trust

Broken Up and Down

~ Emma

Break ups suck. Even when it’s the right thing. “We’re gonna be fine. We have to do it and it’s the right thing to do. And nothing bad happens when you’re doing the right thing.” Ryan Gosling once said. George Clooney followed that line up with, “Is this your personal theory? ‘Cause I can shoot holes in it.”

I am in the process of breaking up with my phone and technology’s influence on my life. Complete overhaul, something I knew I needed to do because well, I want to feel what it’s like to be alone with myself again. Totally alone. And if you know me, you know I prize being alone. But even when I think I’m alone now, I’m not really.

“Our attention is the most valuable thing we have. We experience only what we pay attention to. We remember only what we pay attention to. When we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our lives…If you wanted to invent a device that could rewire our minds, if you wanted to create a society of people who were perpetually distracted, isolated, and overtired, if you wanted to weaken our memories and damage our capacity for focus and deep thought, if you wanted to reduce empathy, encourage self-absorption, and redraw the lines of social etiquette, you’d likely end up with a smartphone” – Catherine Price, How To Break Up With Your Phone.

Does this not scare you?

In my third year of Sociology, I took a course called, “Technology and Society.” It was one of the scariest academic four and a half months of my degree. And that’s saying something because there were many “scary” moments learning Sociology. But scary in that amazing way. At least, I thought it was amazing.

This was 2007. At the time I was much on the same page with the theme of the course being how technology is ruining people and taking us further away from our natural humanness. Fast forward to 2026. Yeah…like…holy shit.

A lot of attention was paid in that class, showing up for every lecture like it was a lifeline. I knew if I missed out on anything, I’d probably regret it. This one was different than any other course. I was really excited for each following lecture because I sort of felt like someone was telling me something from the future that I needed to keep in my back pocket really securely for the next twenty years, and I guess for the rest of my life. And now this information, there’s just too much of it. My pockets are overflowing. I am, you are, ticking time bombs now. The longer we let devices do what they’re doing, the closer we come to exploding. Oh wait, crap, that’s already happened.

What we know has no impact, gaining insight about this addiction crisis means zippo unless we start doing something about, what we know. And I love the people out there who are doing this. And now I’m one of them.

I sat in the very front row of that class each week. The professor would speak as if he was already in 2026 and he knew the future of my brain, of everyone’s brains. It’s exactly what I’m reading now about the things that phones are doing to us. But reading and hearing about it, is a different story than living it right? We all know we should be spending less time on our devices. But habits are not easy to change, especially this particular one because there’s a zillion people out there employed to make sure, we stay hooked and never break it. My prof described at the time how cell phones and technology eventually would be controlling our lives and how quickly we will lose our sense of relating with each other as we become codependent with technology. What did that even mean? Gotcha. I know now.

I was kind of anti technology at the time. Still am. I didn’t like having a cell phone and it really frustrated people when they couldn’t reach me when I lived abroad (shout out to Hayley and Munky who could never find me at Bondi or Coogee). Everyone had Nokia cell phones texting and arranging where to go and meet and I was always the one who left my cell in my dorm room and continued to use the landline on my desk. I just didn’t want people knowing where I was and I didn’t like texting to make plans. I like talking, with those things we have in our throats, vocal chords. You know those two bands of smooth muscle tissue located in the larynx at the top of the trachea? Ya, those. And I like planning ahead. “Let’s meet here at this time. If something happens and we miss each other, let’s try again another day.” If they showed up at that time and place amazing, they knew if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get another chance to rearrange plans or chat to me that day until I got home. A fun trick to know who actually wants to see your face and who’s just treating you like an option. Some days I was left standing at the beach bus stop alone, only to get back to my dorm room that night to seven missed calls and fourteen texts from Munky being like, “I got caught up painting meet me at Coogee instead!” I headed to Bondi that day and had a blissful afternoon watching the surfers and eating fish and chips solo. At twenty three that behaviour flies, at forty two, see ya.

Building meaningful and strong connections does not happen through a device. I knew that when I was twenty and I know it even more now.

No wonder people feel so starved for depth of connection these days. Sure you could say the opposite, that staying connected through a phone is effort, but the way you use the device is what makes or breaks the connection. I very much believe we are getting further away from actually knowing each other. I don’t care what you say, this stuff on the phone…it’s not connection. It gives us wonderful things to make our lives better, but it’s still establishing an unhealthy addiction. Slowly, or maybe faster than we think, reconfiguring our brains.

I like when people say, “Let’s stay connected.” I’m always like, “Ok, how should we do that? What does connection mean and feel like for you?” They look at me funny like I just asked them if cheetahs are waterproof.

Getting clarity on the definition of connection is important to me, as it’s different for everyone. Mostly because I am completely finished with any kind of connection that isn’t in the realm of, “Who are you…really?” You reach your 40’s and you stop giving fucks about stuff that used to matter so much. I’m after depth and interest and honest, raw communicating, with like open ended questions, lots of them. You want to know someone, open end question the hell out of them. I was after this in my 20’s and 30’s too not just now. I’m still after it today because it’s a secret weapon.

So I’m breaking up with my phone. Breaking this down into a full on, nuanced break up. I wanted to do this when I was 23 and here I am almost 42 doing the same thing. Some things don’t change, some things change a lot. Changing my notifications, alerts, deleting apps, cleaning up screens and pages, no more badges, greyscale mode, Auto Reply text messages alerting that I’m “out of the office and living like it’s 1996” and, before I reach for my phone I will ask myself, what for, why now and what else. What else could I do right now other than check my phone? Why am I picking it up right now? What am I picking it up to do?

I’m ok with change, especially when I know this is going to be a really good thing. Break ups take time, adjusting to new habits and going through withdrawal and riding out the urges, understanding why this is the best thing for me to do for my health while also recognizing that some people won’t understand, agree or want to share in this break up mentality with me. That’s ok, I can’t be anything but me: keep unfollowing the herd, listening to my own beats and walking down a path that’s lonely sometimes, but it’s as Munky might say, “less constrained.”

“Phone. noun: a device that uses either a system of wires along which electrical signals are sent or a system of radio signals to make it possible for you to speak to someone in another place who has a similar device.”

Key word, “speak.”

Life is not meant to be like this and I will resist the way technology is taking over and wrecking our brains and social skills and our ability to pay attention, until I’m wrinkled and grey. It is lonely sometimes, but it is also cleaner, fresher, quieter, simpler and a lot less chaotic.  

We are all addicts now and what the next twenty years are going to look like, I honestly am not super stoked to find out. However, I can feel something brewing that I can’t quite put my finger on just now. And if you’re reading this today, remember I said this and call me up in twenty years on your landline! I wish I could meet my professor for coffee and see where he’s at now with all of this…stuff.

Nothing bad is going to happen. It’s the right thing to do. No holes in this theory. Just do it. Raise your vibration my fellow souls. What one person can do so can another. Will, persistence, focus, motivation, drive, consistency. Then one day magic, you’ve changed a habit and your brain is better for it.

“We must act, individually and collectively, to make our attention our own again, and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of living.” – Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants.

Last thing. I’ve removed the “like” and “comments” feature on my blog because…nope. If you like reading these fantastic, but I don’t need to know anymore. Some things are best left a mystery. There is a better and more meaningful way to let someone know you like something they did. I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.

When the Clocks Stop

~ Emma ~ 2 Comments

The day had rain and so did the night.
Cool sparkles on tall towers flashing and few;
I held out my tongue to taste, the sound of you.

You whispered and then screamed.
Confused were many but some so sure;
The temperature changing creating a blur.

Silence please, momentary stillness you gave.
A tear in the fabric my clothes are worn and holed;
The dampness outside and now in, leaves me quite cold.

Receiving and receiving, eloquent angels of mine.
Your language subtle, clear, persistent and radical;
My layer is shed now what’s left, a new botanical.

Hanging and sitting tick, tick, tick.
Years of noise a tapestry turned into a portal;
Seek what is beyond the hands of the immortal.

The breeze is with me I feel your message on my skin.
A realignment, unaltered contemplation in the quiet;
I am walking to mend your broken stagnation. What a riot.

Stopping, pausing, holding, nothing without nothing.
Emerging in the night what was not had in the day;
I graciously hold your screams and whispers, never alone I stay.

There is time, here and there we end but begin again.
I am waiting for you and for you too, can you come back?
I promise to give you a most wonderful snack.

Breathless just so you know, I am emptying the overflow.
Time and time and time again, wiser am I to let go;
Synchronicity you have me, guided, decoded, and now I know.

Thank you to all of you, I see you.
Vibrations higher and higher…clean.
Time is back in motion – going toward I am not green.

Fire Horse

~ Emma ~ 3 Comments

The year of the “Fire Horse” happens about every 60 years. 2026 is the year of the Horse. If you were born in 1906, 1918, 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014 and 2026 this is your year. But it is also a Fire year. Next year is also a Fire year and the animal next year being the Goat. This is considered the “Red Horse and Red Goat Calamity” which will go on from February 17, 2026 to January 25, 2028. The last time this happened was 1966-1967. What happened in those two years for you if you were alive then, do you remember?

I love Astrology and being a fire sign myself, when I realized this was the year of the Horse but also the Fire Horse, it was a bit of an “aha” moment. Certain things really started to make more sense and as I began to research about this particular two year “calamity” that is upon us, I started to get really excited. Before I knew about the Fire Horse year, I could already sense something within my own fiery passion this year that was a little different. Can’t quite put my finger on this exactly. But it was something like, less hesitation towards things that were directly being controlled by my fire and also a comfort in trusting the way that that fire was burning now. The flames had changed. Choosing truth over safety felt a bit better. Something inside me is brighter right now. The existing flames that govern my life are blazing harder and with more intensity but also in a controlled, confident and easy to manage sort of way.

Fire is energy, passion, enthusiasm, movement and when combined with the energy of the horse, watch out because that energy is amplified to an almost chaotic place. I don’t know about you but I have felt even more on fire since the beginning of this year. This is not a quiet year. This is momentum and ignition. This year is decisive movement. The Fire Horse year is really quite beautiful. We are less tolerant of what drains us, more focused on movement than processing and something inside us feels sharper, more honest and clicked into place.

When you befriend the energies within you and understand how they function in every moment and when you let them speak and listen carefully and don’t apologize for the direction they are taking you, and when you trust in those energies however they may have shifted or grown, the Universe answers. The external energy combining with our internal producing an invisible alignment that is felt and unseen, hard to explain, but so full of force. Something is building.

Fire Horse energy does not wait for permission it rewards boldness and trusting in the self. “If you have been preparing, this year will feel like acceleration. The Fire Horse brings sudden opportunity, fast pivots, passion reignited, courage tested and visibility increased. It exposes where you are playing small. It amplifies where you are already aligned. This is not chaotic fire it is directional fire. The people who win in a Fire Horse year are the ones who move when the door opens instead of overthinking whether they deserve to walk through it. You are either pulled forward by momentum, or pushed forward by pressure. If you have felt the shift building, it’s not random. The frequency has changed.”

I found that description online somewhere and to everyone who needed to read that today, I hope it has given you some juice and some clarity. There’s so much about this fiery year that’s in store for all of us, I can feel it, it’s going to be intense and full of freedom. It’s going to be sensitive and powerful with lots of profound inner change. I already feel things changing and it just started. Damn that Fire Horse works fast, super sonic speed.

I found an amazing summary online by someone who really knows Chinese Astrological intricacies and instead of me paraphrasing, I’m going to share his words directly because they deserve to be read by more people, especially my people, you reading this, you are my people! So here they are. I know you’re smiling right now. As I type this I can feel your energy and the way that the Fire Horse is impacting you too. There are so many people that I care about who are on my mind and in my thoughts as I think about the next two years and what the Fire Horse will bring for you all. Aren’t you glad I started a Blog? Now you don’t need to go anywhere else for wisdom. I got you. Yes…YOU.  

“Fire is that which creates the center – earth. Fire always has a choice. It can harmonize around the center that has already been created. Or, it can reforge that center. So that is what we are doing here if we make that choice.

We all have a center within ourselves. And there are the centers of those things we are a part of. Our families, our communities, our friends, our countries. All of these will feel the heat.

Within ourselves, if we are good at taking responsibility for alignment with our own center – that in which we find our true self – then we can do amazing work.

Many of us need to do this work by making external changes. What we create on the outside gives answer to what we feel on the inside. And becomes a mirror for us to see within ourselves from. A reflection.

And what we create on the outside is going to be a part of the fire that is reshaping the centers of our families and our communities and our countries. So it is very important that we choose to be in good alignment with the lessons this inner fire brings us, so that the center we choose to create is a center that is able to be true for all of us. For we are all connected and our truths fit like puzzle pieces into the inner truths of others.

When there is division between us, it is a sign that our truths are not in alignment with each other. Like a bunch of pieces of metal scraps before they go into the forge to be melted down. That is what these years bring us. The heat to melt away our divisions, allowing us to be reforged as one again.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Thank you to the individual who produced this wonderfully detailed analysis. It was an important read for me today. I think Fire years tend to be more dramatic, fast moving and action oriented collectively and I’m definitely feeling the pace now.

February 17th marked the beginning. Did you feel it yesterday? Today? I sure did, what a shift. Now that you know this about this year, I hope you find your own perfect ways to harness this energy and this fire. Will you walk beside it or keep adding kindling to maintain it? Do you want to watch the horse cross the finish line standing in the bleachers cheering loudly or are you riding the horse, racing towards the finish line, wind blowing, gripped reins, breathing heavily, speed underneath you, freedom in your heart, passion in your soul. You get to choose. The fire is here to stay for two years. Use it in positive ways. Let it rage. Let it burn.

Blaze on beautiful souls!