In Defense Of Defeat
What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us; but if we let ourselves be shaped by the eternal then perhaps we will become extraordinary.
I’m teaching a winter workshop in Colorado called Apprenticing Pain and Tending To Our Terrain. Febraury 23-28th, 2025. Would love to see you in person!
Dear friends,
This is a year that has brought me to my knees more times than I can count. Over and over, again and again, I’ve found myself collapsed on the ground - literally and metaphorically - in defeat.
A few weeks ago, lying on the carpeted floor of my living room after weeks of battling a looming crisis that I was bound and determined to avert, a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke sprang into my mind like a lifeline:
The Man Watching
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can’t bear without a friend,
I can’t love without a sister.
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great.
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
Translated by Robert Bly
Where have I been?
From the outside it may appear that I’ve stopped working and simply disappeared into the wilds of Colorado, but the truth is that I’ve never worked so hard in my life as the past six months.
And yet…
All of the projects that I was pouring myself into came to a grinding halt as each one was checked, and then checkmated, by forces that felt beyond my control.
First, it was the podcast.
Then, it was writing emails to you.
Finally, it was the membership we started in June when we opened the doors to the School for Living Science for the first time.
This project - the School - is something that I know does not belong to me. Every ‘thing’ that comes into form on this earth was first conceived of as an idea, or ideal; and those ideas belong to the realm of the eternal. Rilke reminded me that the eternal does not want to be bent by us. This spiritual orientation has helped me accept defeat as the necessary means by which both I and the School will be shaped into our highest and best forms.
Sometimes, a thing of ineffable beauty chooses us.
A child.
A clear insight that would solve a terrifying problem.
A partner or a parent in need of care as they walk towards death.
Embracing the responsibility to steward these kinds of ‘things’ isn’t a choice we make out of our own personal longings or wishes; sometimes we are simply called and there is nothing else to say except ‘yes, I understand that this beautiful burden is my responsibility to bear.’
The School is that kind of thing for me.
Two years ago just before Christmas the idea came like a bolt of lightning, and it has been guiding my every action since that moment. However, like everything (it seems) that is given to us as a responsibility from the eternal realm, it did not come with instructions; and bringing it into existence has been a humbling endeavor.
We stopped producing the podcast a few months ago because I found myself working 6-7 days a week inside the new membership. Which I wasn’t anticipating. I’m not going to tell you why it was such a surprise, because you’d have to understand all of the moving pieces of my work life behind the scenes.
But I do think it’s important for you to know - in case you didn’t - that it usually takes 2-3 days of work (from start to finish) to record, edit and publish just ONE 2-hour video/audio podcast. We do not have sponsors, so these work days do not put food on our table. The podcast is a labor of love.
We’re determined to bring it back, so if you enjoy it and you’re inspired to support us then please consider a paid Substack subscription - it helps us more than you know.
We fought hard to keep the podcast on the calendar over the summer, before giving up in defeat.
Then, another battle ensued: what was I going to do about these weekly emails to you?
Most of my written articles take 1-2 days to complete, and again - there was no room left on my calendar. So I stopped sending emails.
By then it was obvious: we were aboard a sinking ship. But my stubborn refusal to see the writing on the wall had me acting like the delusional person on the Titanic who is throwing furniture overboard expecting to save everyone by lightening the load.
How do we get our heads above water when we keep getting hit by surging waves?
Maybe you can relate: whenever I’m treading water like this it’s nearly impossible to push my head far enough above the waves to see the bigger picture. It wasn’t until I took these beloved projects off the table that the waves subsided just enough…and my logical brain took over.
Which is when the final battle began: I knew I needed to close the membership, but I didn’t want to; so I tried to save it. Which only caused more mayhem.
One of my superpowers frequently gets me into trouble when it is misapplied: I can endure pain, discomfort and uncertainty for a very long time. Often, I will only give up when I’ve exhausted every resource in my toolkit…only to realize that the smartest move would have been to let go at the very start. Then again, if I always did the “smart thing” right from the beginning I wouldn’t get to walk away later ‘strengthened by the great hand’ of the Angel who fought with me and won.
If we allow ourselves to be bent by what is eternal, then perhaps we will become extraordinary.
Lately, I’ve been leaning on the innate wisdom of flowering plants and deciduous trees as they dance with death, embracing degeneration as a natural part of their life cycle and long term growth. The way they struggle upwards and grow themselves one leaf, two leaves, five at a time while some older ones surrender to decay just as the flowers begin blooming…
In case you don’t have a vivid imagination like me (I grew up in a Waldorf school), here’s a wonderful time lapse video of a dandelion:
What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us.
With The School for Living Science I am taking a stand for the True, and eternal.
I’m carving out a place for us to apprehend, together, the real nature of the human being; including the true nature and purpose of pain (and how we transform it), and of illness (and how we heal), and of degeneration (and how we regenerate).
I’m advocating for a new science that makes god’s manifestations - all living phenomena, but specifically the human organism - both our subject of study and our teacher.
A first principle of our work - borrowed with a deep bow of respect to the great poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - is that there is a divine organizing principle behind every earthly and cosmic thing. Therefore, we can only know the True nature of a thing - such as the human being - when we seek, and apprehend, this organizing principle.
“The True is like God; it does not appear directly; we must guess it from its manifestations.”
-Goethe, Aphorisms in Prose
Modern material science strips every earthly and cosmic phenomenon of all that is holy in an attempt to pull it down to its own level.
Sensing a divine order standing behind every earthly and cosmic phenomenon, one of our objectives in the School is to work our way up towards this divine element, transforming ourselves in the process and thereby earning the right and responsibility to steward such knowledge.
It is my conviction that when we know our true spiritual origins and purpose as human beings, and marry that eternal wisdom with real-world knowledge of how we function while we are alive on this earth in physical form, then we will know how to heal. We will know how to heal ourselves physically, socially, economically, politically, environmentally and spiritually.
We cannot accomplish this task, of course, without understanding that what we do to each other we do to ourselves; that what we do to this planet, we also do to ourselves; that we are embedded in an ecological tapestry of interconnected and interdependent lifeforms; and that our health depends just as much on the cosmos as anything else.
No wonder I was defeated so decisively.
What now?
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I heard someone say the other day that the reason trees lose their leaves every autumn with such a spectacular display of beauty is because the trees - in their innate wisdom and voluntary participation with death - remove the nutrient dense green chlorophyll from their leaves, transporting it into their interior terrain as a means of food storage to get through winter. As the green gets siphoned away, a riot of reds and yellows and golds are revealed.
This fall, I’m joining the trees.
I am taking the many wins as well as the hard won lessons from the past few months, and letting go of the rest.
We made the difficult decision to close the School membership last month. Instead of a membership, I’m now working with 8 courageous students who said yes to joining a beta group to learn living science and my mapping methodology. It’s going well so far.
By drawing all of my energy back to the center; by distilling the essential teachings of the School into a more potent curriculum that is also manageable for me from a workload perspective; and by drawing inspiration from the wisdom of plants, I am beginning to feel that the roots and the germ of the School are strengthening rather than diminishing.
We’re also using this time to develop the podcast into something more intentional, and look forward to recording and publishing again. Our goal is to re-launch before the holidays.
Learn with me in person:
I’m teaching a winter workshop in February here in Colorado called Apprenticing Pain and Tending To Our Terrain.
We are doing the citizen science needed to solve the chronic pain epidemic of our time.
Pain has been my primary phenomenoligcal study since 2004, and it’s time for me to begin sharing the principles and methods of this work rather than just the products of my own research.
If you feel called to turn towards your own pain with curiosity in order to learn from its divine wisdom…
If you want to understand the true nature and purpose of pain in its many manifestations…
If you want to understand the true nature and purpose of degeneration, and how we regenerate…
If you want to learn living science and contribute to the citizen science needed to solve the chronic pain epidemic…
Please consider joining me in Colorado.
You’ll also be hearing from me on a more regular basis again.
Finally: we’ll be reopening the School soon, starting with some free classes this fall and then paid programs in the new year (after we get feedback from our beta group and develop the program into something solid and strongly rooted).
Wishing you courage and spiritual strength to meet these uncertain times and whatever life has brought your way this season.
With love,
Elisha
I'm not sure if it feels this way to you, Elisha, but to me you handle the bumps in the road of life with such grace. I've been thinking about your school lately and praying for its success.
I don't want to take up too much of your time, except to say you're doing more good than you know. Your podcast with Tom Cowan in April set me on a course that has finally brought me some answers. Time will tell, but I believe my genetic disease is actually an epigenetic response to long-term heavy metal poisoning. I've started self-chelation therapy and am seeing some encouraging changes.
I know you'll figure out the right balance for things. It's partly because of your example that I've learned to submit and allow life to be my teacher, accepting setbacks not as detours but a necessary part of the journey.
Sending love and support! 💛
Reading with deep appreciation. My life's work felt like very much like your description. Figuring out how to manage all the myriad of moving parts and still stay true to yourself (and healthy) in this world, is enormously challenging. And, it forms our essence in figuring it all out... I do hope to be able to participate in your endeavours Alicia... all that I can. Living in another country with a weaker currency means that often times what doable for Americans isn't for me... Logistics reality
Just something that I myself could handle currently is like:
a once a week or bi-weekly check in small group zoom call... A paid membership idea. I belong to 3 of these currently. One, between 6-10 people, $50/month, 1/week, round robin style. Very supportive. Carnivore group
usually lasting 1-2 hrs...
Another one, way way more people, (too many perhaps) once per week, ideas shared freely, usually topic'ed, 9.99/month. Numbers game. World events and spirituality...
Another, Jack Kruse's group. Can't recall the amount, maybe 99$, but it also opens up an enormous library of essays with endless learning as well as a monthly call with Q&A...
I'm NOT trying to be pushy, just sharing kinda like a beta style you mentioned. Perhaps there's other people who can't commit in any great way but who appreciate your insights and deep passion who can afford here and there for "maintenance"...
Sent with love