Surviving and Thriving in Collapse, Part I

I want to start by acknowledging the fear, sadness, shock, grief, and all the other emotions that people all around the world are experiencing right now.  I’m in the United States, and to say it has been a hard 2025 for many here is an understatement.  What is happening, not only in the US but on a broader scale, is that things are collapsing: the systems, social structures, governments, communities, and biosphere that we have depended upon our whole lives are breaking down. Since before I was born, books like The Limits of Growth have been talking about overshoot, peak oil, and industrial decline. There are only so many hockey stick patterns one has to look at to know that the other side of a hockey stick is a massive fall. I have mentors and friends who have spent their entire lives talking about it, sharing evidence, and writing about it–but until recently very few were willing to listen. And a lot of people are still not willing to look. And why would anyone want to? The news that things are going to keep collapsing for the rest of your life is not exactly what people want to hear.  But, we are now far enough into the collapse that whatever we had before 2020 is long gone, and the grim, hard reality of the collapse is here. The only real surprise to me is the speed at which some of this is taking place, at least here in the US.  I have to keep reminding myself that the wheels for all of this were set in motion a long time ago, long before I was born.  But what I continue to say on this blog is truer now than ever before: we have the tools to create something new, something better, something balanced with nature, and rebuild human society.  And that’s what I want to talk about today.

I’ve generally been pretty gentle in my approach to talking about collapse, industrial decline, and the fall of Western Civilization on the Druid’s Garden. Why? Primarily, because I want to bring in a hopeful perspective, hold the joy, and keep encouraging everyone to take up connected approaches to nature.  I’m a glass-half-full kind of person, and I like to write that way.  But also, I’m the head of a druid order that holds a non-political and non-partisan stance and thus, in my position, it I don’t really talk much about politics.

However, I feel it is time to talk more openly and directly about the collapse itself, as I have a message of hope to share right now.  There’s so much doom and gloom out there. But, I also think we need to use the permaculture principle of “the problem is the solution.”  I am proceeding in this series of posts by acknowledging that nothing is going to stop this collapse from happening on a broader scale–but we can take advantage of the hole it leaves to bring in something new and better.  Thus, I see this terrible situation as an opportunity for those of us who hold nature in reverence to capitalize on this moment and continue to push forward with the work we are already doing and create a new paradigm for nature-focused and balanced living.

Before I get any further in this discussion, I’m going to offer some caveats. This post is offering a broad and general discussion, and so I’m not going to dive into the specifics of what is happening in my country or anywhere else.  For one, nobody can keep up with what is happening her, and as I said, I’m not here to talk politics. With that said, I acknowledge the many of us who are under direct assault right now, and that is a brutal experience. I also acknowledge that many of us are experiencing the collapse from our unique perspectives and identities, and it’s not a singular experience.  Just like the pandemic, some people may be more directly impacted and harmed.  Thus, each of us has to process what is happening in our own way.  Some people may rise to social or political action, others may continue to bury their heads in the sand, and still others may seek refuge. I am not going to judge anyone for their response, just as I hope you do not judge me for articulating one of my responses here. What I’m presenting here is one of the ways that I continue to feel that I can move forward in this age, with hope in my heart. This is an orientation that helps me become a good ancestor while bringing in hope and vision for the future. This is the orientation that keeps me going through these challenging times.  And maybe this perspective will also be helpful to you.

The Tower of Peril

The Tower card in the Tarot is one of the worst and best cards in the deck. And it is in that contradiction that I base my entire discussion on today. In the Tarot, the Tower refers to all of the things that we build up, and up, and up until the center can no longer hold the weight of all that is present.  And then, it comes down. The Tower represents upheaval, destruction, general changes to established beliefs and structures, and a harsh confrontation with reality. You’ve probably had these moments in your life when it feels like your world is falling down around you.  Maybe you are feeling that right now. But the thing about the Tower is that often, by the time you get to that point, the structures and beliefs that were built up so high have grown old, tired, and rigid and largely no longer serve you.  The flip side of the Tower is that the collapse of the tower presents a clean slate. Once the Tower is gone, you are free to create anew–something better, something wiser, and something more balanced.

And the Tower is where we are as a global civilization.  Whether or not we are willing participants, the Tower humanity has constructed is massive and all-encompassing. It is woven into every society globally and it all runs on the same mythology: the myth of progress (that progress is infinite and humans have manifest destiny towards a greater and ever-progressing future), lack of acknowledgment of real limits and finite resources, unchecked narcissism that says “I am better than you” (ever-present through colonialism),  growth at all costs, and being willing to exploit literally anything and everything for profit. “Collective insanity” is the best term I’ve heard recently to describe it, this term was given to be by my friend and co-author Nate Summers, who learned it from his logical Indigenous elders in the Pacific Northwest.  These insane doctrines and myths drive our civilization. And this line of thinking has now put our ecosystems, cultures, and entire globe on the brink of destruction.

Ultimately all of these myths that our present human civilization have built up is resting on a simple truth: we live on a finite planet with finite resources, and we have taken more than is our fair share.  And that biosphere and resource base is collapsing under the pressure, which is putting more pressure on every other system we have.  And thus, what we are experiencing now is the result of a profound disconnection of our everyday lives from the limits, cycles, and wisdom of nature.

The Tower has gotten too high, and it is starting to wobble.  Pieces of it have begun to come down.  The problem is, our civilization of collective insanity has many of us in its grasp–and even if we don’t like it, most of us depend on it for our basic needs. So seeing any of it even start to collapse is terrifying.

Based on history, civilization is likely not all going to come down today or tomorrow. Rather, it is going to be a “slow crash” throughout our lives, we know this from studying the decline and fall of other civilizations. This means that the collective insanity civilization could take some decades or even centuries to come down fully.  And really, the decline has been going on for some time, even if not everyone has been feeling it in the same ways. What we can expect is a general downward pattern with better or worse times: is that things may get really bad for a while, and then they level off or even get a little better, but they never get back to where they originally were.  And then that same thing happens again, and again.  Sound pretty familiar?  That describes the last 5 years here in the US for most. That’s human history and how civilizations fall, and while none of us can predict the specifics, that larger pattern so far is holding.  What might make this one harder to predict is that it is both global and ecological on a massive scale, larger than any in previous history.

Even for those of us who have accepted this reality some time ago, the present is shocking because a lot of us are experiencing the decline happening in real-time, and even your average person can’t ignore what is in front of their eyes.  It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that the past is never coming back, and the days when things were easier, kinder, and softer for most of us are no longer part of our reality. The people who are still in denial will be in denial right up until their house is underwater, and I don’t pay them any mind.  But what I am generally seeing is a collective awakening that we can no longer avoid the signs but have to face what is happening. And that nobody is going to come and save us.

That this is going to be our reality is a lot to process.  It takes time to process it, and if you are just now coming to this understanding, working through your grief and sadness about it is a good thing to do first–and I’ve shared a number of posts: this druid’s garden guide offers a full list of all of my previous writings, including on grief and processing.  This is really hard, and a lot of people are struggling: anger, fear, rage, disorientation, grief. And perhaps most of all, shock and disillusion with any structures that once supported us–a range of complex and churning emotions.  It’s hard to lose one’s sovereignty, stability, livelihood, and livelihood.  It is hard to live in such fear. Don’t process it alone–find others, talk, and share.

I find that if I focus on all the above, I don’t even feel the desire to keep living in the future, and that’s no way to exist. I can’t stay focused on the Tower or those emotions because it will destroy me. As the Tower continues to fall, it wants even more of you: more of your time, more of your attention, more of your money, and your resources, and certainly more of your strong emotions.

But, that way leads to only sorrow and misery.  If I’m here, if I’m alive now, it must be for a reason. We have an opportunity right now like we’ve never had before–as more and more of the old structure comes down, we can build something better. And that, my friends, is reason to hope.  In order to do this work,  we have to look a bit more at how the collective insanity civilization wants to engage with you and the first step of taking your power and attention back.

Resist Demands to Your Attention

What is happening right now with the 24/7 news cycle, social media, and incessant screens is that you are being compelled to watch every awful thing in real-time, right there like it is happening in your living room. Your attention is the most important commodity and they are working very hard to keep it constantly. Notifications on your screens are a very good way to do so, along with the dopamine rush that social media and the screens offer.  Their goal is to have you engaged constantly in the larger narrative, to keep you in fear and unwilling to do anything but watch it play out.  To sit in front of your screen,  helpless while you watch the unfolding nightmare. As long as that big Tower is there, it dominates the conversation, it demands attention, and it works hard to pull all of us into its gravity.

This is a long-term tactic used by those in power to create a more pliable, fearful, and willing-to-do-anything populace. For many of us, it has been like this most of our lives. The theory of why this tactic works goes the whole way back to Aristotle, who recognized three primary means of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos.  Pathos is emotion-driven persuasion, and Aristotle noted it as being the most powerful and also the most dangerous because a populace that is feeling strong emotions is not using their rational minds. And this is part of why the term “collective insanity” is a great descriptor of what is happening now.

The more that you are glued to what is happening and obsessing over the content of your screens, the more that they control you and wrap your energy and attention into their nightmare. The more you are glued to your screen, the more you are feeding and participating in collective insanity.

The other issue with all the screen-based information is the question of what is even true anymore.  The truth seems like another commodity being peddled.  The information we are given is either all AI-generated (controlled by the billionaires), created by various biased media sources with their own agendas (owned by billionaires), promoted on social media (also owned by billionaires), or given to you in ways that various algorithms determine is the best way to keep your attention (again, directed by billionaires).  There are some exceptions to this on the fringes, but not that many anymore. And so the screen becomes a mechanism of control.  How many of us have been glued–and I mean glued–to our screens the last month here in the US?  And the more we are doing that, the less we are doing anything else.  Your screen is designed to make you a passive recipient of the collapse.  These technologies are designed as a means to control–and that is all that they ever have been since the very beginning of industrialization.

There is tremendous power in stepping back.

There is tremendous power in deciding on strict limits to what and when you will consume news or social media.

There is tremendous power in choosing to your focus.

All that we can control are our own actions and reactions.  So let’s take control.

In stepping back, we can then redirect that energy and attention to bringing in a better world.  We can work to build alternatives to the collective insanity of civilization and all it stands for is the most important work of our lifetimes.  This is not an easy path, but it is the best way to survive and thrive in this age.  This includes learning how to live with less stuff but more joy, learning how to reconnect to your own body, mind, and spirit, orienting yourself toward your local community and networks, and ultimately, learning how to live in line in balance and care with your local ecosystems.

The Tower of Possibility

As the Tower crashes down, space is created for something new. But what will that new thing be?  The first thing we need is vision. Unfortunately, a lot of very rich people seem to already have their own vision for the future.  I’ve read those books, and maybe you have too (Snow Crash, Oryx and Crake, The Parable of the Sower, etc).  I don’t like that vision, and I don’t think you’ll like it either.  Instead, what I want to suggest is that we put our energy into focusing on what comes next and creating a vision that is best for all life on this planet by building local, resilient community-based systems parallel to or fully outside of the existing paradigm. We begin to bring that sacred vision into reality: a world where nature and humanity live in balance, where we return to rekindling our ancestral connections with each other and the living earth, and we re-indigenize in our local ecosystems. Joanna Macy calls this the great turning and her term is a good one–I like to think about what we are turning toward (nature) and hope.

Here’s one of the ways I’m seeing it: I’ve been practicing permaculture design, land healing, and rewilding for a long time. There’s nothing that a permaculture designer loves more than to go into a ruined piece of land and heal, nurture, and bring that land back into a healthy and abundant ecosystem. Because we have tools for that. And what works on a local scale can work on a broader scale–we can all work in the ruined places where we live to regenerate and heal not only our ecosystems but also our local communities and connections. While we know that nature can heal all on her own, and if left alone, she will regrow. But leaving nature alone is not actually the model that has created the most stable human societies. Aboriginal Australians and Indigenous tribes around the globe had nurturing societies that were stable for thousands of years and were rooted in an intimate relationship with nature emphasizing balance, care, reciprocation, and tending of nature. Nature and humans work best when we work together–and it is an all-hands-on-deck moment. I believe that we can’t just sit back and do nothing, but rather, we can all do something in our local communities to help the vision come forth.

Humanity already has the tools for how to do this. Some of these are tools, thinking patterns, and teachings preserved by indigenous peoples about balanced ways of life, interactions, and thought processes (such as the works of Robin Wall Kimmerer and Tyson Yunkaporta). Other tools are created by those learning how to live together in low-impact ways, tools created by literally tens of thousands of communities and groups all over the world. We have tools to help us step away and take back our sovereignty and connection, and tools to realign with nature’s patterns and wisdom.  We have tools for how to build authentic and wildcrafted nature spiritualities and core relationships with all beings. These tools are not hard to find: they are literally in the nooks and crannies all over the place.  In the edges and margins, the same places where we find the most diverse ecosystems.

And let’s be frank–the more we put those tools into action, the less we need anything that the collective insanity civilization has to offer. As we build community resilience for food, medicine, entertainment, skills, and more, we can let go of more of what we depend on from the collective insanity.  So as we enact our tools and build deeper relationships with nature, we continue to pull away from the collapse, which gives us more resilience, stability, and locally-based networks and communities.

Learning, living, and teaching these tools, practices, and orientation are a critical focus for three reasons:

1) those tools will help keep us sane;

2) these tools can mean the difference between surviving and even thriving for you and your loved ones;

and 3) those tools will help us build a better world for all life on this planet.

I am an optimist at heart, and yet what I write here is not a pipe dream–this is already something so many of us are doing in our own way, in our own communities, everywhere.  These three posts outline what is already happening to build a new paradigm:  A New Paradigm of the Future, Bringing in the New Paradigm, and Visioning: Web of Relationships for more details and some hope.  Those three posts are the most important things I’ve ever written, and speak specifically to what I’m articulating here: the future is already here and so many of us are already living it and making it happen. And now, as things collapse down around us, we need to lean into what we’ve already been doing and thinking about and deepen our commitment to it all–because this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.  We need to nurture this vision, embrace it, and live it every day.  We need to use our creativity, our magic, our energy, and our joy to bring something better than what we have into reality. For us, for our children, or future generations, and for all life.

And how we get there is not going to be easy, but it is part of the process. The more we disentangle ourselves now from civilization, and the more we learn how to build strong communities that can work towards resiliency and nature connection, the better. As the Tower comes down, there will be more and more possibilities for other things to emerge. A lot of local and personal transformations are going to emerge out of necessity.  And we will survive and thrive, just like the dandelion rising up out of the cracks of the sidewalk.

Re-orienting the Mind and Spirit

It is very easy to get broken down by it all very quickly.  Having you feel overwhelmed is one of the goals of the system–we are easier to control if we are broken, helpless, and dependent. But even if you are giving yourself some distance, there is still so much to process as the collapse is happening in many different ways:  the collapse of the ecosystem and biosphere, the collapse of social and government systems, the collapse of local communities and family networks, and the collapse of basic human decency and rights. One of the things that will help us is to figure out how to individually approach all of this without, frankly, losing our minds.

So in the last part of this post, we will start at the beginning of the process of disentanglement.  Here are some ideas:

Embracing Kindness, Care, Wonder, and Whimsy. We have an opportunity every day to decide what energy we put out into the world.  For me, leaning into the human qualities that I want to see in the world has helped me tremendously in these dark times. Each day, I ask myself: How can I interact with people in a good way? How can I bring that energy into myself, as a balm for the miasama that is modern culture? How can I be joyful and wonder-filled even amidst this chaos? How can I spread that to others? I have been writing quite a bit lately in that direction, so you can check out my posts on kindness,  on embracing whimsy, on embracing care here and here, and bringing in the wonder. We need the wonder, joy, kindness, and care now more than ever before.

This is hard, friends.  It is really hard.  But it is worth doing.  Here are a  few more simple ideas:

• Research shows that focusing on things we are grateful for, every day, helps us combat depression. So create a gratitude practice.  Maybe this is sitting down with loved ones each day and sharing something they are grateful for.  Or maybe this is creating a gratitude journal and writing in it a few times a week. Read it when you feel sad.
• To use permaculture terms, you can think about your own “zone 1 and 2” or the places in the world where you have a direct impact. What are the places that you exist in, every day, that you have the power to change? In those places, do something meaningful there that betters others’ lives and brings you joy. For example, as I’ve shared, I’ve made a commitment to conduct myself always in care-oriented ways, and I’ve been leaning into that more heavily than before. I’m especially trying to orient this direction in my work, where so many people–my co-workers and my students–are overwhelmed, scared, and sad.
• Find things that bring you joy and make you laugh. Embrace those things.  Do them every day.

Ditch the screen, and embrace the green.  Nature is the answer. Nature is always the answer, and will always be the answer. The more time we spend in nature, the more balanced we are, and the more we are able to manage the present age. As I shared above, the screen is the primary means of control, and most of us are being driven to the point of misery by our technology. This is more true now than ever before. And so, ditch the screen and embrace the green! Read my full thoughts on the topic in Part I and Part II!

Practice radical self-care and build your health.  It is important to acknowledge how we are feeling, create space to grieve in safe ways, and figure out how to support each other through this time. It’s ok to feel deep emotions–we all do. The question is, how can we foster our own healing while we continue to have this experience? One of the things I suggest is to figure out what you need to keep yourself whole and functional during this time and make that one of your highest priorities. Find ways of treating yourself kindly, and give yourself grace.  If you can’t function, nothing else matters.

Regarding self-care and health, I have a few additional suggestions:

• If you haven’t developed a spiritual or religious practice of some sort, this is a great time to start. I don’t care what kind of practice you pick up, find one that works for you and embrace it.  I practice druidry, and here’s more about druidry.
• Embrace the green to find your healing and seek to find the plant healers and plant teachers who can help guide you. This will be particularly important as the system breaks down–so shifting to local, abundant plant and mushroom medicines is more resilient (see my herbalism series of posts for more information).
• Prioritize your physical health and wellness. It is not going to get any easier, and we need all of us as strong and healthy as possible. Get your body moving, focus on nourishing yourself with healthy foods, and build your own strength.
• Pull back on commitments that might drain you and instead focus on your own health, family, and local community. Decide what your priorities are and focus on those priorities. Realize that in difficult times, it is harder to get the things you usually can get done and you need extra time. Don’t overcommit.
• Take up a creative practice to support your mental health, something that brings you peace and joy. Paint, draw, sing, dance, make music, tell stories, and carve spoons!

Rewilding the Mind. A lot of what I’m talking about above are ways to start to disconnect your brain from a lot of what the collective insanity civilization does to you and the ways it can entrap you.  That is the work of years, and it can be very hard to disentangle. If you feel like you need more, I also want to suggest a set of self-paced courses from Rewild University called “Rewilding the Mind” and “Surviving Civilization”. The courses are offered on a very reasonable sliding scale.  I’ve worked through “Rewilding the Mind” several times over the last few years, and I’m currently working through “Surviving Civilization.” These courses are extremely accessible and offer a range of really useful tools to help us re-orient away from destructive civilization and back into ourselves, our relationships with our own bodies and minds, and our relationship with the broader ecosystem to which we belong. The techniques also help me be a better human being and bring that light and joy forward.

Connect with others. Do something every week that helps you feel like you are part of the solution. Start connecting with people who are nearest and dearest to you.  Find out their skillsets, the resources you have, and how to build resiliency locally.  As things continue to crash down, those who are close by in your own community will be your most important resources.  I’ll write more on these strategies in upcoming posts.

Conclusion, For now!

I’ve only gotten started in writing about the collapse and what to do about it–but alas, I’m over 4000 words and it is time to embrace the green (er…rather, the snow that is coming down today as I finish this post!) I’ll continue this series in the coming months with some specific, actionable ways we can continue to thrive and bring forth a better human culture looking at many different angles.  Right now on my priority list are A) sets of concrete actions for home and community; B) resource lists, and building physical libraries, and C) spiritual practices for these times.  What else would you like me to cover?

In the meantime, in the comments, I’d love to hear from you: how are you navigating this age?  What kinds of things do you want me to talk about?  Are you ok?  What suggestions do you have that I may not have talked about?