Can chaos cause the future we want?
What The Moon has to say about cause and effect and chaotic times
What follows is a transcript of an interview with the moon. Conducted February 3, 2025.
ISA: Dear moon - It feels really chaotic down here. What should I do?
MOON: There is little in this world without pattern, cycle, cause, and effect. From here, your world does not look so chaotic.
ISA: Maybe from where you are. You’re far away. You understand, though, that humans do not generally like chaos? It scares us. What should we do?
MOON: Understand that chaos is a costume.
ISA: (sighs, exasperated) Meaning… what exactly?
MOON: You keep cloaking change in words and stories that scare you: chaos, death, ending. These words are costumes, masks for the natural order of cause and effect.
ISA: I was talking more about the politicians…
MOON: On stage, you watch a dance, catch the glint off a red velvet robe, get swept up in the music. Meanwhile, the scenery is moved and rearranged behind in the shadows. Acknowledge there is a performance happening, and then look beyond. Your job is to discern deeper. (Most everything I have to teach you is about depth.) The performance is rarely what is actually happening. Stop trying to make meaning from their gestures and grand-standing. You cannot plan around smoke and mirrors. Train yourself to track the moving scenery, not what is staged in the spotlight. This way, you will not be disoriented by what you see when the scene is over and the next one begins.
ISA: Moon, they are putting people in chains, and sending them to places they’ve never been before. They are trying to re-segregate our country, hide information, jail doctors and children. They are erasing so much so fast. I knew it was coming, but it’s hard to keep up.
MOON: Do you think your world can be rearranged without chaos? I told you there is little in this world without cause and effect. The effects you want are the same effects so many humans have wanted. Remember I have held vigil for every tear ever cried in the middle of the night—from you, from your ancesors, from the animals, from Earth herself. Every tear I have witnessed. Every spell and song I have received. I have heard your desires over and over for centuries: you want your societies to be kinder, you want Earth’s face to be green and blue again, you want to belong, you want to be free and safe. You think those things will come to pass without chaos? The effects you want will not grow out of the dry ground you currently stand on. Do the old ways not have to fall apart first? Is not chaos one of the many causes of the better future you want?
I want you to enter into a practice of working with chaos. They are not the only ones who can wield it.
