The Way Forward Is by Going Back
In a time of global crisis, the answers lie in rediscovering ancient wisdom, sustainable living, and community resilience.
We are living in a period of anxiety, disorientation and existential fear.
The world isn’t just in crisis, it’s in a meta-crisis: a convergence of ecological collapse, social fragmentation, political instability, economic inequality, and technological overreach.
These aren’t isolated events. They’re entangled, feeding off one another in a destructive feedback loop.
Efforts to address any one problem without addressing the whole is like treating a cancer patient with a band-aid.
And it’s just as effective.
Because the system itself is breaking down.
So where do we go from here?
Do we give up and collapse in defeat, or live it up while we still can and join the dance band on the Titanic?
Do we pray for a miraculous intervention, possibly from friendly ETs?
Do we double down on hyper-individualism, try to out-run the collapse, and isolate ourselves in privilege?
Or is there another path. One that doesn’t lead us forward in the usual sense, but brings us back to something older, wiser, and more whole?
I believe the way forward is by going back.
Back to the land. Back to our bodies. Back to each other.
Back to the quiet, grounded wisdom that has sustained human life for millennia
Remembering What We've Forgotten
I grew up on a farm in Maine.
We lived in rhythm with the seasons. We grew our own vegetables and froze them in the summer to eat through the long, snowy winters. When something broke, we fixed it. We didn’t throw things away, we made them last.
Our community shared tools, traded favors, helped each other through tough times. There was nothing glamorous about it. But there was a deep kind of intelligence there, an embodied, relational intelligence.
That lifestyle wasn’t branded as “sustainable” or “resilient” back then. It was just life.
Today, convenience has replaced resilience. We rely on pre-made meals, same-day shipping, and disposable everything.
We've outsourced the basic functions of living—food, shelter, repair, care— to systems that profit from our dependence. And those systems are not only unsustainable, they are unraveling as we watch.
Our food is toxic. Our soil is depleted. Our water is tainted. Our climate is destabilizing. Our social fabric is thread-bare.
And while billionaires multiply their wealth, ordinary people are burning out, checking out, or breaking down.
This isn’t just unfortunate. It’s the natural outcome of a system, late-stage capitalism, that places profit above life.
We are swimming in the consequences of an extractive worldview that treats the Earth as a resource, people as tools, and relationships as transactions.
The Culture of Disconnection
Our disconnection is not just ecological or economic, it’s deeply cultural and spiritual.
We’ve lost the rituals and relationships that once tethered us to something larger than ourselves. We no longer know where our food comes from, how our clothes are made, or who lives next door.
We live in a digital trance, bombarded by information but starved for meaning. We scroll instead of touch, click instead of converse. We are more "connected" than ever, yet lonelier than we’ve ever been and we don’t know how to live in community,
For example, recently I tried to give away perfectly good items in a local “Buy Nothing” group, things someone could genuinely use. It was like pulling teeth. We’ve been so conditioned to consume passively that even free, intentional exchange feels foreign.
The very idea of community interdependence, has been eroded by decades of individualism and consumerism.
And yet, this culture of disconnection is killing us. Literally.
Late-stage capitalism profits from disconnection. Disconnection from nature, from each other, and from ourselves.
Our soil is depleted
Our food is increasingly toxic
Our communities are fragmented
Our bodies and nervous systems are overstimulated
Our landfills are overflowing
Our food sources and our bodies are filled with microplastics
It’s time to let go of what is killing us.
Rising rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness, chronic illness, and despair are symptoms of a system that has severed us from the sources of real nourishment: community, creativity, land, purpose.
We’re not meant to live like this; disembodied, hyperstimulated, and cut off from our own needs.
Healing asks us to slow down and come back to what’s real: soil, breath, sweat, laughter, care.
Coming back to the land is not just a spiritual metaphor. It’s a trauma-informed, nervous system-regulating practice. Gardening, walking barefoot, and cooking from scratch restore peace to a depleted inner world.
Returning to the Roots
So what do we do?
We remember. We return. We rebuild.
We start by reconnecting with the Earth as kin and partners rather than as tourists or sight-seers. We remember that the land is not a backdrop to our lives, but the ground of our being.
Indigenous traditions all over the world have preserved this truth, even in the face of colonization and erasure:
That we belong to the Earth, and not the other way around.
That healing is relational, reciprocal, and rooted in place.
Returning to the roots isn’t a metaphor. It means actually touching the soil, getting our hands dirty, planting food, harvesting rainwater, restoring ecosystems.
It means re-skilling; learning how to mend, cook, grow, and build. It means valuing manual labor and embodied knowledge, not just digital expertise and academic credentials.
These are critical tools for climate resilience and local self-sufficiency.
We need to step away from our screens, get out of our heads and get into our bodies.
We were taught that working with our hands was lesser than working with our minds. That manual labor was something to escape. That convenience is the highest goal. That all of the answers were in our minds, not our hands.
But there’s a kind of intelligence that lives in our hands, in growing, building, cooking, repairing. We can lean into the wisdom of our hands and our bodies in reclamation of our humanity.
Healing also means reconnecting with one another through daily acts of care. Cooking together. Fixing things together. Sharing tools and stories and time. Practicing mutual aid not as charity, but as a way of life.
And it also means reconnecting with ourselves.
Not just the thinking, productive self that society rewards, but the sensing, feeling, vulnerable Self that longs for belonging.
We need to come back into our bodies, out of our heads and away from our screens. That’s where regulation lives. That’s where presence begins.
Letting Go to Reclaim What Matters
To do this, we’ll have to let go of some things. We’ll have to relinquish certain comforts and conveniences that are actively harming us.
That might mean buying less (or not at all), cooking instead of ordering out, repairing instead of replacing. It might mean turning off devices and turning toward the messier, slower, more meaningful work of relationship and community.
This isn’t about romanticizing the past or rejecting technology. It’s about discernment. And recognizing that not everything new is better, and not everything fast is wise.
It’s about recovering ways of living that center care, reciprocity, and sustainability, not extraction and speed.
The path ahead isn’t about acceleration but about slowing down and returning…
To indigenous wisdom.
To ancestral ways of knowing.
To local economies, shared labor, and sacred reciprocity.
Remembering and relearning these ways is about reverence, relationship, and repair. Realizing that we already have what we need, inside us, around us, and between us.
We just have to reclaim it.
Building What Comes Next
The good news is: we don’t have to start from scratch. All over the world, people are remembering!
People are recognizing that we need to stop dividing and polarizing, and start connecting daily with one another. We have more in common than we believe.
Regenerative living is inherently communal. We were never meant to do this alone.
Across the globe, people are quietly building the new within the shell of the old. This is the future:
Sharing tools and resources
Local Buy Nothing groups
Bartering and gift economies
Repairing instead of replacing
Learning skills from our elders
Community gardens
Homesteading and soil regeneration
Neighborhood resilience pods
Parents homeschooling using nature-based curricula
They’re building regenerative farms, tool libraries, housing co-ops, repair cafes, time banks, intentional communities, and decentralized mutual aid networks.
They are growing food, raising children together, organizing for justice, and caring for the land.
They are saying no to extractive systems and yes to life. Yes to each other.
This is the revolution. It may not look like one, but it is. Quiet, slow, local, rooted, relational. It doesn’t ask for spectacle. It asks for commitment. It asks for practice. And it starts with returning to what we already know in our bones:
That we belong to the Earth.
That we belong to each other.
That the way forward is by going back.
If this essay spoke to something in you, I’d love to hear what you’re remembering or reclaiming in your own life.
How Healing Happens is a space for explorations about how we heal from trauma and emotional pain. Here you will find authentic reflections on healing and personal growth grounded in the science and spirit. If you resonate with vulnerable essays and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. If you enjoyed this essay you can support my work by “liking” the post, sharing with a friend or subscribing.
Thank you for being here.
© Linnea Butler 2025
This whole premise (reconnecting with ourselves) can be achieved in our inner lives by writing a memoir - or at least beginning to write about where we've been and who we've been in former decades. In this world that changes so much, so fast, constantly on the run forward, we are missing out on the continuity of ourselves and each other through time. Reading and writing memoirs is the path forward toward a more holistic understanding of inhabiting a human self, society, and shared environment.
This year I'm looking deeply at the earth beneath my feet. I live in the high desert. The soil is challenged and 'dead'. I've been building soil with mulch. This year I'm putting in some compost and a small vege garden. Crossing my fingers I've done enough.