• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Rowan Mangan

Writer. Mom. Wild Inventurer.

  • Contact me
  • Wild Inventures Blog

Gathering nuts

September 29, 2022 Leave a Comment

Dear one,

Last night I happened to glance out of a window and caught a glimpse of a little chipmunk sitting alone on a stone wall in the garden. She honestly seemed to be taking a moment to herself to enjoy the lavish sunset that was visible between the trees.

It’s a busy time for the chipmunk community. I keep glimpsing our locals scurrying along through the window, their officious attitude undermined by their bulging, cartoony cheeks. So many nuts, so little time. Chipmunk hibernation is kind of partial: through the winter, they tend to wake up every few days to eat and poop, and then they snuggle back down. I know, dream life, right?

At any rate, my little friend perched on the wall last night did look a bit tired and harried.

Or was I just seeing my own reflection?

Since my last letter, we all got colds and Lila stopped sleeping. She’s still making the big transition to her days at preschool, and is needing lots of love and attention while also exploding with language. Karen’s long-awaited sisters reunion in New York City looks like it will miss out on one of the three of them thanks to Hurricane Ian. Marty continues to work away at her book proposal, which is just astonishingly good, and getting better every day. Adam is Adam: steady and constant as ever.

As for me, I’m feeling a lot like my twitchy little friend on the wall: taking a breath and soaking in some beauty between bouts of frantic organizing and running around. I feel a deep need to prepare as my body registers the coming of the darker, colder months. The last couple of pandemic winters were hard, and a mild dread lands in my belly when I close the blinds in the evening and it’s dark that little bit earlier.

So I’m taking myself in hand. Time to prepare for hibernation mode. Here’s what I’ve done:

  • I rearranged the map of my days to include plenty of time for cooking hearty and nourishing food for my family. Soup and stew are powerful forces for good in this world. Stirring a pot is meditation.
  • I made a commitment to work on my second novel (working title “Taking Ruben”) every weekday. I’m going to get the initial draft finished by the first day of Spring, March 21st! Something creative to disappear into.
  • I planned a visit with my mom for March. Something to look forward to.

In a Bewildered episode we recorded this week, I found myself opining that in the turning of the wheel (seasons, days, samsara, you name it), we are always being asked to find a greater and greater courage in ourselves. It was a throwaway line, but I actually think it’s really true. And you know what? Stuff that requires courage tends to be stuff worth doing.

So, as I gather nuts in my face and get my den to maximum coziness, I’m also going to do like my little friend and take a minute. I’m going to notice that as the leaves thin out in the forest, more and more light finds its way between the trees. I’m going to remember that stillness and silence are gifts that are offered to me in every season, and that winter sunsets are pure glory.

This article originally appeared on Rowan’s Wild Inventures substack newsletter. To subscribe and get all Rowan’s posts in your inbox, head over to Wild Inventures on substack now. 

you may also like...

  • Parenting inventures
  • Inventures in Seeing
  • What are Wild Inventures?

Filed Under: Parenting inventures

Previous Post: « The measure of our lives
Next Post: Inventures in Inconsistency »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Footer

find me on instagram!

All you fascists bound to lose #NOKINGS All you fascists bound to lose 
#NOKINGS
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end “We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.”

TS Eliot

@londolozi @boyd_varty @chloe.varty @northpridemale @bron_vartylaburn @themarthabeck
Ten years later, this feeling never gets old. #Alw Ten years later, this feeling never gets old. #AlwaysHeadedHome
The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s The perfect paradox in the title of Amie McNee’s beautiful book, We Need Your Art.  New episode of Bewildered out now! 🎧🎨🫶
You know the story that the culture tells us about You know the story that the culture tells us about art—that it’s only something to do if you have spare time, or it’s only for the idle rich? That’s not actually the culture’s agenda… 

We’re talking about what’s really going on with art in the culture on this episode of Bewildered, featuring our very special guests Amie McNee and James Winestock.

The culture’s real agenda is to get you to stay in the left hemisphere of your brain. 🧠

Why?

Because if you do, then you continue to give your life for cannon fodder and give your labor for billionaires—you aren’t questioning the status quo. 

And as soon as you get out your paintbrush or sit down at the piano, you open up a way of thinking that creates where there was nothing before—that creates everything from amazing art to solutions to climate change. And that’s revolutionary. 👊

To hear more about unlocking the true power of art and joining the creative revolution, tune in for the full episode and find out why making art might be the most important thing you do for yourself—and for the world. 

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very speci Hey there, Bewildered Cahoot! We have a very special episode for you today as we’re talking with our friends and fellow creative revolutionaries, Amie McNee and James Winestock. 🎨

Amie is a writer, author, and creativity coach whose new book, We Need Your Art, is out now.
Her goal with this book is to remind you that you are here on this earth to make things and to use your incredible brain to create—and that art isn’t just a hobby, but vitally important work.

As Amie describes her work, “I basically just bully people to make them create things.” (Spoiler alert: It worked for Martha!)

If you’ve ever doubted your artistic worth, this conversation will remind you: The world truly needs your art, now more than ever. Listen to the full episode and let Amie’s contagious passion help you take your art seriously—and help change the world. ✨

You can listen to Bewildered episode 102: We Need Your Art with Amie McNee and James Winestock, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧 

@inspiredtowrite
Did you know that true kindness is a superpower? ✊🌼

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about the way that true kindness—starting with kindness towards ourselves—is actually a deeply subversive force in our culture.

Kindness has the power to disrupt systems of cruelty and division, and it’s a rebellion against the scarcity, everyone-in-it-for-himself mentality that’s pedaled so widely (never more than now in this culture).

So if you want to be a rebel against the culture of domination and extraction and overwhelming force, be a rebel first by being kind to yourself.

You can listen to Bewildered episode 101: Out-Kind the Culture, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you want to be really subversive and really sti Do you want to be really subversive and really stick it to The Man? 👨🏻‍⚖️
(Especially The Man as he is currently configured in our culture…)

Here is how to do it:
Be kind. 🥰

Be kind to yourself, and you will naturally be kind elsewhere. Keep in mind: Kindness is not what the culture tells us it is—foolish, passive, naive—no. Kindness is immense power. ☀️

If we can learn to tap into it in a way that is accessible to us, it is so much more powerful than the forces of cruelty that want to keep us in our place.

Hope you’ll join us for this new episode of Bewildered: Out-Kind the Culture. 💗

You can listen to Bewildered episode 101: Out-Kind the Culture, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
What’s something you accept about yourself? 🤔 What’s something you accept about yourself? 🤔

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about the idea of training your “human”—the body, mind, and personality you were given at birth but is separate from your Self—and one of the steps is accepting your human as it is.

Ro has accepted that her human will never be consistent through a year. She’ll have months of being really on top of things and months where the things are on top of her. There doesn’t seem to be any way around that. 🧐

Each mode her human goes into feels like the ultimate personality. Like, “Now I’m myself! And this is how it will continue for the rest of time.”

But she’s getting much better at understanding that it won’t last—it is what it is right now—and just letting that be, as one season gives way to another, knowing that they do come back around as well. 🛞

The culture fixates on permanency and consistency—“Be the same creature throughout the year and for always”—but that’s just not how many people’s humans work at all.

To find out more about observing, accepting, and training your human so you can cultivate more peace and joy, tune in for the full conversation! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 100: How to Train Your Human, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you ever just catch yourself doing something an Do you ever just catch yourself doing something and think, “I have such a funny human. Look at it. Look what it does.” 😅

That is what our episode today is about—what it is to function inside the human that we’re given when we’re born. 🐣

And learning:

🤔 how it works
👍 what it will do
👎 what it won’t do

And maybe training it to be the best human and have the most fun as a human that it can.

It’s all on a new episode of Bewildered called “How to Train Your Human.” Check it out, it’s pretty fun. 😀

You can listen to Bewildered episode 100: How to Train Your Human, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
How do you know if you’re stuck in an algorithm How do you know if you’re stuck in an algorithm cycle? 🌀

Here’s how it works:

If something strikes you as interesting, the algorithm will instantly create the impression that everyone knows about this thing that you’ve just discovered—everyone’s talking about it, and everyone has the same concerns. 🗣️

Then what happens with that impression is that just by the force of the number of people, it makes it seem more credible and true. So even if I’ve only seen 30 people saying the same thing, my impression is that it’s probably about 75% of all people.

And if 75% of people believe something, there’s a very good chance it’s correct, right? That’s just what they call “Doing the math.” ➕➖✖️➗

And not only does it feel factually right, it feels morally right as well.

So how do we break out of this illusion of consensus and navigate through all the chaos and uncertainty? Find out on this episode of the Bewildered podcast! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Like most people, you’ve got a worldview. 🌎 A Like most people, you’ve got a worldview. 🌎
And also like most people, you want to uphold and defend that worldview. 🛡️

Enter “apophenia”—a condition all humans are susceptible to—which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful patterns between unrelated or random things.” 🧶

Apophenia is often the chemical and mental scaffolding by which we uphold a worldview that, under scrutiny, may not hold up that well. 🤔

Or might not even hold up at all. 😳

Want to learn more about apophenia, conspiracy theories, fractured worldviews, and how we can all come to our senses? Join us for this episode of the Bewildered podcast! 🎙️

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧
Do you ever find that in order to explain to someo Do you ever find that in order to explain to someone what’s really going on you need:

📌 a gigantic pin board
📰 newspaper clippings
🧶 a lot of yarn

If that is the case, you might be suffering from a condition known as “apophenia.”

On today’s episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about:

👽 conspiracy theories
🤖 algorithms
💔 a fractured sense of reality
⚔️ the war of the worldviews

All of this—and how we can come to our senses. I hope you’ll join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 99: War of the Worldviews, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app.
There is a wonderful artist we love called Amie Mc There is a wonderful artist we love called Amie McNee (@inspiredtowrite), who recently wrote a very cool essay on her Substack about not wanting a job. She said that if you don’t want to have a conventional job in this society, you will be seen as weak or lazy. 🦥

For Amie, it’s a very different sort of thing—it’s about not having a high tolerance for suffering and not wanting to suffer. Here’s what she says in her essay:

“We live in a culture that venerates toiling and drudgery. Because I have an intolerance for a life that doesn’t sparkle, I created a life that was filled with meaning and purpose. Ironically, to do so, I worked harder than I ever have before, but it was work that absolutely glittered. 💎

“Now I write, talk, paint, connect. I do it to make money. I do it because it lights me up. I do it because that is why I’m here on this earth. Life sparkles, yet I still feel like I'm getting away with something. I’ve snuck around a compulsory part of being a human being, which is doing work that sucks.”

If you want to hear more about creating a life that lights you up, instead of a life where you’re only a drudge for money, be sure to tune in for this episode of Bewildered. Let’s figure it out!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
Our culture tells us to always put money in the mi Our culture tells us to always put money in the middle of our lives, and there’s a compulsiveness to this feeling of hoarding money and of making money. 🤑

In this episode of Bewildered, we’re talking about this compulsion and looking at what might fill our attention if we take money and jobs out of the middle.

Money is basically an abstract extrapolation of the barter system. 🪙🟰🐮

Our culture has turned it into something you can hoard when actually you can’t, not in any meaningful way, because on its own, money doesn’t mean anything. 🪙🟰🪙

We heard a quote in the context of addiction that said, “You can never get enough of something that almost works.” Money is an addictive thing that makes you want more and more and more of it because you’re trying to fill a differently shaped hole.

In this episode we’re challenging the idea that money should be at the center of our lives and proposing what kinds of things we could put there instead. Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **
Our culture tells us that you need to put money… Our culture tells us that you need to put money…

💵 the making of money
🪙 the generating of money
🤑 the money-making-money-making-money

…at the very center of your attention, if not your entire life.

Now, it may be that at this moment, work and getting money has to fill a lot of our day, but it doesn’t have to fill our attention.

What we’re talking about today on Bewildered is what happens when you pluck the money/work cultural story from the center of your attention. 🎯

Let’s see what goes there instead. It’s kind of wild…

Join us!

You can listen to Bewildered episode 98: Your Money or Your Life, access the show notes, and find links to resources on our website at the link in our bio—or on your favorite podcasting app. 🎧

** A note on this episode: We angered the technology gods somehow during the recording of this podcast, and they took away the video we faithfully recorded for you. We are making the appropriate offerings to those specific deities and we’ll be back in your visual field for the next episode! **

follow me on twitter!

Tweets by rowanmangan

Copyright © 2020 Rowan Mangan · Site by Lilt Creative