The Shape of Collapse — Amanda Verdery Young

At the time of this writing, it’s Day of the Dead 2020— marking one year to the day since my mother called to tell me that she’d reached the end-times in her journey with terminal cancer. She died 34 days later. Just 8 months before that, the world as we’d known it turned upside-down, when the diagnosis was given.

And here we all are, living and also dying in some strange shell of what our lives were just 8 months ago as we navigate a global pandemic.

It got me thinking about how I’ve always found some comfort in the rhythmic movement of the number 8— a finite number like any other which nevertheless speaks to us of infinity. It reminds me of the falling into and over itself that happens when something collapses. I even like saying it— Eight. I like the way the word demands to begin from the caved-chest of my out-breath, then pushes my tongue gently against the roof of my mouth before the final “tuh.” One shape of collapse.

I’ve recently found another shape of collapse, in seashells. I get to hold and admire shells daily now that I’ve moved to a tiny island. Their collapsing is not so much to fall in on itself, but to be smoothed, broken, tumbled, pecked until they become the sandy shore itself, the sand which our feet then collapse into, step by step.

These rounded, shimmering bowls, these oceanic goblets, wait for children to press them to their ear and feel the rush of hearing those otherworldly waves within— the sound of the Deep itself. Shells who wait, in all gentle surrender, for admirers who might pocket them or poetically toss them homewards, back into the sea, not knowing why they do so, just that they must.

Here in this grey and silver, windy and wise place, I’ve been reminded of the death-affirming nature of sea shells. I watch my son marvel at them. Does he know that part of what he marvels at is death itself— an elegant shape, left in the sand, of a life-once-lived?

And then there are the Seals, who appear and vanish at-will amongst the crashing breaks. They seem to stalk me wherever I go, appearing out of nowhere and everywhere at once, their bulbous, genuine eyes burning a single question for me— “Will you join us here at the threshold of collapse?”

“Here,” they say, “You can remember not only how to live, dear one, but how to thrive. Here, in one of the most treacherous places on Earth.” For what is more volatile and dangerous, and yet more moving and beloved than the kingdom just off-shore where the waves collapse into and over themselves, breaking without end? The surf sinks ships, drowns people of all ages, delivers millions of shellfish to their deaths. And yet, there is Seal, diving and surfacing amidst the chaos, unnervingly content, alluringly agile. Another shape of collapse.

* * * * *

What moves through us when the word collapse is uttered, loud and true?

I’m learning to love this much-feared shape from which many believe we can never return. In a way, there is no return once there’s been a collapsing. Something is lost with every wave that breaks, every seashell disintegrated, every beloved buried.

But the collpases of our lives and greater culture are guardians of the greater waters of life. And if we look out past them, we will rest our gaze on calmer seas and beyond that, a horizon so bright we can only squint at it. We don’t know what is out there. There are many waters swirling, like a figure-eight, between here and there. Still, we see that long line of possibility way out there. We know it exists, and that it’s beautiful and holy and waiting for us.

In watching the waves gush almost daily for the last eight weeks, I’ve come to appreciate more than ever before why so many artists have have painted Horses int he waves, and where and why the great mythos of the Water Horse comes— Masters of Collapse which roar at me: Are you willing to feel the Love of a thousand lead mares rushing toward your fearful heart?

It’s one thing to suffer hard times. But often, when we hear the word collapse, we throw our proverbial hands in the air and, in desperation, worry ourselves to death over what such an unraveling, ruinous, decaying-time will look like, or, does look like. So many of us are worrying ourselves to death presently. I see this worry everywhere. What does it mean? To worry yourself to death? It means to walk yourself to the door of your own ending enmeshed in a toxic relationship, forgetting our true inheritance.

Roving the shore, I’m remembering that collapse is in fact a condition, a gesture, a psychospiritual landscape of great receiving: We are all meant to hold this great, caving shell of a culture in utter presence. Our inheritance is to lean in and down. We are a people in great need of receiving the unspeakable gifts of these dying-times. Precisely so that we can all live. An “all” that is truly inclusive of the great pantheon of beings on the planet, human and other-than.

We live in an abundant time. But not in the way we’re used to. This collapse-abundance has little to do with material wealth and imagined security. Indeed, part of the wealth available to us right now is the dawning realization among so many that we need far less, material-wise, than we’ve been lead to believe. Far less. This single revelation, en masse, could change everything.

This is a time abundant in wisdom, compassion-making, honesty and personal power.

This is a time abundant in death, which makes it a time rich with life-giving grief. This is a time of abundant reckoning with centuries of horrors committed against people and planet, which makes it a time rich in re-membering, healing and imaginative redesign. This is a time of abundant soul-loss and corresponding hatred of self and other, and so it is also an era of mighty reclamation of the power found in each of our unique personal medicines. When woven together, these medicines and soul-powers create collective pathways out of collapse, tunnels to let us breath, receive, rest, begin again and ACT amidst the on-going, suffocating sensation of being buried alive.

We live in a time of collapse, and its shape longs for our medicine. Collapse longs to be loved by us.

However we might try to escape this cavernous shell of abundance, the slope of the bowl will not let us do so. The sides are far too slippery and mucky yet to allow it. We have fallen in and down. This is an exquisitely feminine movement. We’ve found out that this well is so very deep— the well of our collective grief and trauma, which is likewise the well of our new, wild becoming, our potential, our newfound response-ability, our treasures hidden in the dark.

* * * * *

Recently, I came upon a dead rabbit while wandering in the windy wood. I found her lying out in the open, amidst the tall, honeyed grasses, crisp red huckleberry, tawny scrub oak. She was demolished utterly, no doubt by the turkey vultures who scan the Land for opportunities to collapse the world from their sky-home. Or perhaps Hawk. Most of her body was a mishapen mess of bones and dark blood , except that her feet were left completely untouched. Being that I am a Celt, and happily prone to the generosity of signs and omens, I found this most curious.

Fear, but also fertility, abundance, rebirth often fill the air around Rabbit encounters. Rabbit is prey to many-a-predator, and so her Fear is rightly her power. She uses it to activate a fertility so profound, it out-procreates many other species. She’s a Master of Rebirth— lucky to have her uncorrupted, holy Fear. Pure, un-colonized Fear choreographs her day— when to rapidly dart and dodge her stalker, when to stand breathlessly still, when to unabashedly moon-bath on a crisp Autumn night.

I stand above these lucky, dead rabbit feet, thinking of ancient warriors buried with their weapons and gold and medicines— to help them run forthright into the Otherworld. And here lies her collapsed body, with her beautiful, perfect feet lying in-tact under the stone-brushed sky. A gift from the carrion birds, an honoring, so she can travel forth in all good speed.

My focus shifts upwards, to the world turned-upside-down by the great dome above, filled with stars that wear light as an invisibility cloak all day. Just like the Seals wear the waves. Just like all the shapes of collapse. And I think of those much-hated winged ones known as Vultures. The very word makes us cringe, and yet here is this miraculous, precious being. For the gruesome must become visible and when it does, the Vulture, thought of as ominous, is a boon to the landscape.

Vulture is the One Who Knows about the Abundance of Collapse. Not only does she sail the skies looking for opportunities to create more caved-in-ness, but in doing so, she herself is fed while protecting the Land and fellow creatures from the diseases created by rotting things. Imagine the impossibility of it! Her stomach, a living miracle, designed to break down Death itself, be nourished and leave the world a little less dangerous in doing so.

Vulture medicine is called for in these times— she who reveals the bones that will become new life. She who is not only comfortable with Death, but seeks it out and sits with it, devours and transforms it. May we all be blessed with Vulture eyes and Vulture stomachs. May we be generous enough to leave the feet and fertility of our purest Fear in-tact to help guide us into the unknown, toward that far-off horizon.

All of these shapes haunt me with a growing gratitude. Those perfect Rabbit feet remind me how lucky it is, indeed, to live in a time of collapse, to be invited into this gathering bowl of what is happening. I’m reminded too, that a great power is rising. It holds the promise of a more fertile, life-affirming world, personally and collectively, precisely because we were willing to be shaped by the wave break, the Seal’s agility, the dead rabbits, the vultures, the beautiful shells— the infinite, figure-eight of becoming we all find ourselves irrevocably in, around and around, deeper, wider, on out to the horizon.

An Invitation to Help Weather the Worry~

In the next few days, get out onto the Land, in the wilds or around your neighborhood or community garden perhaps. Go looking for a Teacher of Collapse. Look for something / someone (human, plant, animal, stone or any other being) that speaks to you of this caved-in, out-breathed, decaying, sloping, crashing downward well-space, or anything else that is symbolic of collapse to you. If you’re fortunate to find such a teacher, rest your gaze upon it for a good, long while.

Whether what you find looks to you grotesque or gorgeous, stare into its heart and see what it has to say. What does it reveal to you about yourself? You might ask it for a ritual or practice for weathering this particular week— be it one of celebration or grief or both and much more!

This piece is dedicated to my siblings, who are so brave. And to Tempist and to Wren, who both know so much about the shape of things.