a love letter from the compost heap

there is so much to grieve in our world today, but there is also so much worth saving...

Author

Nadine Clopton
July 01, 2025

Hello, dear ones…

It’s been a while since I’ve written to you here. So much has changed, yet so much is the same.

Creative energy can be a tough thing to resource in the midst of turbulence.

Speaking from my personal experience, when I’m feeling overwhelmed (by personal health challenges, the state of the world, work, usually all of the above), my creative pursuits are the first thing to fall off the wagon.

Yet creativity is an essential component of keeping ourselves, our souls, & the world at large nourished. Creativity is a vital life force energy that flows through us, yet requires a degree of tending to.

“When we don’t yet know where we’re going, we don’t wait. We move forward in the dark.”

―Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

So that being said, hi again! How have you been doing?

How are you really holding up in the midst of multivariate chaos in our changing climate and systems of governance?

On my end, I’m hanging in there as best I can. Trying to hold grief and hope simultaneously.

Our nervous systems were not designed to withstand constant exposure to cycles of breaking news and the dopamine overload that comes with doom scrolling on social media.

I’m guilty as much as anyone else of blowing past my screen time limits and scrolling for longer than I care to admit.

But one thing has become increasingly clear to me these past few years…

Our attention is currency.

By fixating on that which is crumbling & wallowing in our helplessness, we render ourselves powerless — stunned into a state of apathy.

There is so much to grieve in our world today, but there is also so much worth saving.

Just last week, environmentalists and concerned citizens from across the United States rallied together to protect 250 million acres of public lands from being sold off to private interests.

New Yorkers successfully voted in a historic mayoral primary election for Zohran Mamdani — a 33 year old visionary whose platform is one by & for the people, not private corporate interests & powerful lobbies.

Our system has been broken for a very, very, very long time.

It has been rife with stark inequities. It has prioritized profit over people. It has been built on the bones and backs of real people and communities with no meaningful recourse or reparations.

An ethic of extraction and exploitation is baked into its modus operandi.

Yet, to critique America is to love America. It is to see its vast potential, beauty, imperfections, and pain points in one big panorama.

It is to engage in the art of calling in rather than calling out — demanding accountability & justice while holding the door open for everyone to walk through into a brighter, shared future.

Our society, as we have known it, is ripe for the compost heap.

Compost is one of my favorite forms of alchemy.

It turns literal shit (and food waste!) into black gold.

It is a process of becoming — where seemingly disparate component parts are transformed into fertile soil in which we can plant new seeds and create nourishment from the ground up.

And we, my friends, are in the thick of the compost heap.

Compost gets hot — as bacteria, mold, and fungi burn off in the alchemical process.

Maybe that’s where we are now… acutely aware of what is not working and witnessing the proliferation of factions of society that are resistant to the inevitable collective alchemy towards a more beautiful world.

The antidote to a crumbling empire is community.

The visualization I’ve been getting is a large kraken (sea monster) that has just been speared… lashing out, flailing, thrashing, making lots of waves… before falling back into the sea to dissolve into the sea bed and nourish new life.

The dominant system knows its time is limited. It is thrashing. It is at the precipice of giving way to something more generative, more beautiful, more just.

We have to trust in the alchemy, in the unfolding.

We have to lend our hands to the mending — wherever, however, whenever we can.

I derive inspiration from Indigenous and Black communities who have been swimming upstream against currents of dominance, colonization, extractivism, and persecution for centuries.

They have worked to preserve their joy even in the midst of hardship. Created networks of care and mutual aid. They have resisted and persisted, against all odds, with a faith that their showing up to the mending will pay off someday — if not for them, for future generations.

This is the stamina, heart, & endurance we all need to derive inspiration from as we navigate these times.

“During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.” 

- Dan Savage

Glimmers of Hope:

Ways to lend your hands to the mending:

  • Call your representatives

    • Download the app 5calls — it makes it so easy & has great built in scripts for all the issue areas!

  • Donate to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) &/or join one of their message campaigns on a range of issue areas.

  • Support your local farmers & businesses.

    • Spend your hard earned $$$ local & invest in the web of community & real people around you. It means more to them than any multinational company.

  • Volunteer or donate to mutual aid in your community

We’ve got this. We’ve got us.

With so much love,

Nadine