The Super Generation
We humans have long looked to butterflies for lessons on courageous transformation and beautiful migration.
A few years ago, my gardening-savvy neighbor Miya Saika Chen put me on to yet another piece of bio-wisdom from these miraculous relatives.
Did you know that many monarch butterflies have a “super generation,” born at the northernmost tip of their journey, with the adaptive strength to play a special role?
Born with delayed sexual maturity that also slows aging, the super generation lives 10x as long as their parents, grandparents, and great- grand- parents — all of whom lived, reproduced, and died in relay-race fashion along the great trip north.
The super generation’s extra longevity (plus ravenous fat storage) enables them to fly alllll the way back from the northernmost tip to the south-westernmost tip of the migration route, where the ancestral journey first began. After overwintering there, the reproductive and migratory cycles begin again.
As climate collapse accelerates, democracy frays, teen suicides rise, and the festering social wounds of colonization, racism, cisheteropatriarchy, and ableism continue to go septic, I believe we can learn from our friends the monarchs.
I believe we are called to make exponential adaptive moves, compressed within one lifetime.
I believe we are called to become a super generation.
A super generation of empathy.
A super generation of truth-telling.
A super generation of healing trauma and breaking intergenerational cycles of harm.
A super generation of embodied, relational wisdom and intelligence.
A super generation of lovingkindness.
A super generation of accountability.
A super generation of compassionate confrontation.
A super generation of spiritual wisdom, applied in the material realms.
This super generation does not discriminate by age. Anyone, at any age, can be a part of it. And make no mistake:
The super generation is no "better" than our ancestors. We're just facing conditions extreme enough to engender the adaptively miraculous.
I might upset some people with my choices here. It is DEFINITELY the case that some of the great souls named below would vehemently disagree with each other about certain important political issues. Still, I want to name a few people, currently living, who I believe are embodying this monarch-inspired model of the super generation.
An incomplete but heartfelt list.
I believe Alok Vaid-Menon embodies the super generation.
I believe adrienne maree brown embodies the super generation.
I believe Rowen White embodies the super generation.
I believe Martín Prechtel embodies the super generation.
I believe Resmaa Menakem embodies the super generation.
I believe Vandana Shiva embodies the super generation.
I believe Brené Brown embodies the super generation.
I believe Esther Perel embodies the super generation.
I believe India Arie embodies the super generation.
I believe Eckhart Tolle embodies the super generation.
I believe Larry Ward embodies the super generation.
I believe Bayo Akomolafe embodies the super generation.
I believe Zach Bush embodies the super generation.
I believe Charles Eisenstein embodies the super generation.
I believe Stella Osorojos embodies the super generation.
I believe Orland Bishop embodies the super generation.
I believe brontë velez embodies the super generation.
I believe Niria Garcia embodies the super generation.
I believe Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd embodies the super generation.
I believe So Sinopoulos-Lloyd embodies the super generation.
I believe Corrina Gould embodies the super generation.
I believe Caleen Sisk embodies the super generation.
I believe Jun Yasuda (Junsan) embodies the super generation.
I believe alexis pauline gumbs embodies the super generation.
I believe Sonya Renee Taylor embodies the super generation.
I believe Sebene Selassie embodies the super generation.
I believe La Sarmiento embodies the super generation.
I believe Lama Rod Owens embodies the super generation.
I believe Prentis Hemphill embodies the super generation.
I believe Leora Fridman embodies the super generation.
I believe Patty Berne embodies the super generation.
I believe LiZhen Wang embodies the super generation.
I believe Kazu Haga embodies the super generation.
I believe Nirali Shah embodies the super generation.
I believe Joanna Macy embodies the super generation.
I believe yung pueblo embodies the super generation.
I believe Yomi Wrong embodies the super generation.
I believe Desi Fontenot embodies the super generation.
I believe Brooke Anderson embodies the super generation.
I believe Favianna Rodriguez embodies the super generation.
I believe Terrell Grice embodies the super generation.
I believe Cynthia Erivo embodies the super generation.
I believe Jennifer Hudson embodies the super generation.
I believe Kufikiri Imara embodies the super generation.
I believe Karega Bailey embodies the super generation.
I believe Felicia Gangloff-Bailey embodies the super generation.
I believe Norma Wong Roshi embodies the super generation.
I believe Mari Rose Taruc embodies the super generation.
I believe Kevin Ross embodies the super generation.
I believe Sammie Ablaza Wills embodies the super generation.
I believe Kasi Chakravartula embodies the super generation.
I believe Adhamh Roland embodies the super generation.
I believe Guangping Chu embodies the super generation.
I believe Annie Mahon embodies the super generation.
I believe Nakachi Clark-Kasimu embodies the super generation.
I believe Max Airborne embodies the super generation.
I believe Georgia Faye Hirsty embodies the super generation.
I believe Tash Nguyen embodies the super generation.
I believe Dylan Cooke embodies the super generation.
I believe Michelle Mascarenhas embodies the super generation.
I believe Anushka Fernandopulle embodies the super generation.
I believe Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel embodies the super generation.
I'm curious whether Marianne Williamson embodies the super generation. (I hope so!)
I'm curious whether Dimash Qudaibergen embodies the super generation. (I hope so!)
This feels odd, like making a high-school popularity list.
And it's so atrociously incomplete!
But I think, and I hope, that ultimately it doesn't matter whose name appears, or doesn't appear. I could list so many more people who, in my eyes, not only exemplify the heart-courage that I believe it takes to be part of the super generation, but who also mean a lot to me, personally. (If that's you, I hope you can forgive me — and/or please feel welcome to bring it up to me if it's bothering you!)
Plus, if not for confidentiality, I could also name a number of the people I've worked with as intimacy coaching clients: brave, marvelous humans who are doing incredibly gorgeous work to heal generations — forward and backward — of embodied hurt, sexual repression, and erotic dimming.
Perhaps someday I'll regret this list. Maybe I'll amend or un-publish it. But for now, it feels like a place to start.
If only to affirm for myself: I see it.
I see us.
How about you: do you see us?
Trying to reflect the wisdom of the monarchs?
Trying to fly a long, long way?
