@Allyn, Hall of Fame post for many reasons. Most of her posts could be in this section, but today's was extra special, but for its typical clever ironic and comedic tone but also for the final wisdom that life is too short to waste in anger at political nutcases.
"I haven't had a chance to look at the 2023 predictions yet, but you already have a hit about how the hardliners are making things tumultuous. For Exhibit A, see how the Republicans are handling their votes for Speaker of the House.
Unbelievable, isn't it? The Republicans barely regained the House, and yet proved on day one that they are completely incompetent when it comes to governing. And in 2024, the Millennials and Generations Z, who are already leaning progressive, will become the biggest voting block. Right now we (I say "we" because I am an older Millennial) are watching Republicans act like chaotic terrorists and fools, and we roll our eyes when we think about how seriously we will take them when the next election rolls around.
The Republican party is on the verge of collapse right now. Trump is running, but if he becomes the front runner, he will lose, and a blue wave will hit the nation, hopefully giving Biden or whoever is the frontrunner for the Democrats the power they need to enact laws to protect women, healthcare, and the environment. Even if Trump doesn't become the frontrunner, the Republicans have become so used to attacking each other, that Trump will ensure none of his supporters will back whoever it is running in his place. I can see Trump running as a third party candidate in 2024 if he can't win.
But the Republicans fighting today makes me so happy. They have lived by their cruelty and obstructionism for so long that it is true karma to watch them inflict it on themselves. Democrats should just sit back and watch the show or, as an alternative, see if they can strike up a deal with the moderate Republicans. Because the longer it takes McCarthy (or whoever) to become speaker, the longer it will take for Republicans to go back to their Benghazi ways and hold their fake hearings on people they don't like.
As to your prediction on sustainability, I can see it happen on a local level. Many of my neighbors have taken to gardening to grow their own vegetables. Not to be outdone, yours truly has recently started construction on a greenhouse so I can grow many of my favorite vegetables year round without having to worry about the extreme temperatures here in Tennessee (we went from minus 20 to 60 degrees in one week, so you get the point.)
I am keeping most of the political junk to a minimum right now and am tuning most of it out because life is too short to get angry about how these lowlifes like to yell and harass others. Since we are ignoring them, they are turning on themselves and will eventually either shut up or continue ranting to blank walls. Regardless, the time of the rude, bullying, psychotic wannabes is over, and new leaders will emerge to clean up the smell they left behind.
On a positive note, I am still recovering (I am back to work now, but no jury trials until March at least). I am shutting negative people out of my life and enjoying it. I hope the rest of you are doing great and wish you a fantastic 2023!" -- @Allyn
Marigold's meditation post about the future of Covid is exceptional (IMHO):
@lovendures I went with your suggestion of an intention of a message about Covid generally. Here is what came. I did two things, writing down while “listening” and then cards. Lightly edited for less repetition. I hope it makes sense/is helpful.
Listening:
Covid came on a trajectory of science and technology set in motion a century or two ago as an ill-advised offshoot that emerged from investigating and learning about the origin and cause of infectious disease. (I saw this trajectory as a long, thin, round, grass-green snake-like form extending horizontally.) This offshoot of scientific investigation ends (will end) in a twinkling fizzle. (I saw this like a “sparkler” type firework going out, done, extinguished.) Better methods of learning are coming and indeed are even now taking form and growing. New ways to understand disease, causation, and care that are more – elegant – and safer than cultivating disease to understand how it works. Much more finely tuned methods. Something about slicing tiny particles to get at the origin point. Using light and lasers in large high security spaces, involving multi-national cooperation and regulation. No more secrets.
Covid continues, branching and weakening into smaller and much finer branchlets (appeared as a multibranched network of very fine/thin plant rootlets that fan out horizontally just below the surface). Taking not months but a few years to settle back. In the meantime continue best practice as you discern it for yourself. There will be a few more jolts, spikes, new variants. Vigilance for the time being.
This pandemic is something that has been disruptive yet transformative. Things are happening faster; people are seeing what is important and what is not. This era will be looked back upon as a transformative time. There is no “going back to normal” for normal does not exist. That template is gone. Science will progress by leaps and bounds. Some institutions will crumble under their own weight, their foundations hollowed out, bringing in new systems of education, transportation, the construction industry and the way housing is built and made available for all, farming and agriculture (which brings to my mind the work of Vandana Shiva regarding food sovereignty).
Then I drew three cards from a spread of a 5 x 5 grid of the 25 Celtic Tree Oracle cards (Liz and Colin Murray) for past, present and future of Covid:
Past, represented by Oak. An organism coming through a door that was opened long ago; through the door with the organism also came strength and the ability to overcome and survive. (my interpretation).
Present, from Ivy quoted from Murray Tree Oracle book here: The spirit turns inward, rather as Theseus, following his thread into the labyrinth. Theseus’ act may have symbolized his exploration for the secret centre of his own being, which may appear monstrous, lying hidden as it does most of the time. Thus exploring, or soul searching, is necessary revealing untapped or unknown spiritual strength and depth. Your spiraling dance through life also turns outward, linking you with others through the group soul or collective that pervades and encompasses all life. You have a part to play – to assist in the spiritual journey of others as they also do in yours.
Future: with Silver Fir which brings strength and healing learned from the past.
Thank you for this post, Marigold.
@jeanne-mayell The cards have never let me down as long as I don't over-think or judge. I feel like they - and all cards, Tarot and others - are living libraries of light, in this instance providing some reliability and affirmation for the listening. Sitting there on my bookshelf sandwiched between the dictionary and the thesaurus, I should give my Tree Oracle more reverence. Thank you for framing the post as a meditation, very affirming.
Noticed this one today posted October 22, 2022 by our @unk-p
@ghandigirl hey rumigirl! ❤️ i don't usually make predictions, but ok here i go: In some (hopefully not so distant) future, we will look back at this time we are in now, with such incredulous laughter, and astonishment... that these ridiculous creatures, frowning in white Go-Go boots and AquaNette hairdos, brownshirts pouting behind Pumpkin Spice pancake foundations, randomly Capitalizing all manner of bullshit, could ever have even begun to seriously threaten Democracy, much less sanity itself? How can we possibly explain it to the good people on this, or any other (future) Forum?
this post, by MMA (@meliaamal)
Letter to the TN Legislature:
In the wake of Nashville's first school shooting in which a former student of Covenant Presbyterian School blasted through a side door of the school and murdered six Tennesseans, three of them children, our Governor, Bill Lee, pledged to pray first and act second. He called on all Tennesseans to pray too.
As a Nashville mother of a 1st grader, I'm taking his plea to heart and I've decided to pray.
I pray first that you consider the facts about gun-related deaths in this country. In America, and only in America, gun violence is the leading cause of death of children. Judging from your legislative priorities, you'd think it was drag shows, books about the Holocaust, or multiperson bathrooms. You say these laws were passed to protect our children. I don't know about you, but I have yet to meet a book that so grievously injures a child that it renders them unidentifiable.
The Covenant school shooting marked the 39th incident so far this year that involved gunfire on school grounds. By one count, there has been about one gun-related incident at a school for every day so far this year. In so many other countries around the world, one school shooting would be unthinkable, leading to immediate changes in gun laws (that typically are more restrictive than ours already). At the very least, it would compel immediate debate and discussion of policy, rather than pre-taped comments asking citizens to pipe down and pray.
I pray too that you remember the power you have when it comes to passing laws and making change. Despite your prolific track record of dreaming up, drafting and enacting all kinds of rights-limiting laws, you seem utterly incapable of acting when it comes to the murder of children. When asked what the legislature would do to protect our children, GOP Rep Tim Burchett pled helplessness, forgetting that he hails from the "tough on crime" party that somehow managed to criminalize books, abortion, drag queens and the houseless, lamenting, "“It’s a horrible, horrible situation . . .And we’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals.” Burchett, who also noted that he homeschools his children, must have also forgotten that his children will one day need to venture out in the world. And in America, shootings don't end at classroom doors. Mass shootings have resulted in the murder of innocent Americans at grocery stores, movie theaters, indoor concerts, outdoor concerts, churches, synagogues, their own driveways, college campuses, subways, highways, playgrounds, dance studios, nightclubs, 4th of July parades, basketball courts, banquet rooms, immigration services centers, military bases, Walmarts, malls and hospitals.
I pray that you heed the many calls of Tennesseans that more guns are not the answer. This ship may have sailed as today, one week from the shooting, you announced a plan to place armed guards at all public schools. Will you arm supermarkets, movie theaters, playgrounds, dance studios? What happens when a shooter blasts through a side door, locked but unattended? There is no worldly logic that makes America safer by adding more guns to a country that already has more guns than people. Study after study show that having guns in the house increases the risk of being killed, not the opposite.
Let's get specific, because we're not just asking for fewer guns, we're asking for reasonable regulations, like the kinds we have for all possibly lethal instruments like cars, alcohol, or drugs. A background check, a training period, a restriction on weapons of war. And before you start in about the second amendment and freedom, let's recall that all rights are abridgeable at the point that they harm others - that's the very notion of society. And indeed, that was something well-known and understood to even the wildest of westerners in the 1800s, a time much closer in proximity to the passage of the second amendment than we are. After all, cultivating a reputation of peace and stability is good for business.
My final prayer is that you too pray for "wisdom, discernment and grace." I pray that you think hard about what kind of world you want to live in and, more importantly, what world you want to leave for our children. Is it a world where schools are militarized, and parents part with their children with dread on a daily basis, arm them with bullet proof backpacks and teach them that they - and their teachers - must risk their lives to learn in this country? Where any gathering place may be a target; where demons are to blame and where freedom means having to worry that any outing may be your last? Is this the great America you long for? The America of your youth, of your memories? If not, why make our children live this way?
I'm also going to take Governor Lee's advice to act. I'll be voting the next election, like I always do, and the one after that. And I'll be raising a child who - God willing - will grow up to vote, knowing that freedom comes with sacrifice and courage, to do the right thing and make this world the one we want to live in.
The Israeli-Palestinian crisis has us deadlocked. It is the perfect example of a revenge play unfolding before our eyes, with each side raging against the other while innocents are murdered and everyone suffers. I just read @jackofhearts' post about it and want to thank him for expressing it well:
"@lovendures, one wonders if we need this type of reconciliation writ large for our species. I had thought COVID might be it... wrong. Sadly, I believe we need something immediate, visible and deadly. On the other hand, when that moment comes, it will be anticlimactic, not an asteroid. I wonder if that event has already happened, but we don't know it yet, and when people talk about light workers here and elsewhere, it's not so much you're here for a sudden change, but instead helping people in small ways grasp and adapt—allowing us to evolve.
In the Middle East, where there are two or more rights and two or more wrongs all existing at the same time based on perspective, it's people of good faith on all sides that keep embers of hope alive.
We've not seen the stories yet, though I am hoping we see them soon of Israelis and Palestinians working together in small and meaningful ways to help people suffering on either side - people who believe in humanity and the sanctity of life over dogma whatever the source - they are out there right now. We all should be sending them positive energy because they're human, and this week, through no fault of their own, their conviction could be wavering." -- Jackofhearts
From @deetoo. Thank you for making this post that captures so much of what we are all about here. I am not sure I've ever seen it written better than you just did.
Early yesterday evening, out of the blue I was overcome with this huge wave of anxiety. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin and just couldn't settle. I haven't experienced that in a while, which made me take notice. It feels like energetically I'm picking up on something that I can't define. This morning I awoke sad and felt very "off." To some extent I still feel that way. I can't tell if it's personal or I'm picking up on something collectively. It's a free-floating, unsettled feeling.
BTW, I can’t watch, listen to, or read any news about current events. It’s a strong visceral reaction. That’s been going on the past few weeks. It's exhausting, distracting and, in my view, often fear-based. Not the best for my peace of mind!
An intuitive friend mentioned that the planets are now aligned like they were in the American and French revolutions. Secrets revealed, wars, planetary seismic shifts -- that kind of thing. Although I'm not educated on planetary influences, it's all fascinating to me. However, I am mindful of the fact that we are entering the age of intuition. And that's huge! Our perceptions have been linear, which is limited and often grounded in fear. Everything is accelerating now, which can really throw us off-balance. The old structures are failing and can no longer stand. We are being asked, individually and collectively, to change and move into a new way of knowing. I can't speak so much to the collective change unless I first address what is required of me -- to recognize and heal those fragmented parts of myself and how I sometimes respond to the world.
As far as this free-floating anxiety is concerned ... whether what I'm picking up on is personal or out there, I believe the personal always affects the collective, since we are all one. Whatever it is, I am riding an anxiety wave but I am not worried. It comes from a level of understanding, or knowing, that I can't put into words. That may sound crazy to some of you, but I remain hopeful and have faith in that understanding. -- @deetoo, posted 1/21/24
@billy-mike I was adding @deetoo's latest amazing post to this hall of fame and going through each post and turning them blue, when I got to the one you made nominating me. Thank you for that! I think I had become so busy doing things to the forum in the engine room and other various projects that I never really stopped to see your kind nomination. Thank you, Billy-mike. Feels good to hear one's words returning and reminding of good things.
This one by @earthangel is a gem for us all, packed with wisdom from an examined life.
It is amazing and I can say that I didn’t know if I’d ever arrive here. I spent many yrs denying the “abandonment” to the point that during therapy yrs ago (for marital abandonment aka repeating negative patterns), I couldn’t even remember my “abandonment issues.” I literally would forget the word/concept of abandonment.
I use my belief in/connection to my guardian angels and their beautiful gifts to release toxicity. Literally asking—aka begging at times—to be free of these awful trials and turbulances works for me. And of course, my spirit guides help too.
I’d also say that growing and evolving into my psychic abilities helps me personally. When I see and “know” the pain that some people carry, I can release it bc it’s not mine. I realize it has nothing to do w me and I wish/ask for a more peaceful love and acceptance of myself. I used to spend time trying to surround them w healing light but that also kept me tethered to their pain & suffering. (Light healing has worked/helped w good hearted kind people.) My current focus may sound selfish to some perhaps but I can be healed most by healing myself and surrounding myself w protective loving kindness and light. I find that this practice creates a sort of force field that their anger and fear etc can’t penetrate. I believe it can also keep their angst separate from me. My mother actually is a lot calmer w me than she is w my sister who wants to bulldoze my mother. Two bulldozers create a big pile of dirt while I’m over here in my tub of warm bubbles.
It hasn’t been easy and it’s taken a long time. For yrs, psychics have told me that I’m surrounded by powerful angels, but I didn’t ask for help. I realized that the abandonment creates this hesitation bc i didn’t believe i could count on anyone! But I tried it at a very low point and it worked. And still works. Thank you, angels & guides & me!