One Direction
Constituting a Spiritual Democracy
Friends, bison, countryfolk,
As we explored last week, it is time to run a new American experiment - a Spiritual Democracy.
In this essay, I lay that out, but first I must address our nation’s troubled soul and the misguided humans who keep desecrating it. I have no desire to wade into the toxicity of our political media circus, but it is evident that almost all people in this circus have no idea what they are talking about nor the agency required to assert their point of view. Just a fair warning - I’m going to summon a little Old Testament wrath and fury, so there is no ambiguity as I address our elected officials and pundits across parties.
Dear pundits and politicians,
You don’t know what humanity is, what an adult is, or what our nation’s purpose is. As such, what you say means less than nothing. What you say injures every subject you address. Everything you say retards the conversation, making it hard for our troubled nation to learn and evolve, to heal our traumas and fulfill our nation’s purpose. Your outrage or joy or lament or schadenfreude over recent events is categorically unmoored by scholarship or self-actualization; you are guilty until proven innocent of spewing nonsense.
The word “adult” is a clear and unambiguous stage of development that arises after an adulthood rite of passage (surrendering our smaller ego identity for our larger transcendent / soul identity, healing our trauma, integrating our ego parts around our soul’s identity, activating our soul’s craft, and being welcomed as an adult into a community of other adults; this process takes 1-3 years). The word “humanity” can be understood by an adult (see above) who has then traveled to multiple intact cultures and/or has read the critical texts that illuminate the subject, such as Nature and the Human Soul, Wetiko, The Righteous Mind, Before War, and The Dawn of Everything.
To put a finer point on it, dear politician and pundit, unless you have completed an adulthood rite of passage and have engaged with the reading and/or traveling, your opinion about anything beyond your own life experience has no merit. If you haven’t done the inner work to become an adult, you do not have the agency required to advocate a point of view on adult matters. Further, if you haven’t done the reading or travel required to understand the human condition, you not only are unqualified to discuss it or how to improve it, but you don’t have the perspective required to understand your own human condition. You lack the self-awareness required to be heard on adult matters, and therefore you are now un-elected. I invite you to take a three-year sabbatical, complete the rites, read the books and immerse yourself into intact cultures, and then come back and serve. You are needed.
Now, friends, bison, countryfolk,
Let’s get to the matter at hand, running a new American experiment to fulfill our purpose.
In 2012, I sat down on my yoga mat and saw this quote on a card placed there for me by the teacher. She didn’t know I had just completed my purpose discovery journey when she placed it there. I regarded it as a serendipitous message, one that I would return to every morning since, as it still sits on my altar. It helped center and guide me as I completed my Purpose Guide training and certification, as I painfully blew up and realigned each area of my life wheel to express and support my purpose. It helped me write books about purpose. On this journey, I’ve learned that purpose is not the only thing, but that without it, we cannot move forward. It is essential. If we’re clear on our purpose, we can tack to it. If we’re not clear on it, we’ve got nowhere to go and all day to get there. So let’s get clear on it.
The United States has a purpose:
Principally, our purpose is to create all of us equally (“All… are Created Equal”). It is what President Lincoln called “the central tenet of our ancient faith”, what President Kennedy called “our moral crisis”, what President Reagan called “our heritage” and “birthright”, and what President Obama heralded as “the most evident of truths” and “the star that guides”. We fulfill this purpose materially and societally.
Materially, we stand up a political economy that guarantees that all people have all the rites, rights, relationships, resources, and responsibilities they need to realize the fullness of life, liberty, and happiness.
Societally, we develop a cultural and spiritual set of practices that allows us to become adults, to love ourselves wholly and love each American as much as ourselves (“E Pluribus Unum”).
That’s it. That’s our purpose on paper. [If you want to go deeper, you can read / listen to Parts 6, 7, and 8 of Bison Medicine for free here.] We fought and won a whole war to defend it. We then legislated and institutionalized it, but we have yet to embody it as a society. As should be evident, that third leg (culture, spirit, society, etc.) of our farmer’s stool is critical. As John Adams understood, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We cannot just have a principle (equality) and political economy designed to optimize it, or else our wetiko will corrupt and pervert everything. We have to be our purpose, to become it in our souls.
As Jonathan Rauch, an atheist Jew, argued in Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy, “My claim is not just that secular liberalism and religious faith are instrumentally interdependent but that each is intrinsically reliant on the other to build a morally and epistemically complete and coherent account of the world.” It is essential that we culturally and spiritually develop ourselves to become the type of people a democracy requires - whole, adult, integrated, on purpose, connected, in love with all who call this place home, and sourced in Nature’s God.
For a country with a purpose as beautiful and complete as ours, denying rites, rights, relationships, resources, and responsibilities (threatening to harm people, imprisoning, isolating, enslaving, and/or harming people) is not purposeful. Ensuring that people have the rites, rights, relationships, resources, and responsibilities to become fully created adults, on purpose in true community with other adults, to realize the fullness of life, liberty, and happiness, is purposeful.
Claiming that some adults are better than others or deserve more rites, rights, relationships, resources, and responsibilities than others is not purposeful. Advocating for, legislating, and ensuring that rites, rights, relationships, resources, and responsibilities are equally distributed and grow over time is purposeful.
As such a political-economy devoted to controlling people, reducing women to providers of sex and children, banning books, militarizing cities, criminalizing speech and homelessness, funding genocide, cutting funding for education, healthcare, and research, spewing hate, condoning hate, elevating hate as virtue, calling down religion on the side of evil, being unread, unhealthy, and mean, avoiding inner work, driving cars, et al, is not purposeful. A political-economy devoted to liberating people, educating people, centering the holistic well-being of women and mothers, creating safe public spaces for all, providing care for those who are struggling, building alliances for peace and prosperity / ending genocide, expanding funding for education, healthcare, and research, summoning and elevating love, honoring the ethics of all religions, reading, taking care of your health, and being empathetic, doing inner work, walking, riding bikes, and taking mass transit, et al, is purposeful.
I could go on and on. You get the point. We have one direction - equality - and one task, to guide our political economy and culture to fulfill it. It’s beyond time to tack to it. Among initiated, traveled, and educated adults, we can debate how to tack to it, but not whether to tack or the direction to tack. This is our one direction, so let’s raise the sails!
If you’d like to help our nation live deep enough to fulfill our purpose, I invite you to join me for the National Pilgrimage next year. As I explored in Grand Gestures, this is a pilgrimage to become our highest selves, the type of people a democracy requires, to honor our purpose, atone for our sins, and elevate our highest ideals, greatest gifts, and diverse expressions. This pilgrimage is design to connect with ourselves, each other, and the people we meet. It is an immersion into our pain and beauty, into the mysteries of our souls, shadows, and Nature’s God. It is an opportunity to reconstitute ourselves as a full and true spiritual democracy. This pilgrimage is also a creativity workshop, where we can imagine new futures, workshop ideas, make art, and discuss projects, such as a new set of founding documents to establish a spiritual democracy (see below).
So, I invite you to join me. This is the sign you’ve been waiting for.
What’s so: Our nation lives inside an old, disempowering and inaccurate story, where we have to hustle and grind, to exploit each other just to survive, and waste the vast majority of our potential and ecological abundance, all in service of a patriarchal caste society and fascist political economy led and peopled by wounded adolescents. There is enough for all of us to thrive sustainably with 30% of the current energy, labor, and resources usage, but inside our current story, all of us have to grind, with two-thirds of us living paycheck to paycheck in order to provide wealth and luxuries for the ultrawealthy, while we all remain sick and unfulfilled adolescents.
What happens if we do nothing: The republic falls, The Handmaid’s Tale our becomes the title of our last chapter, we fail to address our many existential threats, other nations capitalize on our weakness, and we all die in a colossal failure. Don’t Look Up becomes our epilogue.
The future I’m standing for: Our national purpose fulfilled, a Spiritual Democracy - every person becomes a flourishing adult and elder, lives a life of purpose, connection, service, creativity, spiritual fulfillment and dies a good death; our society is safe, peaceful, spacious, creative, and prosperous; our planet’s political-economy is regenerative.
The ask: If you’d like to help create this future, please join me on a 6-week pilgrimage to: 1. become our highest selves in true community, the type of people democracy requires - on purpose, embodied, wizened, loving, sourced by Nature’s God - loving each other as much as ourselves, loving the nation back together, 2. Give the nation something beautiful to believe in, to join, to want to make real, 3. Mark our 250th birthday in a good way - with clarity, hope, atonement, and creativity.
Yes, I get that this is an unreasonable request. But these are unreasonable times. These are times of monsters and mad men that require our magic and medicine. Join us - your magic and medicine is needed.
Below are examples of the type of thing we might see as the Mother’s Constitutional Convention unfolds. I hold these as sacred political-theological acts, re-founding documents that transforms the spirit of the Declaration of Independence - of separation from a king - to Inscendence - defined here as the going inward and upward, into alignment with our true animist, indigenous, matrilineal nature-, and making explicit the third leg of the stool - spirit and culture.
The Declaration of Inscendence
of the People of the United States
When, in the course of human unfolding, it becomes necessary for a people to transcend the systems that diminish their dignity and desecrate the Earth, to return to the sacred covenant of life itself, and to respect to all beings, we declare the causes which move us to inscend.
We hold these truths to be ancient and ever-living:
That all beings are sacred, interconnected, and worthy of reverence.
That each person is born not merely equal, but unique, with a life purpose to fulfill, and receives the rites, rights, relationships, and resources needed to realize it.
That the Earth herself is alive and sovereign, deserving of honor and protection.
That mothers, matrilineal clans, and the feminine principle are to be upheld as the foundation of flourishing, equity, and justice.
That liberty means not dominion over others, but freedom to express one’s sacred purpose in harmony with all life.
That the pursuit of happiness is inseparable from the flourishing of the land, waters, creatures, and communities that sustain us.
To secure these truths, we must inscend — we must turn inward, remembering the wisdom of our ancestors, turn upward, aligning with the spirit of life, and become the type of people democracy requires.
The history of modernity has been a history of forgetting and violation. The cultural-institutional package of patriarchy, white supremacy, wetiko, and extractionary capitalism has reduced life to commodity, relationship to contract, purpose to profit, and spirit to prostitution. At every level — cultural, political, and economic — we have been taught to betray the purpose proclaimed at our nation’s founding: that all are created equal, endowed with dignity, and guaranteeing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Instead, our institutions and culture have:
Profaned Mother Earth through extraction and desecration of land, waters, and air.
Enslaved peoples and erased nations, exalting heteronormative whiteness while suppressing the sovereignty of First Nations, African-descended, and LGBTQIA+ peoples.
Subordinated women, mothers, and the feminine, denying the sacred balance of life.
Glorified selfishness, greed, and competition, while punishing care, generosity, and cooperation.
Reduced citizens to consumers, stripping them of rites of passage, purpose, and belonging.
Ensured that we never learn to love ourselves, each other, or the living Earth.
We, therefore, the people of the United States, rooted in Earth and guided by Spirit, do solemnly declare our Inscendence:
That we dissolve our consent to systems that diminish life, and we align instead with the sacred covenant of all beings.
That we reclaim motherhood, matrilineal wisdom, and the animist truth that all is alive.
That we establish a political economy optimized for flourishing, equity, care, and sustainability, measured not in profit but in well-being.
That we commit to raising every child into a healed, purposeful adulthood, with rites of passage, love, and belonging.
That we honor the rights of nature and recognize ecosystems as sovereign partners in law and life.
That we practice justice as restoration, healing, and truth-telling, not domination or retribution.
That we bind ourselves to love — of self, of neighbor, of Earth — as the highest law.
As we revolt outward, we also inscend inward: remembering who we truly are, reclaiming what was stolen, and reweaving what was broken.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on Nature’s God, we pledge to each other our care, our courage, and our devotion to the flourishing of all beings.
Signed:
The Mothers
A Constitution for the Spiritual Democracy of The United States of America
Preamble
We, the People of this Sacred Land, conscious of our interdependence with Mother Earth, our ancestors, and future generations, and inspired by the wisdom of the grandmothers and the flourishing only possible in animist, matrilineal clans, do solemnly resolve to reconstitute this nation as a Spiritual Democracy and to secure for all beings:
Flourishing: A life of love, purpose, and dignity.
Equity and Justice: Fairness and compassion in our political, economic, and cultural life.
Liberty: Freedom of self-expression, identity, sexuality, spirituality, and purpose.
Sustainability: Harmony with Mother Earth and all her beings.
Sacred Community: Participation in a society where life is honored as holy.
PART I: The Union and Its Territory
Article 1. The nation shall be a union of sacred territories, bioregions, and communities, inseparable in their interdependence.
Article 2. Sacred lands, waters, and species shall not be alienated or destroyed. They hold inherent dignity and rights recognized by law.
Article 3. Bioregional identities shall be respected; cultural and religious autonomy shall be honored and preserved in service of national unity.
PART II: Citizenship
Article 4. Every person born within the territory shall be a citizen.
Article 5. Citizenship confers both sacred rights and responsibilities. The rights include freedom of speech, worship, protest, assembly, rites of passage and resources to become an adult capable of agency. The responsibilities include voting in every election, ongoing civil service, honoring the Earth, strengthening the community, and respecting the sacredness of life and the agency of every adult.
Article 6. Stateless beings (migrants, refugees, climate-displaced) shall be welcomed with care, provided a pathway to citizenship if desired, integrated with dignity, and provided all the rites, rights, resources, relationships, and responsibilities afforded to citizens.
PART III: Fundamental Rights
Article 7. Right to Flourishing
Every citizen has the right to healthy food, shelter, healthcare, education, electricity, internet, a safe community, rites of passage, and a universal basic income (UBI) / living wage livelihood.
Article 8. Right to Developmental Adulthood
The State shall ensure that for the first 30 years of each person’s life, they supported with rites of passage, healing, mentorship, true community, and purpose activation.
Article 9. Right to Motherhood and Care
Mothers and those in mothering roles shall receive social, economic, and cultural support, including care stipends, healthcare, and reverence.
Article 10. Right to Sacred Nature
Citizens have the right to clean air, water, soil, and easily accessible communion with sacred landscapes. Nature shall have legal personhood.
Article 11. Right to Liberty of Spirit and Expression
Every person has the right to freedom of spirituality, identity, sexuality, culture, creativity, thought, and expression.
Article 12. Right to Justice
All citizens have access to restorative justice. Harm shall be addressed through truth-telling, repair, mentorship, and, as a last resort, temporary protective measures.
Article 13. Right Against Exploitation
No person, community, or ecosystem shall be subjected to exploitation, domination, or selfish harm.
PART IV: Directive Principles of State Policy
Article 14. The State shall optimize its political economy for motherhood, sustainability, flourishing, community, and justice.
Article 15. The State shall explicitly address the predominant Western culture of individualism, selfishness, greed, and cruelty with systems of healing, trauma, shadow, and purpose work, restorative justice, and community accountability.
Article 16. Education shall be holistic, integrating ecological literacy, animacy, and intimacy, spirituality, creativity, science, the liberal arts, conscious communication, and purpose discovery.
Article 17. Care work, mothering, and ecological stewardship shall be recognized as the foundation of economic value, valued, protected, and rewarded.
Article 18. The State, in partnership with First Nations, shall regenerate ecosystems, sacred sites, and traditional cultural practices.
PART V: Responsibility of Citizens
Article 19. To honor mothers, elders, ancestors, and the Earth; to cultivate compassion, courage, wisdom, and creativity in service of the common good.
Article 20. To participate in the adulthood rites of passage, rituals, and celebrations of their culture, tradition, and/or religion.
Article 21. To protect and restore ecosystems and treat all beings with respect.
Article 22. To faithfully execute their unique life purpose, giving their greatest gifts to their community for the betterment of the common good.
PART VI: Governance
Article 23. Council of Mothers (Upper House)
Composed of elected mothers over the age of 30 and matrilineal elders.
Holds veto power on matters concerning ecology, justice, and the future of generations.
Custodians of moral and spiritual guidance.
Article 24. People’s Assembly (Lower House)
Composed of representatives, who are developmental adults (over the age of 30 who has completed purpose, parts, and trauma healing work) and are elected by citizens on the principle of proportional representation.
Responsible for legislative functions.
Article 25. Guardians of the Sacred (Independent Body)
Spiritual leaders, ecologists, artists, and cultural stewards.
Charged with protecting sacred sites, rituals, species, and ecosystems.
Decisions binding on State agencies.
Article 26. Restorative Justice Councils
Local and national councils empowered to address harm through truth-telling, restitution, healing practices, trauma, shadow, and purpose work.
Article 27. Bioregional Assemblies
Local self-governance based on ecological regions.
Empowered to steward lands and resources sustainably.
Article 28. Executive Branch - Council of Stewards
A Council of Stewards, comprised of three developmental adults of any gender, led by a Mother of State. Each is elected for a single 6-year term, with the first two years as Vice-Mother of State, the second two years as Mother of State, and the last two years as the Grandmother of State. The Vice-Mother’s role will be primarily to listen, question, learn, and challenge. The Mother’s role will be to lead, enact the vision, strategy, and policies of the Council and serve as the head of State representing the nation in all matters of international cooperation and foreign policy. The Grandmother’s role will be to preside over national ceremonies, to hold space for collective healing during national / natural disasters, summon new visions, and mentor the Mother and Vice-Mother.
Responsible for implementing laws and policies.
Article 29. Judiciary
Independent system integrating constitutional courts, sacred ecology tribunals, and restorative justice systems.
PART VII: Economy
Article 30. Economy measured by maternal values, such as those accounted for in Wellbeing and Flourishing Index (WFI).
Article 31. Cooperative / employee ownership and community stewardship of all existing and future private entities.
Article 32. Private entities must demonstrate a net positive WFI for at least 3 years within each 5 year period and in aggregate within that same period to continue to operate. If and when an entity fails to meet either of these requirements, the company’s debt and equity obligations are nullified and the assets are liquidated with the proceeds equally distributed to the residents of the bioregions in which the company’s employees are located.
Article 33. Every citizen shall receive a Universal Basic Income (UBI) equal to the greater of 4x their housing costs or the amount required to acquire the resources for biological flourishing, adult development, purpose, healing, and K-18 education, adjusted annually by zip code.
PART VIII: Emergency Provisions
Article 34. In times of ecological crisis, epidemic, or threat to sacred lands, the State may enact temporary emergency measures, subject to review by the Council of Mothers.
PART IX: Schedules
Schedule I: Sacred Bioregions of the Nation.
Schedule II: Rights of Nature (detailed protections for rivers, forests, mountains, and species).
Schedule III: Rites of Passage (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, elderhood, death).
Schedule IV: Sacred Economy Charter (framework for regenerative economy, WFI, care recognition, UBI, et al).
Schedule V: Ritual Calendar of the Nation (sacred national holidays, solstices, equinoxes, and eclipses).
PART X: Amendment and Review
Article 35. Amendments may be proposed by either house but must be ratified by a simple majority of both houses, before being signed into law by the Council of Mothers.
Article 36. A Council of Renewal shall be convened to perform a census and review the Constitution in light of evolving wisdom and needs every ten years. Amendments will be put forth for approval by a simple majority of both houses and the Council of Mothers.
Article 37. The People, through a majority of bioregional assemblies, may also propose and ratify an amendment without the approval of the Council of Mothers.
Closing Invocation
May this Constitution guide our people to live in purpose, love, reverence, harmony, and connection, so that each being may flourish, each community may thrive, so that the United States of America is the best place on earth to be a child, mother, and elder, and Mother Earth may be restored and honored for all generations.
Big bison luv,
Brandon
…
Some updates:
The pilgrimage is taking shape! My friend / Citizen University fellow, Anita, and I are building the core council, and are scoping key roles (road safety / bike logistics, route / camping / food, media & marketing, festival, and finance). There’s a TED Democracy in Philly on 6/13 that just got announced and I’ll put in an application. Either way, attending will be a powerful event in and of itself, and just prior to making our way to DC by Juneteenth. I’m going to connect with my friends Marcus and Jonathan about the spiritual flavor of the journey and plotting the nation’s sacred sites against established bikeways.
Last weekend, nine men in the Northern California ManKind Project community descended upon my mother’s house to engage in a weekend of ceremony and ritual. We moved anger, grief, and gratitude. We invoked and honored the ancestors. We cooked for each other. We sang and danced under the stars. During the closing ceremony, I received a surprise blessing. The community anointed me as a Grounding and Renewal Co-Headman, a sacred role I held on our last men’s initiation weekend. I now begin the process of mentorship and blessing at the national level.
If you’re in Chicago, please join me for Tending the Nation’s Soul on Thursday, 10/23 at 6-8pm CT. We’ll dive into our nation’s purpose and values and summon the power of the bison to guide us.
Amen, and thank you, Brandon.