DEATH TIP #15
Be grateful that you have had the opportunity to take part in the great cycle of birth, life, death and regeneration. And die well ~!

Skipping Skeletons © Allison Schulnik

Pegi Eyers is the author of Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for neurodecolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
PURCHASE LINKS
Amazon.com
www.stonecirclepress.com

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A Pre-Emptive Kindness and Tarry This Night

4/6/2018

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REVIEWS BY PEGI EYERS

A Pre-Emptive Kindness by R.D. Roy (Hidden Brook Press)
Tarry This Night by Kristyn Dunnion (Arsenal Pulp Press)

It's not that difficult to imagine dire scenarios in the future, when the symptoms of collapse seem to surround us each day in societal breakdown, wonky weather patterns, ongoing ecocide, political turmoil, economic riptides and deliberate stupidity. And yet the capitalist machine rolls on, as big oil continues to provide us with every luxury, amenity and consumer good we could possible imagine. Settler Futurity, or the expectation that our way of life will continue unabated for decades (if not centuries more) seems to be at the height of our cognitive dissonance and denial.

That's why looking to fiction can provide us with a much-needed reality check on how the many layers of our personal and collective worldview may play out, in what promises to be an apocalyptic future. The resources required to feed our "endless growth" civilization are not infinite, and among other inevitabilities, when peak oil arrives it will all come crashing down. Are beings from outer space going to save us? Will we all collectively begin to reject capitalism and stop driving cars? Will Mother Earth and her climate disasters such as floods, hurricanes and fires, provide greater smack-downs than those we've already experienced? Will the plague of all plagues arrive to deplete our numbers? Or will the elite New Agers among us achieve "spiritual enlightenment" and somehow "shift" our reality to a golden era of peace and prosperity?

There are no boundaries to the human imagination, and we can just as easily create massive problems for ourselves and Earth Community, as we can access our substantial powers of healing and remediation. And like R.D. Roy and Kristyn Dunnion, some of us are particularly skilled at creating new worlds through speculative fiction. For Roy, tracing the arc after a collapse scenario is distilled into basic human hunger and the imperative for territory and clan in urban wastelands; and the return of tribal wisdom and the re-indigenization of survivors in the forests and ecosystems that remain. Considering how humanity has screwed up the civilizational project, returning to an low-tech archaic hunter and gatherer society is incredibly appealing!

For Dunnion, not only is the ignorance of religious fundamentalism terrifying in its implications today, her projection to a future where religious fanatics have engineered social collapse is a nightmare scenario. Examining the psychosis of a cult leader and his followers from every possible angle, her riveting novel Tarry This Night includes the worst of the human condition - the "Great Father" archetype, blind obedience to authority, subjugation of the weak by the strong, patriarchal dominance, forced polygyny, pedophilia, lateral violence, brutality, victim-blaming, manipulations, greed, delusion, salvationist myths, isolationism, and (wait for it) cannibalism.

Even today we find evidence that the "heavenly scriptures" can be spun to fit the ideology of exceptionalism for any "chosen people," but Dunnion shows us just how far this fantasy can go. There does seem to be a dire sickness that results from blind faith, or adherence to monotheistic dogma and organized religion. One can't help but notice how this cautionary tale mirrors the same freedom from oppression women are seeking today, and that patriarchy has always been at the root of the problem. Beautifully written, both tragic and full of hope, Tarry This Night is a fusion of underground bunkers, bombed out landscapes, dead zones, marauding bands, survivor factions, green forest sanctuaries and the bold resistance of heroes and heroines. By all means stay with this incredible story to the end.

Looking to R.D. Roy's dystopia in A Pre-Emptive Kindness, we find a brilliant statement on the eternal divide at the root of humanity between the so-called "civilized" and the "pagan," or what the late Daniel Quinn referred to as the "leavers" and the "takers." Our modern fear of "being blasted back to the Stone Age" is a deceit and unfounded (if not out-and-out racist), when we consider the current consensus on how low-impact indigenous societies are the most sustainable way to be living on our particular planet. Indeed, the time-tested worldviews of IK (indigenous knowledge) may be our best way forward! As a projection of both western and tribal worldviews, two very different groups are contrasted in A Pre-Emptive Kindness, as they deal with great changes in their short evolution and move toward an inevitable encounter with one another.

In a time of mega-storms, killing sun, and unleashed biological warfare, Roy offers stunning detail on urban living in a collapsed city. Clans mark territory; the detritus, fittings, and materials of civilization are strangely re-purposed; the "man the hunter" archetype rules; the population has lapsed into illiteracy after a few short generations; many suffer from horrific skin diseases; starvation is looming as all the urban plants and animals have been depleted; and dogs, our loyal companions for millennia, are now a source of food. Operating more from base instinct than formulated thought, the more awake and aware among them realize it's time to leave the city.

Roy makes a powerful statement on indigeneity and resilience by portraying the forest dwellers as intraconnected and thriving in Earth Community. In contrast to the dysfunctional and sick urban dwellers, they find ways to work together, gather in council circles around the fire, reinstate Elder-honoring and storytelling as important to cultural life, and teach the children the Old Ways of hunting, gathering, tracking and plant medicine. Isolated for many years, wary of threat and secretive by nature, members of this tribal group have recovered their animist ability to connect with trees and other beings, and magic occurs in their relationships with the forest creatures and other elements in the wild. As the teachers ask the children, "Can you hear the forest singing?"

Yet after a few generations of putting community ahead of the individual (the tribal way), a rogue element has begun to promote the values of individualism and ownership once again, to plunder from nature instead of acting in reciprocity. Unlikely mentors and leaders step up to provide a moral compass, at the same time the urban scavengers are detected on the perimeter. As the city folk crossed abandoned farmlands on their way to the forest, the opportunity to kill a majestic and magical stag is missed, and somehow the new idea of a plant-based diet begins to take hold. Roy's masterful story of a post-collapse world begs the question of how human groups can evolve so differently, over time and in diverse locations, and hints at the possibility for clashing worldviews to converge. And as the title suggests, the important pre-requisite for a new and hopeful era in human history could be A Pre-emptive Kindness.

Readers of such amazing speculative fiction must of course make the connection to our dire situation today. If the worst indeed comes to pass, how will the human heart, mind and soul respond to such massive change? Will we regret the civilization we left behind, feel nostalgia for what was, and for all that we used to collectively understand? In the present moment, can we even fathom how our beloved habits may be fading, in front of our very eyes? In a time of apocalypse, do we hold on, or do we move on?

A poignant passage from Kristyn Dunnion's Tarry This Night offers a clue. "Their whitewashed log cabin with creaking veranda and garden out back. The purple flowers that flourished each spring. That happy, safe past slams into her. Ruth pushes each picture away, just as she was taught. She clears her mind. Imagines a zero, a sphere of nothing. But the thread of memory is stitched deep in Ruth's body. It circles her bones and pulls, old truths knotted in time." For the survivors of tomorrow, we can only hope they will build a new world from our best memories - a place to heal and live in harmony with all human factions, and especially, with our beloved Earth Community.

_Picture Credits_

"Good Friday" painting © Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO and assisted by Milanka J Sullivan, 1994

"Centrist Duo" painting © Andrew Morrow >website<

Indigenous street art in Redfern, Sydney, Australia

Solstice Ceremony Nu York, After Culture

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What Have You Done, Toronto?

2/18/2018

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BY PEGI EYERS

"Gardens Manufactured" by Cheryl Molnar

Already millions of acres of farmland surrounding the Greater Toronto area have succumbed to development in recent years, in Ontario's (so-called) protected Greenbelt zone. For those who can afford it, the demand is desperate for traditional detached family homes and townhouses. The building boom is continuing to explode as the population of Toronto is projected to hit 13.5 million by 2041. As the last great resource colony on the planet, Canada remains open to millions of immigrants from all over the world, and once an ecosystem is razed it is gone forever.

What Have You Done, Toronto?
Building Up, Going Down

First
The farmhouses start
To look abandoned
Boarded up
Rundown grey ~
Then the fields go fallow

Farmers dead, gone, sold out

Then
The signs go up
“For Sale”
“Project By”
“Chief Engineer”
Oligarchy buys in
Planes in a bleached sky
Terminus at Pearson

Next
The land is denuded
Creatures of the forest
Annihilated
Cracked branch
Trunks stacked high
Sawdust flows
Earth Pain
Earth Sorrow

ECOCIDE
Broken bones of the land
24 hours a day 7 days a week
My dear friends
The great trees
Life-long sentinels
I SEE YOU
(Good-bye)

Destroyed in broad daylight
Hide this from my vision
Or I too may surely die

Next
The machines arrive
Giant earth movers
Believe it or not
Settler fields are a cut above
These great mounds
Artificial hillocks
Geo-engineering

Then
Black tarps
Snaking around
Building to code
Partitioning the living
Yet you know
their days are numbered
Whatever is left
of Earth Community

Is colonized, maintained and controlled

Now
The land stripped and raped
Exposed,
Gone forever
Waiting for the final blow

A year or two may pass

Then
The grid arrives
Construction requires
Streets fencing bricks
Wires hardware tunnels
Hard hearts hard hats
The gated community

Wut
Planting shrubs
where once were forests
Homes clogged side-by-side
Or a high-rise crane
Mega-build
Digging cavities
Deep in the Mother

Boxes in the sky!
Here comes the insanity
            The allergies
            The depression
            Calls to the shrink
            Screams in the night
            Erectile dysfunction

The elevator that stops at extinct

Bringing home more crap
Looks great in the store
But not in your apartment
Fantasies stacked high
Enough rubble to fill Lake Ontario

A hell’s brew of
Metal, glass, glue, ceramic
Plastics made in China

What have you done, Toronto?
You set it in motion

NATURE IS LIFE
You chopped that down

NATURE IS LAW
Here come the fires, the floods and the hurricanes

NATURE IS LOVE
You impaled your own soul

Earth’s sorrow and Earth’s joy
> As above so below <

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Apocalypso

2/18/2018

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PEGI EYERS

Apocalyptic themes have been showing up in cultural production for decades now. Here's the song "Apocalypso" written by Jimmy Buffett and performed on the David Letterman Show in 1994. Massive climate disaster has already hit most islands and regions in the Caribbean, making the sardonic boomer notion of "dancing through the apocalypse" somewhat retrograde and irresponsible. And yet human beings have always had the ability to find light and humor in the most tragic of events, so maybe Jimmy is on the right track. Get a groove on anyone?

Apocalypso by Jimmy Buffett

They say this universe is bound to blow
But I say we crank up the calypso control
Apocalyp, apocalyp, apocalypso

Now I'm no dancer as dancers go
But this is one step that you need to know
Apocalyp, apocalyp, apocalypso
We'll be dancing when we go

Planets come and planets go
Apocalypso
Undisturbed the dancers flow
Apocalypso
Old galaxies can be cold
So I'll hold you close
When this earthly light is burning low
This dance will take you to the next plateau

Apocalyp, apocalyp, apocalypso
We'll be dancing when we go
We'll be dancing when we go

Planets come and planets go
Apocalypso
Undisturbed the dancers flow
Apocalypso

Yes we'll ride that final tide
Apocalypso
Gone away just yesterday
Apocalypso

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Welcome to "Rejecting Empire"

2/18/2018

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BLOG BY PEGI EYERS

"Miranda ~ The Tempest" by John Waterhouse

Welcome to REJECTING EMPIRE, the new blog by Pegi Eyers that engages with the collapse, or eroding, of natural ecosystems and human societies in our time. What does it mean to be a witness to this massive change, with all the eco-grief and horror it entails? How can we face the trauma of climate events with resilience and healing for ourselves, others and Earth Community? Many believe collapse is already happening, and REJECTING EMPIRE will engage with the mutual processes of letting go (or tearing down) of the old world while simultaneously building up the new. What would a post-collapse post-oil post-capitalist world look like? Can we weave Apocalyptic Magic together, for a sustainable future? Stay tuned!

Follow REJECTING EMPIRE blog for cutting-edge critique, social commentary and anti-colonial discourse. With a focus on Apocalypse Studies, prepare to be challenged!

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