Looking into the Portal

We start where we are and will slowly find each other to make healing mischief in the midst of the horrors

We are sitting in our home office, a place that has been reoriented in our post-academic life. To our right are the French doors that lead to our lush food forest garden, probably the most luxurious sounding part of our modest home. In front of us is the hideous wallpaper that came with this home built in 1925. It’s a colonial landscape of homes, churches, and grazing animals in pastures dominated by olive green, with patches of forest green, cream and maroon. We had thought to “culture-jam” this one wall for 6 years now. This private project irritates whenever we stare at it during yoga or when the mind wanders, but it has not garnered enough momentum to bring out the paint and brushes, or even the photo that could be manipulated in Photoshop. Ah, well, someday…

Where we sit is a stage of sorts, a private place that is interrupted by Zooms, and our constant research into worlds far away from this tiny spot on a map. Writing in this new arena is part of the remodeling of the stage, and we’re grateful to have this new platform on which to question all that is unfolding both internally and within the collective. It is an enormous privilege to be able to sit here, unencumbered by certain responsibilities like a job, to just gaze into whatever emerges in the unconscious and conscious mind and shape words around those images, ideas, and emotions.

What’s pressing most days is the climate emergency, as well as the rise of the far-Right, theocratic authoritarians and their desperate and truthfully insane beliefs in white supremacy and patriarchy. They have given guns to all their minions, ready to start the civil war at a moment’s notice, and we sit with our fears, breathing through them, until tears flow, and rage is released. Our meditation practices and our beliefs in the liberation of all beings often seem mute in relation to the machines that amplify the injustices.

Everyday we hear the echo of AK-15s, even as they explode thousands of miles away. We hear missiles on another continent, and the screams of those running from assaults of all kinds. We learn about more local corruption and continuing revelations about incompetence, heinous actions, and the complicity of so many that should have given out warning signals on the national and global level. Then, after groaning aloud or silently screaming, we must pull in our antennas so that we can hear ourselves think & feel, and remind ourselves to breathe deeply, and to recognize the tendrils of beauty that sit in front of us.

This is part of our daily practice, one in which frustration can smolder if action doesn’t follow the venting and the breathing. Most of our actions these days involve communication: processing through writing, talking to people we know and listening compassionately to their stories, talking with strangers and learning what makes them tick, and organizing the next phase of our story hive project (www.tacomastoryhive.com). We will be designing and painting a mandala for the heavily trafficked intersection on our corner to slow down vehicles, and create more safety for a neighborhood filled with small children.

While this kind of project does not directly address the growing backlash in our country, the corruption in our city government, the lack of affordable housing, police violence and lack of accountability, or the climate emergency, it does create an antidote to fear, more community resilience, and strengthens our imaginations. From the latter, who knows where we can go?