I was unable to watch any specifics of the impeachment trial today. But based upon my somewhat cursory catching up on what I missed, I’m finding myself approaching despair.
The argument currently being put forth by the president’s counsel essentially posits that the president can do anything – ANYTHING – that he believes is in the ‘national interest,’ including doing whatever he can to get himself elected (because, of course, what president would not think their re-election would be in the national interest?), and it’s ok. “If the president does it, it’s ok.”
We were stunned at the hubris (and obvious disregard for the existence of the other two equal branches of government and the concept of separation of powers) when Nixon said it some 46 years ago, and we should be even more troubled by that concept now.
This argument strikes at the heart of our country, at the heart of what has made us unique in the world – and a beacon of hope and moral authority in the world.
Snatching at Hope
At this point it seems all we can do is watch in horror.
So I’m going to post a photo of the setting new moon that I took a few days ago. It’s lovely. And new moons give me hope.
And quite frankly, I need to snatch at hope. I need to allow myself the luxury of going to sleep this evening hoping that enough Senators will put common sense and the future of our country over their political expediency.
If they don’t, we will be ceding our sovereignty to a bully. This bully, and any other bully who wants to use gobs of money to buy the presidency. Because with no check on their power once they’re in? Who knows what they’ll change to retain that power. Term limits? Scratch. Not if it’s in the national interest. Polling intimidation? Gotta get the job done ‘for the country.’
No.
I have to look at the new moon. And hope our Senators come to their senses before it’s too late.
I don’t know what’s come over me as I sit here trying to think of something to write this evening. But yikes, it’s not pretty.
I’ve been sitting here on my couch, contemplating the thoughts parading through my head, writing a sentence here and a paragraph there. Then deleting them, one after another.
I’ve written about Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna. I’ve written about a crucial fact that we all live with, but barely any of us acknowledge truthfully and head on: in spite of our best laid plans, it can all be over in the blink of an eye.
I’ve been sitting here thinking about Kobe’s wife and other daughters. How when they woke up this morning, none of them knew their lives would be changed irrevocably, forever.
True For All of Us
But let’s face it: that’s true for all of us. At any moment, everything could change for any one of us – or for all of us, for that matter.
And yes, many of us have already experienced nightmarish events in which everything has changed in the blink of an eye. But that fact doesn’t make it any easier to witness it happening to someone else. Just because I’ve felt the horror of receiving the phone call we all dread doesn’t mean I’d wish it on anyone else.
Indeed, it makes me grieve all the more for the survivors. It makes me think of the families of the people who were killed on that Ukrainian airliner that was shot down a few weeks ago. Those people have to deal with the utter senselessness of that tragedy.
It makes me wonder what we’re going to witness when our greatest hopes are challenged by our worst fears later this week, when weak-willed people potentially fail to heed the call of our future ancestors to do what’s right instead of what’s politically expedient for their own selfish ends.
So I Binge
I hold out hope that those representing us in Washington will seize this time of the new moon and think beyond themselves, beyond their fears of getting primaried, beyond their fear of being bullied and ridiculed by the least among us (who also happen to hold the most power at the moment).
And since I can only hold fast to my hope that the people who’ve been elected to the Senate have a deep and abiding love for our system and for the solemn responsibility they hold to all of us, I embody that hope by imagining them digging deep and holding strong to our collective core values.
I hold that vision. That, and binge-eat peanuts.
I don’t know about you, but I consider peanuts in the shell to be terribly addictive. Worse than potato chips.
And so I pound them down. (I should never succumb to that first one. Therein lies the key.)
Eating. It’s such an essential aspect of life and living; an affirmation that we’re still here. And as long as we’re here, we must hold fast to our hope. For ourselves and for each other.
Train to Lansdale (formerly known as the R5) – Photo: L. Weikel
A Quickie Tonight
No, you guys. That’s not what I mean!
I’m finding my ability to keep my eyes open this evening is seriously compromised, and thus I will not be discussing my interpretation of Paper Wasp’s appearance ‘in my face’ this evening.
I’ll weigh in on that tomorrow.
Unexpected Opportunity
I’m more tired than usual this evening because I spent the afternoon and evening in Philadelphia. I had the good fortune to be invited to attend the first ever Workers’ Presidential Summit, which was sponsored by the AFL- CIO in Philadelphia.
This has been my lucky political year so far. First, I was invited to an event where I got to meet and listen to Corey Booker a few months ago.
Today, I had the opportunity to hear Joe Biden, Andrew Yang, Bill DeBlasio, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, and Amy Klobuchar address a room full of union workers at the Philadelphia Convention Center.
What a cool thing – to be able to get a sense of these people a little closer up, a little bit more personally and authentically, (or at least not separated from me by a tv screen). I have to say, attending these events has made a difference for me in how I perceive some of these candidates.
Which leads me to feel the need to make one statement before I go to bed this evening:
While I do feel it will be better to have the Democratic field of potential contenders winnowed down sooner rather than later, I actually feel like it’s a great opportunity for people to get their ideas out in front of the public and potentially drive some policy changes in those who ultimately become the nominee.
Make That Two Statements
The second statement I want to make is that I feel we are incredibly fortunate to have such outstanding candidates from which to choose. And my favorites weren’t even represented today, much as I really like some of those who spoke, and gained respect for others.
But I can state that each person who spoke today was sincere and smart, poised and ready to lead the country to a more unified, caring, and prosperous future.
I felt proud of each of these individuals, and appreciative that they care enough about the state of disunity, anguish, and fear of the future so many in our country are feeling to stand up and do something about it.
As I ran to catch my train (and it arrived just as I was hustling down the steps at Jefferson Station), I realized that I feel hope. And it feels great.
I don’t know about you, but I’m finding my sense of what’s going on in the world, both on a macro-level and on a very personal, day-to-day level, to be chaotic and bordering on overwhelming.
I’m amazed, I guess, at the intensity with which we are being asked to live our lives nowadays.
I look back on my journals from 15 or 20 years ago (and even further back) and I honestly feel as though we lived in another age. And by that I mean when I read my entries and contemplate how we lived our daily lives, it feels like life back in the ‘80s and ‘90s is as foreign to us now as “Little House on the Prairie” days looked to us then.
When You Really Think About It…
We are witnessing a time in the world’s evolution that could, conceivably, make or break the entire planet. What an outrageous and outlandish concept. We’re literally and very probably fiddling around taking the smallest of steps to change our energy usage (for instance), when in a year or two, if we do not drastically change our ways in one fell swoop, we almost certainly will be facing cataclysmic, made-for-tv-movie events in our lives on a regular, probably monthly, basis.
I cannot for the life of me understand why addressing the very real, very tangible effects of climate change hinges on whether or not people ‘believe’ climate change is ‘man-made’ or not.
Regardless of ‘whose fault it is,’ it behooves all of us to LOOK. AT. IT. Doesn’t it?
Who cares whether there have been other times in the history of our planet when the atmosphere naturally warmed and caused massive sheets of ice to melt? When those things happened, it changed the course of evolution, didn’t it? And if the plants and animals living at that time could see that, if circumstances continued to unfold the way they were those plants and animals would become extinct, and if they had had the technology and awareness to stop those changes from taking place – wouldn’t they have done so?
Does it really matter whose ‘fault’ it is?
What Is Wrong With Us?
The level of immaturity and utter nonsensical thinking, when it comes to refusing to take practical steps to save our planet (and thus ourselves), defies explanation.
Every day we see the current Administration deliberately rolling back commonsense efforts to make life better here on Earth. For instance, this Administration just rolled back the banning of the sale of energy inefficient light bulbs that was to take effect at the beginning of 2020. And they also are challenging California’s efforts to implement stricter emissions standards than those rolled back by the current Administration. This flies in the face of the usual stance of the Republican party that “states rights” be given precedence over federal regulations.
Sort of Like Dumping Garbage
I guess these attitudes are akin to the people who unconsciously (or worse, deliberately and consciously) dump garbage out their car windows – be it empty cigarette packs, cigarettes themselves, or used disposable diapers.
Every day I’m speaking with friends or clients or even just people standing in line with me at the grocery story who have a strange new look in their eyes. That look is one that says, to me, “I’m starting to freak the hell out. Life as we know it has become insane.”
What to Do?
When confronted with strangers in the grocery line, I do my best to catch their eye and smile. Laugh.
We pick up the cigarette butts and empty packs of Marlboros and dirty diapers dumped along the roadside. (Luckily, dirty diapers are a rarity, but still…).
We use the energy efficient bulbs regardless of whether the old ones are still available for purchase.
I do my best to hold a vision of a United States that leads the way in finding innovative solutions to our crises.
We all know it’s the little things. It’s the little things that push us over the edge. It’s the little things that can trigger road rage and make us go from pleasant to demented in two seconds flat.
It’s the little things that make life worth living.
It’s the little things, sometimes, that serve to bring a smile to our face just in time to shift whatever barometer we have within us to perceiving life as reflecting a rainbow rather than embodying a fogbank or a massive cloudburst.
There’s a big difference between those three ‘weather events’ and how they impact us (especially if we’re taking a walk when experiencing them). And sometimes it’s hard to perceive whether we’re impacting the weather or it’s impacting us. Are we the chicken? Or are we the egg?
Yikes. I’m all over the place tonight.
It’s stemming at least partly from the photo I want to ‘feature’ tonight (which I’d hoped to post last night, but we all know how well that went).
A Smidge of a Rainbow
I took tonight’s photo (above) last night as Karl and I traversed the ‘walkabout’ with Spartacus and Sheila (The ‘walkabout’ is the ~4 mile route we routinely take, as opposed to the ‘walk-around,’ which is 2.1 miles.)
I was tired when we walked last night. And feeling some uneasiness over the state of the world. (Oh wow, how ridiculous is that? ‘Some uneasiness?’ The banality of that statement is laughable.) But it’s true. Karl and I were both just sort of skating along on the surface. We even commented on how sort of ‘stuck in neutral’ we’re both feeling – paying attention to what’s going on in the world but trying our best not to get ‘hooked’ into any of it.
That’s hard.
We made a point of not digging too deeply into the specifics. We kept changing the subject, because we knew how easily we could become mired in misery.
I’m not going to recite what was (and is) going on ‘out there.’ Most of you, I suspect (with a few notable exceptions – and you know who you are!) are committed to remaining informed and many of you are activists, or you at least try to make a difference where you can. So whether our awareness of the current atrocities and outrages being visited upon our fellow Earth brothers and sisters (and Mother Earth herself) is conscious or not, we’re still picking up on the overall energy ‘out there.’ And it’s devolving.
As a result, as our mothers taught us, if we can’t say anything nice, we don’t say anything at all. Unsurprisingly, then, a good portion of our walks lately have been in silence.
Prickly Beauty of Thistle – Photo: L. Weikel
A Smidge of Love
So imagine my delight when I looked up at the sky – with no (truly, zero) expectation of seeing anything out of the ordinary – and caught sight of that smidgen of a rainbow.
It felt like an unexpected hug. No, it wasn’t some two page spread of a Technicolor spectacle. But neither was it a mere ‘rainbow dog.’ (And let me be clear: I’m not disparaging rainbow dogs. But you have to admit, they’re usually quite tiny.) It was real; it was unexpected; and it was a ray of hope. It made me smile, inside and out. It shifted my energy and kicked my perspective up a notch or two.
So of course, what was the first thing out of my mouth when I saw it? “I need to try to capture that!” I declared. “I want to share it tonight.”
We need each other. We need to give – and be – smidgens of rainbows for each other: Sharing unexpected smiles. Knowing, compassionate glances. Generous laughter.
Quick hugs, too – even if it’s just with our eyes or our words. Because it’s important, especially now, to know in our bones that we’re not alone, and that love will prevail.
…but I’m heading out the door to check out those meteor showers again tonight.
I’m such a sucker for celestial events. Which also reminds me: recently we celebrated the 50thanniversary of the moon landing. I’ve been meaning to watch the footage of that again, maybe even watch it with our kids (who are not ‘kids,’ I hasten to add). In fact, there are quite a variety of programs being offered this month to celebrate the technological innovation and tremendous bravery we witnessed all those years ago.
NASA and the Apollo Program were such huge parts of my childhood. It’s shocking, really, to consider how much promise there was when we landed on the moon in 1969 and how few dramatic accomplishments we’ve actually made since then.
I guess we got distracted.
A Lack of Will
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a deep sense of disappointment at the lack of will our country has shown to continuing our efforts in space exploration. When I think about what we accomplished in 42 years, I am stunned at the apparent lack of comparative progress.
What 42 years, you might ask? The 42 years between when Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic flight and when we landed men on the moon. The reason why I speak of this span in terms of 42 years is because my mother was very fond of recalling how she was ten years old when ‘Lindy’ made that incredible, groundbreaking flight. As you can probably guess, since I was ten years old when Neil Armstrong took his famous first step onto the surface of the moon, she was 42 when she had me.
Quite honestly, I always expected at least one of my children to be witness, when they were ten years old, to some scientific achievement that rivaled that enormous leap in technological capability and vision. But it didn’t happen. Again, it seems we got distracted.
We Got Distracted
Probably the greatest disappointment to humanity resulting from this failure to keep the technological research and momentum going is the grievous situation we find ourselves in right now: the climate crisis. So many incredible breakthroughs and inventions were discovered in the process of meeting the challenge posed by President Kennedy all those years ago. We can only wonder what could have been discovered had we continued the quest.
All of which makes me yearn for an about face to the head-in-the-sand, intelligence and education-bashing, and steadfast aggrandizing of ignorance over scientific inquiry that we’re witnessing in our country. The ‘dumbing down’ of America has been tremendously successful – to our great peril.
We Need a Grand Challenge
We need brilliance, innovation, and creativity to be valued and funded. This starts with us collectively making education a priority for all our children, from pre-school on up. And for sure it demands respect for science and the cessation of the bald-faced censorship of scientific inquiry and the result of it.
We need to be challenged; we need our scientists to be believed; we need to want to save our Earth for the good of all – not just for those who hold all the power (and all the money).
We need a Grand Challenge, an audacious goal that flies in the face of what the naysayers would have us believe. We need to turn the Climate Catastrophe into a rallying cry for discovering the best, brightest, more brilliant among us who can turn everything around exponentially faster than ‘they’ say is possible.
Worth Saving: Tohickon Creek in July – Photo: L. Weikel
A Strong Dose of Idealism
Everywhere we look right now, there’s misery and unbelievable cruelty, there’s slavery and corruption, there’s deliberate exploitation of the Earth’s resources to make a few already obscenely rich people even richer – and damn the impact upon the rest of us, not to mention the Earth herself.
It’s no wonder so many are so miserable.
Yet we can turn this around immediately. We need to believe in ourselves; we need to believe we can do it. We need a person at the helm who has vision, who gives us hope in the future and in ourselves. We need some leaders to step up who are not solely out for themselves, but who truly know that as the least among us are made better, we’re all lifted.
I know, I sound naïve. But I tell you this: we cannot lose our hope. We cannot give up on ourselves, on humanity’s ability to bring brilliance to the fore. We cannot give in to the distraction any longer.
We have to take a stand, and we have to do it now.
Excuse me while I go outside to stare at the cosmos and dream.
I have a deep affinity for Hawk. It was extremely persistent in showing up and prodding me back when I was writing Owl Medicine. It wouldn’t let me go. It wouldn’t let me off the hook.
So as I drove to my presentation at St. Joseph’s University today, I was delighted by all the Hawks that accompanied me on my journey. I spotted at least eight of them, four of which were hanging out in trees along my route. The others were in flight – one being raged at by a crow – and then the final one I spotted was sitting boldly on a speed limit sign right along the roadside, its belly bulging a bit over the top of the sign.
A Veritable Entourage
I felt escorted. Not only by my Hawk allies themselves – but perhaps even more powerfully by the lineage of paqos into which I’ve been initiated. I felt the Hawks’ presence was a signal from Spirit that my lineage was with me, had my back, and supported my effort to be an effective spokesperson to the next generation.
Of course, I joked with the students as I began my presentation. I let them know right up front that I’d radically indulged my intellectual side when I began preparing to speak to a college class. As I described last night, I literally surrounded myself by my substantial collection of books about Andean shamanism – the equivalent of my mind’s comfort foods.
I think they felt surrounded too – I brought ten of my favorite books. Yes, I’d created a “Recommended Reading List” for them, just in case their curiosity was piqued by my presentation. But there’s something special about being able to pick up a book and flip through it. Sometimes you open a book and you read exactly the right words that let you know this is the book you’re meant to read. So I brought them. Just in case.
More Meaning Than I Realized
But I also reassured them while I had indulged my logical, pragmatic side as I prepared, I also opened my arms wide to trusting that I would cover exactly what they needed to hear. And assuring me that I could trust myself and my message were all these Hawks that had basically lined my route as I drove there.
I was puzzled, then, when they all looked at each other and laughed.
Turns out the mascot for St. Joe’s is the Hawk. And as the professor kindly pointed out, “We’re on Hawk Hill.”
I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Hawks Brought a Message of Hope
And I can honestly say, this group of young people was thoughtful, engaged, respectful, and attentive throughout my presentation. They asked questions that honestly reflected curiosity. They give me hope for humanity.
And that was probably the very best message any HAWKS could have given me today.
I’m filled with gratitude: for the opportunity. For the reception. And for the hope*.
Naah, I’m not going to talk politics. But I did watch it (the so-called SOTU); and I watched Stacey Abrams’s response. And all I’ll say is that I felt inspired listening to Stacey Abrams. I felt heartened by her vision of working together, searching for and implementing innovative responses to our country’s issues for the benefit of us all.
And it felt rejuvenating to contemplate just how quickly so many of our current, existential issues can still be turned around – before it’s too late – if we work together.
Our Ability to Share is Based In the Power of Knowing What We Have
We can do this. We must not give in to fear. We must not give in to the cynical fatalism that encourages people to take as much as they can from whomever they can get it because it’s every man for himself.
I loved the story she told of her father walking home in the pouring rain from his job, soaked and shivering when Stacey and her mom and siblings went out to meet him in their car. I loved that he gave away his coat, knowing he would be soaked and freezing cold, but knowing also that he was going home to his family; knowing they would take care of him, get him warm, and give him dinner. Giving his coat to the homeless man was a no-brainer for Mr. Abrams because that man didn’t have Mr. Abrams’s knew and felt certain of the power of greatest resource: his family.
I think that’s the single most important realization we can make in these times: we need each other. Whether we know each other or not, we must be family for each other.
We Need to Offer Of Ourselves
Yes, some of us are lucky enough to have that support system readily in place in the traditional sense. By that I mean siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in relatively close proximity to us. But a pretty significant portion of us do not have that comfort and sense of stability close at hand.
Instead, we’re asked to look to our left and look to our right. Some of us are starting to realize we need to reach out to our friends – and maybe even our neighbors. We need to offer our friendship and support, offer our unique skills. Offer our selves.
We’ve all seen that every time a catastrophe happens, people rally. We come together and offer what we have. We pitch in to help each other, scrounge up sustenance, and provide emotional and energetic support (if not also tangible and fiscal support as well). We don’t stop to ask about politics or who you voted for. We tap into our humanity. We tap into our shared experience.
Embrace Beaver Energy
I yearn to be challenged by our leaders to be visionary and innovative. Don’t you?
So much more is possible when we work together and hold each other up. So much more is possible when we embrace our Beaver energy.
Come on. You knew I’d bring some archetypal animal medicine into this, didn’t you?
Embrace your hope. Embrace your wit. Embrace your intelligence, your inspiration, and your passion. And be vigilant about giving your power to or believing anyone who would tell you that your woes and miseries are someone else’s ‘fault.’ That the ‘other’ (who would actually give you the coat off their back) is someone to be feared, hated, or bullied.
We are in this together. We need to believe. In us.
