Being Buffeted by SO MUCH

And looking for anchors to hold onto while sliding around in the muck

“Cultivating Better Boundaries” Ink on paper, 2024

In the midst of all that is going on, I am reading the novel, The Beekeeper’s Question by Christina Baldwin, a compelling story that is indirectly about the fight against fascism during WW2 as well as the untangling of the racism directed at the Blackfeet Nation of Montana; as I read, it is hard not to make associations with the present moment. The fight against fascism never ended; it just became more insidious and difficult to unveil in subsequent decades. When I say, “fascism,” I’m referring to a system that rewards those in power through the use of propaganda, manipulation, the fear of and actual inflicting of violence, and passive obedience. Perhaps we should be grateful that “apocalypse” actually means the lifting of the veil.

I grew up with the veil mostly lifted, due to what was shared at the dinner table growing up. My dad’s anti-fascist history and the price he paid for it, was not discussed, but the aura of its trauma lingered unspoken. Despite my efforts to wake people up via media literacy, readings, story sharing, art making, and collective actions, my work and that of my global cohort has not been enough in relation to the media monsters and the collective psychosis called “wetiko.”

My ruminations about how to move through the muck of this post-election time have made me stall BIG TIME in writing this post. I’ve been finding innumerable ways to procrastinate - almost all of them absolutely necessary. Everywhere I look (in online meditation groups, discussion groups, social media friends, and in embodied groups locally) folks are trying to make sense of this new chapter we’ve entered, most of us being pushed into this chaotic space unwillingly. We can create so many different stories to rationalize what has happened, call on wise historians to examine the facts, and still we have to face every day knowing that what we may have taken for granted (especially in terms of collectively held values and ethics) have slipped away in the right-wing propaganda mill and media ooze that’s replaced real education and critical thinking.

Thankfully, I am able to take walks to soothe a nervous system that is deeply feeling the weightiness of this moment. The beauty of fall leaves calls to many of us, reminding us that this season has its jewels despite the sticky web we find ourselves in. All we can do is move forward with gentle determination, find our cohort, and make the mischief that will eventually topple this regime (or perhaps they will self-implode).

Many of us are looking for some kind of compass to guide us through this time. I hesitate to call it a moral compass because that seems to have fallen by the wayside (See Terry Berkowitz’s fresh-off-the-press response to this condition below). I knew we were goners when academic administrations were expelling students and calling on a belligerent police force to aggressively round up members of peaceful encampments protesting the genocide in Gaza. I knew we were goners when the police responsible for the killing of Black people were being deemed innocent, over and over again. This whole country was founded on genocide, and the enforced trance of our system, makes us forget that, again and again. That there are no consequences for the wrongdoings and heinous brutality of leaders and their minions is not something that many of us can stomach, but if we look back a few decades there’s mounting evidence for the erosion of programs to support the public good for quite some time - since the New Deal, since the Reagan era, and I would be remiss if I didn’t include the various cycles of forces attacking those who were anti-fascist and anti-capitalist. Read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the US if you want to get up to speed in that regard. Another significant resource is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Digital Photocollage by Terry Berkowitz, 2024.

It seems more crucial than ever for people to learn their histories and share them with each other. Yesterday, my wonderful housemate taught me how to use ChatGPT. I had no interest in using it previously, but when she shared how useful it was to her in preparing for an exam on medications for her nursing program, I became curious. I asked some random questions, and discovered that much of what “Chad” organized as information was downright wrong - a fiction that sounded good, but had no veracity. Since I had lived some of the questions I was asking, I needed no more proof than my own memory (thankfully, my long term memory is still very lucid). So this is a reminder for those of you who think that AI is going to offer some sort of truth pillar in the current landscape of distortions to be very cautious.

What I do feel is helpful in the compass realm is any kind of spiritual practice or a routine of any sort can help ground one’s energy in a time of chaos. In fact, the new online class I’m taking with Dougald Hine, author of At Work in the Ruins, and the 80 or so others from around the world, has been offering different exercises to help us develop compasses and maps for navigating through this time in the world. At our first session last Wed, the day after the election, I suggested that we put grief in a central place on the map. Our second session focused on practices that we need to put in place for receiving and offering care to others. For long time activists, these may be old lessons, but it’s good to be in a community to refresh them for this moment in history.

It may sound smug to say that I was not shocked by the election results. It’s a combination of somehow knowing that this has been the path we’ve been on for my whole life and the fact that my nervous system has taken so many blows in recent years that this is just another hefty pummel - it’s like the opposite of a “cuddle puddle” that reassures the nervous system - when this last punch landed, I just looked out the window at the fall colors and the birds searching for bugs in the compost.

When friends texted that they were in shock, I recommended hikes, hugs, and time with the crows to recalibrate - of course, space to grieve is necessary, too. It seems like every person I respect and follow on social media and all the Zoom groups I join, whether its meditation or activist, are offering the same medicine to help us feel present, strong, and connected to those around us. I still have had a few nights when I’ve woken up feeling totally wrecked by everything, unable to sob, but feeling the grief in my bones.

In 2016, while laying in bed next to Bob as the election results started to come in, my body began to involuntarily shake from head to toe. I remember being astonished by this physical response to the terror that rose up in me. I didn’t understand whether the trembling was caused by what I knew intuitively might be in store for our collective futures or whether it was epigenetic trauma evoking catastrophic thinking.

A few weeks after the inauguration of this epitome of corruption, Bob wrote a Valentine’s Day poem to me that I just rediscovered.

Connecting

Connecting

The dots of the

Daily news,

The daily dose of outrage:

If it is true that we live in a multiverse

I would have liked to live in the universe

Where Trump lost the election.

But connecting the lines

Of action/reaction/proactive movements

Helps me move forward here.

And most of all connecting

In the space between you and me,

In whatever time we can find,

In the way I find the contours

Of your hips, touching you

And being touched,

Helps most of all.

this is one of many hundreds of poems written by Bob Spivey over our almost 35 year partnership - this one was emailed to me on Feb 14th, 2017 - it helps me to read his poems now; they offer a spiritual caress, attempting to satisfy a deeper thirst.

Two nights ago, in one of my online meditation groups, we did some dharma sharing about what was alive in us that evening. I spoke about how I am continually learning to let go of my nervous system’s pattern to go immediately into catastrophic thinking. Thoughts about an impending nuclear war or accident had made me suffer so much in my young adult life, eventually those kinds of thoughts conspired with the physical assaults of pesticides & mold to make me sick. When I finally recognized the simple fact that I could not control these very possible events that I was worried about, that I could only control the stories I was telling myself, I realized that the pattern of preparing for disaster was something that I had inherited from generations of ancestors fleeing from one crisis and assault after another. I will probably be deconstructing that pattern for the rest of my life, but there are tools for untangling it. Doing “despair and empowerment” work (now referred to as “the work that reconnects.” with Joanna Macy was the first step, after which the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh offered more practices, along with belonging to groups to reinforce what I am continuing to learn.

With the perspective of the last few years, witnessing how bad things have gotten for many folks or better stated, how much worse things have gotten for so many, especially given the media trance that most of us swim inside, it’s amazing that I am not numb. I have recalibrated on several levels, through grief, through rituals, through a sitting and a dancing practice, and more. But I’m very aware that like many of my friends, I am just feeling my way into what this moment is going to mean for my next steps. I am feeling my way into where my skills might be needed. I hope to find my way to a community-based art practice that brings healing rituals into public spaces where support might be requested. I am, as yet, very uncertain as to what these events, processions, or interventions will look like and who will be working with me to make them happen, but I know it is something that is calling me.

Roshi Joan Halifax talked to this moment of uncertainty with great clarity last night at the beginning of this online retreat I attended this weekend at the Upaya Zen Center. I’m not sure whether you’ll be able to open these links without registering (but you can do so for free). All of the talks have been deeply moving, and with over 900 people on the Zoom sharing stories in the chat, it has been an exceptional gathering.

I’ve been noticing and heartened by how many have been activated to do more in their communities, to pay attention to the global crises of genocide and climate emergencies. These budding movements have given me some reassurance that we are not yet falling off the cliff as a species, at least not tomorrow. Things will likely be damn hard for many folks, particularly those being targeted by the forces of the Right and those of us who have more privilege, even if we are dealing with issues of all sorts, need to the acupressure points on the sick body of society, where they can offer their skills to help others.

What gives me hope? This Maori act of resistance in the NZ parliament and the video is going viral… And so many different groups putting their energies together, weaving stronger movements in diverse ways, so that we can maneuver through what we can’t yet see fully. And you, my readers, you give me hope. Tell your stories. We need them.