resilience

A Rough One – ND #117

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Is That a Bat Signal in the Sky? – Photo: L. Weikel

A Rough One

Last week seems to have been a rough one for a lot of people. I’m just tossing this observation out there in case anyone felt it or perhaps noticed it being endured by others. Perhaps it’s just a buildup of all the awfulness we’re witnessing all over the place, and especially in Ukraine. Or maybe it’s a result of the past two years of Covid and strife. Maybe – just maybe – it’s exhaustion.

I know many people who are doing their best to just hang on, hang in there, or otherwise maintain a façade of chill. And for whatever reason, maintaining that fragile balance is especially challenging at the moment.

Spring

It feels to me as if this new season of spring is speeding everything up. It’s as if our rollercoaster ride has, over the past couple of months, been tick-tick-ticking its way up that first really steep hill that’s usually at the very beginning of the ride. The one that, when you breach the top and gravity zooms you down and creates a momentum that takes your breath away over the next several zigs, zags, and centrifugal-force loops, you sometimes find yourself asking yourself why in the world you paid good money to experience this.

If any of us are feeling that subtle sense that things are really going to start heating up via unexpected revelations and other exposures of truth and intentions, it’s possible we’re also just a teensy bit on edge over what the reaction to those revelations will be. Yes, many crave accountability. But there’s also the faction that may or may not accept that reckoning peaceably.

From Micro to Macro

What I find fascinating is how we are seeing the very same themes playing out in our own neighborhoods and school districts, in the way our states treat their citizens, to the entertainment industry, and all the way up and out to how entire countries are behaving around the world. Abuses of power. Over-reactions. Blatant lies and gaslighting. People beseeching authorities for accountability or, at the very least, an acknowledgment and attempt to address and rectify the abuses – and terror at what those who may be held to account for their behavior may do to the rest of us. We are in fear of their spoiled tendencies to lash out when they are caught hurting the rest of us (or the world at large).

It just seems like we’re getting tired of allowing the bullies and tyrants to get their way. What kind of a life is it to look the other way when abuses are taking place all around us? What kind of a life is it to keep pretending everything is normal, when right before our eyes it appears as though the ones that break the rules rule the day?

I’m not sure why I’m writing this except to say we need to stick together. Last week was a rough one. This week may be worse. No matter what, though, we need to stand up for what we fundamentally believe is right and true. And we need to be especially kind to ourselves and one another in the days to come.

Because from the smallest encounters to the greatest, it will be the kindness we display that will be the ‘bat signal,’ if you will, that we’re both sending to and answering for each other.

A Break in the Gloom on the Horizon – Photo: L. Weikel

(T+117)

It’s Been a While – Day 842

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The Ocean Oracle by Susan Marte – 12 – Shark – Opportunities

It’s Been a While

It’s been a while since I chose an Ocean Oracle card for us to contemplate. While there is the possibility that in a couple of days we may have to deal with some weird hangover stuff still lurking in some people’s minds following the insurrection attempt on January 6th, I’m holding out hope that it’ll all blow over. Maybe that’s what that wild wind last night was trying to sweep away.

We can hope.

New Card

I cleared my mind and shuffled the deck. If I held anything in my mind, I guess I’d describe it as mostly a feeling, a sort of ‘holding’ the idea of March in my consciousness and just asking for a word or an idea that could be our collective March ‘watchword.’

12 ~ Shark ~ Opportunity

The Story:

“Once upon a time in the watery depths of a great ocean long ago forgotten, there lived a community of sea creatures. They lived together in peaceful harmony. Their community was abundant and prosperous and provided for all their needs. One day a neighbouring shark came by, telling them of an opportunity that would enhance their lives even more. Since the community could not fathom what else they may need, they let the opportunity pass them by. The shark swam away. Time passed and the community started to hear about other communities, who had taken a chance with the opportunities the shark offered them, and how their communities had become even more abundant and prosperous. The shark came again to the community, and again offered them an opportunity to enhance their lives. They were hesitant. They knew what they had and they were happy. Could there really be more out there? When the shark came for the third time the community decided to take the opportunity presented to them, this time not letting their fear stop them. Although at first it was scary and there was some hesitation, when the community whole-heartedly embraced the opportunity, they found their community grew and expanded in ways they never dreamed possible.

The Messages:

Is opportunity knocking? Be aware it doesn’t not knock forever. If you do not take the opportunity it could pass you by. Is this an acceptable option? This card could be a reminder that there are opportunities and you need to grab hold and shape what comes your way and make it yours and make what you will of it. Opportunities may or may not be straightforward. They may be in the murky depths. They may come at dawn or dusk or be just out of vision or tangible reach. Opportunities about. Take the fullness of the possibility and open up to the potential it holds.”

At the Foundation

Underneath (on the bottom of the deck) when I chose the Shark card was – surprise surprise – the same card we’ve had sitting in counsel with us for months now: Sea Heather – Resilience.

As it has indeed shown up before, you can read about Resilience here.

My Take

While I provided the link to the specific description of Resilience in the Ocean Oracle from when I chose it for us last time, I have to admit, I wasn’t at all surprised for the concept to be underneath and holding up everything around us. Resilience is essential if we are going to survive.

In many ways, I think most of us hoped that we would be able to let our guards down at least a little once President Biden was elected. That’s because we knew, among other changes, a serious fight would begin to be waged on the Covid-19 pandemic and its pernicious threat to our health, lives, and livelihoods. In some ways, our internal holding ourselves at ‘defcon 5’ all the time has subsided at least a little bit.

But the truth is that – above all else, or fundamentally (underpinning all else) – we know and are being shown every day that there are a tremendous amount of threats facing us at the moment. With the Opportunities Shark is telling us to look around for and consider embracing, we must always hold fast to what is true. We must stay strong in ourselves and remain open-minded; if we do, we just may see opportunity in a whole lot more situations than we ever might have imagined just a month or two or six ago.

There’s a lot of upheaval still simmering just under the surface. Unexpected opportunities to make a difference will come and go, especially this month. We need to consider them. Entertain them. Quite possibly seize them. But throughout it all, we must keep our roots planted deep enough to foster our resilience.

(T-269)

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)

A Trick of Loss – Day Sixty

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Photo by L. Weikel

A Trick of Loss

As I mentioned in a recent post, there are a lot of people in my life who seem to be going through a lot of shit recently. This may be new shit, or it may be older shit they’ve been enduring for a while or what maybe feels like an eternity. And recently, when they thought their shit should be settling down or getting a little easier, they feel like they’ve received a fresh and quite unexpected dump to endure.

Sorry for the scatological references, but sometimes that’s just the way it feels. And sometimes it just feels like the best way to describe the stuff we see happening all around us.

So Much Resilience and Courage

I spent time, both in person and long distance, with a variety of people dear to me today. And all of these people are facing challenges that I dare say no one would electto experience. Yet each of them, while handling each unique challenge in its appropriately different manner, is nevertheless enduring, courageously prevailing, and manifesting resilience in ways that command admiration and honor.

One particular situation I am thinking about this evening is a friend’s marking of an anniversary – the anniversary of a sudden death. A life partner swept away without a goodbye. Without any cherished final moments. Just…gone.

The One Year Anniversary

I know my friend has been dreading the one year anniversary because, let’s face it: who among us who’ve lost anyone truly dear to us hasn’t marked not only the anniversary of our loss, but also the one day, one week, one month, two month, three month markers since that fateful rending of our normality?

But there’s something about ‘one year.’ It feels momentous. I think in some ways, we hope, deep down, that the pain will miraculously lessen. The trauma won’t feel quite so acute.

And in some ways that sort of happens. Kind of.

But what has come as an odd revelation to me is how the actual arrival of the anniversary day is anti-climactic. It is not that the pain is less acute. No, the anniversary is the anniversary. And it is virtually inevitable that you will relive almost minute-by-minute how that fateful day unfolded one year ago.

Surprise: It’s Anti-Climactic

But in truth, you’ve lived and relived and hashed and rehashed that day so many times already, that doing it yet again on the exact one year anniversary almost seems like eating a stale sandwich.

The reason this is so is because the really tricky, shitty part about grief is that it gets you when you’re not quite paying attention. It sneaks up on you and hits you when you’re driving down the road and you pass a cornfield where a sudden, unbidden memory of a joke you shared wallops you between the eyes. It sneaks up on you when you think about the way they looked at you the last time you saw them and casually gave them a kiss. Or the finger.

And those are the things that you feel are going to all rear their ugly heads en masse on ‘the day of the anniversary.’ But they don’t. Not really.

That’s because in the four or five or seven or ten days before the anniversary you’ve already relived those wrenching moments that caught you like a gut-punch at various times throughout the year.

Yeah, it’s the several days before the actual anniversary that are the shittiest. Not only because you’re reliving memories, unbidden and relentless, setting them up in anticipation of the parade of them to be experienced on The Day. But also because precious few others are aware you are going through your own private hell of anticipation.

Grief is a Trickster

And so we get to The Day. We slog through it. We do the stale sandwich reliving of each moment. And there’s almost a sense of disappointment when the pain isn’t quite so breathtaking. Did we do it wrong? Why wasn’t it a more perfectly exquisite grief?

Because grief is a trickster. It took its toll days earlier, weeks earlier. And it’ll whack us again. But never when we most expect it. And it will never feel quite the same. It shifts every time it strikes.

Tomorrow, the day after, will be different. Better in some ways; not so much in others. But the pressure of somehow making sacred that milestone will be relieved, and that, in itself, is the gift.

And even though I didn’t say it, I’ve been holding that space for my friend since the beginning of this month, knowing it was happening. Feeling it. Doing my best to hold the center.

I’m sure we’re all doing this for each other. I know I’m continuing to hold it for many. You know who you are (even if you don’t).

That’s what love is all about.

(T-1051)