Justice

I am shaken; is it by any chance a gift?   I don't know.  Only that the foundations of my world order have been shaken.  Not by natural disaster, economic depression or World War, but by the human way of things.    I've grown up, through the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, seeing "the arc of the moral Universe" bending sizably, significantly, "toward justice".  I have leaned on the civil rights movement, the "Great Society", the women's and other "rights" movements.   It is coming.  We can legislate  justice!    Or can we?

In some weird way, I am grateful  for Donald Trump's win.   I can't believe I'm saying this.   His destructive forces   may waken the American spirit in a way that Hillary never could have.  We have had the protections of the voting rights act, and so many other safety nets ripped off.  No more protection from our country's worst instincts.  Now it's up to each of us to bear witness to injustice, the State is not going to do it,   to throw our particular skills into  pulling our specific local efforts to further the action.  It won't happen without us.

I'm waking up.  I feel that I may have something that's needed.  I'm not sure what it is or what it will look like, but I can't afford to keep on sleeping.   There are big forces stirring.  Perhaps it's like the rise of the Nazis in Germany.  Who knows?   But it's clearly not a time to trust in the parental goodness, wisdom of our leaders.  Time to take responsibility to think for myself.  Time to deeply listen; it's so not black or white. Time to decide what mix of caring for the generations, the groups  who will bear the brunt of living with the fallout of this election, do I want to spend my life force on.  The devastation will hit them so much more than my cohort.


 It seems a little like 9/11 but we have accidentally guided the planes ourselves. Hopefully,  this time we won't be admonished to "go shopping", but will step forward into more personal responsibility  to make the "arc" bend toward justice.    I'm excited to see what emerges.    Who knows, perhaps this will be the turning point that is looked back on years from now, of when America started to grow up, and live up to it's potential for greatness.   Or not,  but I want to be part of the effort to try.   And to bear witness to what I see.  There will be so much pain.  I don't want to ignore it, to waste it.  No more waiting,  it's wakeup time.

Waiting

Gil died four years ago; it seems like twenty.  And I am still waiting for my "rebirth of wonder". Sitting in silence this morn I'm struck with how unsilent my world is, reverberating chimes mumbling to us all, setting a frequency that we're all drawn to, we heartbeat kin.  Wind doing it's ADHD gusting, dying, distracted changing direction. The busyness of birds, puffed up with the importance of what they're doing, nesting, feeding.     and me    doing all of the above   but distractedly with one ear tuned in to the cranes.

It hits me this morning   that my waiting for a burst of inspiration may be missing the ISness of my life now.   It's enough, more than enough,  what's right here all around me.  The cranes remind me.  When we first bought the land in 1991  I saw cranes a few valleys away and prayed that they would move in our direction, set up housekeeping in our wetlands.    And they did.  I am in thrall to cranes, their gangly gait  (not unlike mine at the moment as I prepare for a double hip replacement sometime this year) their haunting, otherworldly call.    They remind me that I'm in paradise if I can let go of what my life used to look like.  Caregiving was how I accessed my life force  and it gave me the energy to give parties and make crafts, design a home, nurture family,  handle crises.      Now I have to find that life force through caring for myself and the life I'm living now.    It's not as energizing.
 
As I've spent these years since Gil died doing less, and less and and even less than less, I've felt like Orpheus going into my own Underworld to bring back my beloved Love of Life.  I don't feel like I've found her yet, but my eyes and ears have become more fine tuned.  I can feel my heartbeat and a high frequency flutter.  It concerned me at first, but I gather it does not forebode disaster.   I'd like to imagine that it's part of my heart tuned into to, aligning itself with the frequencies of my unsilent Paradise.