a vital time to listen
Clunkily, we manoeuvre our way through the weeks, weary but on keen lookout for a divergence from the debris.
The noise, the mental stimuli is prolific. Someone or something, somewhere has us outraged; the sensitive are crushed; emotional needs of the children overlooked, the inquisitive, chastised; the unsure, bullied. Acquiescence is the new black. The way forward as we once knew it to be, now appears illusory, unbound with all that it once promised. In the depths of pandemonium, we learn the hard way how constructs can, at a hairsbreadth, crumble.
And so, it is time to start creating a new world, accordingly.
But until she arrives, we must learn how to be HERE: not quite fully-birthed; our infantile and effervescent plans still in draft. Ask a mother what transition in birth is like and she’ll tell you it’s hell. She’ll tell every single doubt + fear emerged. She’ll tell you she swore she couldn’t go on. And then she’ll tell you that actually, transition is where you need to be before you rendezvous with the kind of love that will knock you for six.
Here is the place where we let what must die, die.
It doesn’t typically look like a war out there, but it does appear as one. Families severed; friendships bisected. Sides chosen. Fear + silence reign supreme. Projections catapult like hand grenades that fall at one another’s feet. The lethal bullet to the head: the grand conviction of why I am right, and you are wrong. And just like every other war ever, no one is any better off for any of it. Ask any veteran and they’ll tell you that if the bullets don’t get you, then the trauma will.
Dehumanisation sure is an effective way to get your point across and it appears a useful tool in the assassination of democracy. The vitriol of the papers + pollies is louder, nastier than the rest and even if we are too scared to say it, we are dubious of their intent. Besides, there is only a certain amount of amnesia + myopia possible before it comes to light that the systems that fuck over those in the cheap-seats-in-the-back, will eventually come for us too.
There is neither stillness nor answers in the world’s bullshit. When the world is fucked-off-its-rocker, you are wise only to turn inward for sanctum + answers. And you lot – the sensitive ones - I feel you. I am you. The world wants to eat you for breakfast right now, so make sure you escape from the cauldron when it becomes too hot + cantankerous. You are here to build a better world, not boil to death.
In the antithesis of knee-jerk reaction is a ripe opportunity to GROW. Here, projections become reflections. Rage + reprimand are messengers. Accusations turn into curiosity. When the mind and heart quieten, and when we learn to see + accept our own shittiness, the triggers don’t feel like triggers anymore.
Go down THAT rabbit hole, if you dare.
This system – the one crumbling before our eyes - was always going to break. It was built as an umbrella to keep those in the middle toasty-dry and those on the exterior forcibly wet, until there is no option but to seek shelter elsewhere. And it is possible that we won’t notice a single thread is amiss, until it is us who is sodden with nowhere to go.
In the collapsing of the system, we feel the friction of a final reach for power + profit. Authoritatively + assuredly it proclaims that we’ll get out of the mess using MORE control, MORE grip, MORE restrictions, yet utters not a word of the kind of brilliant world that is possible, if we really got serious.
The smell of bullshit is overwhelming.
A system that knows you not by your first name but as data + digits, does not have the magnitude to care about the kind of life YOU want to cultivate for yourself, your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. The archaic web of politics + capitalism is designed to go round + round like a merry-go-round, forever and ever, amen.
It needs to break. And we need to let it.
Because you and I DO care about the future. And we do care about each other. Like every mother, I dream up daily a world in which my children - ALL children - are healthy, safe, free + included. On my darkest days I hold onto this vision it like it’s the last thing left I have in the world. It is a vision worthy of facing any fire.
The human mind, without restriction, is both creative and resourceful. The ideas + avenues + possibilities that otherwise lay dormant, are able to breathe life into hopeless, stuck situations. THIS IS WHAT WE DO. Humans are clever like that.
We will not find our saving grace in systems, but in our creativity + adaptability + embracing of the new.
Disappointingly (yet predictably), the parasitic mainstream media sets a glowing example of the absence of creative + critical thinking. It eludes nuance and curiosity and instead fancy-dresses compartmentalisation in propaganda. It is grotesque in its delivery of agenda, yet we can barely avert our eyes. And in the slick regularity of daily print; sensationalism and mistruth are normalised and read like a doctrine.
Yet nuance and curiosity are the IMPETUS of science, creativity, and evolution: the birthplace of grand mistakes and grand discovery.
Hollywood loves a villain. Someone to blame, someone to paint a dark hue, some filthy scapegoat for all the inflicted suffering. We feel relief when there is a neck to hang, because we believe that in the atonement of the ‘bad’, all will be right again in the world.
This is the story for the fool.
Because the villain lives in us all. And when we recognise that the part of another that makes us cringe + gag + hate ALSO resides within us, we can truly embody empathy, compassion, and forgiveness.
They will say, burn the witch.
I say, put the matches down and listen to her story.
Knowledge need not solely reside in intellect. Often it is sensed in the bones, permeates the gut and sends shivers down the spine. This is the original body language. Some say this inner wisdom is the intelligence of our ancestors and that it is worthwhile paying attention when ascendants tug at your hem - because while we may not have experienced all our lessons yet… they may very well have.
It feels like a vital time to listen.
In the quell of noise, clarity sharpens.
This is how we begin.
❤️
