Keep the Faith
an election survival kit
November 1, 2024 / New Moon
A couple of notes to start…
First, so much gratitude to new paid subscribers over the past month. Thanks to your support I was able to send $132 to BeLoved Asheville for hurricane relief efforts.
Second, if you enjoyed my recent full moon post, Standing in the Stream of Ancestors, here are a couple of related readings to deepen your exploration of ancestors:
Women in Zen, a website about Women Zen ancestors, created by Ineke Konin Vogel Sensei, a teacher and priest in the Soto Zen tradition who lives in the Netherlands.
How Do We Carry Our Ancestors’ Memories by
-- a powerful piece by a fellow Substack author, journeying through “elephants, enslavement, and epiphanies.”
Now onto the main event…
ELECTION SURVIVAL KIT
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa
The world feels pretty crazy right now. Here in the U.S., the intensity is heating up with the presidential election only a few days away.
While I believe it’s important to participate in this election with our vote, frankly I don’t put a lot of stock in electoral politics, especially on the national level. Expecting social transformation through electoral politics is like expecting intimacy through social media. It just doesn’t happen.
We tend to put a great deal of attention and energy into national elections like this one, and we might get some facsimile of change. But the most meaningful social transformation takes place at the local, grassroots level. Mutual aid initiatives, community gardens that strengthen local food systems, tenant unions that protect the rights of renters -- these are some of the ways that we actually grow power together and create projects and systems that work for everyone, not just those with the most financial resources.
So keeping this election in perspective is one way to stay sane. Another thing to keep in perspective is that the stress we’re experiencing right now isn’t just a U.S. thing. All around the planet, there is a great deal of suffering going on that calls for our awareness, prayers, and skillful actions.
In the midst of all this, I believe it helps to remember that at its essence, this world is a benevolent place. Nature, of its own accord, is intricately ordered to support the cycles of life and death (which are not opposite). Even when something in the natural world looks brutal to our human eyes, it is unfolding without malice and is balanced by the abundant generosity of the Earth that we all share. As the saying goes, “The Earth has enough resources to meet the needs of all but not enough to satisfy the greed of even one person” (a quote frequently attributed to Mahatma Gandhi).
We humans, though, tend to fall into the traps of greed, ignorance, and hatred all too easily. But there are pathways out of that, and there are many people doing amazing healing and transformative work right now. I think of them as luminaries — they are lighting the way for us. Here are just a few of them…
Ai jen Poo, an organizer, writer, and a leading voice in the women’s movement. Her work has planted the seeds for a “Caring Revolution” and several changemaking organizations that positively impact the lives of domestic workers and caregivers on a national level.
Tara Evonne Trudell (Santee Sioux/Rarámuri/Xicana), an artist whose work with handmade paper beads, poetry, photography, film, and audio addresses the generational trauma on women and children, particularly in Indigenous communities. As Tara says, “With one bead at a time, we can reclaim a time and place before harm entered our ways of life. This becomes the stepping off point for the return of our personal power.”
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist and self-proclaimed policy nerd, author of the acclaimed new book What If We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures. Among her many accomplishments, Johnson co-founded the Blue Halo Initiative and led the Caribbean's first successful ocean zoning project, providing policy support and scientific assistance to the island of Barbuda as it began to regulate and protect its coastal waters.
Their work will not cease, whatever the outcome of November 5. I am betting you can add to this list of luminaries. Feel free to share more names and stories in the comments below.
No matter what happens on November 5, we’re not going to lose each other if we remember this: Keep the faith. Refrain from doing harm. Do good. (Some of you may recognize this as a variation on the three pure precepts of Buddhism.)
And yes, engaging in a mindful awareness practice that help you to regulate your body and mind can help as well. Here are a few things to support you in that:
We’ll be okay. Really. See you on the other side.
How to appreciate a writer…
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Yes to all of this Maia!! I would add Terry Tempest Williams, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Katharine K. Wilkinson 💧💦🩵🌱🌿💚
As happens most often when I read your work, I received great reminders of how to be in this time. I especially appreciated information about beings in the process of making the world better for all of us. I would add to the list of visionaries: Rebeca Solnit whose writings always remind me of our possibilities.