All We Have is Each Other

Activism was my doorway into healing. Fighting for justice was the first fight I felt fearless in the face of after I, unfortunately, allowed myself to be conditioned into losing my nerve.

I was a very unafraid little heathen from the ages of maybe 9 until 11 and then something happened. I started hearing the voice of the patriarchy out of the mouths of my friends, family, and the media I consumed.

“no boys are going to like you if you’re ______________ like that”

(bossy)

(fat)

(butch)

The me that had stood up on my twin bed so I could scream in the face of my grown man abuser, that laughed at spankings and shot lasers from my death stare after slaps across my cheek got tucked away deep inside me. They were replaced with someone who skipped meals, who prioritized “sweet” over safety, who got along to get along.

I was a lot more liked, I was a lot less me.

But politics brought it out in me. A high school classroom discussion about abortion where I surprised everyone by raising my voice. Storming out of a church dinner at the pastor’s home when someone said you couldn’t be a democrat and a Christian. Walking away from a long-term partnership after seeing the misogyny in the way I was viewed by the man who was supposed to really love me.

When I was a child the speeches of Patrick Henry and Soujourner Truth would get me all fired up and make tears come out of my eyes. They caused the same sensation in me as hearing beautiful music or watching a good dancer dance. It’s art. It’s something deeper than writing or speaking or church.

It’s truth.

I started turning from someone who didn’t say boo to anybody to someone who fought, who argued, who discerned who I allowed close to me. Then, through activism I started to love my body, to understand my gender and queerness, to see that there were things I could do, ways I could live and learn to think and be that would cause less harm to people of color. I am in deep study now about the ways I can live in harmony with our planet, doing as little damage as possible.

It’s like the gift that keeps on giving. The more I learn the more loving I become, the more aware I become, the more conscious I become. The more I learn, the more there is to learn. The more information I have, the more impassioned I become, the more action I want to take.

I am dreaming of a better world.

I am wishing for a better world.

The way things are set up now requires a certain amount of isolation, of individualism. Hell, one trip on the Q train at rush hour would be enough to make Ramm Dass lose faith in humanity. Everyone is so self-involved. This is by necessity. We don’t even enjoy food because we don’t think we have time. We don’t even enjoy each other because we don’t think we have time.

Building community is a meditation on vulnerability, authenticity, trust, and love. Other people show you the mirror of yourself— either they reflect the wounds you carry or the beautiful glow of your loving spirit. Sometimes it’s both at the same time.

We’ve lost our way.

But all hope is not lost.

How you do one thing tends to be how you do everything. Internal healing is necessary in order to be in conscious community. If you’re walking around projecting all your bullshit onto everyone around you, expecting everyone to put up with your lack of self-awareness, you probably aren’t a very good community member. If you haven’t unpacked capitalism and find yourself in constant (often one-sided) competition with the people you love to such an extent that you find yourself harboring animosity instead of appreciation towards them, you may not be a very good community member. If you haven’t addressed your internalized ableism, you may forget to make community accessible to your disabled loved ones and that’s not really all that loving, is it??

Doing the internal work is just part of it. Community can also teach you how to have conscious relationships, which many of us are experiencing for the first time in our lives, because healthy connection isn’t modeled anywhere in our culture. The ego cannot be present in a conscious connection, because loving another fully, engaging vulnerably, and being honest requires transcending the ego, if only momentarily, in order to come to a satisfying conclusion. This is beautiful, meaningful, and life-changing work.

Asking the individuals and institutions who are clearly working with some sociopathic level of empathy deficit, who are obsessed with and completely preoccupied by material greed and nothing more—begging them to make the right choice by us, when they are supposed to work for us is getting tiresome. Most people have so far surpassed the two-party fairy tale that they vote blue begrudgingly even though party leaders are deeply out-of-touch with their constituents and seem to have little interest in changing with the times.

Stokely Carmichael said

“In order for passive resistance to work, your opponent must have a conscience.”

Things are getting dire. Climate action needs to happen, like, before you finish reading this blog post and it just isn’t going to. Policymakers are in Two of Swords mode, they got their eyes and ears closed so tight that can’t hear the drum of the approaching apocalypse. For fuck’s sake, they haven’t even solved Covid!!!

It is becoming more and more clear with every passing moment

All we have is each other

I’m still learning, still in the process of stepping into my own courage, planning for what I can plan for, and limited by the energetic bear trap that is capitalism. I don’t have the answers. But I know I feel best when I care for others, when I am cared for, when I see people doing good, being helpers, hearts open and full of hope.

I know that my God, my Mother Universe empowers me in knowing that things could be so simple if we let them. I know that there are people creating a slower, self-sustaining, beautiful life that is completely in line with their values.

I know that there is more to life than struggle, than isolation, than oppression, than loss. I know time is our most precious resource. I know we have more power than we’re aware of.

Any change, whether internal healing or political change, whether being the change you wish to see in the world, or being inspired by someone else’s authenticity, happens one step at a time.

We build a life, brick by brick.

Our dreams, our lifestyles, our ways of viewing the world may have to change drastically in the next few years. Who do you want to be in the world? At your core, who are you? If you could spend the rest of your days in the company of a handful of people, who would they be? How would you live?

Take a gardening class, learn self-defense, carry some Narcan around, share your story, nurture your close relationships, work on yourself.

All we have is each other,

but if you think about it,

that’s actually kind of a lot.

Listen here // Watch here

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