Drowning in the Blue Wave

 So glad for the diversity represented by those elected. Our governor, Deb Haaland, first Native American governor. First black governor. A trans woman elected in Alabama!

But I find myself thinking more about our losses. DEI*. EPA. ICE. Alaska pipeline. Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade. 

* On Thursday, the official White House X account posted, “FYI: DEI is still dead,” just two days after Democrats scored major election victories, including Abdul El-Sayed’s historic U.S. Senate win in Michigan.

(Abdul El-Sayed is a health disparity researcher).

I think about the white women who trigger me at church, when they express their anxiety, and it's all about what's happening out there... in realms they have no leverage over, things that don't affect them much but worry them greatly. And I wonder, is that what I'm doing?

"Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far."

Isn't it obnoxious privilege if I focus on how good my little white bubble life is?

Is it enough to spend time imagining a better America? What work should I do?

Quotes on Change

 Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon … everything’s different.  Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, comic by Bill Watterson 

People change and forget to tell each other.  Lillian Hellman   

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.  Or you don’t. Stephen King, The Stand  

When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment. Pema Chödrön 

Quote – Rumi

"Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give." – Rumi 

In between

 I am enjoying a moment where almost everything important is in motion and needing very little from me. The right things have been started at work, at home, at church. Relationships are stable (I think). Life generally has balance. (I could use a little more exercise, but ... all things never being equal, it's okay.)

And so, I am breathing. Shaking my shoulders down. Letting breath get to my belly. Using my "floodlight" mindfulness (*) to absorb my surroundings just as they are, accept my internal landscape just as it is. And feeling grateful. Thankful. Full. 

And for everyone I am failing by not knowing how I'm falling short of your expectations, I say sorry and ask for your grace. Speak up! My cup is full; I can give more. 

* So I remember later: Peak Mind by Dr. Amishi Jha

The Three Systems of Attention

• The Flashlight (Focused Attention / Orienting System):
  • Narrows your mental energy to highlight a specific object, thought, or location (like a beam in a dark room).
  • Used when reading, looking for your keys, or tracking a single sensation like your breath.
• The Floodlight (Open Monitoring / Alerting System):
  • Provides a broad, open, and receptive state of awareness to the present moment without focusing on anything in particular.
  • Used when scanning your environment for hazards while driving or noticing background sounds.
• The Juggler (Executive Control / Goal-Directed System):
  • Directs and manages your behavior, keeping your long-term goals in mind while coordinating actions and resisting distractions.
  • Used to stay on task or adjust your behavior when plans change.

Chestnut (poem) by Rebecca Baggett

I touched a chestnut sapling
in the Georgia mountains.
My friend writes of the great trees and their vanishing,
but I have seen a young chestnut,
tender and green,
rising from its ashes.
I, too, write of loss and grief,
the hollow they carve in the chest,
but that hollow may shelter some new thing,
a life I could not have imagined or wished,
a life I would never have chosen.
I have seen the chestnut rising,
luminous,
from its own bones,
from the ashes of its first life.

Joint Custody (poem) by Ada Limón

Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance.
Two families, two different kitchen tables,
two sets of rules, two creeks, two highways,
two stepparents with their fish tanks or eight tracks
or cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills.
I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping
to that original chaotic track.
But let me say, I was taken back and forth
on Sundays and it was not easy
but I was loved in each place.
And so I have two brains now.
Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I'm not,
the one that is so relieved to finally be home.

Forgiveness

 On the eve of Yom Kippur, I'm thinking about the ways that I've "missed the mark" when I've aimed at connection, respect, and love for those around me.

• For the anger and betrayal I caused my mother when I took her car
• For my impatience and dismissal of community members who operate out of fear, greed, and exclusion
• For not following through when I've made a commitment
• For not loving first before judgment and rejection when someone fails me

I'm left thinking about the difference between forgiveness and restoration, forgiveness and rejection, forgiveness and reconnection. 

How can I ask for my mother's forgiveness when I have no intention of returning her car?

How can I ask for forgiveness from community members who have no intention of operating out of love, abundance, and connection?

How does forgiveness work now when those commitments are so far in the past and no way to follow through now?

The commitment to love feels ever-present, and maybe that commitment is enough for me. And for those who don't know (or care) that I've judged them, what responsibility do I have to call it to their attention? Is praying enough?

And so I atone alone, which is not recommended and feels like cheating, or at least hiding. 

What is hell?

As a Unitarian Universalist, I do not believe in heaven or hell. But as a Buddhist-curious, I do think it's worth contemplating what hell I keep myself in with my striving, what hell I condemn others to with my judgment and indifference. 

What I believe first and foremost is that connection is the purpose of life, connection to each other but also to the larger universe, with its light and dark and mystery. The planetary bodies teach us the power of pull, the wisdom of drawing to a point of balance of our own trajectory with the gravity of those that need us. In those orbits, we are both free and bound. Better than bound, dedicated. Calm and kind. We gather in the commitment of love that will not let us go. 

Yes, that's all very well and good (and hard enough!). But what keeps us from this planetary dance with each other?

Boundaries too brittle. Collapsing into atmosphere and burning up. Indifference that doesn't even bring us close enough to be in orbit, to care enough to circle, to do-si-do before spinning off on parallel adventures. Trajectories so self-willed that we rocket past worlds unexplored. 

And what is cruelty? Pulling others into our control without honoring their own paths. Or worse, cheering when chance or poor choices or past patterns beyond their control catapult others into burning suns, endless cold beyond inhabited galaxies. 

For myself, the work of keeping a soft front, hard spine, or to continue my extended metaphor, holding my path with ease, open to influence yet arcing toward the justice and love I want for myself, for my family, for the communities of which I am a part, and those beyond my sphere of influence. 

Kelsey Atherton, member of my church who just preached on "the hell of the world is more than enough," tells us to love the hell right out of this world. Yes and yes.