This is an exchange I had with an old acquaintance on FB, on a post a shared about Trump's paying only $750 in taxes. Another friend was saying she was sad that a bunch of our old friends with whom we grew up were still supporting him, even after children in cages, blatant racism, how he's bungled COVID and so many have died as a result, etc.

Of course my husband came immediately to my defense, fucking guns a-blazin'. 

I unfriended and blocked this old acquaintance.

​But this is also true of me: 

I mean, I was the one who blocked her. 😂😂😂

But still got to get that say in. Honestly, though, it's an important say.

My original response to "Very successful old friends..." was much more inflammatory than what I ended up saying. And yet she came at me. I don’t blame her for getting angry. But what she threw at me was not mine to hold, so I really just watched as her rage chunks flew by. 

I purposely said “generational and amassed” wealth to leave room for her amassed wealth that she undoubtedly made on her own. I have no qualms or arguments there. But we did both grow up in wealthy white families. This isn’t an indictment. It is what it is. Also, my crusade is not to hate on people with generational wealth. That would be wildly hypocritical. However, I personally feel it’s important to reach down the ladder of privilege to help those who need it the most, especially when you’ve been so lucky financially. Black people have a hard time amassing generational wealth because the system is rigged against them. Lest we forget that people are still paying the traumatic price for their ancestors being forced here so that we today can have our stuff our stuff our precious stuff. To me it’s just about a responsibility of both being on this planet and being an American. I also feel it is a scarcity mindset to believe that helping someone else have an opportunity takes away from your own wealth and opportunities. 

It is illuminating that my mere suggestion of the existence of white privilege means I “hate [my] own race.” And it is “insane.”  I don’t hate my race because I want better for all races. Again, I also benefit when others are lifted up. To me, this response is full of glaring racism. The delusion of white supremacy is showing.

I also find it disturbing that this is someone who runs a Creole/Cajun restaurant. I'll just leave that right there.

“#mentalillness” insults me (obviously) and makes light of mental illness. This is just...gross.

I can only hope that white people continue to wake up to their own place in the delusion of white supremacy. For their own benefit of getting free from it. But, more importantly, for the benefit of everyone who is not white. Like, to not die. 

I think often about what a friend has said about the US having a sort of Stockholm syndrome. This rings so true to me. This idea that "we're the best we're the best we're the best I did this all on my white own because we are the damn best I'm gonna ride this thing into the ground burning all the way guns a blazin' flags a flyin' USA USA USA USA USA!"

BUT THIS TRUTH: "No one is free until we are all free." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

​[EDIT: As I see all of this together with the graphic, I want to address something. I’m not promoting a certain kind of white women’s tears, which can be very dangerous to POC and have caused the destruction of Black bodies. This was not my intention, but impact > intention. Also, please do not process feelings down the ladder of privilege if you can help it. So rather than delete this graphic I figured I would address what was feeling off here, which I created.]

After seeing a “Fuck Your Feelings/Trump 2020” flag the other day when we found ourselves accidentally in the middle of a Trump rally, I realized I differ from their ethos (if you can call it that) in more ways than I thought. 

I have been feeling into my feelings lately. Or, rather, when I feel them, I let them through. Because I’ve seen the effects of people stifling their feelings, and it’s not pretty. As evidenced above by that Trump flag but also the misery it ultimately can cause on a practical level, physiologically.

“Fox News causes bladder cancer,” a healer I love said to me once, only half-joking.

I decided recently that nothing is wrong because I have a lot of feelings. A pandemic and a revolution is a feelings-y time. This is a time where so much is happening, of COURSE we’re having a ton of feelings. And we are tired. Look, as someone who has experienced a fair amount of grief, THIS is how grief feels. We can get through it, but we have to feel a lot of it. AND THAT IS OK. Because we care. Because we love each other.

I know it is a very confusing time, too. And so, going inward is a HUGE part of the work. And then taking breaks to go outward. I know, it’s like, all over the place. But this is an all over the place time, is my point. We gotta go all over the place. And feel all over the place.

The other day I was standing by my books and crying my eyes out because of the state of the world and it just came over me: “Hey, this is OK. You’re going to feel better as soon as you’re done with this cry. Nothing in you is WRONG because you’re FEELING so much right now.” 

And guess what? I was right. That voice was right.

It said: “What if feeling is one of your superpowers?”

“Wow, that would sure shift my perspective about how I’m existing,” I thought.

“No shit,” it replied.

You can’t escape your feelings, so why try, especially since feelings are there to help us?

“Feelings are a genuine path to knowledge” – Audre Lorde.

So how about this: 
M A K E  L O V E  T O  Y O U R  F E E L I N G S

How about them honey-crisp apples, sugar? 

Also – the feeling in your body only lasts like ninety seconds (this is science, not just Sutkowski. And yes, grief is different, of course). When we keep replaying the same narrative in our thoughts, the feelings get reignited and reignited and reignited (and it feels so bad). So, I get it. Like Chidi on The Good Place I know what it feels like to have a mind that often sounds like a “fork in a garbage disposal.” But my mind sounds less like that than it used to, you know why? FEELING. And working with my thoughts. 

So, peeps can go ahead and deny each other’s feelings or feelings in general or whatever. But I’m going to feel mine. I’m going to have compassion for others’ feelings, too, especially during a time of collective and individual grief, pandemic, revolution, the rise of fascism, etc. No bigs.

Yeah, anger is a tough one for me, and I feel it bubbling up now. But I’m going to work with it. Anger is when my scads of Kali-Ma arms sprout out, and I sign ten-thousand petitions and give money where it’s needed and check all the places where I can help, and then I settle in and, well, help. It’s one of the places from which I write and music springs.

SO! Please, make love to your feelings. The patriarchy doesn’t want you to. Doesn’t that seem like a good enough reason? Also, your body wants you to.

Disclaimer: I know some people need medication, and this is in NO WAY suggesting people do not take their meds or that everything can be fixed by feeling feeling feeling our way through all on its own. We live in a rich and varied landscape of consciousness and brain matter, and we’ve all got to find our way through in different ways. But I am with you and your feelings as well, my peeps. 

So, had any moments lately where you’re like, “Hey, maybe all this feeling is actually exactly where I’m supposed to be right now”? Or “CRIPES I’m so sick of all this feeling”? I’m here. I’m feeling it, too. 

​Yesterday started with donuts, ended with tacos and had white supremacy in the middle. America.

On our way to pick up dinner last night, we found ourselves in the middle of a Trump rally spanning throughout Ann Morrison Park, down Americana Boulevard, and around downtown Boise, with so many cars we couldn’t tell where it ended or began. Some were honking, and there were excited children with American flags in the back of pickup trucks. Tons of Trump 2020 flags, “Keep America Great,” and that kind of thing.

“Fuck Your Feelings / Trump 2020,” one flag said.

And there were Confederate flags. Tinging the whole thing with the blood of enslaved people and the blood of generations of descendants and the violence through which many of those people were conceived. That’s what I see anyway, not willing to compartmentalize. I don’t care if not everyone had Confederate flags. You’re involved in a thing with Confederate flags, that’s the flavor. That’s a flavor that takes over everything by the nature of what it represents. You can’t have it both ways. And here in Idaho, you can’t argue “heritage” when talking about that sign of hate (not that anyone should). It’s just a straight-up symbol of both hate and the delusion of white supremacy.

I felt sick to my stomach. 

“Please don’t get in a fight when you go get our tacos,” I told Brent. “PLEASE.”

While I was waiting for him, two young women were walking down the sidewalk with signs against Trump. I popped my head out the window.

“I’m with you!” I said. “I just want you to know that!” My heart was racing as I watched Trumped-out truck after truck drive by.

“Thank you!” one of them said. “I love your hair.”

“Thank you. I love your everything. You’re very brave to be down here in the middle of this,” I said. “I didn’t know this was going on – I’m sick to my stomach.”

“Well, at a rally, a woman without a mask got in my face and pushed me down,” one said. “And she said, 'I hope you die of COVID.’”

“I am so sorry,” I said. "That's horrible.” And I wasn't surprised because a friend of mine was similarly assaulted at a rally, too. White supremacists punched her in the face and dragged her to the ground, ripped her phone from her hand (yes, ripped — she had a wristlet attached to it). The guys who assaulted her had Nazi SS patches on their clothes and Nazi tattoos. They called her a “disgrace to [her] race.”

“That’s why we’re here,” she said. “I don’t care what your politics are. Just don’t be racist, don’t be homophobic, don’t be violent—”

“My wife,” the other young woman said. I could see the pride on her face, even under her mask.

“Well, thank you for being down here,” I said. “And stay safe.” 

I keep thinking of my Uncle Mac who fought the Nazis during World War II. His plane was shot down over France and he was rescued by a young woman. He lived in her friends' attic until the war was over and had to pretend he couldn't hear or speak when German soldiers came through. He also worked for the USPS and was very exacting about how the American flag flew on the post office. I wonder what he would have thought about all this.

I saw Brent coming back to the car. Someone stopped him on the sidewalk, and my heart skipped a beat. And then I recognized it was our friend who works at the Record Exchange. They pretended to hug from six feet away. My breath settled.

“You’re not going to like this, but I almost got in a fight,” he said when he got back in the car. Of course, this made my heart race again because we have laws here in Idaho that allow you to carry guns pretty much everywhere.

“I told a guy he was a Nazi and a piece of shit, and he came back at me with, ‘Biden is a child molester,’” he said. "And that I'm lucky I'm not getting beat up."

“I’m not mad at you, and I agree with you, but it scares me,” I said. “Any one of them could have a gun and just shoot you. I can’t, like, trust that they aren’t going to get violent considering how little they seem to value life.” At the very least they are in some deep denial, which isn't surprising when you're part of a society built on white supremacy.

“We have that sign in the house that says, ‘Silence during injustice is complicity,’” he said. “Honestly, I was thinking of that. And that I’m not going to just stand there and not say anything and let them think I’m OK with it all.”

We texted a few friends on the way home, and one of them wisely said: 

“Fascism necessitates rampant nationalism.”

I thought of something else he recently said about how so many people in the US have a certain strain of Stockholm syndrome, always saying how “great” the US is, not realizing how un-free it actually is. I’ll leave that right here.
​
I don't have some message of hope with which to tie this up. I mean, seeing that couple was a glimmer of it in the midst of that. I got choked up seeing those two physically small people holding up their signs walking into the red sun of the burning West.

Sisters of Mercy's “Lucretia My Reflection” came on the radio, which was an apt soundtrack to drive home to. It has been one of my favorite songs since I was a teenager, newly-tinted as my adrenaline simmered in my fingertips, driving by the energetic juggernaut of nationalism still lining Americana Boulevard on the way home:

“I hear the roar of a big machine
Two worlds and in between
Hot metal and methedrine
I hear empire down
I hear empire down
I hear the roar of a big machine
Two worlds and in between
Love lost, fire at will
Dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill, I hear
Dive, bombers, and
Empire down
Empire down...”

In the rear window of the car in front of us was a "Black Lives Matter" print – one I recognized as having been printed by my friend Brittany, because I have one, too. It helped to see that. But how chilling that that message is still one of protest in this country. Let’s do better.

Just gonna leave this right here.

I've been reading Kaur's new book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, and this has been reverberating in my head. It gives me hope.

For months, I have been in a weekly sound healing class with one of my teachers, Jolene Star, and it has been magic. This month we're working with the energy of the solar plexus and I reflected on the question Who Am I:

I am light. No matter what else is going on, I am light and can easily tap back into my inner pillar, column, tower of light – connection to the Divine and pure unconditional love. I am THAT. 

I am a model of possibility for that as well – being light in any circumstances. Being an alchemist and taking the experience of life and sharing it through writing and music. I am the nature of unconditional love and continue to discover more. Just as the mountain has the nature of the mountain, etc. The oak has the nature of the oak. But each unique to itself.

Through my writing I am already healing generations forward and back. Through the writing itself. I don’t need to fret or hurry or worry because it is happening. Because I have always SEEN and have learned to communicate what I see through the written word, it is, in and of itself, MAGIC. Healing. Revealing. I shine the light that I am on what I see and through this mind, heart and hands, I heal with it. Myself and others.

The very act of my living is alchemy. Through my senses and through my spiritual and physical system. I am here to create but I also must remember, I experience, and so I am here to experience. 

What if, instead of looking at your high emotions at times as a problem, a bump, a glitch, you realize that feeling is one of your superpowers? When you wretch with tears of compassion you are helping process our collective grief. You’ve chosen to lift up a corner of our collective grief and you are composting it. You are processing it. Generations forward and back. Because we are all family. So stop worrying that you’re not contributing enough – you are metabolizing collective grief. Now just make sure to do your job to let it through and out. 

Clearly I’m also a channel because that last paragraph was all in second person. But I knew that already too! Haha. Thank you, my guides, spirit out for my highest good, loved ones who have passed, star tribes, earth mother.

I am multifaceted like the crystalline being I am. I am a light being, a star being, an earth being, a sun being, a moon being, a muse being, a word being, a music being. Human, spirit, heart. By my very being I lift all beings. 

I breathe. I recalibrate. I shine. I love. 

Who are you? I bet if you stop and think about it you'll find there are many places where you can give your human self a break and celebrate your spirit self for all the work they're doing. What do you think?

Trigger warning for this post.

I keep meaning to mention what it’s been like here in Boise. One of my friends was assaulted at a rally recently (if three weeks ago is “recently” these days). White supremacists punched her in the face and dragged her to the ground, ripped her phone from her hand (yes, ripped — she had a wristlet attached to it). The guys who assaulted her had Nazi SS patches on their clothes and Nazi tattoos. They called her a “disgrace to [her] race.”

There have also been reports of white supremacists looking through the scopes of their guns (reported by witnesses as “automatic guns”*) as they point them at BLM protestors and other random people. From the shelter of a parking garage.

They are not afraid to be visible. Trump is their guy and he’s proud of using violence and FORCE against people who disagree with him politically. Why shouldn’t they? According to them, women (and anyone) supporting their fellow [Black] citizens deserve to be beaten. Probably worse.

It stands to reason that other people who still have Trump as their guy are either in deep denial, deep hate and desire for the destruction of their fellow citizens, or still steeped in the anesthesia of living in a white supremacist culture. Or still are valuing “my money, my money, my precious money” over human life. (I mean, I’ve been saying forever — why would you support the candidate endorsed by the KKK? This seems so beyond obvious.)
That’s what I’ve got for now.

ALSO (caveat because I'm posting to FB): I’m not looking for a bunch of jokey comments or whatever on this (not that I’d expect that), I don’t really have much to answer Qs or whatever, just feeling and sharing, you know, how it feels to live in this culture at this time.

[*”Ugly semi-automatic rifles,” I’ve been told is closer to the truth than “automatic guns;” (when I posted this to FB) and suddenly a post about humanity becomes a post about semantics. Which is also interesting and telling, IMHjournalisticO. But details do matter.]

​Do what makes you want to live. Do what brings you joy. This is not some pat BS. What you do for yourself raises other people — because we are one. And I’m sure you’ve seen how intensely horrible so much is and I’m just not going to give in to the forces that feed off my despair.⁣
⁣
Yes, grieve and feel the feelings. Tears don’t mean there’s a problem or that you need to deny them.⁣
⁣
I went to pick up iced coffees today (with a mask) and was listening to the Beastie Boys XM Radio station. It made me want to live. Not that I didn’t want to live before, but it made me remember my own life force and the things that make me want to live. (I just read a thing yesterday a friend sent about suicidal ideation and US culture. Asking if we’ve ever *really* valued life, collectively. Waking up to this, as some are for the first time, can also trigger your own trauma.)⁣
⁣
So get the support you need (let me know if you need help figuring out what that might look like). And for the good of humanity (and yourself) decide you want to live and do things that encourage you to remember your life force. What are those things? Let’s make a list so we can refer to it when the despair monsters start to eat our brains.

I have more people's eyeballs on what I share over on my Instagram, so I've been putting more energy where it will get more traction over the past month especially. I have been amplifying the voices of Black people in my stories and I've also been corralling my stories into three categories: Solidarity, (Un)Learning, and Sovereign Vision. If you want to look through those stories to find some phenomenal people to follow and to learn from, please feel free. Just please be respectful in their virtual spaces.

It occurred to me while meditating today that this pandemic is kind of like a psychedelic trip for the planet. While my experience with psychedelics is limited to one mushroom trip in college, I saw and felt enough to draw this comparison.
 
First of all, we’re seeing on a visceral and undeniable level the interconnectedness of all people and the earth. Here we are. So many of us are social-distancing in order to protect ourselves and our fellow humans, those immunocompromised and falling within the most susceptible groups. We see how what we do affects individuals and the whole, from the other side of the world to our own families. 
 
While we’ve been hunkered down, we have also been reaching out to each other more, if you’re like me. I’ve been Marco Polo-ing with several close friends and staying in touch with family via text and telephone. We have technology during this pandemic, which wasn’t the case with most other past pandemics.
 
Just yesterday I was on a Zoom call for a course I’m taking and one of the women’s enthusiasm about the paradigm shift we’re experiencing was more infectious than the virus. I felt instantly better and vowed to lean into people and myself more and reach out and share.
 
We have to get grounded in ourselves first and foremost. This, for me, has been an inward journey – which really just continues an inward journey I’ve been on for years. I’ve gone inward, yes, for my own benefit, but also so that I can be more effective in serving and being a balm. (She’s a total balm balm ;-)) This thing is gonna last as long as it's gonna last and we are along for the ride. We're going to keep with it and each other.
 
I dreamt this morning about being on a rollercoaster with my besties. It was a rollercoaster that went all through the theme park. We were, however, paying more attention to each other than the rollercoaster and what we were discussing, which was music. We were talking about the gentle way Trish Keenan delivered her vocals and the overall message of her band, Broadcast, and how she didn’t hit anyone over the head with it. Their music is an invitation. Trish died of pneumonia from contracting Swine Flu in 2011. This seemed appropriate to the dream and the situation. 

In the dream, every once in a while, we would scream, about to ride into a family getting ice cream or a wall, but the car we were in always righted us, even though it was scary. So we’d scream and then we’d go back to talking about music and how healing and amazing art is. We’d link our arms and focus on each other. And we'd scream again when we needed to.
 
This seems like an important message for me to remember and share. There will be twists and turns, like an acid trip or a rollercoaster and we do not know what’s coming yet and our eyes are open pretty wide, like pinwheels, and we just need to ride it, keep connecting, and take care of ourselves and each other. Nobody is going to turn into a glass of orange juice.
 
When I took my mushroom trip in college I remember my roommate was really scared. I saw her sitting on the ground and she appeared to be cloaked in the darkness of her own fear. I invited her to sit with me and we talked about her fears precipitated by growing up Catholic. As the Charlatans UK played on my stereo, we rode out the scariest and most emotional parts of the trip together. I felt what she felt, she felt what I felt. I held tight to the feeling that we were good, things were OK, and wanted to share that vision with her, which she took in sip by sip. Eventually we arrived at a place together where we saw the divine feminine and it was pretty beautiful. Now, I’m not suggesting COVID-19 is going to take us to the divine feminine, though I do think we feel the interconnection of Mother Earth. So, yeah, in a way, yes, it is doing just that. And it’s all through our connection with each other. Our systems are broken but we are taking care of each other.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer some years ago my sister sent me a psalm. And being actively not religious I was like, “A G-D PSALM?!?!” She also was like, “Hey, this is a psalm, not trying to push religion on you, just thought this might help you where you’re at.” It did. It was about how we should not look up ahead at the mountain range and worry about how we will traverse it. We should keep walking, know that there might be a way around it or through when we get to it and to trust that instead of going the whole way in worry. It doesn’t make sense to freak out about what is to come potentially and try to figure out how to handle that now emotionally.
 
OK, of course on a practical level we are being as prepared as we can and, like, checking in on each other, paying attention to numbers, doing the World Health Organization’s Five: 

“1 HANDS: Wash them often, 
2 ELBOW: Cough into it
3 FACE: Don't touch it
4 FEET: Stay more than 3ft apart
5 FEEL: sick? Stay home”
 
Also, we get to be scared and we get to be strong. What I have been noticing is how bolstered I have been by friends, family, community, etc. So let yourself off the hook. If you’re scared, lean on someone, if you’re feeling strong, offer your steady energy for people to entrain to. Breathe and laugh with your people. And know sometimes you’ll cycle through feeling sad or scared or strong at any given time. That is OK and the way things are. 

My wonderful acupuncturist back east, Sheila Fay, was so helpful when I was doing radiation.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm meeting this huge, yang hospital machinery energy as a warrior queen," I told her, "and sometimes I'm just like the softest, squishiest incarnation of a tired, tender woman," I told her. "How should I meet this energy? How do I go in there for my highest healing? Which way should I be doing it?"

"Both," she said. "However you feel on any given day and that gets to change even within a day. Be the warrior queen and the soft, squishy yin body. Whatever feels right."

OK then. And that is exactly what I did.

I was talking with my friend Emily Taylor (one of my fellow dream-rollercoaster riders) a while back about my mushroom trip and she brought up the fact that how in American culture, we don’t have guides for our psychedelic experiences. That we often have to step up as those guides for each other. It occurs to me we can do that now, too. As our “leaders” are inept we are now more connected than ever, and I see so many of you stepping up as leaders and sharing where you are. It is so valuable. 
 
However you're doing is great. You don’t have to use this time to be super productive. I would invite you to go inward, get quiet, listen for the stillness, and, as Glennon Doyle puts in her new book Untamed (and Kristen Bell sings in Frozen 2, Emily also brought to my attention): Listen inward and do the next right thing.
 
We’ll ride this together. We’ll do our due diligence. Keep on truckin’. 

Thank you for reading. And I'm here if you want to talk or need a hug from afar. ​How are you? How's your heart?