The arrival of summer has been filled with wildflowers and travels.
While in Morocco the green grasses have turned dry and golden, here in the east of Holland, our garden has been fluttering with color, and with the comings and goings of birds. Meanwhile, my news feed has been flickering with far too much to mention.
You know what I mean. Between war, global warming, and growing polarization, the question What can I do? quietly buzzes in the background—demanding attention like a bee, desperate for the nectar that sustains its life.
What can I do to stop this flow of madness?
What can I do to help create a world I believe in?
And yet, perhaps hidden inside that very question, What can I do?, some kind of answer is already waiting. Because too much doing—too much striving, seeking and reaching—springs from the old belief that life needs fixing. Forcing. Solving. Maybe it’s that very pattern that has brought us to this edge.
So if there’s anything we should do, maybe it’s simply this: stop, look, and listen. To begin again the art of meeting the moment, coming home to the Earth, and remembering who we really are—stewards of beauty, keepers of ecology.
I’m sharing some of the things I’ve read, watched, and listened to last month—things that have kept my river running. Stories and inspiration that have helped me move forward and orient myself toward the kind of future I want to live in. Things that have kept me pointing in the right direction (or, at times, simply offered the gift of a very necessary distraction).
Looking at the list now, I notice my ongoing thread: a curiosity about ways of being and doing that feel older, deeper, more rooted. A remembering of what we might have once known—a more indigenous, more connected way of being.
What Does Europe Look Like in a Matriarchy?
The Year the Horses Came by Mary Mackey
Long before the rise of patriarchy, Europe was home to cultures shaped by matriarchal values—more cyclical than linear, more cooperative than conquering. In The Year the Horses Came, the first novel in Mary Mackey’s Earthsong trilogy, we’re invited into what this world could have looked like in that undocumented, forgotten, and often misinterpreted time. She takes us into the earth-centered, Goddess-worshiping cultures of Neolithic Europe. To me, it not only felt like remembering something we’ve long known but lost, but also a glimpse into how we might live again.
What If We Could Hear Earth’s Ancient Voice?
The Eternal Song (film + 7‑day gathering)
The Eternal Song hasn’t been just a documentary—but a global ceremony. Directed by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo under the auspices of Science and Nonduality (SAND), The Eternal Song weaves together a cinematic journey and a week-long gathering of Indigenous elders, healers, and wisdom-keepers from 13 ancestral territories. For me, this gathering has been profoundly inspiring, providing practical and conceptual ways for re‑weaving our lives into kinship with Earth and each other, reminding us how we might live differently again.
When Systems Rot, Tricksters Rise
The Trickster — The Emerald Podcast
One of my ever-abundant sources for insight and inspiration is The Emerald Podcast, created and hosted by Joshua Schrei. Rich with myth, music, and meaning-making, The Emerald explores the deep structures of story, consciousness, and culture—and how they shape the world we live in.
A recent episode called The Trickster asked a question that has been ringing in my ears ever since: Can systems ritualize their own disruption and renewal in order to avoid rot from within?
For those unfamiliar with the Trickster figure: Tricksters appear across cultures and mythologies as the one who breaks the rules, speaks the unspeakable, and throws a wrench into whatever has become too tight, too righteous, or too fixed. This episode reminded me that vitality depends on disruption—that movement, openness, and even mischief are essential to staying alive, individually and collectively. In that sense, it absolutely speaks to the moment we live in.
A Playlist to Return Rooted
Listen on Spotify
This is a playlist I’m slowly crafting, some songs to keep me rooted. It is woven from voices and rhythms from across Sub-Saharan Africa: from Morocco to Mali, Ethiopia, Niger, and Senegal. What I love about this kind of music is that, divinity is not a distant concept but something sung into being—with breath, with skin, with rhythm. These are songs that don’t separate Spirit from Earth, or prayer from the pulse of daily life, but calling something ancient back into our bones.
A Summer Escape into Magic and Heroism
Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
When I want to lose myself in a world of myth, magic, and adventure, Sarah J. Maas is one of my go-to writers. Her Throne of Glass series follows Celaena Sardothien, a fiercely skilled and complex heroine who’s been called every bit as heroic as Frodo or Jon Snow. Maas’s characters are vivid, resilient, and often wonderfully flawed—heroes and heroines who make us care deeply. If you’re looking for a good distraction this summer—a story to get lost in, full of magic, mystery, and epic quests—this series is it. (And if you haven’t yet dipped into Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, it’s perhaps her best to keep you turning pages all season long.)
These are beautiful recommendations, Fenja. Thank you. As a writer and teacher, I resonate with your ideas.