These are revelatory and anxiety-producing times. I can remember being in elementary and middle school and periodically taking those “True and False” and “Fact or Opinion” quizzes and wondering why we occasionally got such easy assessments on our reading or social studies curriculum. Yet, today – as I marvel at the sea of fabrications and epic storytelling that is playing out on every platform from which we seek and access news and information – I finally understand how legitimate of a skill discerning truth from fiction really is. Some elements of modern life really seem to need changing, y’all. And although we can not control everything that’s happening around us, it is important that we become adept at discerning the truth of our own needs, values intentions to make the changes that we can control. And to that end, I sit more often of late, and I pray more often of late, for all of us.
I pray that you are taking care of yourself and that you are seeking guidance from every resource and higher power that you trust to be an ally on this messy, temporal plane. I hope that you are taking hot baths with essential oil-infused epsom salts. I hope that you are meditating, listening to, and even making music. I hope that you are being held regularly in the loving arms of someone who has truly got your back, and someone you feel seen and understood by. I hope that you are dancing, and doing yoga, and looking at and making art. I hope that you are reading books that inspire you, written by authors who are visionaries, teachers, guides, speculators, healers, and liberators. I hope that you share joy and throw-your-head-back-and-guffaw laughter with friends, and often. I hope that you are going to therapy. I hope that you are spending time in nature, under a canopy of trees, and near a body of water. My prayer for all of us is that we each have a treasure trove of resources like these that bring us back home to ourselves, to a place where we always remember who we are, no matter how polarizing and truly insane the times are. I hope that from this receptive state, we can begin to cultivate a wise and compassionate mindset that informs how we show up and act as members of our communities. I hope that we choose to act in ways that ensure that our homes, our quality of life, our places of work and the benefits we gain for that hard work are foundationally plentiful and equitable, as the sustaining resources that are in abundance in our environment are poised to provide, yet only with the judicious administrators and legislators that we vote for. And I hope that we commit to thinking, speaking, doing and voting – as social and political actors – in ways that reflect the values that our soul’s long for: truth, love, health and liberation for ALL This is my prayer and hope for us. And I hope that you, too, are saying your own prayers.
Recently, it got very hard to hear these, my soul’s deepest longings. Ironically, the sounds drowning out my inner, dimensional “knowing” were silent perpetrators: the digital, noiseless, stealth of social media algorithms, and email, texts, and phone calls with ringer and notifications set to “off”. Yet the automated harassment I was experiencing was as loud as can be and deeply disruptive of my peace. So I decided to deactivate from socials and delete a bunch of apps from my phone completely. Best. Choice. I’ve. Made. In. A. Long. Time. Haven’t had a phishing call in almost two weeks.
So I’ve decided to go off-grid and only be available via phone and email until after the election, if I decide to log back on to those apps again at all. We’ll see … Until that time comes, Ryan Soave’s beautiful words are an important yet gentle reminder for us all: “Serenity is not finding calmer seas, it’s building a better boat.”
Ase & Amen