Resources for Leaning Into the Apocalypse
(a very incomplete list)
Most likely if you’re reading this, you’re conscious at least on some level that humanity is on an extremely unsustainable track. Some kind of societal collapse is coming, both in the US and globally. That doesn’t mean there’s no rebirth, no chance to also manifest the liberated world we dream of — but we have to create that. It won’t just snap magically into being. And we don’t get to bypass the death.
As James Baldwin wrote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” To manifest anything other than the most horrific possibilities of the trajectories we’re on (especially here in the US), we must have the stamina to look honestly at where we’re at, how we got here, and where we’re likely headed. The truth is that collapse is already happening overtly around the globe, mostly in marginalized communities. If your life is not yet touched directly by it, in my opinion there’s an even greater responsibility to do the work of getting real with collapse, so that you can react to unfolding crises with agency instead of victimization. This is what I mean by “leaning into the apocalypse” — accepting reality, and slowly beginning to orient towards it.
This is not (necessarily) about building an underground shelter and stocking ten years worth of food. Actually, the resources I’ve compiled so far are not about “prepping” at all — although I do believe that the cultivation of physical survival skills is essential to leaning into the apocalypse. But one aspect of “leaning in” is that you don’t have to do it all at once. In the five years or so I’ve been engaging these concepts, I haven’t yet felt called to learn to forage, or hunt, or build a shelter, or even garden, though I do desire those skills and trust I will acquire them in the right time. I invite you to also have patience with yourself, and especially if you’re new to collapse thinking, use these resources as a starting point, and see where else you feel guided.
Instead of being about physical survival skills, these resources focus on somatic, emotional and psychic prep. Many of them, both fiction and non-fiction, are about expanding our imaginations towards apocalypse, towards the cliff-edge we are headed for, in order to “scout the territory” of our potential future. Some of the ideas conflict with one another, and that’s deliberate: like a koan, conflicting possibilities help us to stretch our brains, break our binary thinking and open us up to magic. Many of the works here also grapple with colonialism and white supremacy, both historically and in their current manifestation, because we cannot grasp the nature of our particular apocalypse if we don’t have embodied familiarity with these systems.
Broadly speaking, these are resources to help you skirt the perimeter of collapse. You can observe from multiple angles, get some education, and come to your own conclusions. The list will also give you a sense of the perspectives that have shaped my personal thinking.
Without further ado:
A List of Resources for Leaning into the Apocalypse
1. The work of Octavia Butler, especially Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents // Written in the 90s, the two-part Parable series starts in the 2020s, takes place in a dystopian California and a period of collapse in the US, and includes a President who wants to “make America great again”. Other depictions in the book are also becoming real today, from rampant drug addiction to increased houselessness to drought and sky-rocketing gas prices. In this interview from 2000, Butler describes the intent behind the Parable series as “desensitization”, a way of facing the worst possibilities in the hope of not creating them (when asked in the same interview if she thought the novels were prophecy, she replied “I certainly hope not!”) Several of Butler’s other novels, in particular Clay’s Ark and the Lilith’s Brood trilogy, also describe dystopian futures with some factors that ring scarily true to our world today.
2. The 5th Sacred Thing by Starhawk // Published in 1993, the same year as the first Parable novel, this book also depicts a mid-21st century dystopian California where gas and water are scarce and the US government no longer exists as we know it (in both authors’ works, southern CA in particular is overrun by drought and exploitative forces). Both Starhawk and Octavia Butler lived and wrote in California, and given the prescience of both womens’ visions, I can’t help but feel like they were tapped into some greater truth beyond their personal imaginations. I particularly appreciate The 5th Sacred Thing for the potentials it depicts of how our magical and psychic capacities might come alive during times of apocalypse.
3. The Quaking of America by Resmaa Menakem // This book is a non-fiction prediction of collapse, particularly a civil war in the US, published in April 2022. I actually don’t resonate with the specifics of the picture it paints, in which the Republican party, led by Trump, initiates a fascist takeover between 2022–2025, not just electorally but through widespread violence. However, what is really valuable about this book are the dozens of concrete ways it offers to engage somatically with super triggering subjects and potentials. Menakem’s first book, My Grandmother’s Hands, breaks down the way racial tensions and white supremacy embed themselves in the nervous system. The Quaking of America continues this work, bringing race to the forefront of awareness (very important in itself for white people), and weaving it in with practices of self-regulation that are essential in any crisis.
4. Exterminate All the Brutes by Raoul Peck, on HBO // A four-part docu-series that “tells the story” of colonial history in a profound, unforgettable way. It’s one thing to know of the brutality of our history; it’s another thing to know it through a depiction like Peck’s, that doesn’t shy away from the darkest truths, and tells them through a visual combination of reenactments and real archival footage, some of it graphic and disturbing. It takes a strong stomach, spine and spirit to stay present through these episodes, but you will come away more connected to reality. (Of course, the real study of our grotesque history takes proactive lifelong work on multiple levels. And particularly around race, the work has to be not just theoretical but embodied. My Grandmothers’s Hands is one great place to start; for a feminist angle on oppression in the body, I also recommend Caliban and the Witch by Sylvia Federici.)
5. Carmen Spagnola’s collapse teachings // Carmen’s podcast, the Numinous Podcast, covers all kinds of subjects from a justice and trauma-informed angle. She has covered collapse many times and made this “roundup” of those episodes. A good place to start is the most recent episode, Collapse in a Nutshell, released in March 2022. Inside the Numinous Network, where Carmen houses all kinds of teachings, she also offers a Collapse 101 course that teaches a combination of skills, theory, somatics and science (including relational neurobiology) all within the framework of collapse.
6. How to Survive the End of the World podcast // this entire podcast hosted by adrienne maree & Autumn Brown is amazing. For collapse-related content in particular, check out the ten-episode series called Apocalypse Survival Skills that started in April 2020 (planned pre-pandemic ofc).
7. “Instructions for the Age of Emergency” by Monica Byrne // a shorter piece that will help your imagination stretch towards apocalypse (thanks to my friend Mattie for passing this my way).
8. The Long Descent by John Michael Greer // This book looks at collapse in the context of peak oil. It examines historical societal collapses, and gives a realistic picture of the process of collapse as it might play out in a post-petroleum society, especially its slow, multi-generational nature. Published in 2008, some of its predictions are already reality.
9. Last Born in the Wilderness Podcast with Patrick Farnsworth. This podcast tackles collapse from countless angles and goes deep into nuanced, edgy subjects like the origins of Covid, the blind spots of “green energy” movements” and police violence. A great place to start is the six-part compilation he put together in summer 2021, of 30ish past interviews on the subjects of climate, fascism, Covid, colonialism, ancestral trauma and more (although it’s a bummer that about 90% of guests in the compilation are cis men.)
9. Don’t Look Up on Netflix // The most mainstream thing on my list! I was impressed by the way this movie undertook a direct psychological confrontation with apocalypse (although there are definitely other confrontations it fails to make). Don’t Look Up highlights both the tragedy and the absurdity of our current political moment and gives a quick glance over the edge of the void.
10. My ebook, Astrology for Apocalypse, which breaks down the long-term planetary movements of the next twenty years, and/or my essays on the US Pluto Return, which get much deeper into America’s predicament.
11. Music for revolution! Music has always played a role in keeping the human spirit alive through dark times. I compiled the beginning of a playlist called Songs for Collapse & Revolution, music that I think cuts straight to the core of this existential crisis and offers a taste of the frequency we need to inhabit to transmute it. If you have suggestions I’d love to hear them!
That’s it for now! There are so many amazing creations and creators out there and I’m sure this list barely scrapes the surface of the real resources available. But I hope for folks who are new to considering collapse, this list can be a starting point.
I’ll finish with a thought on something John Michael Greer warns us not to do: “immanentize the eschaton”. The phrase has its origins in the theology of the 19th century, and was basically generated by the Church to shame beliefs in utopia, or creating “heaven on earth”. Today, it also has a secular meaning. A glaring example is the QAnon fantasy of the Great Awakening/Trump’s military takeover, which millions of Americans believed was immanent on election night, and then on Jan. 6th, and then again at Biden’s inauguration. However, we also “immanentize the eschaton” in more subtle ways, and I know I’ve been guilty of semi-consciously expecting some massive, dramatic event to sweep through and do all the work for us. That will not happen. Even in the US, where collapse is most immanent, it will take years or maybe decades. At least for a large portion of our lives, it will be more about long-term survival than the creation of any “new” society or world.
Don’t Look Up avoids this uncomfortable truth by choosing an apocalyptic scenario in which everything ends all at once. But the reality of our situation is that it will happen slowly, and humans will keep on trying to survive. While this is painful, I also find hope in the fact that in some sense we do “have time”. When we let go of immanentizing, we can start to actually lean in, moving towards collapse awareness proactively, one day and one step at a time. Again, it’s about scouting the territory, anticipating what’s coming, allowing ourselves agency instead of victimhood as we enter this phase of our collective future. It takes courage, but personally I have received deep healing and a profound sense of purpose from doing this work, and I hope you will have the same experience.
Love, blessings & protection~
Hummingbird
For more astro-political reading, check out my other articles on Medium, as well as the Astrology for Apocalypse ebook.
You can also find me at www.astrologyfortherevolution.com and @astrologyfortherevolution on IG. If you’ve benefitted from my free content, you are invited to buy me a coffee by tipping me at paypal.me/activistastro, or on Venmo @astrofortherevolution .
