@kateinpdx I cried every time I watched that video, showed it to my husband and we both cried again. I pray with all the light I have that the light extinguishes the hate and cruelty, and those who have been inflicting it are brought to justice.
Everyone in America should watch that child speak. I also am surrounding him and his parents with extra protection because now they are visible to the world. Thank you for sharing it.
@jeanne-mayell I try not to focus on it too closely as it is intended to be as cruel as possible.
@anya The video gave me hope. He resonated with millions. He gave the world a close up of the pain that T and his deputies are causing. He was brilliant in his innocent honesty. When something makes me cry, it gets the pain out of me. It's therapeutic. It rids the body of stress hormones and toxins, as emotional tears contain chemicals like cortisol that are released during stress. This process provides emotional relief and overall well-being. Thank you for caring enough to reach out.
Active hope is an act of resistance.
This compilation from Hope in Dark Times: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities (Rebecca Solnit) via The Marginalia.org, is wonderful. https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/Rebecca-Solnit-Hope-in-The-Dark= 2/?MC_COD=F6304B
Some excerpts: French philosopher Albert Camus: "There is no love of life without despair of life."
Artist Maira Kalman: "We hope. We despair. We hope. We despair. That is what governs us. We have a bipolar system."
"Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away. And though hope can b e an act of defiance, defiance isn't enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons." -- Writer Rebecca Solnit
"This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It's also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both." -- Solnit
"Hope doesn't mean denying these realities. It means facing them and addressing them by remembering what else the 21st century has brought, including the movements, heroes, and shifts in consciousness that address these things now." - Solnit
Note: Maria Popova's The Marginalia.org is a wonderful website that will email weekly her reviews of the best literature and art, often focusing on how to rise above these times. She wrote this review of Solnit's book in 2016. It's even more relevant today.
By the way, I did purchase a pack of those Embrace Hope stickers from Penzeys earlier this year when things started to look bleak. They came in 2 sizes. To share with others. :-)
@jeanne-mayell Maybe I need to be clearer. I don't have an issue with him speaking out, or anything like that, but for me personally being bombarded with images and stories of suffering isn't very helpful, but perhaps that's just my situation. I have more than enough to process. But if it helps anyone on here, no worries.
My meaning is that the people backing this regime see this sort of thing as amusement and get a dopamine rush from it, and it could also illustrate to them that their plan is working.
For me, my stress reduction will come from healthcare being affordable for all, so we don't end up in another pandemic situation. :)
The following link is from Parkrose Permaculture, who lives in Oregon. I've linked an image of the quote from a follower of hers in Europe that she posted at the end of the post. The link to her video, where she talks about this comment, is at the end of this paragraph. The commenter's message was essentially, don't be so hard on yourselves. America is doing in months what it took Europe years and a full-fledged war to do, so feel good about your resistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2P11Bs6nlM
Spirit has told me over and over again that the fight against fascism, at this moment in America, is vastly different from Germany in the 1930s. This is primarily due to technology and the ability to communicate effortlessly across nations, let alone across local communities. Yes, they say, the evil is the same, the playbook is the same, but the numbers of the population are not, thus the resistance is far more powerful, far sooner, and much more visible and vocal than what occurred in Germany.
The irony, really, is that hitler was inspired by our — America's — attempts at genocide (indigenous cultures) the enslavement of Africans, the subjugation of all women, and essentially, the Othering of anyone who was not a white male. We are in a karmic reckoning, and it is unbelievably painful to see and experience that reckoning—for it is for all of society, all of the culture, not just America, and not just the worst of the worst.
Hmm, went off on a tangent there, 😊 but this has been so intensely on my mind since that vision I shared last month of George Washington and the two roads. His sorrow and sense of responsibility for the misuse of the word "freedom" and the false yet deeply ingrained sense of supremacy of the Founders, as white males, was intense. I will never forget it. But what was also powerful was his belief in us, and in the Road that is leading us into the Light.
Anyway, the comment and the YouTube are interesting.
Also interesting and encouraging is another YouTube from Heather Cox Richardson, which I'll link below. In it she speaks about how the "quiet piggy" slur and cry for the "execution" of sitting Congress people seems to her to be a profound changing in the course of this difficult road we have been on. For me, that indicates that the latest rage-bursts in the news are cracks in the ice (yes, that ice too) making this horrific crossing from freedom into fascism a failure. They have no solid ground upon which to walk, and both they and we know that now. They are scared, and hollow, and FAILING.
Although we have some difficult viewing and comprehending ahead of us as the ugliness within those files is made visible, we also have the strength to get through it.
Hang in there folks, we chose to be here for this wild and at times terrifying ride, and although it may not end as fast as we would want, IT. IS. ENDING. The era of patriarchy and othering is shredding, and an era of community, communication, compassion, and LIGHT is being born. Take heart. Cleanse and recharge your energy with that emerging Light and lean up against Truth, for it will be spoken and it will be believed.
At 76, I may only see the first few decades as we re-align with the beauty of humanity's goodness, but I'm thrilled to be part of the bringing of Light. I'm loving being a part of this community, and I'm trying hard to look really closely at my own subconscious and culturally ingrained errors of attitude.
We are walking a very difficult road, and gd but it hurts and horrifies, yet Spirit says we are walking it correctly now, and that this has been coming for more than mere generations. This is, I am told, an inflection point in humanity. We are living the change. We are the Light. Know it. Live it. BE IT.
Namaste 🌻 ❤️ 🌻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-zshC7jkA0