Monica Cassani

it's a myth that alignment always feels good. a myth for those who believe we are supposed to always feel good. true alignment will take you straight through hell where the light is needed the most.

historically, intentional communities are often places of heinous trauma and cultish behavior. the truth is we should figure out how to make community with those we already know. no one ever likes everyone. cutting off everyone who is difficult simply leaves people alone. the village is everyone.

The breakdown in medicine started with the marginalization of women traditional healers and herbalists who were first criminalized as witches and then all credibility was removed with licensing and legal barriers. Men took over medicine and that was the end of integrity in healthcare.

I’m tired of screaming what I know into the void. I know this stuff from my body’s wisdom. The proof is emerging beyondmeds.com/2026/10/06/s...

attentiontotheunseen.com/2026/10/05/m...

evil? I understand evil. I’ve worked on the streets among the most vulnerable my entire career. Evil is neglect. That is all evil is. Human neglect of the planet and our fellow sentient beings. We’re all in collusion.

Virtually no one wants to deal with reality. Not the whole entire shebang. They pick and choose and cherry pick what they can handle and leave the rest behind. This is a losing effort no matter where you are on the political or religious spectrum.

Human beings are a brutal, hateful, territorial species. Those who escape these tendencies seem to be a minority. In what begins as a quest to survive they turn into paranoid out of control, greedy monsters. If the opportunity arises, they step right into the role.

by J Keyes "I fell into madness over a period of weeks. I started dreaming about a huge black boa constrictor encasing me in its grip. I dreamt about the snake chasing me,staring at me, pulling me into its gravity ~ I spent nearly a year in a state of confusion and disorganization" wp.me/p5nnb-bI2

Second little article on substack monicacassani.substack.com/p/the-decima...

There is the egoic will and there is the common will. The egoic will is in alignment with capitalism and white supremacy. The common will is the will of life. It is best to leave the egoic will behind and seek the common will. This is true alignment.

emerge and grow healing will be unique to you...

Madness comes from over-identification with the stories generated by our minds. Our personal magic is the way that we choose to interact with these stories. Yogas chitta vritti nirodha: Yoga is liberation from the whirlpools of the mind. beyondmeds.com/2020/06/06/o...

Sad - Wendell Berry has passed. In memory: "Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch.And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest – the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways– and re-enter the woods

Don't talk about building community if you aren't willing to go visit people who can't leave their homes.

People want to talk even less about the fact that the traumatized body's microbiome is affected and multiple chronic infections are often part of what chronic illness is. Western medicine is completely out of touch here and we are dying because of it.

it's not possible to understand what the body knows...there is only a developing trust in the process of learning to listen. The body is a mystery and learning to tend to it is all I can do. .. it's wise in ways that boggle the mind.

"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - George Orwell, 1984

Algorithms and bots are fomenting discord between oppressed groups.This includes people from all racial/ethnic backgrounds. They want us at war with one another. The poor, the disabled and those labeled by psychiatry are all being targeted. If we kill each other off they don't need to bother with us

These are articles about learning to cope with being seriously ill and also learning to heal from such illness. This is general and personal information that has been helpful to me and may or may not apply. The scope is large so something is likely to be helpful. beyondmeds.com/2012/05/15/c...

Yoga is often touted as a cure all from people who know absolutely nothing about disability and chronic illness. You can both be disabled and be a yogi beyondmeds.com/2026/08/18/b...

Radical healing: Walk into that catch 22, repeatedly, if necessary…facing your worst nightmare, over and over again. They shun us and cut us off if we speak to it. Radical healing is serious business and we might not come out alive. We must face death. Face death and the rest will follow.

In the hook of the split. Where the rubber hits the road. My body, my koan, my people. Humanity writ upon the body.

Cheryl!

Life is hard and I sometimes can only deeply acknowledge that reality with all of us who are coming back from pharmaceutical injuries. beyondmeds.com/2026/08/10/t...

Sweet Indigo...

So perhaps there are better ways to deal with psychosis. I think many patients know this, but most of their professional caretakers are still stuck in their medical model of “brain disease,” which is after all so much easier and more profitable than doing real therapy beyondmeds.com/2012/09/13/p...

The White Lotus (TV series): The setting is a wellness hotel/spa and its mostly white clientele. Amazing commentary on race, whiteness and privilege (among other things) in a biting dark comedy. Also heartbreaking and painful

I feel bad for all the young' uns who never experienced the brief but glorious golden era of the internet. "What Was the Internet? As AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next." www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...

We can only connect with people in as much as we know our deepest selves. We're all limited in different ways. In as much as we shy away from looking at our own limits, we are not doing our work.

PSA: Shit happens. It seems people forget this now in the midst of hell. Shit happens. You will hear about that shit in all its guises on social media. Some shit is really bad. Other shit is made up. Some shit is really not shit but those folks don't really know what shit is. That is all.

Ok. OpenAI President and cofounder Greg Brockman has been one of Trump's biggest donors. In 2025, he gave $25 million to MAGA Inc. a super PAC that supports Trump. That's ChatGPT essentially. Supporting Trump. Take that in.

The lying has become routine.

Some people view madness as a spiritual journey. But can spiritual experiences be distinguished from psychotic ones? Studies have found it impossible to differentiate between mystical experiences and psychosis solely on the basis of phenomenological description beyondmeds.com/2012/02/02/p...

Love your neighbor

my site is being combed today by AI. It shows many more 1000s of hits than usual, but not more visitors. I know that it's likely that the content will be stolen and rehashed. It's been done by humans and AI will do it better for the nefarious purposes that it's used for in these sorts of instances 😰

Coping Strategies for Pain Relief -- helpful for a vast array of chronic pain issues. beyondmeds.com/2012/06/11/c...

old piece from @mad-in-america.bsky.social interesting to see old stuff. My journey had really only just begun when I got off the drugs. The injuries were far deeper than I understood at the time of that writing. Enjoy a little piece of mad history below: www.madinamerica.com/2013/05/befo...