Glossary
A note on language:
We use language that is gesturing towards the future our hearts know is possible. We consciously choose to use a poetics in our language that is non-linear, holographic and emergent. We intend our words to be a spell-casting and consciousness expanding that evokes the kind of relational consciousness we are speaking about. Our intention is that our words are in fact a starter culture for composting power-over culture. Sometimes, this language can be confusing or strange or difficult to understand by the strategic mind. We ask for your patience and curiosity and invite you into the poetics of your own heart to be in conversation with us, if only imaginally.
We are using the terms activists, change-makers and inner-led practitioners interchangeably to refer to anyone engaged in activities intending towards creating a more life-affirming and just world. We hope you will see yourself in this.
Full list of Glossary terms:
Healing and Wholing and Self-Healing
Social Engagement part of the nervous system
Civilisation Trauma
This term is an attempt to frame our civilisation as a traumatizing force that is both a result of, and perpetuates, trauma. That is, the power-over culture that has developed overtime as ‘civilisation’ is, in and of itself, traumatizing. The core trauma is what Vanessa Machado de Oliveira* calls “separability”, which is the notion that we humans are separate from (and usually superior to) Earth Community, which is Earth herself and all beings upon and within her - including humans.
This civilization trauma causes behaviours that are inherently based on fight, flight or freeze and creates conditions of violence, exploitation and selfishness between us humans and the more-than-human world. Tautologically, the concept of ‘the individual’ is produced by a civilisation that is dependent upon us continuing to believe in the separate self, which in turn further perpetuates the illusion of separation from Earth Community.
Whether conscious of it or not, most of us are identified, to some extent, with this belief that we are an ‘individual’, somehow separate from Earth and others. It is this illusion of separation that leads to Capitalism's stranglehold, for example: our compelling need to buy and own things in order to feel complete or even, survive, and/or a sense of being in competition with one another and only looking out for our own (or our family’s/nation’s etc) interests.
It is Civilisation Traum that perpetuates the so-called ‘drama triangle’, in which we continuously attempt to get our needs met from a place of presuming lack (so called ‘scarcity consciousness’), by unconsciously identifying as victim, persecutor or rescuer.
Civilisation Trauma is the cause of, and synonymous with our collective pain body. Systemic injustice - and all the myriad ways power-over culture leads to us marginalising, oppressing and abusing certain people, identities, groups, species and ways of being and feeling, is the manifestation of our collective pain body. When our nervous system freezes in response to fear, Life’s inherently regenerative force gets trapped in our (pain) bodies where it stagnates and becomes distorted. It is largely behaviours driven by power-over culture that lead to this fear-based freeze response in us.
Co-liberation from systemic injustice therefore requires us to heal and transform our individual and collective pain bodies since this is where Civilisation Trauma and power-over culture lives on through us and our groups.
For more on Civilisation Trauma check out our Design Principle here.
* Vanessa Machado de Oliveira is the author of the seminal book, Hospicing Modernity.
Co-liberation
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let’s work together.” Lila Watson, Aboriginal elder and activist.
Co-liberation points to the reality that freedom from the atrocities of power-over culture is not something we can achieve for ourselves or for others. We are each entangled in ‘an inescapable network of mutuality’ as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says. Meaning “nobody's free until everybody's free.” (civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer).
Co-liberation is another way of saying ‘composting power-over culture’. That is, rewilding our psyches beyond the strangleholds of power-over to more and more experience the freshness of each entangled moment without being beholden to the cultural conditioning that leads us to believe in the illusion of separability; an illusion that leads to the atrocities of white supremacy, racism, sexism, ableism, gender normativity, extractivism and so much more.
Composting
Composting is the slow, embodied, relational process through which outdated Skins of Modernity and protective strategies are metabolised rather than discarded. Unlike shedding (which is the loosening or breakdown of old forms), composting integrates the wisdom, grief, and life-force held within them, allowing new ways of being to emerge without recreating old patterns. Composting requires time and cultural containers that support primal attunement, safety, and relational support.
See also: Protective Strategies / Coping Strategies| Skins of Modernity | Civilisation Trauma / Primal Attunement
For a fuller description of Skins of Modernity and how they relate with composting see here
Coping Mechanisms
Coping mechanisms are the ways we manage distress, activation, or overwhelm when deeper support or safety is not available. They are often conscious or semi-conscious and tend to focus on reducing intensity rather than transforming its root causes.
Examples include distraction, numbing, productivity, intellectualising, avoidance, self-soothing, or stabilising practices used in isolation.
Coping mechanisms are not wrong or pathological. Within cultures shaped by civilisation trauma, they are often necessary and protective. Over time, however, when relied upon as the primary way of meeting our needs, they can solidify into deeper protective strategies and become part of what we call Skins of Modernity.
Our work does not aim to remove coping mechanisms, but to cultivate the conditions - relational, cultural, Earth-rooted and soul-crafting, in which coping can gradually give way to shedding and composting.
See also: Protective Strategies | Skins of Modernity | Composting | Civilisation Trauma
For a fuller description of Skins of Modernity and they relate with coping mechanisms see here
Decolonisation
"De-colonization : the pursuit of liberation, reclaiming mind and heart from the legacy of colonialism, i.e. personal, interpersonal, and institutional domination over people and the natural world. This process demands that we acknowledge historic and ongoing traumas from colonization, genocide, white supremacy, and systemic racism. It requires actions accountable to people of color by creating and securing structural changes that insure equity and right relationship."
Source: https://journal.workthatreconnects.org/evolving-edges/
The following is from the glossary of Racial Equity tools
"Decolonization may be defined as the active resistance against colonial powers, and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, cultural, psychic independence and power that originate from a colonized nation’s own indigenous culture. This process occurs politically and also applies to personal and societal psychic, cultural, political, agricultural, and educational deconstruction of colonial oppression."
Source: The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), “Glossary.”
"Per Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang: “Decolonization doesn’t have a synonym”; it is not a substitute for ‘human rights’ or ‘social justice’, though undoubtedly, they are connected in various ways. Decolonization demands an Indigenous framework and a centering of Indigenous land, Indigenous sovereignty, and Indigenous ways of thinking."
Source: Eric Ritskes, “What Is Decolonization and Why Does It Matter?”
Drama Triangle
"Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle is a model of interpersonal roles derived from transactional analysis. This is a psychoanalytic theory and practice develop[ed by Eric Berne in the 1950’s that focuses on how people relate with each other… [It] explains the interdependence of the commonly adopted roles of ‘victim’, ‘rescuer’, ‘persecutor’, which for many people are learned in childhood through the workings of their family dynamics. The model is not static and … people … can ‘switch’ positions: a victim can become a persecutor and a rescuer can become a victim [for example].
The drama triangle does not map directly onto activist dynamics since the position of the ‘victim’ in particular was intended to suggest someone who is, in psychological terms, choosing to take the victim position in an interaction, even if the ‘choice’ is made subconsciously. This is obviously not the same as being the actual victim of an oppression or marginalisation, one that is subject of activism. And nor is it inevitable that experiencing oppression or marginalisation necessarily turns us into a victim; one of the problems with rescuers is their tendency to push people into a victim role they do not wish to occupy.”
Source: Anthea Lawson, The Entangled Activist
Expanding Consciousness
When we talk about ‘expanding consciousness’ we are referring to the process of revealing ways of being and experiencing life that we have marginalised and are therefore unaware of - which, alongside shadow work, includes experiencing ourselves as an entangled interdependent part of the wider web of Life - rather than exclusively as an individual human being.
Expanding consciousness is often understood to be an exclusively upwards and outwards movement towards transcendence i.e. connecting to the oneness of all life in the universe, often depicted as spirit, the divine or God. We also include its neglected mirror image, the downward and inward dimension that Thomas Berry calls inscendence. This dimension of consciousness connects us with the unique and wild part in each of us (what we call soul) that is in conversation with the invisible realms of the wild soul of Earth.
Inner-led change is about supporting us to expand into these more-than-human realms of consciousness so that our change-making is informed by our deep listening to that which is way beyond the limits of our hyper-individualistic human centric strategic-minds.
Healing and Wholing and Healing
The practice and path of becoming more psycho-spiritually resourced. It is an approach to responding to these times of civilisation trauma that is based on our essential un-brokenness, rather than our woundedness. This is not to erase the horrors or bypass the wounding, but rather to help us weave a basket larger than what has happened to us within which we can be held and heal- be that in community, in therapy, in nature and also with ourselves.
The process of Wholing and healing involves us rediscovering our inherent Wholeness - that which lives within our senses, our emotions, our somatic bodies, our sensuality, our sexuality, our connection with Eros, our creativity, our capacity to relate and attune across all four levels of primal attunement, our imagination and our capacity to access the deep imagination of the Cosmos - as well as our over-worked and heart-centred minds!
For us, Wholing and healing crucially includes healing our nervous system so that we are not only present to our own nervous system, but to the collective nervous system: the group field.
And as we reclaim more of our Wholeness, our wounding tends to make itself more and more available for healing. For us healing is about supporting our nervous systems back into more health and the presence, and the healthy relating this supports.
And it is also relating with the protective strategies and coping mechanisms - our Skins of Modernity, that seek to protect us from feeling the civilisation trauma held by our young vulnerable parts.
Human exceptionalism
This is the behavioral expression of the above mentioned Civilisation Trauma and the experience of oneself as separate and individual. The viewpoint of humans being more “special” than other species and having more “right” to the use of “natural resources” than others. And that our needs are more important than, say, the needs of river, mountain, prairie etc. Even, that no other creatures or beings have consciousness and are mere objects. Ouch.
Human as Interspecies
The term interspecies simply points to the reality that we humans are not separate as individuals or as a species - we exist interdependently with all other species as an integral part of the wider web of Life. Part of the root of Modernity is what Vanessa Machado de Oleveira calls “Separability”. Interspecies points to the wholeness and resource, rather than the wound.
Inner-led Change
See our web page “What is Inner-led Change”
Life-affirming World
We use this term to point to generative cycles of rupture and repair as well as participating in the creative life energy of our imaginations. We include death, composting, rot, destruction and even collapse as part of a life-affirming stance. We are Earth and part of nature, which includes volcanic eruptions and our dying, which serve to make way for life to spring again.
Modernity
A dominant cultural paradigm that has emerged over the last 500 years through colonial expansion, industrial capitalism and Enlightenment worldviews. It is shaped by interweaving systems including colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, hetero-normativity, gender normativity, and other norm-enforcing cultures that define who is considered ‘normal’, ‘productive’, ‘healthy’, ‘civilised’, worthy, or fully human.
Modernity not only organises society through power-over/under dynamics- structuring social, economic and relational life, it also conditions our inner worlds and our cultures (our individual and collective consciousness) into these same patterns. Over time, we internalise power-over/under ways of perceiving, relating and acting in the world, often unconsciously reproducing the very dynamics that harm us.
These dynamics are frequently expressed through patterns such as the drama triangle (persecutor, victim, rescuer), particularly within Western and global North contexts.
At its core, Modernity both normalises and reinforces separation - from land, ancestors and place; from spirit and soul; from community; and from parts of ourselves. These cultural forces are both born of and perpetuate civilisation trauma.
Skins of Modernity are protective adaptations shaped by living within this paradigm. Shedding and composting these Skins is not about rejecting ourselves or making ourselves wrong, but about transforming the conditioned patterns of separation and power-over/under into more relational, Earth-centric ways of being.
Other than/more than Human
By other-than-human we mean our wild allies including rivers, rocks, and other things normally considered inanimate objects. In our experience and that of humans for 99% of our existence, we understand the others to be neither inanimate nor objects, but rather subjects with agency and consciousness.
By more-than-human we mean the invisible dimensions of Life (and death) such as our ancestors, Myth and the underworld, the angelic realms and the realms of spirit and soul.
When we use the terms 'other-than-human', ‘more than human’, ‘world’ and ‘whole earth community’ - we are referring to both human beings, and those beings that are ‘not human’ or that are beyond this human dimension.
Post-activist
Beyond reacting against the way it is because “what we resist persists”. Stepping away from those tools of activism that lead to burnout and repetition of power-over culture. Decentering the human narrative. Expanding our attention beyond the power-over culture and practices of government and organisations means creating alternatives that give them less power over us. Post-activist is not non-activist, it means not centring the problem as a way of addressing it, which would result in replicating the problem through the same power-over consciousness that created it. With thanks to Bayo Akomolafe for his fierce presencing of post-activism.
Power-over/under Paradigm
We use the phrase "power-over/under" to point towards the way power, which we understand as Life Force, is used in a particular way- namely, to predict, control and dominate others. The current power dynamic of this late stage consumerist capitalist culture is one based on violence, oppression, extraction, colonisation, supremacy and human-centrism. Karpman’s ‘drama triangle’, as described above, is a simple way of describing how power-over/under culture plays out in modernity and is internalised within almost all our relating.
It's important to note that on a psychological level it is the dance between our internalisation of both power-over - and - power-under (victim) protective strategies that maintains this paradigm.
It is also important to add that what we are pointing to here in no way denies the reality that there are very real perpetrators and victims of power-over. What we are pointing to are the psychological strategies we develop to protect ourselves from the feeling the pain of living in Modernity, and this power-over/under paradigm.
Protective Strategies
Protective Strategies are the specific behaviours, inner roles, trauma responses, and coping mechanisms we develop — often early in life — to protect ourselves from overwhelm, harm, abandonment, or power-over/under. Protective strategies are the functional mechanisms that make up our Skins of Modernity. They include inner critics, people-pleasing, control, withdrawal, addiction, rescuing, and more. They are intelligent, adaptive, and deserve respect — even as they are composted.
See also: Coping Strategies| Skins of Modernity | Composting | Civilisation Trauma/ Primal Attunement
For a fuller description of Skins of Modernity and they relate with protective strategies see here
Primal Attunement
Primal Attunement refers to the cultivated capacity for felt, embodied responsiveness to and with self, other humans, the other-than-human world, and the invisible other-than-human dimension of Life (Mystery, soul, spirit, ancestors, myth, archetypal forces etc). It is the foundational “Mother Culture” that makes the shedding and composting of our Skins of Modernity possible, counteracting the disconnection caused by unprocessed civilisation trauma.
See also: Skins of Modernity | Civilisation Trauma/ Composting
For a full description of Skins of Modernity and how they relate with Primal Attunement see here
Rupture and Repair
When we talk about ‘rupture and repair’ we are referring to the transformativeness potential of conflict. The processes of ‘rupture’ and ‘repair’ are part of the Life-Death-Life cycle that Earth renews herself through. It is through rupture - a volcano eruption, tidal wave, earthquake, forest fire - that evolutionary leaps and symbiotic relationships are forged. Mitochondria, placentas, oxygen breathing organisms, lichen, all arose through the stress of rupture and the inherent impulses towards repair and creativity. The problem is when the system does not have time to regenerate because the level of rupture is constant or too large. When we apprentice to Earth’s capacity for creative transformation through repair after rupture, we learn about these historic times from a very different perspective. We must pause when rupture is present, and give space for repair to happen - refraining from forcing it in a particular direction. We cannot control repair, we can only hold the intention and create the conditions for its happening. Otherwise, we will only repeat the previous ways of being and knowing and the opportunity for imaginal leaps in consciousness and creative never before seen creatures will never be born. Can we be both patient and deeply present for the repair that can holistically emerge after rupture?
See our own approach to Rupture and Repair within our organisation for more.
Skins of Modernity
Skins of Modernity are the embodied, relational, psychological, and identity-level adaptations we develop in order to survive within modern, colonial, power-over/under cultures. They are shaped by civilisation trauma and show up as protective strategies, habits, identities, trauma responses and relational patterns that once served us but often now limit life, intimacy, belonging and an Earth- and soul-rooted life. Skin-shedding and composting are central to inner-led, decolonising change across personal, collective and cultural levels.
Protective Strategies / Coping Strategies / Composting/ Civilisation Trauma/ Primal Attunement
For a fuller description see here
Social Engagement part of the nervous system
Our central nervous system is made up of two parts - the sympathetic (fight or flight) dimension and parasympathetic (rest and digest/ regenerate) dimension. When our nervous system is healthy we are able to move effortlessly between sympathetic and parasympathetic states of being - action and rest. In recent years experts have discovered that the parasympathetic part of our nervous system contains what we can call our ‘social engagement system’ - that is, the capacity to emotionally attune and be relational. Civilisation trauma means that most of us in Modernity spend much of our time stuck in the sympathetic state of fight or flight, without access to the emotional attunement that resides in the parasympathetic part of our nervous system. Emotional attunement is the antidote to power-over culture - and this is why healing and transforming trauma sits at the heart of composting power-over culture.
Soulcraft
Soulcraft practices inherently evoke inner-led change at the threshold of; the inner and the outer; the human and Other than human, and activate the composting of power-over culture from the inside-out. They support us to more fully and consciously become who we uniquely are within the wider web of Life and to listen to the ways we authentically must respond to what is happening in the world, as a manifestation of our very particular way of loving the world. This is what the world is longing for through each and every one of us.
Soulcraft is a term coined by Bill Plotkin, whose first book is of this name.
In order to grow this soul-embodied way of being in the world, Bill suggests three main categories of soulcrafting practices:
- Practices for leaving home /becoming an emotionally healthy adult
- Pathways to soul encounter (when our soul reveals its very particular mythic flavour to us)
- Cultivating a soulful relationship with life
These three categories of practice are foundational to all programs, events and mentoring Starter Culture offers such that our intention is to support participants to discover their Soul in the world and the unique gifts they were born to cultivate, craft and share.
Underworld
The place where the essence of all things is in conversation and co-creation. In common vernacular, the underworld is often conflated with trauma and seen as a place of suffering, depression, addiction and torment. In our experience and understanding, the underworld is a place of magic, mystery and soul - which in its inclusion of Life’s everythingness includes, yet goes well beyond trauma and suffering. Yes, there are difficult passages on the road to alchemising our sacred gifts, alongside ecstasy, eros, beauty and power. The underworld is a place where our own Soul, our essence, is in relationship with the essence of all beings - human and other than human, in Kairos’ time out of time. There we might speak with the gods, or the spirit of a tree or stone, as a person rather than an object. Slipping across the threshold to the underworld is a shifting of consciousness that when ritually and intentionally practiced through drumming, singing, wandering in wildish places, dream and other practices, holds the age-old keys to the deep cultural transformation being demanded by these momentous times.
Wild Reciprocity
The relational give and take between humans and other than humans and the wild. The beyond-civilisation conversation that happens between the human spirit and the Holy in the Wild. Offerings from human hands, heart, voice to feed Earth and Life, and which feeds us.
Wise and Well Ancestors
Those ancestors who have “done their work” and are able to support us in our healing of intergenerational trauma, as well as in our generating of abundance and well being in this life. These are the ancestors we want to cultivate direct relationship with - because they are also able to support and heal those ancestors who were not able to do this work and thereby reside as ‘hungry ghosts’ perpetuating the ancestral trauma we are here to heal and transform. It’s important that we call in the support of these wise and well ancestors whilst also holding healthy boundaries in relation to these hungry ghosts. For more on ancestral healing and cultivating relationship with our wise and well ancestors.
See https://ancestralmedicine.org/ for more.
Woundology
Woundology refers to identifying ourselves almost exclusively through the story of our wounding and its resulting magnetic pull as it hoodwinks us into allowing it to take the centre-stage of our lives. If we do not tend our own inner children that are still waiting to receive the love and care they didn’t receive, or had bad things happen to them, they will tyrannize our lives and our relationships with others.
Full Glossary List
