over this past week i have been cycling between feeling the rough emotions of this moment and feeling for my/our resilience – our capacity to recover from harm. and i have been connecting with loved ones to do both these things, to vent and move thru the worst possible case scenarios and breath into “what now”, and “where do we go from here”?

i keep experiencing gratitude for the reality-based visionaries at movement generation and their teachings on false solutions – solutions which are politically possible now, but will not satisfy/save/serve us. (for example, it appears that elections as they are currently structured are a false solution. we need a popular vote for president, and instant runoff voting, minimum.)

fear has come in waves and i am getting curious about it, finding out what my fear wants me to know. fear is an intelligence, it makes me alert to danger. its not a state i want to linger in – its a way to come into wakefulness with what is. we knew we were in danger, our data set just got more precise. the danger is intersectional. and it feels smart to feel terror and grief when the place i call home attacks me and everyone i love.

as the shock of this change wears off, i am feeling lit up about our liberation from false solutions, and lit up about futures where we don’t fear other humans. while i still feel anticipatory grief over the changes coming, i can also feel anticipation for the ways we will tell the stories of our desired future, and bring those stories to life.

i find that i am already in the right place and supporting the right work. my loved ones are supporting each other, some taking to the streets each night, some reaching out for broader alliances, all educating ourselves. we have already been working to unveil the wound and make real solutions, to make what we really need to thrive and evolve as a species and planet, politically possible.

while it is tempting to focus on ‘the enemy’, what we pay attention to grows, and we need to continue to focus on the growth of justice and liberation technologies that are not dependent on a sophomoric state within which a portion of white people are terrified of the inevitable and acting all the way out. so i am feeling for right balance between resistance and rejection of ignorance/misogyny/white supremacy and focusing on building what we need. rereading the parables to help with this understanding.

for those who claim this whole thing is just about class (i haven’t seen any “fuck poor people” or even “kill the elite” tagging since tuesday, only race/gender/sexuality/anti-immigrant slurs and threats, so…), i assert that our economic vision of an abundant cooperative localized economy is more compelling in the long run. but we don’t need to just say that, we need to live into it with the way we organize jobs and funding in our radical work. keep creating models that can stand the weight of our communities.

we need to deepen our practice of removing white supremacy from our language and norms. it is not a dark time, it is a pale time. our people are not ‘minorities’. my heartfriend anasa troutman also challenges us not to use the term ‘people of color’, defining ourselves only by non-whiteness. it’s time to be creative and specific. i am going to either use very specific language to speak of communities i am supporting now, or use the language of impact, for the broader set of communities impacted by this intersection regression unfolding in our national government.

its also a great time to stop being polite. be loving, kind, direct. but most of all, be truthful – full of the capacity to speak the truth when you see and feel it.

i remain fascinated by us, anticipating how we will move beyond reactionary rhetoric and action, to build our connections and move forward from our deepest love and longing.

if you are overwhelmed with fear and terror, find a friend, sit face to face, and do this together:

first, take turns naming your fears and/or griefs. let feeling come with them. with your hands show where the fears live in your body. mirror each other, so you both get the experience of seeing your grief on another.

second, place your hands on your bellies and take turns naming things that make you feel resilient. imagine those things filling you up. rock and roll a bit, make more room for resilience inside yourselves.

third, offer gratitude to each other for both having the complexity to hold grief/fear and resilience in the same miraculous body.

one day at a time. one brave, loving, radical day at a time.

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