On this awful eve, Courage and Resilience are the values I’ve set to embody this week, and for this coming era. I rise above the claws of dread that try to drag me down, and open to the full range of possibilities that each moment of uncertainty offers. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or the next day. I’m not optimistic, but I have been practicing courage and calm, and it’s my intention to continue that, one uncertain moment after another.
Some of us will spend tomorrow morning celebrating a great and kind leader instead of gawking at a circus of lies. If you’d like an alternative to the inauguration, join Robert Hubbell on Substack for a livestream of readings from important leaders of democracy, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I heard this poignant quote of his this morning at a Upaya gathering:
“Power without love is reckless and abusive; and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love, implementing the demands of justice; and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
On the same zoom, part of a series called ‘Awareness in Action,’ Jon Kabat-Zion spoke about the polycrisis exploding on the planet, and asked, “How do we cause the minimum harm and maximum benefit?” Would that everyone would live by this guidance.
With that in mind, I’ve continued to explore ways to disengage from the billionaires’ conglomerates that have insinuated themselves into my life. I’m participating in the Meta boycott, which is easy and if enough people do it will send a powerful message to Zuckerberg: simply log out of Facebook, Instagram, and any other Meta platforms today, and don’t log back in for a week. Multiple sources online assured me before I did it last night that nothing gets lost, and whenever you log back in you pick up where you left off. Imagine the impact on advertisers, and thereby on Zuckerberg’s bottom dollar, if several million people ignore these sites for a week. R. Hubbell considers the nuances of such an action and invites us to use these platforms intentionally if we’re going to use them.
I spent an hour this afternoon disengaging from Amazon, by canceling most of my Subscribe and Save items. Next to the Amazon tab I opened Thrive Market, Chewy, and Grove Collaborative, all more ethical choices for necessities in light of the Bezos capitulation to the oligarchy. I searched for the same or comparable household, grocery, health, and pet supplies on the relevant sites, and saved them on these platforms as I culled them from Amazon. Every little bite out of the profits of the billionaires who will sit on that stage tomorrow makes a difference. A million minnows can devour a shark.
My mother chose to quit living a week after the 2004 election of W. She could have lived a little while longer, but she was so disappointed that she didn’t want to. (Her speech therapy in the months prior to that election included repeatedly articulating “Bush stinks,” among more colorful phrases.) I thought of this when President Jimmy Carter died last month: maybe he didn’t want to see the new president take office. Carter tried to address the polycrisis even before it had a name, as all the separate threads of it began to congeal. It’s horrifying for many of us who watched (or took) great strides on behalf of the planet, civil rights, women’s rights, basic human rights, to contemplate the giant leap backwards that tomorrow portends. We’re going to need all the courage and resilience each of us can find. I’m profoundly grateful now more than ever for having found the practice of mindfulness and the internal skills it cultivates.
Today’s cheese sandwich included tuna salad, romaine, and a thin layer of horseradish cheddar on the latest perfect sourdough loaf. With mayo, of course. A few cheese puffs, and the romaine ends for little Wren’s last bite. She lies patiently behind me in the chair as I savor my simple fare, and when it’s her turn she sits on the rug and catches the crunchy lettuce bits I toss to her. My heart breaks for all those suffering in the world who cannot enjoy such simple pleasures for whatever reasons. I do not take the good fortune of my current circumstances for granted, for I know that all we have is the present moment. Tomorrow (always) everything could change.