In the dark you whisper your worst fears made manifest by explosive lights and sounds you conjure in the woods outside our room, specters stretched tall along walls the shadow of what comes, but I am not afraid of your ghosts nor you of mine — we’ve never been — it is why we find ourselves here again partners in crimes of comfort and concoctions; I leave my dreams to curl into yours, stroke the broad arm of your embrace, lie in the darkness of silent understanding, this midnight love come round, the long wide bed, moonlight and stars our afterlife dreams.
Resisting the urge (for the seventh or eighth time in two days) to hoist the parking lot flag back up to full mast in some alter-ego Fuck Donald Trump ninja subterfuge, I remind myself to breathe in the gorgeous late summer afternoon there in the shadow of Ikea — monument of consumerism — gorgeous, except for the Spotted Lanternfly that crosses my path begging me to squash its red polka-dotted guts out; more death on these days of infinite death I cannot bear; it might be feast for the songbird trapped in the cafeteria throwing itself again and again and again against the ceiling-high windows, their pretense of sky; it does not stop seeking what it remembers, the poor thing, but is that Futility or Hope I wonder as I read signs about food waste and recycling, the 3,920 solar panels on the roof above my head, feast on Swedish meatballs covered in slick red jam.
The sweet honeysuckle breeze is small consolation, brief relief from the headlines of heat waves and hatred. I set off to the woods this morning looking for some kind of solace or peace. But honestly? While my mother threatens to live another four years, I’m wondering if I have to. Everywhere I turn there are disappointments and discouragements, humans making inroads where they do not belong, humans caught where others say they shouldn’t be, humans being…human. I am the generation of John Lennon’s Imagine. Peace signs and hippie hope. But hate comes around again, and again. And again. As if hope and peace are delusions, the dream from which we wake to these long and painful days. I used to think myself the happy one, the silly one casting light into darkness. La La La. But my ninja thoughts tell me otherwise, and I spend my walk wondering about the energetic force necessary to uproot infrastructures.
I awoke this morning feeling rudderless alone and adrift so I partnered myself with sheets and pillows in a meager attempt to stop the sway to right myself between swells of defeat and despair but finding no equilibrium I moored myself to the day and got on with it albeit without commitment or fortitude floated aimless past noon and afternoon grateful for the sun’s setting the welcome drift of deep deep dreams.
This morning, on a friend’s Facebook page, I read a heartfelt plea for a newsfeed devoid of a Donald Trump’s face. And while I, too, would love an opt-out button for that, it makes me wonder: is that her Algorithm? is she clicking on posts that generate more of that same face? That happens to me, a lot.
Our Algorithms, if you think about it, are mirrors of our thoughts — are they not? How we think, what we’re thinking about, often what we thought about yesterday or the day before. The omnipresent Big Brother feeds us more of the same until we are beyond sated, until we’re over-stimulated and over-whelmed, jacked up on fake dopamine, or banging on Read More Read More Read More like a sugared-up teenager at a carnival whack-a-mole.
And while I know (I know) it’s important that we keep informed about current events, that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world — I’m also concerned that we’re collectively helping to create what’s happening by focusing on what’s happening.
It’s called Manifesting. You can read about the positive effects of manifesting in popular books like The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and Law of Attraction (Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks).
And before you say hocus-pocus. Remember that prayer is also a form of manifesting.
“According to many spiritual teachings…consciousness creates our reality. What we desire is what we receive. If we are uncertain, we receive the energy of uncertainty. If we respond to crises with worry and negative, thinking, we increase the likelihood of a painful outcome.” — Yehuda Berg, The Power of Kabbalah
Yes, we are living in scary times. Yes, we need to pay attention to what’s going on. But in our attempts to pay attention to what we don’t want, are we losing sight of the things we DO want?
How can we ever hope to create a safe, peaceful, equitable world if our thoughts (and hearts) are always focused on threats, war, and inequalities?
We can all talk about what we don’t want — easily and profusely. Think about it, how many conversations have you had in the past six months about Donald Trump and his insane antics? About the circus that is our government, the atrocities happening to our immigrants, in Gaza, in Ukraine? About what’s happening to America, democracy, and our way of life?
Now, how many times have you talked about what makes a great leader? about the people on the ground doing good work on behalf of those who are suffering? about what you want the world to look like in the future? how many times have you laughed, planted something, created, danced?
All week long, activist and author Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water emails focus on what’s going on, the scary things happening in our government, and actions steps to take. But once a week, she posts Extra! Extra!, a glorious accounting of all of the good things that have happened lately.
I’ll be honest, by the time Extra! Extra! arrives on Sundays, I am usually stacking another shipment of canned beans in my basement and making sure my stun gun is fully charged. So to read all of the positive things that are happening, all of the forward steps we’re taking, all of the good news despite my Algorithm? My Hope tank fills right back up!
We all need a full Hope tank. So, here are 10 Ways to Fill Yours…
1. Go outside and breathe. 2. Listen to your favorite music and dance (or sing) (or both). 3. Go for a walk in the woods. 4. Have a playdate with a friend. 5. Get creative: make art, write something, bake, garden. 6. Watch a favorite movie. 7. Go to the library and find a book to read. 8. Take a day off social media/media/technology/work. 9. Keep a Gratitude Journal. 10. Change your Algorithm by reading good news; start here.
Let’s all MANIFEST the kind of world we want to be living in together!
This is Reverend Scott on the valve in the belly of Poseidon. Quint in the jaws of his worst nightmare. Jack and Rose at the Titanic’s stern. Eowyn and the Nazgûl. Harry and Voldemort. Bruce Willis on the asteroid careening through space.
This is the battle scene. The climactic moment. The death scene.
This is before the denouement. Before the resolution. Before the credits roll.
This is the moment that needs you. That demands faith. That requires courage. And sacrifices.
So hang on tight, baby, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride…
Sleep has been merciful these past three months, arriving early from exhaustion staying late in fellowship with the dreams that wax nostalgic for simpler nightmares and harmless ghosts.
But this morning, I’m awake at 3, my familiar and I like old friends sharing space beneath the spring moon, waning in its sixth phase, while one lone peeper keeps time as sharp as the second hand on a clock.
We have not been together in this way — the moon and morning and me — since the monsters took over, since their cacophony of destruction, the sinister palpitation of days, and all of us wondering what or who will be next.
This morning is a gift of quiet comfort, the marsh frog a beacon which seems to say Here! Here! Here! over and over and over, it reminds that even in the age of monsters, once can find solace in the soft, dark edges, calm in the promise of cycles and phases, of spring and worlds ever spinning.
It occurred to me this morning, while I held tight to old dreams, that someone, somewhere was also waking to this day, but opening eyes to a present they recognized: the familiar sun though curtains and the routine of Sunday laid out in front of them with no need to pretend otherwise; the photos on the shelf of old friends smiling, the bucket list taped to the refrigerator door, the piggy bank promise of new adventures somewhere and someday still shimmer in the early light of their morning, there; should I tell them? remind them to hold fast live in the moment for god’s sake everything is fleeting, tomorrow might already be a memory.
After November, I took to re-binging one of my favorite television shows, and we just got to the season when COVID hits. It was actually filmed during COVID, which makes the episodes somehow more poignant.
As I’m watching the season unfold, I’m remembering those days when we really didn’t know what was going to happen, when people were suffering at ridiculous rates, when there was seemingly no end — or hope — in sight.
I’m remembering how we hunkered down. How we embraced simple things like making bread and trying new recipes. How we found comfort in each other — even from six feet away. How we came together and sang from balconies.
I’m also remembering our feckless, reckless President — back then — so incompetent and uncaring at his job that it felt like we were on board a rudderless ship heading for the rocks.
It’s hard not to feel that way now, because here we are, back in a collective crisis, worried for our friends and family, worried for ourselves and our livelihoods. Furious about the lack of leadership, again, from that awful awful man and his minions.
In the episode I watched last night, a young doctor was sitting outside the hospital in despair. She’d lost patients, run out of supplies, had been working non-stop, and worried that she might soon simply lose her mind.
But her friend finds her, allows her space to talk, shows her compassion, gives her comfort. They lean into each other for a while, and the despair eases.
It made me realize that the suffering we’re experiencing now is very much like the suffering we just experienced in the pandemic. Like then, there is so much that doesn’t make sense, so much to be afraid of, so many unknowns.
And, like then, we will get through this. We’ll be kind with each other. We’ll allow space to talk and to cry and to rage. We’ll be a little more compassionate, a little more gentle with other — and with ourselves. We’ll help each other cope, and we’ll dance it out when we just can’t cope anymore. We’ll take care of each other and lean into each other.
I was going to tell you the story of a flag. One of those disgusting political flags. Those in-your-face, middle-finger-to-the-constitution flags you see around town, you know?
I even drove back around the block to take a picture of it, because what I thought I would be writing about here is how the flag is falling. How one wind storm twisted its staff and half-toppled its cement base. How its flaccid affect can be seen from a quarter mile in either direction. How wide that made me smile.
But then I went for a walk. On this glorious, blustery Winnie-the-Pooh kind of day. I was enchanted by the blue sky and the crisp cold air. I was pushed along by the wind, and even laughed out loud a few times.
It was like the wind blew all of that angsty stuff right out of me. Replaced it with Joy!
And as if to underscore the moment, there was wide and wild wind that roared through the forest, and I watched as these hundreds-of-years old pine trees swayed in the wind. SANG in the wind.
Their roots were deep enough. Their community was supportive enough. And they were strong enough.
They didn’t twist or bend or fall. They resisted. And they sang!
I’m reading a book voraciously this morning, swallowing down pages like I did the Chinese take-out last week, like I do most things these day…it’s Sunday and it’s supposed to be Sacred Sunday — a day of slowness and quiet and rest, a day without the distractions of technology and that loud, noisy world…but the silence these days is hungry, it needs something to fill it up before the monsters come, before their loud clanging of concerns vibrates my mind at a deafening frequency. They’ve already invaded my spine, their long, worried tentacles crippling any attempts to move forward, their slimy bodies slithering into thoughts at night, racing thoughts and me running faster than I can in the wake of days — the technician lists off the degenerative changes, the demineralization, osteophytes, and narrowing spaces, but neglects to mention the impact fracture caused by my inability to see past my own feet. I’ve never been one to skip to the last page of a book, I swear, I’ve always trusted in the ability of its pages to take me where I need to go, to help me manage the outcome with whatever dose of resilience was needed…but this? this story? I am already so braced for the ending there are days I can’t move.
On a lighter note, if you have not read Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, please do. It’s a lovely read.
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