Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love

From Hopi Indian Chief White Eagle

This moment humanity is experiencing can be seen as a door or a hole. The decision to fall in the hole or walk through the door is up to you. If you consume the news 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, with pessimism, you will fall into this hole.

But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to rethink life and death, to take care of yourself and others, then you will walk through the portal.

Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself, you take care of everyone at the same time.

Do not underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take the perspective of an eagle that sees everything from above with a broader view. There is a social question in this crisis, but also a spiritual question. The two go hand in hand.

Without the social dimension we fall into fanaticism. Without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and futility.

Are you ready to face this crisis?  Grab your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal.

Learn resistance from the example of Indian and African peoples: we have been and are exterminated. But we never stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and rejoicing.

Be free of guilt for feeling blessed in these troubled times. Being sad or angry does not help at all. Resistance is resistance through joy!

You have the right to be strong and positive. And there is no other way to do it than to maintain a beautiful, happy, bright posture.

Has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). It is a resistance strategy.

When we cross the threshold, we have a new worldview because we faced our fears and difficulties. This is all you can do now:

- Serenity in the storm

- Keep calm, pray everyday

- Make a habit of meeting the sacred everyday.

Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.

Giving Meaning

Micro, macro, and the unknown
All of the layers in between
All the things we assume about the world
While the natural world simply exists
The struggle to understand, give meaning to things
The meaning we inscribe to community, humans, 

to feel better about not knowing

Ground: shaken - Vision: blurred - Future: uncertain

There is only the illusion of control - as if I could protect myself through knowing I've organized, planned, figured it all out down to the last box of provisions or gallon of paint - but underneath all this false preparation are constant unknowns. What-ifs. But-hows. Then-whats. Security and stability are not safe words to utter in this new reality; I think we are all learning this while living through the ambiguity of a never-ending pandemic. Social and ecological climates come to a head and now truly highlight existential risk, so now we scramble. I am sensitive to this collective consciousness - now ridden with anxiety and despair - as there are no specifics, no ground to stand on, no one to go to for answers, no trustworthy source of information. There is no other way for me to handle the intensity than with presence, trust, and simply learning to be still and feel the feels. Turning inward for solutions. I think this might be the most useful list of "skills", above all other types of illusory physical preparations for the unknown and inevitable.

I am content, find happiness and joy in most moments, and I feel loved... but I also feel powerless as I witness the world crumble and our freedoms fray, as if I were bound in chains and my chest couldn't expand fully to take a deep breath. Ultimately, I am indeed bound; bound in this 5'something box of a human that is limited and vulnerable and so very much dependent on everyone around me to live this good life I am living. I am living a good life, such a good life it seems fraudulent and frail. I watch the life I am living slowly filter through the shredder, from an out-of-body perspective, and my heart - the only thing keeping me tied to the living earth - is beating faster and faster as this machine's teeth approach my feet.