Collapse + Rebirth

The Seven Dimensions of In-between, Part Four

The dominant systems, not our own, but capital letter big systems like government, education, family expectations, are breaking down and what comes next is not yet built.

We are living through systemic disorientation on an epic scale with systems and institutions unraveling before our eyes. The old forms no longer function and the new ones haven’t fully arrived. In that gap of raw, spacious, destabilized in-between, it’s easy to feel stunned, be in shock, brace, or rush. Or possibly to deny anything is really happening at all.

Denial is a natural defense. It offers the temporary relief of a soft buffer layer. But when denial hardens into avoidance, it freezes us in place amidst perceived rubble. It locks away the grief, possibility, and creativity that collapse makes available.

Collapse is not a failure. It’s a phase. It carries grief, yes, and also clarity. Not the clarity of solutions. It shows us what’s no longer working. That holds great value.

Destruction is also decomposition; decomposition is what feeds the soil. Creation begins not in clean blueprints but in ruins, in what remains, what refuses to disappear. This is not a pause. This is a portal.

To be in-between while our systems are also in-between is a strange kind of cultural alignment. Sacred, even. If we can resist the urge to fix, restore, or define too quickly, this could be a profoundly generative time. Reflection and re-creation dance together. We re-create while the universe re-creates us.

Of course, it’s not easy. The nervous system craves safety and structure. But sometimes what we call anxiety is simply the ache of old scaffolding falling away.

Long ago, I rode horseback up a volcano in the Galápagos. The path was barren—miles of black rock from a previous eruption. And yet, there in the cracks of cooled lava, I saw them: the tiniest, most tender flowers. They weren’t waiting beneath the surface with a plan. They weren’t strategizing governance or timelines. They simply responded when the time was right.

Not overnight. Over years.

Rebirth doesn’t come on command. It emerges in the cracks. Slow, quiet, beautiful…

There is nothing to rush. When the time to act arrives, you’ll know. In one of my most recent collapses, it took nearly a year of stillness before the next nine months of becoming. When I rushed, I spiraled into chaos. But when I slowed down, I remembered: I would be okay. And as it turns out, better than okay. I became alive. I remembered who I was and let myself be.

I came to understand:
Let something go. Build something new.
Let something go. Build something new.
The caterpillar becomes the butterfly.

Embodied example: You realize the old job, the old marriage, the old story of who you were, none of it fits anymore. But instead of rushing to replace it, you let yourself fall apart a little. You sleep. You cry. You listen. You throw down some dirt. Slowly, there they are! Green shoots. Growth!