what you have to know in order to be fertile in a creative pursuit, to make discoveries and to prepare for the communication of a spiritual mystery (saul bellows)

Note: originally published on October 16, 2025 on a calm presence. You can also listen a narration (with music) of this posting on conscient podcast).

*

I had tea with artist and family friend Barbara Cuerden on September 27th, 2025.

While chatting, Barbara mentioned Saul Bellow’s 1987 novel More Die of Heartbreak, notably this excerpt from page 27 :

• An arcanum is more than a mere secret; it’s what you have to know in order to be fertile in a creative pursuit, to make discoveries, to prepare for the communication of a spiritual mystery.

Ah-ha.

I told Barbara and my wife Sabrina, quite spontaneously, and perhaps foolishly :

• I think my own arcanum is full. I don’t think I need to know anything more at this point…

I didn’t mean to say that I know everything, not by any means, but rather that I have heard and produced so many podcasts, read so many books, seen so many films, read and written so many essays, organized and attended so many webinars and workshops, had so many conversations etc. so that I don’t think, at this point, more knowledge will help.

My learning and unlearning journey with conscient podcast and balado conscient has come full circle and it was time to let all that knowing settle, consolidate and metabolize.

However, one topic in particular continues to haunt me:

• How to be an activist in the context of societal collapse?
• How to genuinely stay positive and hopeful?
• How to behave normally knowing that our species is in freefall?

Thankfully, I and we, are was not alone.

My fellow podcaster, Kamea Chayne, wrote on September 28th, 2025 in her Uprooted Substack:

• Sometimes, I just want to scream: “Are you not seeing what I’m seeing? How can you not feel? Why do you not feel? Why does this not activate you enough to care? How are you not the least bit curious about this issue and what you can do? Where is your heart?”

I responded:

• I also wonder why are people not hearing what I’m hearing? Where is their heart and conscience? The answer is usually that they (or we) are in the grip of modernity/capitalism/colonialism, unable to break free.

Kamea went on to say:

• I’d like to just acknowledge that if you also struggle with feeling too much from practicing deep listening and trying to find that balance between slowing down while still meeting the demands and needs of the world, I see you. And you are not alone. In a world of so much dissociation and delusions of separation, I think it is a real gift to lean into our sensitivities, to re-weave webs of attunement that might have been previously severed so that we can relearn to feel the subtle pulls and vibrations from each other even more.

I responded:

• I’ve had similar ‘overwhelmed’ feelings recently. So much that I’m pressing pause on my conscient podcast (but not a calm presence) until spring equinox which is March 20, 2026 in order to breathe a bit and smell the flowers (or more likely the cold fresh air of cross-country skiing here in Ottawa).

My exchange with Kamea put things into perspective.

I look forward to ‘re-weaving webs of attunement’ and ‘feeling subtle pulls and vibrations’ as Kamea suggests.

I received further insights two days later at a webinar called Bioregioning: How to Thrive Where We Live, hosted by Resilience +, a project of the Post-Carbon Institute.

One of the speakers was indigenous musician, orator and scientist Dr. Lyla June Johnston who spoke about – and I’m paraphrasing here from what I remember – how humans have learned from systems collapse in the past, including indigenous communities, and that it is essential to preserve a set of values through periods of collapse, or die trying.

Lyla June’s statement put things further into perspective for me.

Another ah-ha moment.

Maybe it is possible to remain positive, calm and engaged as collapse unfolds?

I haven’t been able to do it yet but maybe it’s possible.

Maybe there is a way to balance collapse acceptance and genuine hope?

I decided to stop thinking about it and just wait and see where my spirit takes me.

I did not have to wait long. The next day, the great primatologist, Jane Goodall, passed away at 91.

There were many amazing homages to her legacy in my email and on the internet. This quote in particular caught my attention:

• All the time I was getting closer to animals and nature, and as a result, closer to myself and more and more in tune with the spiritual power that I felt all around. For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can even describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.

Also, this quote from Goodall:

• A sense of calm came over me. More and more often I found myself thinking, ‘This is where I belong. This is what I came into this world to do.’

With all of this in my mind, I read through some of my previous ‘a calm presence’ Substack postings. I was hoping to better understand the building blocks of my arcanum. Was it really full or was I just tired?

Here’s what I found:

february 24, 2024

why? my rationale for a calm presence

• In July 2023 I wrote to dharma teacher Catherine Ingram: You’re right that love is what we must do and be. It might be all we can do and be. So where do we go from here? Is there any point going on? Catherine replied: Yes, there’s a point in going on. It is to be here for others who are not as strong or clear as you and who will be frightened and in need of a calm presence. But that’s about it.

Regular readers and listeners will have heard that one before. It’s more or less the creation story of a calm presence. It’s where I got those 3 words in the title. But I struggle with ‘but that’s about it’ part but I think Catherine is right. I haven’t quite accepted it yet.

Here’s another excerpt from that same February 24th posting :

• I’m grateful to artist and educator Azul Carolina Duque who taught me that the ‘role of art is mostly about the relationship between consolation and hope’.

Consolation and hope.

I think Azul is right and now that I have published over 350 episodes of conscient podcast and balado conscient I’ve certainly had an opportunity to ask my peers about what the role of art in the ecological crisis might be. I’ve certainly received a lot of interesting responses.

I think Azul is right that one of the main roles of art is to help us connect to our grief and to joy. Art does more than that of course, but to me that’s what’s most precious right now. And of course, it’s a never-ending process of discovery and healing which is why I plan to continue podcasting about art and the ecological crisis for as long as I can. There will always be new things to discover.

*

June 2 2024

accept | adapt | respond

• accept reality
• adapt to reality
• respond to reality

A very simple set of thoughts.

While writing this posting I became a ‘collapse accepter’, in the tradition of the deep adaptation forum, which means that I believe in ‘fostering mutual support and collaboration in the process of anticipating, observing, and experiencing societal disruption and collapse’. In other words, accepting people like me try to ‘embody and enable loving responses to our predicament’.

*

November 8 2024

listen and co-create, azul carolina duque

• The hope in composting harm represents the idea of acknowledging that we are past several critical tipping points, and that substantial consensus is unlikely to happen and that we will inevitably have to confront the consequences of our harmful actions and the harmful actions of those who came before us, too. So this hope says that new possibilities will emerge only after we have been taught by the partial or general collapse of our current systems… So it’s about visualizing a process in which we are left with no other choice but to transform our relationships with the planet, with other species and with each other, to metabolize and repair the harm we have caused, and collectively learn to coexist differently through the awareness that we are part of a wider metabolism that is bio intelligent.

I think we have arrived at the point of ‘no other choice’ and that we need to transform our relationships, repair damages and become much more awareness. The Buddhist side of me thinks that we need to become awareness.

*

January 23 2025

prepare, bend, sustain

• meditate (daily)
• collaborate (on relevant projects)
• trust (the things we cannot yet feel)

I wrote this one at the beginning of a course I was taking called Surviving the Future. I was trying to remind myself to meditate regularly, to collaborate wherever I can, share resources, and to trust that that work of preparation, bending and sustaining life is what we need to do.

*

13 March 2025

looking youth in the eyes

• We need to explore the possibilities that emerge as we work our way through that ‘long, messy, species-wide existential meltdown’ while calmly preparing for what comes after, with or without humans.

Looking youth in the eyes reminded me that giving up on future generations of human and more-than-human life on earth was not an option and that I needed to personally overcome my doomist or defeatist tendencies, which I think I’ve now achieved.

Also fromlooking youth in the eyes, first you’ll hear my daughter, scientist Clara Schryer, from conscient e208 followed by my son, historian Riel Schryer, from conscient e154.

• Changes happen: there are always ways to adapt. That’s not to say that the initial change might not be kind of catastrophic, but there’s always going to be something left and you have to work with that.
• I don’t think there’s going to be any serious response to the climate crisis until real catastrophes start happening. That tends to be how it works. And once you start seeing that, then you’ll start seeing very serious action being put in place. Although, we’ll see at that point, if it’s too late or not.

I love my children, and I admire their realism and foresight. I think my generation p- the baby boomers who have so much wealth and opportunity awe need to find the right mix of empowering future generations but also getting out of their way. Still working on that.

Also fromlooking youth in the eyes Shaun Chamberlin’s Secret Truth Behind Environmentalists’ Favourite Argument

• For me personally, the harsh truth is that I cannot save Nature and/or humanity from the ongoing devastation, though I could burn myself out trying. It seems to me that there is not one thing that I can do to divert history. And facing that reality hurts. But, beyond agony, joy. I sit with that pain, and its attendant tears and rage, I refuse to run from it or to distract myself with entertainment or with frantic work, and I find that it does not end me. Eventually, I come out the other side, somehow empowered. The psychic energy I have been using to suppress that fear and despair is released, and I look at the world with fresh eyes. ‘Ok’, I breathe, ‘here I am, in a dying world’. It’s the same dying world I lived in yesterday, but today I see it for what it is. ‘What now?’ And this time the question feels less desperate, less anxious. What story do I want to tell with this day, with this life? The question is suddenly filled with possibilities.

So yes we are in a dying world. And I’m curious to know what kind of stories do we want to hear? What kind of stories do we need to hear? What possibilities lie in front of us, seen or unseen, heard or unheard, felt or unfelt?

*

April 30 2025

ways of being

I’ll list all 7 of them because they summarize what at the time was important to me at the time and still is.

1. Accept that it’s the end of the world as we know it
2. Avoid performance doom
3. Focus on local and long term co-creative activities such as restoration, regeneration, adaptation, revisioning, traditional wisdom etc.
4. Do the work with ‘curiosity, humility, relational depth, and a willingness to sense beyond inherited horizons’ (Vanessa Andreotti)
5. Let go of expectations and ego
6. Involve artists
7. Remember that ‘History is littered with moments when the unimaginable became the mundane overnight. This is such a moment—provided we supply it with relentless courage, systemic literacy, and a love for futures we will never personally inhabit (Indy Johar, We Have Failed – Now Let’s Get Serious)

I try to apply these ways of being in everyday life as much as I can. In particular I have found it rewarding to work on sensing beyond my inherited culture and to prepare for a future that I will not inhabit.

*

June 26 2025

a sense of communion

• My answer, for now, is to search for a balance point betweencourage and serenity while moving towards emptiness.

Emptiness or Śūnyatā is defined, in Wikipedia, as

• The idea that all phenomena, including the self, lack inherent, independent existence. This doesn’t mean things don’t exist at all, but rather that their existence is conditional and dependent on other factors (dependent origination). Recognizing this emptiness leads to liberation from suffering by loosening the grip on fixed ideas, fostering compassion, and realizing the interconnectedness of all things.

*

September 1 2025

hunkering down

• I have great difficulty in taking seriously human activities that are based on assumptions of endless growth or that ignore the reality of our planetary boundaries and I would say that’s the majority of activities around us. What passes as progress or development in the bubble of modernity seems irrelevant or even destructive to me.

I felt a great release of stress and tension when I wrote these words a month ago. It felt good to lift the mask of denial and let go of some of the pretentions of modernity. My concern is for the level of preparedness of those who remain in the modernist bubble.

Also, fromhunkering down

• My own balance point between hope and despair lies in my belief that we are all living energy and that life in the cosmos will unfold as it should and that the best course of action for someone like me is to be as calm a presence as I can while looking up at the stars in wonder and doing everything I can to reduce suffering and prepare for the future.

I’ll conclude with Jane Goodall, who helped me make sense of this in her description of a ‘single spiritual entity’ as a great spiritual power, or divine energy, found in every living thing—humans, chimpanzees, trees, and insects alike—that connects all life in a vast, alive web of existence.

I appreciate these words by Jane Goodall. This is what I meant by my belief that ‘we are all living energy’. Goodall calls this power the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’, a vital spark present in every species and even in the ecosystem itself, a concept she came to understand through intense awe and connection with nature.

I’m thankful to Jane Goodall and all the writers that I quote today.

I do think my arcanum is full, or at least full enough for now.

I hope these words are helpful to you. Maybe some of them resonate.

Feel free to share any comments in this forum or to me directly : claude@conscient.ca

À la prochaine. …

*

Warm thanks to Kamea Chayne, Lyla June Johnston, Vanessa Andreotti, Shaun Chamberlin, Indy Johar, Clara Schryer and Riel Schryer for using their words with special thanks to Barbara Cuerden for telling me about arcana.