Here’s what I can’t stay silent about in this forum that has my name on it: the blindness and approval of so many Americans in supporting a man whose behavior epitomizes darkness. I'm good at reading people, so I should be able to understand how people can ignore a leader who loves murderer dictators; hates democracy, punishes free speech, and foments hatred towards his political critics and half the US population. How can people look the other way when their countrymen and women are kidnapped in the night, disappeared from their loved ones, and tortured in prisons. I cannot understand people condoning those events which he ordered.
I thought I could help us heal here by steering our conversations toward kindness and all the good in our world despite this continual unraveling of our democracy.
I still know that self-care, love, and forgiveness are important paths, that we need hope and a dream of peace to keep going.
But silence about the shock and outrage I feel only makes me feel worse. So in addition to finding a measure of peace and hope every single day in my own way, of being with those I love, of finding forgiveness for those whose choices I abhor, and for the gift of walking among the trees, I still have to speak out and bear witness to the debravity of leaders who do what they are doing to destroy this democracy so many have fought and died for, all in the pursuit of hatred and greed.
John Pavlovitz captures what I feel: that even in heartbreak and exhaustion, hope actually lives in our outrage and compassion. That hope reminds me I’m alive, awake, and still capable of love. So if you too are balancing outrage and love, I’m right there with you.
I know that this period of darkness will end.
Through it all, I hold fast to hope. I believe we’ll endure and emerge into an age of greater love and wisdom. From this darkness, something new and beautiful will be born.
Earlier this year, to give myself a visual to focus on that would keep my thoughts positive, I created this graphic and it has been my computer desktop ever since. It is pretty much full screen so I never thought about posting it anywhere. Today I made it smaller, hopefully not too small—it should print about the size of a business card. On screen it appears to have retained the crispness the larger graphic has, at least when I tried placing it in Word. In any case, if you like it and find it helpful, you should be able to download it and print. Digital doesn't always print well, and I had to reduce it quite a bit, but hopefully it will be crisp on screen and print well too.
Blessings❤️ Tesseract
@jeanne-mayell Here’s a little update on T followers. This past week we had a long anticipated reunion with my brother and sister in law who are Triple Trumpers from the South. All went well. We never discussed politics or elected officials, but we did talk about some pertinent topics.
When I approached my sister in law about the state of our country, she replied that they no longer watch the news and they don’t talk about what’s happening. I couldn’t believe that at first as they have watched Fox News for decades. Then the day the East Wing was demolished, I asked my sister in law how she felt about that. She didn’t believe it had happened until I showed her an aerial photo showing the complete demolition of the building. She was shocked. She asked what they were going to put in its place and I told her about the ballroom (forever known as the Epstein ballroom in my mind.) She didn’t have words.
Later on during our visit, healthcare came up and she mentioned that they were scared of having universal health insurance like they have in England. Instead of getting into an argument, I pointed out that the United States ranks at the bottom of developed nations for healthcare and that the countries with the top ranked health care had universal healthcare. She had no idea.
We also talked about our worries for our children and grandchildren, not knowing what kind of world they will inherit and we cried. My brother and sister in law no long watch the news, but they are searching out reliable news sources online, like Reuters and the Associated Press. They recognize like we do that the legacy media can not be trusted.
Before our visit was over, my sister in law said she was going to work on ways their church could help people who will be losing SNAP benefits and help the local food bank. And I’m going to do the same.
There are cracks in MAGA, my friends, and there are ways to reconnect with one another in love and compassion.
The “ like” button Has decided it’s going to work in a new way right now.
If you click "like", it registers your username and kicks off the last person who clicked "like." So if you want to know who likes your post, you have to keep checking back in each time you’ll see new names there. We are always dealing with one glitch or another in this site, most of them you never even see although I know what they are.
We are a low budget site, with one wonderful guy named Dave Who has three very young boys, which she juggles caring for a while, fixing people’s websites. He is the only one who knows how to fix things here. And eventually, you’ll get around to fixing this light button.
It’s always a struggle, isn’t it… balancing good and evil in the world and grappling w the anger and rage within. I suppose one cannot exist without the other bc we are imperfect humans. Those who strive for inner peace, -calm, -growth, -tenacity, -love, and -acceptance are constantly confronted w opposite and adversarial people and situations and stemming from our own emotions and experiences.
I always told my high school students that life is a roller coaster and we must enjoy the thrill and endure the nausea. In life, we often or sometimes make the worst decisions. Bc that’s what life is—good and horrible. We’re in the thick of it now.
I’ve disagreed—not proudly—in the past w Maria Shriver’s belief that we must sit down w those who vote for truly evil people and to never stop trying to reach understanding. And I know this practice is valid and important and also how she grew up, daily dinner table debates. I also realize it’s an act of love, esp w family, to endure the contrary views but as Jeanne said, we’re at a terrifying turning point. I’ve tried to be present, but it’s very difficult for me to be in the presence of his voters’ darkness.
I accept this is my reaction and my individual need to find ways to protect myself in their presence. Ties have been severed already w many of my cousins (by them) and I can feel their disdain for me… I have 30 first cousins, at one time all close and loving vibes but now some really dislike me and my progressive views.
I choose to accept that I release those with whom connection isn’t available. I care about them from a distance and hope that my dual messages that I share on social media—joys and sorrows, hurts and support, worries and sighs of relief—portray everyone’s duality and, maybe, helps them also to find the beauty and light in the darkness within. This is my prayer.
One way we can help our community right now is to ask a restaurant with a outdoor power outlet to host a community fridge.
People cut off from snap or who are working unpaid can drive by anonymously and pick up donated food and essentials by other restaurants and neighbors in the area. East village has been doing something similar since the Covid crisis, and it's a great way to keep peace, dignity, and stability in our local neighborhoods.
What would each of us do if we had the power to do it, and if we thought we could get away with it? And also, if we could suppress our own sense of shame and remorse (or worse, if we had none)?
Unfortunately for civil society, really bad people exist. On a spiritual level, we may call them young souls or unevolved or whatever, but in the crassest of terms they are bad people. We all know them. The really cruel kids at school who made fun of the weakest and most vulnerable. The boss that pushes you to the brink of a nervous breakdown, and seems to enjoy it. The abusive parent, or sibling, or spouse. And we know who they are not just by their actions, but because we can feel their emptiness, as if their heart chakra area is completely vacant. They feel creepy and soulless.
In the U.S. right now the bad people have been empowered, and they are gleefully running amok. There are good people who are fighting them, and neutral people who probably just want things to return to normal without having to do much about that.
How does this play itself out? I don't know at this point, although I have said on this forum that I think it gets worse, but it's so bad now we may be at the bottom. I don't know anymore. It's so hard to know when everyday is just an assault on anyone's sense of what's right and wrong.
Anyway, my point is, bad people exist, and they suck, and they ruin it for the rest of us.
@lynn T-Y. I am always uplifted by your posts because they are true. You reflect the whole of reality. This most recent post reminds of John Steinbeck's famous 1941 New Year's Day letter to a friend (most recently excerpted and reposted by Brain Pickings in 2017.
As Hitler was storming across Europe, he wrote:
Speaking of the happy new year, I wonder if any year ever had less chance of being happy. It’s as though the whole race were indulging in a kind of species introversion — as though we looked inward on our neuroses. And the thing we see isn’t very pretty… So we go into this happy new year, knowing that our species has learned nothing, can, as a race, learn nothing — that the experience of ten thousand years has made no impression on the instincts of the million years that preceded.
Not that I have lost any hope. All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up. It isn’t that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn’t die. I don’t know why we should expect it to. It seems fairly obvious that two sides of a mirror are required before one has a mirror, that two forces are necessary in man before he is man. I asked [the influential microbiologist] Paul de Kruif once if he would like to cure all disease and he said yes. Then I suggested that the man he loved and wanted to cure was a product of all his filth and disease and meanness, his hunger and cruelty. Cure those and you would have not man but an entirely new species you wouldn’t recognize and probably wouldn’t like.
BTW, Steinbeck, using the same logic that we have used here that you can only cage a free people for so long, he predicted the Nazi regime, which was far more clever and efficient than the clowns running America right now, would ultimately fail:
It is interesting to watch the German efficiency, which, from the logic of the machine is efficient but which (I suspect) from the mechanics of the human species is suicidal. Certainly man thrives best (or has at least) in a state of semi-anarchy. Then he has been strong, inventive, reliant, moving. But cage him with rules, feed him and make him healthy and I think he will die as surely as a caged wolf dies. I should not be surprised to see a cared for, thought for, planned for nation disintegrate, while a ragged, hungry, lustful nation survived. Surely no great all-encompassing plan has ever succeeded.
Posted by @bluebelle:
There are cracks in MAGA, my friends, and there are ways to reconnect with one another in love and compassion.
@bluebelle, your post gave me hope and brought me to tears. The blinders are slowly being lifted from people's eyes, if only we give each other the respect, space and compassion to allow that to happen.
Consistently slow dripping the truth into spaces that ppl of various viewpoints frequent, does dissolve some misconceptions, giving ppl time to re-think their viewpoints without being confrontational. In a forum of my professional peers, the MAGA screaming, name-calling & belittling drowned out other voices for a long time. Now, faced with actual facts, faces of the hungry, demolition on the White House Grounds, the innumerable scandals & incompetence of T's chosen entourage, T's insatiable greed, reality of destruction in Gaza, missiles blowing up ppl on boats being presented as if a video game... those MAGA voices are being muted. Perhaps they are beginning to see reality. I have yet to run out of material to post there, as T exceeds his worst actions on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, it is a human trait to not change direction until the road ahead is absolutely impassable. That is the Point of Critical Unworkability. That forces a change. Things have to become so utterly terrible that there is no alternative but to change. We're not there yet, but getting closer. As with the end of The Golden Age, things advanced to such an extreme inequity, that messy & abrupt change was inevitable, which brought about a better life for the world eventually.
I don't know if this has been shared in this thread or not, so apologies if it's a repeat.
This is a simple and brilliant form of resistance they are using in Chicago that I really hope spreads!
You need to hear what Chicago is doing to fight back against ICE. And then copy it.
And on an encouraging note, a few weeks ago we drove out to central Oregon (I'm from Portland). It dawned on me when we got home that we didn't see a single DT sign or even those stupid flags flying on anyone's truck!
(A lot of the drive is pretty rural or small town. Not long ago we definitely would have seen them).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY6WQUEFsRQ
I just watched this video, which is a marvelous Law of Attraction no nonsense, real world listen.
Ignore her snark about crystal balls and listen to what she is saying.
Remember, it is our ENERGY that draws things to us, so don't buy into the dark's (rapidly decaying) use of our fears and doubts.
It's not ignoring or stuffing emotions that will free us. It is transmuting them.
SO. Find ways to get that fear out of your body. I scream into a pillow 🤣 and have been known to throw things. I don't rage clean—unfortunately for me, I rage throw--usually the pillow I have been screaming into.I have been known to stomp around spewing my feelings like a two year old. Hoping the neighbors can't hear me. When I've rage cried or screamed enough, then I go take a shower. (Get it out of your body!) Sometimes I write my anger out longhand and then shred it. Longhand writing gets the energy out of me and into the paper through my hand writing. Shredding demolishes the negative words on the page. Then I take the shredded remains out of the house and into the garbage bin.
I posted a graphic with words Spirit gave me a few posts above this, but the short and vital part of that transmittal is to do the following with your fear/anger/frustration/whatever negative:
ACKNOWLEDGE. TRANSMUTE. RECLAIM. RECHARGE. USE.
It works. Namaste ❤️ 🌼 ❤️
For those who long to do more but are restrained by physicalities and age..
https://substack.com/home/post/p-177848805
Well one major method of resistance is voting. And I hope that we get good results around the country today. I am especially hoping for Mikie to win in NJ. But the other elections too, Democrats need their wins.
Well, just got done working the polls in my city in Ohio. As I was assisting a gentleman to begin voting, he asked if it was too late to change party affiliation. I said yes, but today's ballot is not a Republican or Democrat only ballot. Lots of local issues. Any way, I said the primary next year is when he can change, and it will be more involved, etc. He said oh yes it will. I went back to check his party affiliation, and it was R. I wonder what his thoughts are concerning his want to change, and if he will follow through?
NYC exuberant in their new mayor -- watching this spontaneous joy in Washington Park (NYC) will boost your joy. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMsDphAd/
In Boston, the Mayor sent a strong message to Attorney General Bondi which made my heart fill with pride: CLICK Here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNjWMuEOp00/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
"Boston has always been a city of revolution, of innovation, or the public good, and never bowing down to tyranny."
"More than a hundred years before your home state was founded, Bostonians were across the street in Fanueil Hall setting the foundation for our country's democracy and rule of law."
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNjWMuEOp00/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
How can we keep the blue wave going right now? While the other side plots its next moves, we must keep building our own empowerment.
One path is to truly "see" and be inspired by those leaders who have come forward now.
After the presidential election, I looked with concern for leaders of the resistance. The people were in shock; I was in shock. Oh, most of us knew what was unfolding in the T camp, what would always unfold if T got into power. But it was still a shock to see it happening. And there seemed to be no strong leadership to rally around.
Now we are back in our bodies, finding our bearings.
We are seeing powerful voices rise. More will follow.
Our movement grows stronger when we, the people, recognize and lift up the leaders who helped make this blue wave possible. When we fill our hearts with those who inspire us, we draw on their strength. By amplifying them, we empower ourselves—and everyone who listens.
I always see Ruth Bader Ginsburg in spirit, but I also want to take in the spirits of living leaders: Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NYC's new mayor Zohran Mamdani, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and of course Bernie Sanders, who has carried this mission his entire career.
These are the souls who inspire me. Who inspires you? I know there are others who’ve been leading.
I also wonder—what is the invisible strength these people have to reach the masses?
I believe it’s heart strength. The electromagnetic field of the heart is 5,000 times stronger than that of the brain. That’s a fact. Heart strength may be the secret current these leaders carry—it’s what pulls the rest of us upward.
It is heart power that will stand up to the dark forces trying to steal our democracy, harm immigrants, and demonize those who serve the public good—scientists, healthcare advocates, military service members, and representatives who honor the Constitution.
And it is heart power that will save our democracy. These leaders help us find it—within ourselves, and within each other.
So what am I asking here? To highlight our leaders. And help others to rise.
@lovendures @dannyboy @deetoo @bluebelle @sealion @Andy @AndrewPosey @raincloud @lynn @tgraf66 @journeywithme2 @baba @dana @seaholly @Caroline @cc21 @tonya @pat-czap @herukane @tesseract @kateinpdx @classictravelr @earthangel @lenor @febby23 @lowtide @anya @averylegacy
@jeanne-mayell another great leader to follow for the list. I have absolutely zero doubts and worries that she will be representing Michigan in the United States Senate for many many years to come. Mallory McMorrow. One of the most genuine light ringers I have ever had the pleasure to meet, shake hands with, send some text messages back-and-forth with, and get a selfie with. They do not come more genuine and honest than her