loud & proud

Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American are the daily dose that keeps my hope afloat. 

Reading her thoroughly researched historical perspective on our current events anchors me to reality. 

Listening to her steely determination is my constant battle hymn in our Trumpian flailing republic. 

January 6, 2021 US Capitol attack by Trump followers

These are definitely transformative times we are all hoping we can transition and navigate through. 

Never has it ever been more important to circle together to build better stability for the vast majority.  

Call on and demand our institutions to step up and protect our country, its principles, and its people. 

To uphold a government that works for everybody - of the people, by the people, for the people. 

#resist #insist #persist

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. 

With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. 

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. ~ Arundhati Roy 

addressing the colonized mindset - then & now

We must understand what we could lose if the actions of this Trump administration go unchecked. It's on all of us to save our country and world from the rampaging destruction of these nihilistic authoritarians and greedy kleptocrats. 

April fools

2025 has been a barrage of April Fool's Days with absolutely no let up. If you've ever spent a day rolling around in the roiling waves of pounding surf - it's that sensation held in your blood and body - long after, as you drift off in the safety of dreamtime. 

In a tropical ocean the water is body temperature warm - you can stay in it for hours quite enjoyably. Cocooned in the soothing saline broth and froth - as the sun bakes overhead and water washes away all soreness. Bobbing on the tide as bubbles prickle and pop all around. 

Dulling sounds, lulling senses, floating thoughts, sloshing time. Catastrophe and chaos pushed off and pended. 

worlds apart

mania | maniac | maniacal

An all too accurate downward spiral blatantly exhibited by this second term of Trump in office. For him, his chosen, and the GOP - who are intent on the destruction of anything clear, good, and working in our American government today. 

survival of the best

All self-centered, insecure, petty, and unloved - they are the smallest packages of humans, so wrapped up in only themselves. It does not take much to decipher their barren psyches and broken behavior. 

There they stand in the glaring public gaze - frantically waving their freak flags in proud puerile penis envy. 

holy nights

On December 24th the twelve holy nights begin - symbols for the twelve forces of the soul that live in us. This is vital and valid forever - beyond the twelve holy nights and this holiday season. 

How does Spirit manifest at the midnight hour of the soul’s year? At noon on January 1 the Sun is closest to the Earth. Five and half days before and five and a half days later mark the holy nights. 

the light of the holy spirit descends upon the twelve apostles - mosaic art

On these darkest nights of the year we are closest to the Sun’s Spirit. This means that the Spiritual Sun shining from inside the Earth illuminates everything from the inside - turning it translucent. 

After the twelve days pass the Sun illuminates the Earth from above - externally. 

rebel rules

My lifelong belief is that children express and develop themselves in play. Those who learn to read and write early are formed by self-reflection before too many adults get into their soup. Thise who remain curious become aware and can self realize - going on to be fulfilled and successful on their own terms. 

Who said this?

In 1986, Lucy Calkins published a book called The Art of Teaching Writing. Later, she expanded this to include reading instruction as well. At the time, the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of the era favored an approach known as “whole language.” 

“If we make our children believe that reading has more to do with matching letters and sounds than with developing relationships with characters like Babar, Madeline, Charlotte, and Ramona, we do more harm than good.” ~ Lucy Calkins

This advocated independent reading of full books and suggested that children should identify words from context clues rather than arduously sounding them out. Progressives loved it, because it emphasized playfulness and agency. Although in practice, whole language had some obvious flaws. While some children do appear to pick up reading easily, many benefit from focused, direct instruction.

My daughter was raised and educated in an autocratic world deeply rooted in our pretentious and backward sugar bowl island. A Benedictine education in the local academy was her haven and sanctuary. Curious, enterprising, and innovative - her seditious soul always longed for more. 

Largely self taught by hunting and pecking through books to feed her growing avaricious greed for knowledge not readily available to her. Her interior world and outer expression soon overflowed in overabundance - much of which may not have been age appropriate. Even today, she does love to read aloud to herself and whomever else she can ensnare. 

She does us all royally proud. 

interior castle

A rich interior life is a deep well to draw on when things get chaotic or challenging. That's why it is of utmost value that we be surrounded by what sustains and nourishes us. Being under constant threat or barraged by externals wears on us and eventually takes a toll. 

Two years without a home to call my own has been uncomfortable for a home body Cancerian crab of my nature. Moving clear across the globe and uprooting over fifteen years of my independent stake as a resident and citizen elsewhere is a total upheaval hard to prepare for - much less contend with. 

Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, England - Peter Unger/Getty Images

As this tsunami of change swirled within - the outer world squeezed and closed in - tighter, smaller, meaner. Spots of sunshine and delight grew farther apart, dimmed significantly, needed more effort to come by or sustain. 

How to feed that inner core, pour back into it some replenishment? Keep the big picture in focus, see it clearly, not let externals rub or rob it of its shine. Manage flow and progress so momentum is not impeded or halted, derailed or depleted. 

So much more is expended under unfavorable conditions than when there is full, fresh, firm love all around. Soft, tender, allowing grace - not noise, obstacles, judgement. That makes all the difference in the world.

Although we clearly want one and not the other its isn't always the case. Going where the river flows has the ease and expansiveness that struggling against the current does not foster. Seeing oneself through the filter of loving kindness is vastly removed from harsh heavy horridness. 

We love the most the one who loves us the most and we shrivel where love is withheld or absent. That's the truth.