A politics of wonder

I've been feeling regularly outraged and abused by a politics of cruelty lately. How about you? Enough already, friends. It's time to take our beloved world back. This 30-minute walk-and-talk is my way back, winding my way through humanity's remarkable sisterhood, resilience, medicine, ceremony, and magic.

Care to join me?

Sisterhood: a special note for my sister(s)

I tried five times to make this week's essay shorter. I really, really tried. I always shoot for no more than a 15-minute read, because that's roughly the amount of time my sister has entirely to herself for reading each night. She loves to read. We share that. I fail often at staying under 15-minute read times when I write, I know, but this essay is a spectacular and decidedly stubborn fail at brevity. It turned out to be way more stubborn than I am: slippery and outfoxing me at every turn. Each time I tried to make her shorter, she got 4 minutes longer– even when I chopped 3,000 beloved words away, repeatedly. "Something magical is stirring here," I finally said out loud. Speak all your magic, sisters. Out loud. Now's the time.

Speak all your magic, sisters. Out loud.
Now's the time.

So, dear sister(s), this essay and I are here to say please take more time for yourself to read what you love. And please, read in a cozy chair wrapped in a blanket or in bed or sitting in a warm winter sunbeam or with a beloved tea and/or pet beside you. I love you. You deserve at least a full half hour of free time for yourself, and for reading things you love, each day. Together, we're magic enough to make that happen. We're always together. I'm sorry that I forgot that for a while.

Resilient: the power of focusing on remarkable beings

We're crafting a life– and a world and a politics, too, because they go hand in hand– centered on wonder, connection, belonging, humor, generosity, and curiosity. How about you? Most of us live fully in both of these worlds now– the cruelty-centered world and the wonder-centered world– with our eyes wide open most of the time. It's jarring to say the least. Horrifying often. Still, like everybody on earth's new crush, Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas, I'm mostly wonder at my core too, so that's what I'm always working on personally, regardless of what else is happening. Wonders never cease. Notice the "s" hanging out there on the end of wonder. To be sustained by wonder has never been an individual task, even for writers and other folks like me who are often alone and grateful for that.

I watched the last four hours of the State of the People (stateofthepeople.media) this week. Black leaders from across the U.S. created a beautiful, powerful 24-hour offering for their community, and they allowed those of us not nearly as cross-generationally well prepared to fight fascists witness their strength and magic too. What a remarkable gift. I wept tears of joy, deeply grateful and humbled, several times. If they decide to share it via YouTube or elsewhere, I highly recommend watching at least these last four hours if you live in the U.S. or live anywhere in the fallout zone of fascists running the U.S. government. So, um, earthlings. I recommend this to earthlings. Here's a peak at one of my favorite speakers.

Friends of mine who watched the U.S. president's state of the union speech instead of the State of the People were disgusted or weeping or traumatized or outraged or came away feeling powerless and hopeless and scared, or all of the above the next day. Witnessing cross-generational abuse in action has that effect no matter where the abuser happens to be standing. Watching the last four hours of the State of the People had the opposite effect, I suspect no matter who you are (well, except maybe if you're a white supremacist, but no white supremacist would ever read me so we're good). The State of the People demonstrated the antidote– how centering on our community and the joy and talents and gifts and strengths we happily share across a nation prepares us to take on fascists at the highest levels of government. How all of the horrors pouring out of a few briefly influential men's mouths– that make us feel powerless and hopeless and scared and outraged– are nothing at all compared to the power of community and joy. Wow did I need this example to remember and recharge. As a care partner for elder parents– one with dementia– and as a small business owner, I'm stretched so thin these days that my own in-person community has dangerously dwindled to occasional texts and yearly (or less frequent) in-person lunches. I'm re-energized to get to work on rebuilding my community ASAP. And deeply grateful.

Also, I have Palestinian friends, and I just spent several years witnessing daily, and trying to stop, the genocide of people I love in and around Gaza– and trying to support those who are managing to survive there and in West Bank despite all odds and despite all U.S. presidents– men who have their heads so far up the asses of billionaires now that they could not possibly hear their own people screaming. This I know for sure. Because all of my elected representatives ignored my screams– including those I had voted for. So, I have a different perspective than a lot of my friends in the U.S. right now who are panicking about our new billionaire-supported fascist president & company trying to create our first king/dictator, or dictoddler, if you prefer, like many of my friends say.

I'm shaken, and here we're changing to meet even harsher realities while still centered on wonder, but I'm not panicking now. Because I've spent the last few years watching beyond-remarkable civilians shine love and joy and laughter and hope and connection and faith and what often felt like pure, unbelievable magic out into the world from a place so horrifying, bloody, demolished, cruel, intentionally-starved, and unfair that it boggles the mind. (One of the best funded militaries in the world versus 2.3 million civilians of all ages trapped within Gaza and most of whom had/still have no way out, even those who do want to leave the land they deeply love, which most don't, even now. It was like having a front-row seat to the history of my own country, and watching it made me nausea or vomit whenever I tried to hold it all alone.)

Looking at my own country today, I'm not panicking, because I've already witnessed regular people, civilians on the ground, children and grandparents and displaced families and people intentionally maimed and disabled, win the day, and win the world's hearts and minds against several of the most powerful militaries ever known, and against the most disconnected and brutal and horrifying of humanity's "leaders," and against the best funded, non-stop-nonsense marketing spin-machines on earth. So, I know how good many of us still have it in the U.S. relative to people surviving in active genocide zones. And I listen to people who've experienced this country as a genocide zone for generations too. So I know exactly how remarkable and powerful and unbelievably loving and creative regular human beings on the ground are now. We always look at both here. I look at the chronic abuse, cruelty, self-centeredness, and the delusions about humanity of the billionaire class and their paid lackies and puppets (abused individuals with no way out that they can imagine except to become the abuser). And, I look at the lived experiences of most folks on the ground (communities of joy regardless of what else is happening). Regular people. Doing amazing things. Even as they lose almost everything to greedy billionaires– their rights, their universities and schools, their jobs, their homes, their cities, their farms, their parks, their family members, their places of worship, and the land and trees and animals they love. Everything.

The people of Gaza have already shown us the way we win from the ground here on earth. Already given us the words we need. "Love your life," they said into their phones to millions of us watching as the bombs fell all around them. "Just love your life. That's all we want for you." When human beings of earth believe that we are about to live our very last night, this is what we choose to say to humanity as a whole. None of our remaining lies about ourselves and each other can stand for long now against this core truth of ours. We love life and we love each other.

"Love your life," they said into their phones to millions of us watching as the bombs fell all around them. "Just love your life. That's all we want for you." When human beings of earth believe that we are about to live our very last night, this is what we choose to say to humanity as a whole. None of our remaining lies about ourselves and each other can stand for long now against this core truth of ours. We love life and we love each other.

If you've had enough of the politics of cruelty at the moment, skip the next section of this post entirely and go straight to the good news. There is power to be had in looking cruelty straight in the face. All boat captains in storms know the power of facing straight into the storm. The trick is to do so together, not alone.

Medicinal: the power of focusing on a politics of cruelty together

Even here in the U.S. today– where Americans from all backgrounds and our government employees and their biggest supporters are now fighting against cruel men determined to turn this country, and then the world, into an almost complete dictatorship run by the worst of the billionaire class and their paid lackies– we can still witness and dream of a politics of wonder. Even here. Did you see the dance that Rep. Jasmine Crockett did ahead of the state of the union? In the same building where loud-and-proud racists were preparing speak to the world they believe they now fully own? Whew. She shook the human world to its core. There's the representative I knew was out there! She is my representative now too– across all state lines!

Even here, today, we can still dream of what we could be together and what we want. Some people never stop. This is a freedom born of a love of life and a love of the living. This freedom is far older and wiser and more lasting than any one person or any country or place on current maps or any government. When we're loving– aka held by the love of community, ancestors, and/or neighbors– we're far freer and more flexible and creative than all the men left to fear.

When we're loving– aka held by the love of community, ancestors, and/or neighbors– we're far freer and more flexible and creative than all the men left to fear.

I'm a story wrangler/researcher and documenter of wonder, surprise, and delight at my core. Across the past few months, I've watched as the internet turned from a mass of frightened individuals being pushed in all directions, and yelling at each other, and spreading fear, and being bullied non-stop by paid bad actors and fascists (most of whom appear to be either bots or deeply lonely people with almost no friends, upon closer inspection) into a global human movement determined to support each other and growing ever more united against the less than 3,000 human beings who make up the global billionaire class.

Based on who we can see today here in the U.S., here's what almost anyone with eyes and a screen and a desire see what's happening at the heart of global cruelty can now see about earth's billionaire class:

• Beyond their extraordinary wealth, stunningly and remarkably, they're no more creative today than at all the other times across history that wealthy-but-actually-stunningly-weak-and-abused/abusing men tried this shit. And by shit, I mean the nonsensical idea that you could ever rule earth and all of humanity by force and by cheating (with the help of daddy's money and stolen money and bots and fascists and other cowardly minions paid to turn us against each other) and with violence while offering nothing in return– not real leadership, not listening, not good ideas, not representing or governing free people, not working for the common good, not inspiring or supporting children, not creating jobs, not celebrating the human spirit or beautiful earth, not supporting those in greatest need among us, not saving our precious air or water or habitats, not lowering prices, not protecting us in any way or making us feel safer, not preparing for the future, and not making the present better. Nothing. Today, they offer nothing to anyone other than themselves and only false, temporary hope to those who kneel before them. Those trying to run the U.S. right now have got to be among the most drug-addled, clueless, bumbling, and petty morons ever to attempt this. If you can't hear my love for all of humanity in those words, keep going. Love never leaves me and you– love never leaves us here.
• They appear to believe they know better than ALL human beings of earth, with no evidence beyond some wild, shared, in-group delusions. They don't seem to know or hear the earth herself, or people connected to each other and the earth, at all. Based on their actions, they must have convinced themselves that they know better than all parents, all locally and nationally elected leaders, all scholars, all students and teachers of history and law and medicine, all kind and generous people, all religious leaders, all poets, and all artists, musicians, writers, farmers, children, healers, creators, workers, makers, protectors of the constitution, scientists, veterans, public servants, not to mention forests, oceans, animals, and birds. Can you imagine believing you know more than all human cultures of earth? Wow. The worst of these billionaires currently get to lie to themselves that they have noble goals for humanity. While openly partnering with and supporting violent dictators, con men, racists, and rapists. Their work now is primarily spreading abuse and fear, inciting panic, taking even more of good working people's money than they had before, and funding the spread of fascism– whether they believe in it or not– because they need bodyguards for those inherited and stolen billions, and our stolen private data, and their still-fragile human selves. Why fascists? Because only the saddest, most hopeless, neglected, abused, and alone human beings on earth would cruelly turn on all their neighbors just to protect a few billionaires who most will never meet in person and all will definitely never, ever become. I read that someone making $100,000 a year would need to work 10,000 years to become a billionaire (check my math– it's not my strong suit– here we call it poet's math). The majority of Americans make less than that, and live paycheck to paycheck, and are so generous of spirit that they would never hoard wealth that could end poverty across the entire nation.
• They are so arrogant and foolish now that they openly call the rest of humankind– billions of people– "the parasite class" on social media. They're so cocky and emboldened (and did I mention drug-addled?) now that they throw Nazi salutes and run around with chainsaws on stage for fun, while mocking Rep. Jasmine Crockett for having the nerve to dance. Silly boys. And they're so visibly cowardly now that they openly throw their own wives and baby mamas and adult children under the bus, as needed, and they wear their own 3-year-old children around their necks like the world's cruelest bullet-proof vests. Imagine what mental gymnastics you would have to do to believe that these same men– so often openly cruel to their own families, children, "friends," and colleagues– somehow care about us and our children.
• They are now so visibly sad and cruel and incompetent and flat out wrong about humanity that they're uniting us. They and their minions here in the U.S. are now calling even Conservatives and Republicans communists. What the actual F?! Dear Lord. These guys are so bad at actually leading that almost overnight this year my Republican and Conservative and Democrat and Progressive and Green party and Working Families party and Leftist/Socialist and Anarchist friends have found themselves as allies. Sadly for all of us, at the moment all elected Republicans in the House and Senate– and a few Democrats too– are bowing to and siding with the billionaire class now. But the people on the ground with us, and in our neighborhoods, are so clearly not our enemy. Poor people are not our enemies. Non-greedy people aren't our enemies. That billionaire-fueled lie is dead here, and it's dying rapidly everywhere else as more and more of us join the poor here. The 3,000 billionaires who now own more wealth than all the countries in the world (minus the US and China) but for whom that is still not nearly enough so they have to come for all the rest of it from us: they are now the clear problem. We can see the problem. All of us. Imagine being wealthy enough to buy a presidential election and do anything you want to do, and yet still being so bitter and needy and angry that you continue having daily public temper tantrums, and threatening others online daily, and coming after an ever-larger slice of the taxpayer's money from veterans, elders, children, service members, park rangers, cancer researchers, disabled people, 9/11 responders, educators, farmers, churches, scientists, refugees, and immigrants. It's horrifying, but also just remarkably sad that any three of these billionaire men could work with us and end poverty on earth as we know it. Instead, no amount of money in their own pockets is enough for them. They actually need more poverty and more violence now to gain more wealth. Stealing from the earth herself isn't enough anymore. They have to steal from us now, too. They have to mine us so they get to build their rockets to land on Mars and gain mining and domination rights there too. That's all we appear to be to them. Means to an end. We, here, being all living beings not already billionaires or dictators.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. That's the bad news from where we sit, and together we just held it all in the palm of our hands.

Here within the U.S., we're currently holding grief for our country that's so big it feels like being asked to hold the moon on our backs. Fortunately for us, we've all seen people with far less than we have hold up the entire sky for humanity as a whole.

Here within the U.S., we're currently holding grief for our country that's so big it feels like being asked to hold the moon on our backs. Fortunately for us, we've all seen people with far less than we have hold up the entire sky for humanity as a whole.

Ceremonial: the power of intentionally gathering a whole bunch of good people and good news to share

We love life and the living. We grow and change and connect and heal far faster than the remaining abusing/abused billionaires do.

We're far more creative, too, because we're deeply connected to others and because we've always had to be. If you can't see this in your own community and ancestors, start following more grassroots community organizers and organizations, more artists and musicians and arts organizations, more members of the Black community in the U.S. and any native community in the U.S., the disability community, the LGBTQ+ community, or even people in genocide zones– in Gaza, in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example. And if you witness and learn, take your whole heart with you, and give back. Give back however you can and even if you make mistakes doing so. You will make mistakes. We all do. Humans gotta human.

Yes, the most visible members of the billionaire class seem trapped in a sad, abusive past, and they appear to have learned almost no lessons from history at all, but they also can't see that almost nobody left on earth, except for them now and a few isolated others, wants what they're selling anymore. Nobody needs that planetary-level wealth and vengeance and violence or their staggering, completely-disconnected-from-reality cruelty and incompetence– not when the health of the planet herself and humanity as a whole is at stake. There are 8.2 billion humans on earth. Humans make up just 0.01% of earth's life. There are just 3,000 billionaires on earth– and even some of them are growing weary of their brethren's nonsense. The odds feel wildly in our favor every moment we're working together and connecting in solidarity and joy.

These guys haven't changed. But we have. We have. Just because they haven't evolved past the abuse in their own pasts doesn't mean the rest of us can't or haven't already. Ghandi said "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean: if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." What we're facing now is the last humans on earth who still feel so isolated and alone and frightened or outraged by that that they're clinging to a few dirty drops instead of the ocean.

We are the ocean.

Most of us are regularly kinder and more generous to others than the worst that's been done to us. We are the ocean.

Most of us have friends, family, community, or work colleagues all over the country or all over the globe now. We almost all at least have people we follow, learn from, and trust– globally. We have all witnessed amazing, hilarious, generous, loving, and hard-working people the world over. These earthlings are our people. Our hearts and spirits know that man-made borders and walls are easily crossed, and easily changed or dissolved, by hilarious, generous, loving, creative, playful, connected, and hardworking people. Because we do this ourselves, all the time now. And we watch and learn from/with others doing the same.

Most of us are regularly kinder and more generous to others than the worst that's been done to us.
We are the ocean.

Most of us have also been shaken and humbled now as we've seen members of our own governments– and our own political parties and large corporations we once trusted– bow to the worst of the billionaire class who clearly don't have the interests of anyone but themselves in mind. The last guy my (former) political party elected funded the genocide of people I dearly love, paid those who dropped massive bomb after bomb on our civilian friends, while I screamed in horror for 15 months straight to anyone who would listen. Only those on the ground around me cared, or raised funds, or protested, or tried to help however they could, and still help today. Across U.S. political parties, BTW. Here on the ground, we care deeply about people. The elected members of my own party did nothing to help. Or, far worse than doing nothing, they told me it wasn't happening at all. That's lying, and that's abuse, pure and simple. It's definitely not leadership. You're telling me that those 40,000 dead and wounded and missing Palestinian children in Gaza either don't exist at all or they must have deserved their brutal end?! Drivel. Utter nonsense. Horrifying. Garbage. Complete wacka-do delusion. No matter which political party you belong to. It's beyond remarkable the delusions that those poor people still bowing to billionaires' fears and whims have to live with. I can hardly believe that that used to be me.

And, yes. That used to be me. So recently its downright embarrassing. Ok, I said that this is the good news section. That last paragraph may have sounded like bad news– and it was– but it's also not. Because. In our house, we never get to be "We told you so." humans or Democrats or Leftists or Americans again. I never get to claim that the man I voted for would never bow to the billionaire class. Because he did, and because he did, tens of thousands of civilians died (at least 1 in 50 people) in Gaza and more than 110,000 were wounded (at least 1 in 20). They also lost whole cities, and their homes and their jobs and their schools and their places of worship and their farms, because he did. Ninety-five percent of the population (1.9 million) in Gaza is currently internally displaced and living in tents and makeshift shelters, and more than 2 million are experiencing acute food insecurity. That is a direct result of what the guy I voted for did. "Representative" my ass! So. Here, we have snapped all the way out of our old "my billionaire-backed guy is better than your billionaire-backed guy." way of thinking. Billionaire-back men are shortsighted at worst and genocide-funding cowards at best. Here, we are becoming something more beautiful and powerful together than we were before: humbled and fired up to change together. Most days. So.

I don't have time for billionaire-funded BS anymore. Here, when I engage with strangers who disagree with me now, I've begun to say "Are you a billionaire, a bot, or a bully here simply to be cruel to your neighbors for sport? No? Great. We have that in common. What are we going to do to change ourselves and this mess we're all in together?" And change it we must. Together. Leaders we all get to be now. (Channeled my inner Yoda on that one.)

Here we watch for the 3 Bs in ourselves all the time now– am I being a bot (parroting unimaginative rubbish programmed by someone else), a billionaire (completely disconnected from the lived realities on the ground and too scared to listen to people in pain), or a bully (still trapped in the abuse of my own past, moving through the world alone, and so seeing abuse in others almost everywhere I go)? We don't have to be any of these things anymore. We want more for the earthlings we love.

Here we watch for the 3 Bs in ourselves all the time now– am I being a bot (parroting unimaginative rubbish programmed by someone else), a billionaire (completely disconnected from the lived realities on the ground and too scared to listen to people in pain), or a bully (still trapped in the abuse of my own past, moving through the world alone, and so seeing abuse in others almost everywhere I go)?
We don't have to be any of these things anymore.
We want more for the earthlings we love.

Here in the U.S. at the moment, most of us are still relatively free and remarkably lucky, and we damn sure better notice and lean on all the relationships we have and use all the privileges we have and all the tools at our disposal– especially all the remarkable and powerful and absolutely gorgeous differences among us– that we still have, while we still have them.

We can still choose to read news from trusted sources in other countries in addition to the last few standing trusted sources within our own. And share those sources with others. We can still take the time to see if what we're sharing is from a trusted source or a bad actor intended to inflame and outrage to manipulate and control. Do we love our neighbors and ourselves enough to do that?

We can still choose to watch and read and listen to those we already deeply trust, and those our friends and families deeply trust too. And share those sources with others.

We can join and fund organizations led by people who've been in this exact same fight for generations. Those who the billionaire (formerly millionaire) class always blames when their billionaire-centered policies hurt everyone on earth but them. We can watch, follow, and learn from cross-generational freedom fighters all over the globe now.

We can create support groups and mutual aid groups for ourselves and other neighbors in need to hold the pain of these extreme-cruelty-for-all-non-billionaires-centered-government days. Get the support we need to continue dreaming beautiful dreams, continue holding pain, continue feeling safe, continue being able to afford to eat and see a doctor, and continue learning and changing ourselves.

We can speak up in our free time. We can use the 5 Calls app to make calling representatives, and saying what we want to say, so fast and easy.

We can join national boycotts of large corporations that support fascism, and shop small businesses, and women-owned businesses, and Black-owned businesses locally. We do this to change ourselves as much as to change anyone else. We can gift and trade and thrift and barter as communities. And when we do shop, we can use cash when possible to keep more money in the community instead of sending 3 or 4% of each purchase to billionaires for convenience each time we shop. We can use apps like Boycat or No Thanks and others to avoid sending more money to billionaires and genocide funders when we do shop. We can stop shopping at giant corporations run by people of the billionaire class entirely– recognizing that giant corporations are the least able to escape from bowing to billionaires and fascists at the moment. Those of us who can afford to, that is. You do you, boo. We all do our beautiful and imperfect best.

We can show up at town halls and city council and school board meetings. We can host town halls. The Lincoln Project recommends reserving open meeting spaces in your area and hosting your own if your kneeling-to-billionaire representatives refuse to host them. We can show up at protests or support those who do. We can join Indivisible. We can listen and learn from those who've always shown up in this fight– a fight that's been happening for a very long time. If you're just joining, welcome!

If you believe that there is still a possibility of future or fair elections in the U.S. (I had doubts about this, but I just witnessed the remarkable Black community in the U.S. in action and they completely changed my mind), you can help fund those running for office. We can run for office ourselves, too, while making sure that there's not someone in the community better prepared to go head-to-head against the billionaire class. Some people come from families who've been doing this for a dozen generations or more– and they've held on to that history, their songs and speeches and tactics and spirit. There need to be more young people in offices from school boards to county commissioners and everywhere else, too. Find young people to support. Given them money if you have it. We can serve as support staff, helpers, allies, friends, and funders if we're new to the fight. At the moment, we can also fight the passage of The SAFE Act– the cruelest and largest national voter suppression act I've seen put forth in my lifetime. I didn't realize it was possible for Americans to even hate other Americans, as a whole, that much. I know better now.

We can give a bit of our money to those hurt worst in our communities by horrifying new government policies. Or offer sanctuary to the suffering or exhausted. And/or give a little money to those putting their lives on the line protesting from within and adjacent to the government (like the 160,000+ person coalition behind Alt National Park) and to those we know protesting in the streets. And give a bit of our money to those fighting the battles we can't fight ourselves. For me that would be organizations like Public Citizen or American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or Legal Defense Fund or the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) or Law for Black Lives or Transgender Law Center or National Women's Law Center or EarthRights International (ERI) or Human Rights Watch (HRW). Lord knows I'll never win an important battle using my in-depth knowledge of American law, policy, and precedent or my global research and statistics about human rights abuses. But they can, and they do. They kick ass!

Most importantly, we can stop feeling bad about who we aren't and what we can't do and just start using our own somehow-perfect-for-now set of skills and connections for a larger common good now. Because there is and will always be a common good. No matter what happens to the U.S. Government or to other governments. The people of Gaza taught us that here too. The common good lives right here, with us, in the land, on the ground, and in our always-connected hearts.

The common good lives right here, with us, in the land, on the ground, and in our always-connected hearts.

Have you created a Civic Duty folder on your phone or on your desktop yet? How about a Plan for Mutual Aid with and for neighbors, as needed, not just for you and your family? Now's a great time to make these or update these for those who have the time and to share those plans with those who don't have time to create them themselves. I'm joining a local group to learn more about how to do this at the community level too. Tips I've already learned include: make sure you have multiple ways to contact each other in case some ways are taken away or become unsafe. I have friends who live in police states elsewhere who haven't been able to use social media for years. Old-school landlines are nice. Apps like Signal or WhatsApp or Telegram offer more secure (encrypted) ways to communicate on cell phones. Although the moment a corrupt governement wants you and you 100% don't want your location known, cell phones aren't your friend. Members of several communities I'm part of now recommend having at least $2,000 cash on hand, if you have it, in case power goes out long-ish term or the banking system is taken over by a corrupt and corrupting government. If you have more than that, don't hoard it. Share it with those in your community who don't. We need real community now more than we need money. Lovely to get to remember that one.

We're making more connections and plans with neighbors right now than we have in years. These all feel like wonderful things to be doing, even if our worst fears don't come to pass. It's getting us out of the house more and off our phones more. Win-wins! ;-)

Magical: what remembering a politics of wonder feels like

We who were born from love and chaos, love the mystery of life. Love the unseen and unknowable. Love the wandering and the wondering. We love the space between us: wide open, empty space where we can look around a bit and breathe more deeply and find and ask new questions. We love dark places, too, that require courage, especially when feeling held by our original or found family, our community, or our home planet. We love the differences among us, which make us more creative, strong, and playful. Love learning and unlearning. Love the planet and the living. Love that shared grief and loss and pain can crack us so wide open that we can shed former selves together and step forth new, again and again, like spring blossoms on a gnarled old apple tree. We are connected to a global heart and imagination. Are creators of reality together. Nobody can take that away from us.

We love having a grain of stability, too, within the chaos of now. Finding your current grain of stability is a perfectly lovely and necessary way to spend a day or a week or a month or more– no guilt for taking the time you need to find your current grain of stability. Here's our grain of stability for today. This may change tomorrow and that's ok. We have it today, now, when we need it. Here we already know:

• Who we're up against, and it's not each other. At worst, we're only up against the last 3,000 people (possibly far less) on earth who believe that they absolutely need both dictatorships and to be trillionaires for bragging rights to one-up their billionaire buddies. People who believe that to get there they must have complete control of humanity as a whole to be safe (happily partnering with other dictators is a solid sign of this) but who end up creating only pain and poverty and violence instead as they work against humanities true nature. People who need global-level violence and vengeance to feel better about their own suffering, because they cannot release their own mountain of internal festering pain, and they won't– they were raised that they can't– ever accept help to do so. So, blame, abuse, and vengeance are their only options. People so rich that they now require mass poverty and suffering globally to support their delusions and habits.
• Who we are now. We are a beautiful blue-green planet and all her residents. We are life on earth, including 8.2 billion people (just 0.01% of life on earth), and everything we all love and hold dear about this place, and every difference among us, and every shared experience, and every imagination, and every experience that we and our ancestors have ever had that tells us that the saddest and scariest, and last, billionaires running things right now are dead wrong about human nature and about humanity as a whole. Human nature is ours to define as humans, and we're hilarious and beautiful as a whole.
• Who has our backs. Mama Earth herself, and a beautiful universe, to start. Soil and water and wind and rain and sunshine. Seasons. Mycelium in the soil. Clouds and stars in the sky. Animals. Birds. Fish. Insects. Forests. Plants. Lichen. Oceans. Sunrises and sunsets. Laughing babies and elders. And more than 8 billion good people on earth who just want to live loving, generous, playful, creative, humor-filled, and wonder-filled lives, with friends and family and affordable food and health care, like we do. Feel free to add God/Allah, your beloved prophets and gods, your favorite ancestors and historical figures, and even your favorite imaginary characters from stories and books and myths in there too, as needed. No need to leave out anyone or anything that helped us get here– to a politics of wonder. Leaving beings out isn't our thing, especially whenever we see that moving a step closer toward loving all beings is always an option for us.
• What to do next. What's your next step? Here we live, our next steps are attending community mutual aid meetings, hosting writers gatherings, deepening trust and faith in ourselves and closest others every chance we get, and finding and creating more joy within and as community. We started by shakily deciding to shakily trust our own instincts on where to move, what to do next, and on who has our backs. And when we couldn't do that, then we showed up in person and surrounded ourselves with beings who returned us to trusting our instincts and our community. These beings are literally everywhere when you center on wonder together like I do. D and I have been physically leaning on a lot of Douglas fir and western red cedar trees here this winter. Standing inside healing spaces where 3 or 4 of them have grown so close together in the forest that we humans can touch them all with our hands, feet, and/or heads at once. Tree magic sustained us when our own health fizzled across the past four months. At the same time, Dad taught me to love The Olive Garden, and he kept me laughing, and he reminded me of my people's magic when– having never heard the words from me– he said, "All the elected people backed by these billionaires have got to go." Wow. I thought only those of us watching across all social media platforms could see that. He's 84. He's not even on social media. Magic.

The most pain-filled and suffering-spreading billionaires can't even see most of the beings we love. When we hold the billionaires' fears too long, we're pulled off our center, and it can feel like we can't trust ourselves or our neighbors. But we are creators of reality. Nobody can take that away from us. Nobody, not anymore. You can trust yourself completely and trust a whole lot of neighbors too. We also have to set down the billionaires' stagnant and festering fears whenever they interfere with our ability to feel wonder, curiosity, trust, joy, or love. Set them down. Pick up and hold your neighbors' real problems, and real fears, together, instead. Do this. Try this and I promise, wonder herself plus at least one of her most loyal companions– laughter, tears, mouths dropped wide in surprise or awe, goosebumps, gratitude, dancing, or internally-felt and deepening respect for life and humility and joy about your place in things– will return to you, almost instantly.

We are the beings who woo wonder, aka team wonder, aka team chrysalis if you're happily a word-nerd like me. We're also the beings called forth to make sure that no living beings are 1) abused (or utterly friendless when they're abused, during this transition time of much abuse), 2) chronically isolated and alone (during this time of great isolation for many), and 3) so ridiculously wealthy that they and their families never need to truly meet or lean on the earth and her other residents to connect, feel gratitude, grow and change, feel humility, grieve, change, and heal. This 3-part combination in the U.S. has led to some very influential men remaining trapped in their own violent and lonely, abused pasts while also having the momentary power to drag a lot of other people way down there with them in the present.

Wonder is central to who we are on this planet. Central to life and living. Those who experience and feel wonder together can hold everything else– including the human-created horrors of this time– without spreading them and causing more suffering. Ask the trees or wild geese or ants or mushrooms or tables of laughing wise human elders at The Olive Garden or other clearly collective and well-connected beings when you have questions about how to do this.

There are a lot of people who can't hold the global horrors of this time, because they don't currently have the cross-generational or cross-cultural community to be present for the countless wonders of this time too. You can sense them or hear them/us saying things like:

• That isn't happening. [said directly to someone personally experiencing it]
• This can't be happening.
• Stop bringing politics into this.
• That's not a real problem.
• You're wrong. [when said to someone simply describing their own experience, something that actually happened to them, or describing a real aspect of themselves or their communities]
• You're making that up. That's not real. (For example, "Climate change isn't real." Or. I hear this one a lot from people online who think the Covid vaccines developed by a global community of scientists that have saved millions of lives worldwide are nothing but harmful. When I tell the story of how we watched in horror in late 2020 as 15 people died in Mom's memory care home in the span of 4 weeks when Covid entered the building before vaccines were available. Two months later, after the vaccines, Covid stopped being a death sentence and it didn't spread as fast or as far. When it enters the building now, usually just 2 or 3 people get it, not 50 people anymore. In public spaces on social media, I'm almost guaranteed to be told that I'm making that up. And that what happened to us here didn't actually happen. I am even mocked for mourning the 15 people we lost to Covid that year– people who were retired Navy officers, doctors, nurses, teachers, and grandparents. Mocking is a definite sign that you're either a bot or an abused bully still trying to hold a world of horrors alone.)
• That's not what's happening here. (If you're not connected to a larger imagination than your own, it's impossible to imagine other possibilities.)
• Books must be banned to keep us all safe. (I've yet to meet anyone on earth who knows somebody killed or even injured by the physical presence of a book. As an author myself, I'm admittedly biased on this one, because I know my own community. As a whole, we authors are gentle, present, passionate, and fierce, but we aren't a danger to anyone. We may hold pain, but we don't spread it around. We share it so we can hold it together, with love.)
• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are bad for everyone in this country. (When actually clueless about what these words actually mean in practice to people on the ground.)
• Immigrants need to be rounded up. (or are suspicious or evil or coming after us to harm us somehow. "Is this true of the immigrant hummingbirds you're spending money to feed in your yard year after year?" I tend to wonder here.)
• She's so cringe. [when said to spread cruelty, not in jest, with friends, about yourselves]
• He's delulu. [when said to spread cruelty, not in jest, with friends, about yourselves or to back each other up against a bully]
• Being woke is a joke. (I've moved from thinking these words are pure evil to acknowledging that this is often a neon sign call for help from someone trying to hold way too many of the world's horrors alone.)
• We can't trust women, or veterans, or elders, or protestors, or voters, so we're going to take away your rights and your funding and make all of your decisions for you now. To keep you safe.

People moving through the world primarily as individuals most days often don't have the community to hold all the fears of this time. Some of us can easily reconnect in person, or lean on expanding community virtually, and keep moving. Many of us can't yet or can't all the time. Billionaire-owned social media is a circus for many reasons beyond our control right now, but this one is in our control. Stop asking isolated individuals to hold more horrors than they/you can stand to hold alone. Maybe they/you don't know how to be in community, or they're/you're just exhausted, or they/you just can't be in community right now. As a care partner for a Mom living with Alzheimer's disease for 23 years, I now know what extreme isolation is, and wow does it suck.

Remember that we're always speaking with people who don't know how to handle these times now. None of us do. Attacking others while simultaneously asking them to hold the impossible as individuals never works.

You don't have to hold the hand of everyone who is abusive or racist or misogynistic or cruel or fascist– it's a really good idea not to even attempt that as an individual– but we should all hold the hand of one someone who is struggling with the immense weight of the world on their own today. Whose hand is yours to hold today? It may or may not be the same one every day, but as long as it's at least one, you're already doing more than the current U.S. president and the abused/abusive men around him are doing for quality of life on earth.

Whose hand is yours to hold today?

Gentle and present is enough. This is all we need to be. Even when we're passionate and fierce, we're gentle and present too. I'm so glad I got the chance to hear Dr. Bernice King call this (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) "having enough regular spiritual discipline to remain nonviolent" this week. Talk about a stunningly powerful and shining example of holding a grain of cross-generational stability in your hand! Gentle and present– even when passionate and fierce– is enough for me, because that's who we want to be in a world overflowing with wonders that we're always aware of. We're letting go of being who we don't want to be anymore. I don't want to be anything else but this.

Gentle and present– even when passionate and fierce– is enough, because that's who we want to be in a world overflowing with wonders that we're always aware of.
We're letting go of being who we don't want to be anymore.
I don't want to be anything else but this.

Whenever holding the billionaires' fears, or your neighbor's fears, on top of your own fears is more than you can hold alone, say this out loud:

"I don't think I can hold this alone."
- or -
"I don't know how much more of this I can take."
- or -
"Yes, I would love some help. Thank you so much." (My friend Christie taught me this one. My own people kind of suck at this.)

Or, just weep. (My presence teaches my people the world-stopping power of this so called "vulnerability." Vulnerability my ass. I think you meant to say superpower.)

Say these things out loud to a loved one or to a neighbor or two or just weep openly in their presence. See what happens. Deep strength lives in our connection to each other, not in our advanced weaponry, our stiff upper lips, or in our now almost completely imaginary bootstraps.

We already know how this particular global shift of human consciousness ends. It ends well. That keeps us smiling here. The older we get, and the more of life we see together, and the more we witness the unshakable humor of elders, the unshakeable generosity and stubbornness and kindness of most adults, the unshakable creativity and brilliance of the now globally connected young, and the unstoppable playfulness of children and other wise beings, the stronger and more certain our smiles become. Even now.

Gandhi also said "Remember that all through history there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always."

"Remember that all through history there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always."

Gandhi has been a dear friend of mine since I was 11 years old, although he died decades before I was born. I was introduced to him by a Bible Studies teacher in my Christian school in South Dakota in the early 1980s, even though Gandhi wasn't Christian and most of what he taught us was drawn from his traditions and ancestors and scriptures, not ours. I bet you have a similar story to tell about people some of your current neighbors are afraid of. Tell those stories now. That's how we all know what a politics of wonder will look like. We know what it feels like. We earthlings have always been full of wonder and curiosity and respect for humanity's deepest magic and boundless generosity– across stale old ideas and boundaries that needed a push to finally fall. Let's push with our stories and without advanced tech and weaponry whenever we can.

I bet you have a similar story to tell about people some of your current neighbors are afraid of.
Tell those stories now.

You may be feeling that humanity is standing on a dangerous precipice now. That we're entering an age where humanity as a whole gets to believe these unshakable truths about ourselves and our neighbors: some of us again and some of us for the first time. You may be feeling that the good guys are losing right now. Or that the only thing standing between us and this new age are the last few people on earth who don't believe humanity holds deep magic and boundless generosity. If that's you, all you need to do is demonstrate the deep magic of boundless generosity to yourself and your neighbors– and welcome and celebrate all demonstrations of this too, no matter where they come from– and you've already made the leap.

From where I sit at the moment, that tip toward wonder happened long before I was born. We are witnessing the bitter, brutal, nausea-inducing end of humanity's abuse-centered time.

Recently, we watched the soaring white kites of parents, children, and poets flying over Gaza even as the bombs fell, drones buzzed, snipers lurked, tents burned, and body parts were held with complete reverence, buried in still-beloved land, and mourned. We watched adults become circus clowns and teachers and artists using little more than rubble, debris, air, faith, and a smiling face to keep children feeling safer and happier and hopeful. We watched 8- and 9-year-old children become journalists, and engineers, and chefs, and hilarious talk-show personalities, and online fundraisers for their families when most of the adults around them had been murdered or were too wounded to continue in their adult roles. I sobbed as I watched these brilliant children. And I sobbed when I watched elders with almost nothing left but each other, sit, smile, weep, laugh, hold hands, and dance as they looked out across their beloved sea, their eyes still sparkling with joy.

We felt all of that with them. We dreamed their dreams here, and we woke up screaming to escape the flames in their nightmares and in their waking hours, too. We were with them then, and we still are now. We are holding each other still. Connected always. Wonders never cease.

A politics of wonder is already here. If your people didn't speak these words before, speak them now.

These are definitely not rose-colored glasses we're wearing, friends. The baggage of those words isn't ours to hold anymore. And. We earthlings are straight up magic. Pro tip: Get up and dance with Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas on TikTok when you forget your own magic or whenever you forget what a politics of wonder feels like from within.

The part of me and the part of you that have always known that people are straight up magic are right. We're right! It's time to believe ourselves again.

Here we've witnessed humanity's magic. Felt it. Celebrated it. Wept it. Danced it. And we believed magic straight into being beside people our ancestors once feared.

A politics of wonder is already here, isn't it?

Tag! You're it.