On Action

and emerging

photo of a card drawn by Courtney from the Children’s Art Project and colored in by me.

A quote from my spiritual tradition says, “If only men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one, they would then voluntarily associate themselves in the common interest.” This quote has been with me all last month — as we move into that most revered of U.S. holidays, Independence Day — for in this “land of the free,” none of us really live in absolute liberty where we can make the choices every day for the common interest.

In our government, though we love to espouse about free will, only a few individuals make decisions and laws, under the guise of representative democracy. Unfortunately, at the moment, the people making these decisions represent only the smallest percentages of our citizenry, and so underneath our anger, surprise, and frustrations, many of us also feel constricted, held hostage, and powerless.

In times like these, people so often say the system is broken, yet I and many others have said for a long time, the system works for whom it was designed, which is to say, wealthy, property-owning, white, straight, able-bodied men (or, as my favorite contemporary thinker, Resmaa Menakem names it, “the plantation”). This feudal, oppressive slave-based system was not wholly created in the new American colonies, but it was replicated here, ironically by “founding fathers” who wanted get free. As one of my other favorite thinkers, Paulo Freire said, “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.”

In truth, only a few global plantation owners exist; a relatively low number of billionaires control of 90%+ of the world's wealth. They wield that wealth to influence laws, courts, institutions, and systems that give them more wealth and power, and give the rest of us less. This structure is extremely top heavy, and such accumulation at the top squishes the bottom, splits us apart, and, causes such pressure, which can turn us against each other.

This Independence Day, as in all other days out of a year, I work to keeping that bottom from splitting apart, clutching hands with people who are more crushed than me, so we find strength in each other. This kind of action is what I would call direct democracy, where I am a participant in my own county, my own body politic if you will. I work not toward Independence, but toward Interdependence, where I understand my liberation is tied up in yours, where I pay attention to my free will not only for my benefit, but for and with the benefit my community, led most by those who experience being squished right out of the system the most, i.e. Black and brown women.

Malcom X said, “When I is Replaced by We, Illness Becomes Wellness.” I want to live in a country and world of wellness, like the one Indigenous thought leaders in Canada are currently gestating. I want to live in a world where each pregnancy is a cause for joy, because a child will have access to health and nurturing by a large, diverse, chosen and biological family, where no one has to worry how they will pay for food, shelter, health care, education, and other basic needs, and where a mother can be present with their child but also have a moment to walk in the woods, write a poem, do a job they love because they can hand off their child to a net of community members who will socialize the child as humans are made to be, with love and care.

But that is not the world we yet live in. So I must choose, every day, will I be become the oppressor or I will work toward absolute liberty, where people can voluntarily associate themselves with the common interest? I’ve always supported this voluntary choice because, as my own grandfather used to say, “life is not so easy.” That man had lived through wars and was a prisoner of war. I used to think I would not be close to war like that, which I recognize as an advantage of my particular body politic (white, U.S. citizen, etc.). But the war is closing in, has been closing in, on our own shores. We are in spiritual war, a war of transformation, a war of art, a war to choose wellness over illness.

So, even though most days I also feel inadequate, I take some action. I knock on doors for candidates of color (who are also women, mothers, workers), I take notes at my equity coalition steering committee meeting, I facilitate my local Showing Up for Racial Justice chapter meetings, I bring food to a healer friend fighting cancer, I bring water to marchers at a protest for another young black man killed by police in my county, I support Juneteenth and Pride events, give money, and I listen to my own teenager explain how she knows the definition of a fetus better than I do. Also I am getting more disciplined in my self-care, my embodiment practices like centering, breathing, being in nature, pausing and noticing. I go swimming in my local pool (where I tell myself to just keep swimming, just keep swimming), and I pet my cat and purr with him. Sure, sometimes I eat chips in front of the TV because emerging the world I want to see takes a lot of energy and I need rest, too. But choice is about finding balance and never giving in to despair. Action is the anecdote to despair, and I truly believe that, and direct democracy builds relationships. The top-heavy billionaires trying to protect their wealth and power, and their small amount of minions who do their bidding, count on splitting the bottom apart.

But, as a fabulous drag queen I met at a Pride event, said, “We have to stick together.”

“Yes,” I said, “and they are going to be very surprised we all know each other.”

I am not here to fight a war. I am here to emerge the wellness. One other favorite quote, from the writer Isak Dinesen, “The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.” We, citizens of direct democracy, are the sea rising, crying, moving, waving, each droplet doing its part, not on a screen tapping into a void, but in the ocean and rivers, together, holding hands, singing, rippling, eroding away these old systems of power and control so we all can run free and clear in order to nourish the earth. This weekend, make the choice; jump in.

If you like this post, please share with a friend and ask them to subscribe. My goal in writing these (quarterly, I won’t spam you very often), is to build community and connect on the bottom with love.