A New Line Of Inquiry with Digital Technology

In this blog post I explore the possibility of starting a YouTube channel again, and share a little bit about my experience with a plant medicine ceremony.

“Not so long ago, women were deeply involved in the rhythms of life and death. They inhaled the pungent odour of iron from the fresh blood of childbirth. They washed the cooling bodies of the dead as well.

The psyches of modern women, especially those from industrial and technological cultures, are often deprived of these close-up and hands-on blessed and basic experiences.

But there is a way for the novice to fully participate in the sensitive aspects of the life and death cycles…”

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves (pp 98-99)

I was reading some of Women Who Run With the Wolves this morning and the second paragraph caught me; “especially those from industrial and technological cultures.” Mostly because I was feeling into the possibility of starting a YouTube channel (for the 2nd time as I had one back in 2016-2017) just last night and it feels, at this stage of my life, a step I wish to explore more and more. Partly because I still have a lot of questions and concerns regarding digital technology and social media and their impact in society.

Why This Idea?

I felt having a YouTube channel may actually help me direct my inquiries. It’ll give me a path to play with, and help to maintain some framework to ground into. I already started recording voiceovers for the channel’s ‘trailer’ video (basically a video that gives an overview of what the YouTube channel is or will be about). I thought it may be a great starting point. Reading the excerpt from Women Who Run With the Wolves, however, I had a moment of doubting this decision… ’Is this the right path to take?’, I asked myself. Will this take me close or further away from living a life I love and am grateful for?

The thing is: I don’t really know the answer to this. Not yet anyway. My history in regards to using digitech and living in a highly digitalised world has been… confusing at best, and a down right spiral into an abyss of suffering at the worst. I can intellectualise myself to an answer by weighing out the pros and cons of such a decision; I can do lots of research; listen to many different types of podcasts; watch videos on YouTube about other peoples experiences; find documentaries that go down a similar line of inquiry.

At at the end of the day, the answers for my own personal questions stay hidden with this type of approach — and this come from years worth of asking and researching. Of experimenting. Of taking time off social media platforms. Of many, many discussions with people I meet along the way.

What I’m realising is it’s not as black and white or as ‘clear cut’ as I wish it, or even believe it, to be; it’s a nuanced and diverse situation. It almost has a life of its own.

By “it” I mean my path of self-inquiry in regards to my relationship with digital technology, social media and the internet.

For example, while there is a part of me that just wants to live in a non-digital tech community (or at least a reduced amount of dependence and use), and to be more involved in ‘earth-based’ living, daily activities and approach to life (such as growing food or expressing gratitude through songs, prayer and dance), I can also feel that pull to be part of the changing times and explore something like film-making; of creating documentaries and story-driven videos.

(You can probably start seeing this inner conflict being reflected on this blog with the type of posts I share: some are about aspects like Herbalism and growing food, and others are about modern aspects like travelling and living a life with devices like laptops and smartphones).

A New Approach?

Does it have to be “either/or”? Does doing one cancel the other out?

Could I, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes in Women Who Run With the Wolves, cleanse my thinking and renew my values on a regular basis, and be “deeply involved” and “to fully participate in the sensitive aspects of the life and death cycles”[1], while also participating on social media platforms, owning a smartphone and being connected to the internet?

This is a new line of inquiry I’m currently exploring.

Part of this is a re-connection to — whichever you wish to call it: source/spirit/god/gods/universe/collective energy/intuition/inner guidance — from a recent experience with a powerful plant medicine. I realised I either wasn’t as connected as I perceived myself to be, or the ceremony renewed my relationship to a wider perspective of life. To the point where, even though it can be challenged and I veer ‘off path’ regularly, I can feel the thread to my intuition (spirit/god/universe etc) is very much present and alive. All it seems to take right now is a sense of awareness of it for the relaxedness and spark of joy to begin seeping back into my life — and this comes from a person who has a very active mind and can easily anxious about logistics and changes in my plans.

Since the ceremony I feel this sense of… looseness and relaxedness with how my life may shape up. It’s not always present, and old and unhealthy patterns still show up in my life, but the experience feels richer and less linear and defined as my mind thinks it is.

A Kind of Conclusion

A way to see it is this:

It kind of feels like stepping into a movie theatre after a film’s already begun, and it being a 3D film all you initially see on the screen is this distorted, almost headache inducing image. But once you put on the 3D glasses provided by the cashier, and start watching the film, the situation shifts into this nuanced, textured and richer experience. It feels more enjoyable, even if there are scenes of tension, conflict and discomfort.

Having this new, or perhaps ‘re-newed’, perspective of my life, feels kind of like realising that although there’s nothing inherently wrong with 2D films, 3D films are an experience of their own; that although living in a heavily intellectualised and logicalised world that promises happiness through being result-driven is one way to live and is an experience in itself, that life is much more than what we see with the naked eye and what we were told as children.

That perhaps we can arrive at answers and ‘results’ with other approaches, such as through plant medicine ceremonies or body movement or music.

I hope to approach this new chapter of my life, and this new line of inquiry, with a much more encompassing perspective.

—

P.S.

I started this writing with a sense of confusion and trigger, and ended with a metaphor (that although I resonate with, only encompasses a small aspect of my experience at the medicine ceremony). And somehow I began discussing digital technology and ended with talking about plant medicines… Brains are funny (and incredible) things :P

Update

I created the YouTube channel after all... I'll see how it goes. So many questions and insights already, and all I have on the channel so far is the channel trailer :P

Search on YouTube: @sproutingroots-digitaltech

Here is the channel trailer:

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References:

[1] Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype is a book written by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (1992).

I personally can't even describe this book. It may be one you've heard of before. I definitely knew of it a long time before I started reading it for the first time in 2017. Back then reading it felt very intellectual; a lot of the words didn't make it past my brain and I quickly put it down.

I went on a hike with a friend recently, and he had a copy (that looked like it's been places), sitting on his dashboard. I asked if I could borrow it. I still have it :P

I don't know if it's the recent plant medicine ceremony or something else, but reading this book this time around feels completely different. Or maybe it's because years have passed and I'm a few years older (If not somewhat wiser. Perhaps?).

———

Hahah! I just opened up a page (p228):

"here is what i have...

poems

big thighs

lil tits

&

so much love"

(From for colored girls who have considered suicide when/ the rainbow is enuf

by Ntzake Shange)

Need I say more???