Senate Trial

Some Nights – Day 823

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Sirius & Orion – Photo: L. Weikel

Some Nights

Some nights it’s really hard for me to come up with anything to write about that doesn’t bludgeon our sensibilities with thoughts and emotions that are unrequited. That’s especially true when two circumstances collide and rob me of my inspiration: (1) when I’m constrained by my sense of civic responsibility and passion for our system of law and government to avidly watch the Senate impeachment trial; and (2) when I fail to get myself outside to take a walk.

Yes, I’ll admit it. I become consumed by the writhing gyrations our country is going through. I feel helpless as I watch it struggle to either give birth to a new, more diverse, passionate, and unified version of itself or die as it reverts to its fearful, racist, hateful, and disrespectful roots.

Indeed, those roots are the undercurrent that streams throughout our perceptions of the Senate trial we’re witnessing this week. Those roots are the source of the trauma we’ve endured and seen perpetrated in our name, the violence we’ve seen stoked since the very first rallies took place, the desecration and madness that was unleashed on our elected representatives and sacred symbols of democracy on January 6th.

Not Light and Airy

Believe me, I’d love to write about something whimsical or fanciful this evening. My usual go-to sources of a higher perspective, Mother Earth and her myriad creations, don’t feel as readily available to me when I fail to take make the effort to get outside my cocoon.

And perhaps, if I’d managed to wedge in a walk this evening, I might have received the gift of a distraction. But I didn’t. So I’m relegated to musing over the unsettling way my heart feels like it’s taken up residence in the pit of my stomach.

I don’t know if any of you heard it, but at least twice in the arguments that took place today on behalf of the House Managers, the word resilience or resilient was used to refer to our democratic ideals. For obvious reasons, if you’ve been hanging with me this week, you’ll understand that the word jumped out of the television at me.

Crumbling Institution

We’re going to find out over the next few days just where we stand. If there is a conviction, there will be fallout. At least, I imagine there will be disappointment and at least some outrage felt by those who have fallen for The Big Lie. Hopefully, the backlash will be muffled and subdued, because deep down, hatred is unsustainable.

But if there is an acquittal…ah yes. That’s the situation that will test our resilience probably more than it’s ever been tested in our history. Even more than the Civil War? Yeah, probably. Because an acquittal will give legitimacy to the very same factions that incited the Civil War and were allowed to flourish under a veneer of invisibility and distorted respectability.

But that veneer has been ripped off by the actions stoked by DT and perpetrated on our nation. An acquittal will force an eruption, because the ideology of those who desecrated our capitol is unsustainable.

Some nights, like tonight, I hang on to the idea of our resilience by a thread.

Dark Moon – Photo: NASA

(T-288)

Beauty and Grace – Day 821

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Vast Winter Sky – Photo: L.Weikel

Beauty and Grace

Beauty and grace. Remember those two words? They jumped off the page of The Ocean Oracle’s lwb (little white book) that accompanies the deck when I looked up the message conveyed by the Resilience card that appeared yesterday. I shuffled the deck and shuffled again, all the while keeping the Senate trial foremost in my mind – asking for guidance for us all.

And as we know, ‘Sea Heather – Resilience’ was the card that appeared as our watchword.

To be honest, I could easily see how we as a people will need to be resilient in the face of the absurdity we’re going to be asked to accept as legitimate legal argument. Indeed, with respect to our republic as a whole, this definition of resilience from Dictionary.com sets the bar:

“3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process, etc.”

We’re being asked to respond to and recover readily from an insurrection incited by our own president in a desperate bid to retain power by use of mob violence; an insurrection waged upon our very system of government unlike anything since the Civil War itself.

It’s obvious how our resilience as a nation is being tested.

But Beauty and Grace?

Which brings me back to the sentence that haunted the edges of my mind since I wrote my post last night. “Let your beauty and grace shine through in even the most extreme environments.”

I had a feeling I knew where that beauty and grace might shine through. They are not words that would readily leap to mind in a Senate trial based upon an insurrection in which seven people have lost their lives and hundreds have sustained injuries – many horrific.

But there it was. Beauty and grace. The initial closing argument of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D – Maryland), the lead Impeachment Manager of the House of Representatives, on the simple question of the Constitutionality of the Senate hearing this case, exemplified the essence of these two words. His belief in the resilience of our form of government, his obvious and heartfelt love for our nation and his belief in the principles and integrity upon which it was founded couldn’t have been more eloquently stated.

Beauty and grace. Resilience personified.

And yet? Forty four Senators voted as if they had not listened to a single word.

If accountability is what we require for our nation to sustain its resilience, my heart is hurting this night. Our future is in the balance.

(T-290)

Trial Card – Day 820

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Resilience Card – The Ocean Oracle by Susan Marte

Trial Card

I haven’t chosen a card for us to contemplate in quite a while. Given that as a nation we’re once again on the verge of being subjected to the chaotic drama that accumulated over the past four years and erupted on January 6th, 2021, tonight felt like a good night to choose a trial card.

The man has already been impeached. Not once, but twice. Technically this is not an impeachment trial. Rather, it’s a trial before the Senate on whether he should be convicted of the conduct he was impeached over (in this case, incitement of an insurrection).

Personally, the respite from having DT’s presence – in all its forms – largely absent from our day-to-day lives for the past four weeks has been restorative. I’m only just now finding myself able to hear the words, “And the president said today…” without every muscle in my body tensing up, bracing for the worst.

Resilience

So the appearance of the Resilience card from The Ocean Oracle felt entirely appropriate. Heck, I had no need to read the ‘lwb’ (oracle parlance for ‘little white book’ – a reference to the explanatory guide that accompanies most oracles) to easily grasp the wisdom inherent in bringing resilience to the fore. Surely the suggestion that our nation needs to bring a certain attitude of fortitude to facing the truth of what took place leading up to and including 1/6 is completely sensible.

And given the penchant DT’s defenders and allies have shown over the years for relentlessly battering us with lies and admonitions not to believe what’s right before our eyes, it only makes sense that we’re going to have to bring emotional and intellectual resilience to the party.

We’re going to have to hang tough. Endure the insanity yet again. Stand fast for what is right and just.

Interesting Take

And then I read the aforementioned ‘lwb’ (written by the deck’s creator, Susan Marte), and I found the accompanying ‘story’ and ‘messages’ to be different than I expected, so I offer them here for your consideration:

42 – Sea Heather – RESILIENCE

The Story

Her childhood had been rocky. She felt alone for much of it, coming into her life through the kindness of strangers. Those strangers were now mostly friends. They were lifelines to her and came at the most unexpected moments, in the most unexpected guises. Her life now was steady and she was proud of where she was. There had been struggles and triumphs, sadness and joy, grief and celebration. But she had trust and faith in life and that force now shone through her. One of her annual rituals to honour her resilience came at the flowering time of the sea heather. Each summer she would harvest a bunch of sea heather and gift it to someone in her life who had been inspirational to her during the past year. She chose sea heather because of its own resilience – it grew in salty areas, undeterred by the saline conditions. It was hearty and unassuming in its gifts and its flowers were subtle yet stunning. And even after it was harvested and out of its growing conditions, it continued to hold forth its grace and beauty.

The Messages

Do you need to toughen up against your environment? Are you wanting to hide your gifts because you do not feel strong enough? Let your beauty and grace shine through in even the most extreme environments. Do not let your resilience be unbecoming. Use it as a beautiful strength to get you through dark times. Remember that tenderness, grace and beauty reside in all.

Take Away

My sense is that there will be efforts to paint the proceedings this week as some partisan ‘witch hunt,’ since that’s been the rallying cry for years and years now. We will need to be resilient as a nation and as individuals to demand accountability in the face of actions and rhetoric that have tested us and the foundations of our democratic republic for far too long.

And in the midst of keeping our heads held high and our integrity intact, we will be wise to find and exhibit beauty and grace where we can. The process we will undergo as a nation this week (and possibly beyond) can elicit from all of us a ‘beautiful strength’ that will get us through these dark times.

We can do this. Demanding and seeking accountability will serve us all. We must have trust and faith in our healing process.

(T-291)

Because Right Matters – Day 438

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Another Hawk – today – Photo: L. Weikel

Because Right Matters

Watching Rep. Adam Schiff and the other House Managers present their case before the Senate over the past few days has been, at least for this legal and political nerd, riveting.

Their preparation’s been impeccable; their presentation masterful. I could only wish to be even half as persuasive and compelling an orator as Mr. Schiff.

I’m feeling that sense of yearning to be more than I am particularly this evening. As a citizen of the United States, listening to Schiff’s final entreaty to the Senate earlier tonight, I felt a tidal wave of patriotism welling up in my heart. YES. These are the ideals on which our country was founded. These are the fundamental values that I was raised on – and that I believed I would be upholding when I began my legal studies 40 years ago.

I doubt there are many people who listened to that closing argument this evening who could deny feeling a stirring within their hearts for a time when we felt it was our right to demand a higher standard of behavior from ourselves and our leaders.

How many of us yearn, right this very moment, for behavior from our leaders that renews our faith in the fundamental truth that what we do – how we behave when no one is watching – matters? That there are people who aspire to represent us in our government who actually do have a sense of serving a greater good than their own selfish, personal motives?

I’m Idealistic

Yes, I know. I’m idealistic. It’s true: in spite of everything I see unfolding before our eyes, I do not want to lose faith in our form of government. I do not want to lose faith in our elected representatives to do whatever they must to prevent our country from becoming a shell of its former self.

I want to believe that Mr. Schiff’s appeal to the idealist in all of us will compel those who’ve chosen a life of public service to put the fundamental values our country represents to our selves and to the world ahead of all other concerns.

Because right matters. If it doesn’t, we are lost.

If only we lived in Mr. Smith’s Washington*.

Maybe – just maybe – we do. Call your Senators.

*affiliate link

(T-673)

Sheila Speaks For Me – Day 431

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Sheila Reacting to the State of the World – Photo: L. Weikel

Sheila Speaks For Me

The wind is howling outside, banging and clattering our wind chimes, making our window panes rattle back and forth and our front door occasionally burst open, not unlike Kramer making an entrance on Seinfeld.

Both the melodic clanging and the <<kloop kloop>> of our bamboo chimes outside sound so wild and undisciplined, I wish I could just stand on the edge of my porch and allow all the garbage of the world to whisk itself into the ethers.

If only it were so easy to clear away the old away.

Cleaning Out

Beginning during the days between Christmas and New Year’s, I’ve been sporadically binge-cleaning. I’ve donated a lot to charity, given away a fair share to family, sent some off to recycling, and thrown a bunch of stuff away entirely because it’s old, out of date, practically in tatters, or just astonishingly dumb to allow it to keep circulating in my inventory.

When I listen to that roaring wind blowing down the 611 corridor and into my living room, I’m hoping it will serve to further clean me up, clear me out, and coalesce The Tower’s presence and utterly necessary process in my life.

Everything is Changing

Beyond my personal needs and experience, today, with the official opening of the Senate Trial and the concurrent revelation and exposure of new evidence of – and rulings on – the impropriety (if not outright illegality) of certain behaviors of DT, it feels like these whipping winds are arriving just in time.

They’re stirring up, clearing out, sweeping away the lies upon lies we’ve been told for years now – the denials and demands that we not believe our own eyes and ears – by a myriad of actors, a tragic number of whom have taken oaths to act on behalf of the good of our country. And I wonder, if you look around in your own life: are there people or situations about which you’ve been told lies or, perhaps worse, have been lying about to yourself?

Have the north winds arrived with sudden, sweeping gusts, blowing away the unnaturally warm air of obfuscations to bring the cold clarity of truth?

It can be chilling on many levels to realize trust has been broken. That our faith in what we believed was true was, in fact, misplaced.

If any of these thoughts or feelings, worries or suspicions ring true for you during these tumultuous times, then perhaps you, too, feel like Sheila speaks for us all.

(T-680)