There have been so many lessons from the last few weeks, and the last four years. I know that some would see the lessons in possibly the exact opposite way, and I suppose that in itself is a clear lesson of this time. However, this is my space and so I will focus on a few lessons that I have learned. Love it or leave it, up to you.
Today, January 22, 2021, FB brought up a memory from 4 years ago (two days after the last prez was inaugurated), so I will begin with these:
As I lay awake in bed in the middle of the night I thought about a few things that yesterday showed me-
1) All the marches, gatherings, ceremonies around the world were planned, organized and promoted through the web and social media. This is the best side of the technology! We are connected!
2) We see that there are many, many of “us”, and we now get the opportunity to put our energies into continuous actions in this world.
3) These public actions were coordinated and mainly attended by women. The next waves of changes are guided by WOMEN.
4) We have shown ourselves and the world that we know how to show our strength, in a peaceful manner. Now we go forth in our creative and multifaceted ways to reflect and protect our beautifully diverse cultures of Human and Non-Human Persons of this world.
So today, four years later, I contemplate the additional, and evolved, lessons of the last year:
1-Covid: We are never beyond a catastrophe, and capable leadership is essential when one occurs. Corona Virus has highlighted to us all where the cracks and fractures are in our culture, specifically structural inequities of racism that have so negatively affected black and brown communities during Covid. This harrowing experience has also shown us what is important, including the thing we all took for granted, being together in the physical world. Covid has revealed who and what is truly “essential” in our culture, and these people and jobs need to be honored and compensated accordingly.
2-Non-compliance: I have always felt outside of politics and the “mainstream” and have felt most aligned with what would be considered “Left+” and “Progressive”. I have felt surprise and disappointment that some in this camp have come to feel that Covid is a hoax and resist wearing a mask (beyond the obvious that they are relatively uncomfortable). I have always felt that “complying” with the status quo has not been what I want to do, and yet in this case, the only way to move Covid on more quickly is to comply with the social agreement to take care of each other with masks, staying separate and yes…even vaccines for all who want/need them. I am the great grandchild of a young man who died from the Flu epidemic in 1919, so maybe that is speaking to me through my bones, but to not “comply” means to drag on the unfolding crisis and make it so much worse.
3-This leads me to “Q Folks”. I had no awareness of this movement four years ago, and I am, at this point, frustrated that they have chosen my letter Q. Beyond that, I have compassion for those Q Folks who want to save abused and abducted children (including the children held at the border without their parents) and understand that there is much going on in government below the surface of what we see, but I can absolutely not believe that the last prez was or is the one to do anything heroic or courageous about these important issues.
I have made my career in the “spiritual movement” and I feel confident in my ability to assess the difference between (especially male) “embodied lightworkers” and “narcissist predators” in the physical world. The man who’s name starts with T is absolutely not a lightworker. I know that for anyone who has been led to believe that this is the case, I seem like a nut-job who doesn’t have the “inside information”. We shall see what is revealed over time. My hope is that participants of this community who agree to non-violence, can find ways to heal from this time, reclaim their inner traumatized children, remember that they belong in this culture, and have gifts to share. May the collective “Great Awakening” show us that there are many ways we can work together to deal with the challenges we will all face in coming years, and may “social media” be used for more helpful than dangerous outcomes.
4- The last four years have clearly shown the world that the tendrils of white supremacy in this culture are certainly not “gone”. We have not evolved past it. It has been the default structural glue in this culture of stolen land and genocide, and it can only be changed by all of us over time. We almost lost the essence of what we say we are in this country. All white people who say we don’t want to be racist now have been clearly shown that the system is indeed based on overt racism, and the tendency of that system can easily lead to fascism. January 6th showed us this underbelly, this “shadow” side of who we actually have been, and hopefully not what we will become.
Even though we have squeaked by and the majority has chosen a new path, the ‘close call’ must ring in our ears. Black, Latin-X and Indigenous voters turned the tide to Blue, and Black Women turned GA Blue. We squeaked by this time, but that is no guarantee forever more. This “unfinished” cultural work, as our 22 year old National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman so eloquently stated in her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the Biden/Harris inauguration on January 20th 2021, is the hill for us all to climb together. May we all do the important work of evolving beyond white, male and human supremacy so we can truly be who we know we can be.
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