31st October 2020
A dear friend asked me today: “How are you on the eve of election…?” My first reaction was, I can’t bear to even think about it. My second thought was: I want to go on record. I want to say out loud — during the weekend before this extraordinary American Moment — how I am. I want you to know what I am thinking…and even more importantly, what I am doing.
And actually, my heart is quiet this moment. Please click on the soundtrack I have chosen for this message: “Avalon-Remix.” If you can, just listen without reading until the soprano sax comes in… and then continue to read my post.
Today I am bringing as much laughter and positive energy as I can to every human interaction…with my wife, my family, my clients, my colleagues, comrades and friends. On the phone with business people. With other shoppers when I am standing in line — smiling at people I pass 6 ft. away on the street or if I’m in my garden and they stroll by.
The news currently is incomprehensible to me. I can no longer translate and parse the in-between-the-lines information I used to be able to glean. The self-consciousness of the MSNBC and NPR presenters, various podcasters — the anxiety of the commentators is exhausting to filter. These journalists, reporters and commentators are terrified to get it wrong again (like in 2016) – and at the same time several are trying to walk this fine line between hope and a gut-wrenching neutrality. Then others seem to lean into engaging in a kind of parental hectoring for all of us to do more to GOTV.
I encountered an ACE hardware clerk last week who bemoaned the fact he had forgotten to get an “I voted” sticker when he voted. So I went online when I got home and ordered a thousand stickers which I have been passing out to anyone who comments on my sticker. It is interesting that there are those who are nervous about taking a sticker (even though they wish they had one) because maybe there might be a political/partisan message they would be giving others by wearing it.
That’s where we are. And still — I smile and explain my sticker is about unity not division. Voting is about democracy not a particular point of view.
Our country is aching, reeling from unexpected loss and global humiliation. We have lost our way, embracing ignorance, hatred and pseudo-science. Yet at the same time, the Pandemic has released an ominous secondary psycho-somatic virus out from the shadows. This secondary virus, modeled by the president of the United States, is confident sense of entitlement and exceptionalism that is literally — as shown on tv at rallies and Target customer skirmishes — life-threatening.
I understand how we got here. And yet – my heart is still broken. November 3 is an American Moment. I will suit up and show up on that day. And because I believe each one of us can make a difference if we do what we can, where we are, with what we have… I will raise a joyful noise.
At the end of my dear friend’s email, she alerted me to a New York times article:
Giant Pinnacle of Ancient Coral Is Discovered in Great Barrier Reef
Why does this matter? Because life goes on. Gaia continues to show Herself as always and forever — She hides Herself in plain sight. And we either draw strength from Her empowering and healing manifestations… or we don’t.
I invite you to join me and souls all over the world in generating and reinforcing hope, love and compassion. Right now, in this American Moment. My affirmation is that on November 3, Tuesday evening — or some morning very soon thereafter — we will say, as the chief scientist said when the team brought the massive new reef to light for the first time, “It was a good day.”
Avalon-Remix 7:01