#I dream of interdependent community

[godinthebeehive]

✨I dream of interdependent community✨

[supernovae-explosion]

𝐻𝑜𝓌 𝒹𝑜 𝓅𝑒𝑜𝓅𝓁𝑒 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝒸𝑒𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊

I. II. III. .·:¨ Artist | Dividers | Masterlist ¨:·.

Hello! To pick a pile please clear your mind and focus on the images above, whichever one speaks to you the most or you feel the most drawn to, this one is for you! If more than one speaks to you, feel free to read both. Remember to take only what resonates with you 🌠

Pile I.

While tossing the cards I really got some baddass vibes from this collective, intimidating energy... (A bit of emo energy as well) Your beauty and aura makes people shy, I hear that you guys really have that confidence in you, or maybe you're trying to have it, fake it till you make it, am I right? >:3c No, seriously, you're really, REALLY charming, but I feel like your energies may be unbalanced, feminine to be exact. Take care of yourself, go do your skin care routine! Go get comfy, it's a self-care day! Spirit is telling me, that you may be going through some tough times you have some goals in mind that need a lot of changes in your current life and it's challenging for you. Especially inner transformations, these are just as hard if not even harder, then the outer ones. You really are delaying this, but I feel like these changes will turn out to be good for you, you're just resisting the inevitable because it's scary, I fully understand you, but people are noticing this too, even though you're putting up a front. I know you can do it, you are a really strong person. Take some time to rethink all of your plans, don't make rushed decisions and furthermore DO NOT let people change your opinions, you know what you want or at least have some general idea of what you want. And unfortunately people are envious, your energy makes them very easily jealous. They may want to sabotage your goals and dreams seeing you struggle might be satisfying for them, maybe not on purpose, but beware and remember to be assertive! Show these people who's the baddest b**ch here. 💅

Advice: Your enthusiasm gives you energy and motivation to follow your goals. Healthy, honest and assertive communication is the key. Let your feminine energy inspire your creativity, and masculine to keep you confident in your beliefs.

Songs: After Dark by Mr.Kitty | A Match into Water by Pierce The Veil

Pile II.

I couldn't stop laughing while tossing this pile, maybe because the first song that played on shuffle was Lalala but the vibes were kinda goofy in a positive way! But the moment I saw the cards it started to look like a cover-up. It seems like people don't see the real you, they're blinded by the masquerade of abundance that you put on. Numb to the feeling was the second song that played, and honestly it fits with the vibes I'm actually seeing in this pile. There's some trouble in sleeping, somethings are keeping you up, you're stuck with your "demons" while putting on a mask for the people about how good you have it. You keep on pushing and pursuing your goals while hurting and overthinking, you only let them see the good sides of this hard work you're putting into this situation 🥺 Others see you as someone with a bright future, broad horizons and a bright way in front of you, someone who pushes through everything that life throws at them. But they don't see the impact that pushing through has on you. Let others help you a bit, you don't have to suffer alone even though it feels like you can do everything on your own, or better than it would've been done by them.

Advice: Substitute interdependence that's based on satisfying others with assertiveness and strength. Let it go, let the universe take care of it. You healed the past scars enough, you're ready to let love inside your life again.

Songs: Lalala by Y2K, bbno$ | Numb to the feeling by Chase Atlantic | Pretty When You Cry by Lana Del Rey

Pile III.

The beginning is born from the ending, there's no ending without beginning etc etc. This pile is giving me strong... Homewrecker vibes, sorry dude but i'm being honest... You're seen as someone hot-headed, someone who rushes into things, who makes connections easily, but you brought some destruction into someone's life. Maybe meeting you changed this person's whole core belief system? They started questioning what they know, which brought them pain and confusion in many ways, which I see by 10 of swords here... But as I said at the start of this pile, for a new chapter something has to end. (Homewrecker by Marina has started playing girl what you doing...😭) Anyways, you seem as someone balancing energies, you change people's perspectives on life itself, your presence is strong and you know what you want and you get it.

I wanted to know more about this pile and started tossing some cards, and two flew out right onto my floor... Nah girl you bring new beginnings where ever you go, but you're very generous, or like people to be generous with you... Have you ever been interested in sugar baby type of relationships? I'm not judging, good for you go get that bag ✨

Advice: Your unique characteristics are the most important part of you getting what you want in life. Don't compare yourself to others, focus on your progress and how far you've come. Make new healthy relationships, a support group that will resonate with you.

Songs: Supermassive Black Hole by Muse | You Right by Doja Cat, The Weeknd | Homewrecker by Marina

[hausofodyssey]

✨ Cosmic World ✨

SATURN IN ARIES IS HERE SOON!

On 24th May , Saturn moves into Aries and for a lot of us (including myself) we will be having our Saturn Return. This is a significant astrological event that will shape themes of self-discipline, courage, identify, and autonomy.

Saturn will return back into Pisces on the 1st September to 13 February 2026, then stay in Aries until 2028. This Saturn Return is important for those born between 1996-1999 (and 1967-1969_ when Saturn was last in Aries.

For the past month, I have been conducting research on how Saturn's return will impact individuals (including myself). This includes an brief breakdown of how each rising sign will experience Saturn's return through house placements.

🔥 Aries Rising - 1st House

Themes for you are: identify, self image, personal responsibility

This is a time to own who you are and how you show up in the world. It's about refining your sense of identify, work on your physical body, confidence, and long-term goals. Deep self-discipline. It can also be a time to get into leadership.

Avoiding Saturn's teaching can lead to: Identify crises, burnout from impulsivity, chronic insecurity or lack of direction.

🌱 Taurus Rising - 12th House

Themes for you are: Subconscious patterns, solitude, mental health and karmic closure.

This is a time for you to build a strong inner world through solitude, spiritual practices or therapy. It's about doing the shadow work to heal hidden wounds and letting go of self-sabotaging habits. For you this is a season of energetic mastery.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Anxiety, isolation and self-undoing. Health or psychological crises which forces rest and reevaluation (Look at your 6th house sign and placements to see how you can take care of yourself to avoid health issues).

💬 Gemini Rising - 11th House

Themes for you are: Community, networks, long-term dreams, social responsibility

This is a time to commit to your long-term visions. Aligning with mature, like-minded people and also take leadership in groups or causes you care about.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Have you feeling lost socially or purposeless You can feel like you are outgrowing friends or fear standing out in groups.

🏆 Cancer Rising - 10th House

Themes for you are: Career, public image, authority, ambition

This is a time to take responsibility for your goals and leadership. It is about establishing a legacy and structure your career path. 

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Career plateaus, fear of being seen, issues with authority or pressure without clarity.

📖 Leo Rising - 9th House

Themes for you are: Belief systems, travel, education, worldview

This is a time to formalise your growth, study, publish and travel with purpose. It's about building a structured worldview.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to:  Crisis of belief or direction. Stubbornly clinging to outdated philosophies.

⚖️ Virgo Rising - 8th House

Themes for you are: Transformation, shared resources, intimacy, power

This is a time to master emotional boundaries and shared finances. Heal trauma and confront fear. 

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Power struggles, financial loss, avoiding being vulnerable and experiencing deep emotional stagnation. 

💒 Libra Rising - 7th House

Themes for you are: Relationships, communications, contracts

This is a time to take responsibility of your relationships. This could be by committing, maturing, or ending dynamics that are outdated and do not work for you. Learn healthy interdependence.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Relationship breakdowns, loneliness, repeating unhealthy patterns or delays in forming mature partnerships.

🧘‍♂️ Scorpio Rising - 6th House

Themes for you are: Daily routine, health, work, service

This is a time to commit to your health and productivity. Start building better habits and improve your work ethic and environment.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Burnout, health issues, or job dissatisfaction. Life will feel chaotic or burdensome.

🎨 Sagittarius Rising - 5th House

Themes for you are: Creativity, self-expression, romance, children

This is a time to turn your passions into responsibility. Build creative projects with structure. Mature in love or/and parenting.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: You can experience creative blocks, unstable love life, fear or failure in personal expression.

🏡 Capricorn Rising - 4th House

Themes for you are: Home, family, emotional roots

This is a time to build or stabilise your home and inner emotional world. Confront ancestral or family dynamics.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Emotional shutdowns, family conflict, housing instability or inner emptiness.

🗣️ Aquarius Rising - 3rd House

Themes for you are: Communication, learning, siblings, local environment

This is a time to become a more effective communicator. Build skills in teaching, writing or even public speaking. It's about maturing in thinking patterns.

Avoiding Saturn's teaching can lead to: Burnouts, misunderstandings, and scattered focus or even issues with siblings.

💳 Pisces Rising - 2nd House

Themes for you: Finances, self-work, possessions

This is a time for building lasting financial security. Define your values as well as developing self-worth through effort and mastery.

Avoiding Saturn's teachings can lead to: Cause money issues, undervaluing yourself, or even clinging on to unstable income sources or materialism.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

🪐 Overall regardless of where this transit is taking place for you, the return pushes everyone to redefine themes of Aries like what courage, independence, and responsibility mean for you. Saturn in Aries rewards bold discipline and taking initiatives. It's all about mastering your impulses and stepping into your power without being reckless.

🪐 A lot of people in the astrology community tend to be all doom and gloom about Saturn Returns but I think it's just a great opportunity for transformation which will force you to be the best version of yourself and I feel like I have been waiting all my life this moment.

So good luck to all my fellow Saturn in Aries people - take a deep breath, be patient, relax - you've got this! 🌟

[martyrbat]

what’s your favorite book you’ve read this year??? i gotta pick up something new!!

what a lovely question to receive! im so sorry for the delayed response and that i dont know your taste in books (please feel free to dm me anytime and talk about them!) but i really enjoyed The Gilda Stories to the point i've read it three times within the same month!

its a 1991 novel forcing on a Black lesbian that escapes enslavement and eventually becomes a vampire by two lesbians. each chapter being about a different time period in her life [1850, 1890, 1921, 1971, 1981, 2020, 2050]!

i dont want to give too much away if you havent read it yet but the writing is so enchanting and Jewelle Gomez's style is one of my favorites. its simultaneously melancholic and comforting, holding onto the message of how important hope for tomorrow is despite the current state of today and that community is needed not only for survival but for actual living—that those connections is what makes life truly fulfilling. i've underlined so many little lines in almost every passage (when not underlining the entire passage itself!) because i just love gilda herself as well as how her motivations, desires, and resilience is written and explored. plus i find the way vampires and how they function to be such a beautiful idea and so creative :) i really hope you read it and enjoy it as much as i have!! <33

from the afterword:

“Jewelle Gomez says that she modeled her first book of poems The Lipstick Papers after Lorde’s early publications, and was inspired by that vampire who appears on the very last page of From a Land Where Other People Live. Lorde asks whether the black community is ready for a black woman who defies limitations, and Gomez responds with Gilda, a black woman who moves across time and space, navigating different eras in black creative community. Gomez provides depth and flesh to the nightmares of narrow-minded people who police the definition of blackness, and steals back the power and threat of black feminine difference. In other words, if the definitions of blackness, femininity, and queerness are death in the eyes of the dominant culture, Gomez offers another way of being black, queer, and feminine by creating the undead.

Policy makers are afraid of the black woman who keeps her family alive without access to food, but here is Gilda, living on wine and dreams in the dark. Black nationalists are afraid of the black woman who can be a man when she needs to be, but here she is wearing britches and sprinting through the Midwest. The white feminist movement is afraid of a black woman in control of her sexuality, but here is a black woman who can run a brothel and kill a rapist with the same skills. Black women are afraid that expressing their power will leave them isolated and alone, but here is a black woman who wrestles for generations with the need for space and intimacy, interdependence and agency. Black artists are ready to produce a poetics that is more than a reaction to the oppressive narratives of the man, and here is Jewelle Gomez, a poet, relevant for generations.”

[santoschristos]

Kin 95 Men – Blue Auto Existing Eagle - 15.4 Reigning Planet: Jupiter Family: Polar Clan Chromatics : Blue Quinta Forza: Kin 221 – Drago Cosmico Rosso – 1.13 Galactic Signature/Mantra Kin: “I Define to Create Measuring the Mind Seal The Output Of The Vision with the Self-Existing Tone of Form I'm Guided@ by the Power of Magic I am a Polar Kin, Converting the Galactic Spectrum Blue. “ Glyphic Keywords: Mind / Create / Vision Tone Keywords: Measure / Form / Define Expect Light: Vision Corresponds to Action – Act the Vision / Determination / Grace and Power / 360 Degrees Viewing of Things / Flight – Life, Stable. “Message”: When the Self-Existing Blue Eagle, Kin 95, Appears to You in the Form of an Archetype and/or Number, It May Want to Communicate to You that,... “Absolute Mentis Form of its own Univocal and Broad Vision, which presses to Descend and find its purpose, in the right Measure in the Cre-Active Planetary Universe: from the High Mind or Sky Mind, down to the Senses, Body and Earth, to Become FreeMind RealizzAbile. Unique, indispensable and irreplaceable tool / desktop computer, as an Active Third Eye (internal receiver of Light/Divine Information), it will help us to disperse and flourish the fertile soil: Conscious Plan, of Dreams and Projects (Unconscious Plan), that from higher and parallel Dimensional Spheres, wait and yearn to re-connect to us, crossing those bridges that had separated us so far, finding Home again, that is: Balance and Order lost Primitive Genetics. Understanding the use of Magic Tools that are useful in reading, translating and interpreting Signs, we will achieve and gain the Expansion of Sensory Perceptive States beyond Human comprehension. Waking up, the long-awaited Psychonauts Road will open for us: to travel therefore our Psyche/Mind, from and through us, in the direction of unveiling and decoding complicated, different, and unknown to us systems: Interdependent Intelligence forms and ReUnifying CosmicMind - Open Transmission with our Galactic Brothers -. ” Shadow Expectations (to be Transformed): Square Mindset, actually Ancient Way of Thinking / Egoic Mind / Far from Earthly Life – Dysfunctional Detachment / “Flying” Too High: Impact - Devastating Fall. 1.13 11.11 Taken from: - TZOLKIN MAYA AND HIS 260 PERMUTATIONS - Harmony of a Life Drawing, to Surf the Galactic Language and Live in Synchronicity Our Daily Life, According to the Natural Course of Time 13.20 - Book + Oracle Deck ... Prox. te

Blue Self-Existing Eagle Image by Mahaboka

[kingsmoot]

in the summer it would have been relatively convenient for reek to dunk himself in the weeping water multiple times per day; in cold weather(and cold climes) most likely sponge bathing indoors with an washcloth and basin (heating the water optional). ramsay being of higher status might have his own ewer and basin. larger settlements in the north would probably construct saunas- or find some creative method of thawing snow indoors.

and yes very much agree that ramsay is unkempt, not unclean. i think one of the especial perks of the elevation is now he can make other people bear the filth for him. not only the filth itself(he did have reek for that) but the experience of discomfort through filth, if that makes sense? his chamberpots, his plates, his sheets(covered in whatever unholy mixture), all of these he can make as messy as he wants without any consequence, because it'll vanish by itself. like feeding offal to hounds. and his clothing, the tremendous labour of keeping all that finery clean and ready at a moment's whim... + at least he can buy this, even if his manners his habits and even his fighting style betray his roots.

as for ramsay not wanting to impact his sense of taste- of course because taste and smell are so interdependent, but it follows the same reasoning as the cleanliness really. it's an immediate visceral pleasure that he would appreciate all the more for having experienced its deprivation. 10% of the grain he himself milled is either in the lord's stores, in the lord's coffers, or on the lord's table. which is now his! The choicest harvest and prize pigs of everyone he had ever met, spices and nuts and preserved fruits from places he'll never be, all of it flowing in vast currents through the realm and bending trickling paths towards the dreadfort, droplets of which he could only have dreamed of lapping at as a miller's son. precious ground cloves and coarse salts used not to preserve food but merely to scrub his mouth and be spat out- perhaps rosemary and mint in the mixture purely for the pleasure of taste- he quite literally can have his superiority and eat it too.

btw you should check out the historyscribes article on millers! lots to chew on for ramsay's early life :]

*oops it was the mythicscribes article about millers not historyscribes. also roose sending them reek might have been extra funny to roose bc reek with his stench would noooot have been allowed near a job handling the community's food... no helpful hand for the miller's wife... so he'd probably be relegated the animal husbandry(manure?) and, being unwelcome in the village, have all his downtime free to run wild with ramsay

article in question: https://mythicscribes.com/history/fantasy-writers-millers/

this is a really good article i learned a bunch of new stuff, here! i had wrongly assumed that millers would also be the producers of the grain that they milled but that was a totally different job that required a different set of tools/skills/land.

also ofc westeros is not a 1:1 analog of our real medieval world but both you and the linked article mentioned:

Peasants brought their grain to the miller, who milled it and returned flour directly to the peasant, with a cut to the lord, of course.

^ and while this doesn't feel like the kind of daily minutia roose would be involved in in terms of running the dreadfort, it's chillingly insane that he would think of the miller and his wife as being out of sight and out of mind for him when they are providing staple food for the dreadfort on a daily basis. not a random miller from the few towns over. your miller. on your lands. who provides your foodstuffs. who you murdered before raping his wife under his corpse. and ofc it's not that roose would not have known this!! he just wouldn't have cared. the people responsible for feeding him and his castle are worms. ants. automatons. non-persons. he looked at her as if his dinner had just spoken to him. i am not in the habit of being questioned by servants, nan. should i have your tongue out? he would do so as easily as one might cuff a dog, arya knew. SCREAM.

and yesssss sending reek home with the miller's wife was a cruel joke in many ways, which i touched on in this post:

it’s possible that roose only gave reek to ramsay and his mother because of his smell. because ramsay’s mother wanted him to give them a servant to help her raise the boy so roose gave her one who smelled like an open grave being used as a latrine. but that doesn’t seem like the kind of joke roose bolton would play. not to me! roose giving the troublesome mother of his rapebaby a man with a proven history of horrible violence? that seems like the kind of joke roose bolton would play. to me.

but his skin condition making him incapable of helping with the bulk of her work is a reeeally good added layer. all that time free with the baby too 😵‍💫

and yesssss agaaaaaain rams as a hedonist sybarite sensualist. i love the particularly vile angle of his eliza dootlittle class upshot that he is allowed the same access to cruelty as roose always has been. money, wealth, power, glory, and most crucially class, standing, and protection above the unwritten and unenforceable laws of the realm. i love how it feeds into the theme of ramsay as his mother's retributive justice and his ability (similar to joffrey and hotd!aegon's) to access everything his brutalized mother can never dream of. but specifically his indulgence is like. really good. it's themes. "he quite literally can have his superiority and eat it too." is exaaaaaactly it UGH!!!

are you the same anon who sent me all those beautiful things about heli, rod, and lucamore? whether you are or you aren't you should come off anon so we can be friends. you have really lovely prose and our interests align very well. pulling at the ribbons of your blank grey carnival mask and pressing my lips over the painted papier-mâché.

[ammonitetestpatterns]

channers are only ever interesting because, even if they are usually wrong and morally destitute, transported through hell by the psychobehavioral osmosis of the medium and, at risk of resembling the network spiritualists i find tackily antihuman and syncretic, its demonology, they are forced to engage with their own historical complex of association, the culturally salient higher form of alacrity to wear the contrarian's lamen and invert the decorum taken to be the topsoil of (something so dubiously firm, but still arable, as) consensus reality, wringing attributes of identity or subject position as grounds for claims to truth, undermining the turn to standpoint epistemology. that transcendence is the industrial dream, and characterizing arc, of our modern technium, a dissociation from the embodiment of community commitment, or something like blood memory, by cursorily exhuming the work of generations, the sacrilege of information without proportionate appreciation and continuance, casting off the stakes of life and death, the interdependent culmination of movement and differentiation that allows one to ever encounter such a medium at all. presupposing virtuality and taking it for granted. the archivist is the gravedigger of history, the plots are unmarked. from the airy lamina awaiting the point of the chisel, the eyedrop unseen beneath the present, a joy of expansion in the flash of access that can be good without drawing undue blood, but is it worth the risk of becoming homo sacer to oneself, muted under the refinement of monoculture? each gesture of opposition and antisignification is crystallized into alignment with whichever norms have risen to collective predominance. you can spot the sliver of alterity, like a surfacing fish briefly caught by the sun, in the motion of critique. any such generalization, including this, will fall back to the waves, leaving only a second guessed sighting, the inconsolable chance of pearl.

[revlyncox]

Crowded Table: Gratitude and Invitation

In this pre-Thanksgiving homily, the complexity of this moment and the practice of gratitude are both honored. We consider the practical implications of the saying, "when you have more than enough, build a longer table instead of a wall." Rev. Lyn Cox delivered this homily to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick on November 24, 2024.

My grandparents’ kitchen was the heart of their house. Though it was a little drafty with a window looking out over the hillside and the cow pasture, and the entrance to the mudroom right between the stove and the washing machine, I remember it as being warm from the woodstove and from whatever was cooking. The table in the middle was big enough for the extended family for most of my growing up: two grandparents, three sets of aunts and uncles and cousins, my parents and brothers and myself. I’m not sure how that worked, the math does not seem to add up with what I know about the square footage in that kitchen, but I remember the feeling of being surrounded by love. It was a crowded table. 

That kitchen was a place of acceptance. After the disaster, after losing the job, after the divorce, after the car accident, we came back to that table at the next holiday and sat down to pass the bread and butter once again. My grandfather didn’t say very much. He had a hug for the girls and a handshake for the boys; mostly he sat and listened. My grandmother knew everyone’s story and made sure we were kept up-to-date on the family news. All of her storytelling was in the service of connection, never grudges or cutoffs or putting others down. We brought our brokenness to the table, were strengthened, and were sent forth again with sandwiches for the journey. 

If I can be real with you, I have had a lot of experiences in my life of not belonging. Maybe most people do. I know there are some who never feel like they can have or trust an experience of acceptance. I do not take for granted that I was able to have that formative memory. What I take from that early lesson is a mission to strengthen communities of meaning and purpose. 

To me, this is what abundance is. A gathering of energy and support, a learning ground for ethics and values where mistakes are opportunities for growth, a group of people who are committed to solving problems together, a place where the door is open for newcomers who want to join in that commitment. When there is secure food, housing, and healthcare, we give thanks for that, and we seek ways to share what we have. When one of us is short on one of those things, we find a way forward together. May each and every soul connect with the abundance of interdependence. 

We’re told that this is a time of year to give thanks. I know that, for many of us, our fears and our deficits loom large, and it can be hard to access gratitude. There are valid reasons to be concerned about our loved ones and our future. I hope that we can hold those worries alongside our gratitude and our awareness of the present moment. Perhaps our concerns, even our frustrations, are evidence that we have something worth fighting for, even if it’s a dream not yet realized. Perhaps our fears for our friends and family or our grief for those we have lost points to the love we have in our hearts. That doesn’t negate the grief or fear or anger; rather, we recognize that those feelings have the companionship of love, gratitude, and determination. 

This week, I’ll continue putting the garden to bed now that we’ve had our first frost. I’ll cut back the vines of the warm season crops to give more light to the beets and the chard. I’ll take stock of the cherry tomatoes that I harvested ahead of the frost while they were still green, watching them carefully for signs of ripening in their cozy cardboard box. I’ll gather up dry leaves for the compost bin and gather in my potted plants. My sadness at the end of the season, my chagrin at all that was left undone, my concerns about what future growing seasons will look like all take refuge in my heart alongside my deep gratitude for the abundance of oxygen and color and hospitality for pollinators that the warm season provided. I am grateful that I could spend time with my hands in the dirt. I am grateful that I could bring fresh food to people I love. I am grateful for conversations with neighbors that would not have happened if I had not been outdoors. All of it lives together, the worry and the gratitude and the love. 

And so, as cliché as it is, let us go ahead and give thanks. Let us be grateful for the dream of what might be, for the people who share our values and who work to put them into practice, and for the present moment that gives us the chance to experience all the richness and fullness of this world. In cherishing that abundance, let it move us to actively inviting others to participate in abundance with us. 

We are freshly aware of the importance of finding allies and companions on the path of justice, equity, and compassion. It is incumbent on us to make room at the tables in our lives for the people who would share those commitments. This is more than a passive longing, it is a practice of asset mapping, planning, and implementation. The people in this morning’s story had to do more than open the gate. They set up additional tables and made them welcoming with a tablecloth and dishes. They rearranged themselves to make room. They shared what they had, and they accepted the gifts of the newcomers. If we are to follow that example, what does that mean in practical terms for our congregation, our neighborhoods, and our public life? How do we extend the invitation to abundance? 

We will continue to explore the practice of invitation in the months to come, and we don’t have much time today, so I want to briefly mention some things that are already happening: work toward accessibility, making space for Transgender people, and opportunities to be neighborly to new arrivals in this country. 

First, let’s give thanks for the spirit of accessibility that is sweeping this congregation. The new temporary ramp in the sanctuary is a visible example. The Board is considering bids for improving the railing to the ramp outside the building, lighting in the parking lot and on the exterior stairs, and assistive listening devices. The rearrangement of the front of the sanctuary to comply with fire codes will make all of us safer in case of an emergency, recognizing that people with mobility concerns most urgently need to be considered in our emergency preparedness. There is more we can do, and I hope this momentum continues in the spirit of lavish hospitality and truly inclusive welcome. 

Second, we know that Transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, intersex, and other gender-diverse people are under extreme threat in this country and all over the world. We need communities like this one to welcome us, be in solidarity with us, give us space for our needs and our gifts, and be open to transformation in the service of justice and kindness. It matters that this congregation updated your restrooms to be inclusive. It matters that you normalized sharing pronouns in introductions and nametags. It matters that you display your LGBTQ pride in signage and social media. In addition to the Trans and nonbinary and gender diverse people attending as members and friends, I know there are extremely proud parents of Trans and nonbinary people in this congregation. 

There is more to do. The work of unlearning gender essentialism and internalized transphobia is lifelong, even for those of us who are Trans and nonbinary. Legislative attacks are increasing, and this congregation’s active response would communicate sincerity in your welcome. We can explore some of this in our four-session study group this winter, when we’ll be reading Authentic Selves: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and Their Families every other Wednesday in January and February. 

Third, our commitment to welcome new neighbors who are immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers matters. This congregation raised money for the I-RISE walk, and the congregation is currently renting the parsonage to a newly arrived family through I-RISE’s Affordable Housing Corporation. I-RISE is Interfaith Refugee and Immigrant Services and Empowerment, a coalition of which we are a part that operates a network of services at four centers in New Jersey. At the I-RISE community meeting this past week, Pastor Seth Kaper-Dale said that the outgoing federal administration is fast-tracking services to refugees to try to help them secure legal status before mid-January. I-RISE expects to serve 400 new arrivals in the next month and a half, which is half of the total number of newcomers they expected to serve in 2025. This will be a sprint, after which I-RISE will return to long-term strategies to help our new neighbors to make their home in New Jersey. 

During this sprint, there are many opportunities to connect with I-RISE. If you own an AirB&B unit that you can reserve short term for refugees, or a ground-level storage unit that can hold incoming donations of furniture, they want to hear from you. Students home for holiday breaks can find short-term employment picking up families from the airport and performing other tasks. Volunteers who are good at filling out forms and being patient will be needed at paperwork clinics for clients who will be self-filing asylum claims. As always, they need warm coats, as many of our new neighbors are arriving with very little from places that are warmer than New Jersey. As Pastor Seth says, immigrants are a blessing, not a burden. Welcoming the stranger is a fundamental ethical principle in many spiritual traditions, including Unitarian Universalism. 

There are other ways this congregation is building a longer table. Your work in dismantling racism and white supremacy is ongoing, and there is more to do. Members have put a great deal of commitment into welcoming families with children, and we can keep going on that path. The investments you made into technology and multi-platform worship continue to bear fruit, making worship accessible to people near and far. The spiritual practice of invitation is calling us onward. 

May we find reasons for gratitude in this season of change and preparation. May the abundance in our lives overflow into practices that put hospitality and inclusion into action. May we all be blessed in our pluralism, our interdependence, and our generosity. 

So be it. Blessed be. Amen. 

[echthr0s]

It is true that I am an entity of connection and communion who repeatedly incarnates into existences where connection and communion are severely diminished in some way or another -- self-created challenge modes, perhaps. But it feels like this existence is particularly challenging. In other incarnations where some measure of success is found, the solutions to returning to Myself are always pretty left-field but still within the realm of possibility for those universes: for example, in being Zenos I find a way to imbue myself with the Echo (which is that universe's primary avenue of deep communion and resonance). The fact that the Echo exists at all makes it clear what I have to do. This universe has no such thing, not even a ghost of a similar function. I think, in this universe, the best one can do is… be an artist. To communicate the deepest truths of oneself, to see the world in ways beyond that of consensus reality, one must make and interact with art. But even then, there is no guarantee of reciprocity -- there is no joining of souls, no intimate sharing of minds. There are simply too many barriers. This, to an entity like me, is beyond vexing.

Words are a primary currency of connection in this universe. But I find it nearly impossible to communicate Myself in this fashion. There are too many paradoxes, too much of the arcane and esoteric, too many concepts that lack proper vocabulary. It is like trying to talk about dreams, when dream logic defies waking logic, when what is powerful and resonant about a dream just sounds confusing and incomplete in words. It is like trying to talk about psychedelic experience, or religious ecstasy. It is all of these things! My existence, my awareness of my existence, is best explained as a divine psychedelic dream. What words exist for such a thing, that will penetrate into the reader's mind directly, that will adequately alter their perception? How will I be known to anyone if I cannot communicate myself to anyone? And is there no more direct method of communion, of connection, of resonance? People in this world* fear enmeshment, interdependence, deep physical-spiritual bonding; it is often used abusively, like it is a crude weapon as opposed to the greatest of gifts. What am I to do in a world like this, except atrophy in alienation?

I've seen several writings about older alterhumans(etc) and why they stop being so present in online communities -- some grow into great and fulfilling meatspace lives, for example (gods, we wish!); some just find that this aspect of their being stops being so immediate and sort of fades into comfortable background noise. For us, we find that we become less and less able to be ourselves properly in these spaces, because we lack the words, we lack the ability to commune. We find ourselves growing into greater and greater complexity as time passes, not less, and this compounds the alienation. It was easier for previous body pilots -- Björn was mostly just a guy (Earth-born, just from a different time), for example. Grey was a (deposed? exiled? dead, as far as death applies to them? who knows) fae lord who took way too much delight in playing human so he decided to possess one. These are narratives easily understood: strange, certainly, but with great precedent in the right circles. I think perhaps divinity complicates things, especially that which originates elsewhere (to be an Earth-based entity would be much simpler!). We are simply So Much, at once, all the time. To extrude even the smallest fragment of Ourself into this brain, and then try to communicate even that tiny fragment into a rigid and separation-obsessed world… a nightmare. What are we to do?

Agony, despair, and no grace to be had. Only the embrace of the Configuration, which is certainly not nothing; it is keeping us alive. But is there not more? Is that all? Will we die to this world having known naught but this?

*obviously I am speaking from a certain cultural perspective, one which is almost violently individualist and worshipful of independence; this is the "world" that I know, and I cannot speak for any other, even speculatively

[movingthisblogcelestialtarot11]

Hi! I saw your post on my for you section and I just love your page!

So, for the angular house it would be my 7th house in Pisces which starts at 14 degrees. It is an empty house, with my Neptune being in Aquarius at 2 degrees if that helps with anything!

Thank you! 🤗💘 and of course we can get you a reading! Im open to any feedback and insight. Thank you for stopping by!

Pisces 7th house- Relationships will function the best when boundaries are defined and clear. It’s important for natives with these placements to work through their rose colored glass perspective, as its easy to fall into codependency. Growing up, parents or the people around you could have weak boundaries, and modeled partnerships in which boundaries were not had. There could have been manipulation in those said relationships, gaslighting and overall emotional distress. While its important for you to dream and have them be realized, its also important to see reality for what it is and to not project the idea of it. You want someone or people that will benefit your healing, dreams, and support your ideas in this lifetime 🤝 it’s important you find people who will stay true to themselves and yet stay committed to their own needs. Your past friendships/relationships could have had a lot of codependency, lack of boundaries and overall, there could have been an expectation from you or them to mind read. In this lifetime you’re learning to transcend those wounds, and meet people who are centered, grounded and spiritual. People who will understand your spiritual needs and make space for practicality. You need peace, a community where your souls are connected, and fulfillment from your inner world & outer. You want love to transcend time, space and illusion 💘 you are committed and loyal at heart.

14th degree on the 7th house- Its important to have people who are not afraid to embody themselves as it will inspire you to do the same. Taurus is independent, resourceful, responsible and stable. You require stability as you grow and heal, especially in your partnerships. Gift giving may be your love language too, its a way you show you care. You need someone or people that are patient, kind, yet realistic and down to earth to help you see past your wounds. It would help greatly to focus on enforcing your self worth in this lifetime, continue to build inner strength and interdependence. You could meet a lot of financially secure people in this lifetime, your partner could be that too! You could meet your significant other after working in your financial success, stability. You can meet them after you reached an important milestone regarding your finances! 🤗

Thank you anon & I hope this resonated with you! 💘🙌

[raleksd]

Native American Wisdom: 

10 Inspiring Quotes to Live By

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have a rich and diverse history, culture, and spirituality that have survived centuries of oppression and genocide. Their wisdom, which is often expressed in the form of proverbs, sayings, and quotes, reflects their deep connection to nature, their respect for life, and their values of harmony, balance, and generosity.

In this article, we will explore 10 of the best wisdom quotes from various Native American tribes and leaders, and how they can inspire us to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

1. "What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man." - Chief Si'ahl (Seattle), Suqwamish and Duwamish

This quote reminds us of the interdependence of all living beings on Earth, and the importance of protecting and respecting the natural environment. We are not separate from nature, but part of it. We share the same spirit with the animals, plants, and elements. If we harm them, we harm ourselves.

2. "You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts." - Cochise, Chiricahua

This quote teaches us the value of honesty, clarity, and kindness in communication. We should speak with integrity and sincerity, without hiding or twisting our intentions. We should also speak with compassion and empathy, without hurting or offending others. Our words have the power to heal or harm, to enlighten or darken, to unite or divide. We should use them wisely.

3. "Where I am, I build my house; and where I build my house, all things come to it." - Osage proverb

This quote encourages us to be content and grateful for what we have, and to make the best of our situation. We should not be restless or dissatisfied with our circumstances, but rather embrace them as opportunities for growth and learning. We should also be open and welcoming to whatever life brings us, trusting that everything has a purpose and a place.

4. "So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart." - Tecumseh, Shawnee

This quote inspires us to live courageously and authentically, without letting fear hold us back from pursuing our dreams and passions. We should not be afraid of death, but rather see it as a natural and inevitable part of life. We should focus on living fully and joyfully in the present moment, making each day count.

5. "The Earth and myself are of one mind." - Chief Joseph (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt), Nez Perce

This quote expresses the deep spiritual bond between humans and the Earth, and the recognition of a higher intelligence that guides and governs all creation. We should not see ourselves as separate from or superior to the Earth, but rather as its children and caretakers. We should listen to its voice and follow its wisdom.

6. "Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words." - Smowhala, Wanapum

This quote emphasizes the importance of personal experience and intuition in acquiring knowledge and understanding. We should not rely solely on external sources of information or authority, but rather seek our own truth within ourselves. We should also be humble and curious, knowing that there is always more to learn.

7. "Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows." - Hunkesni (Sitting Bull), Hunkpapa Sioux

This quote celebrates the diversity and uniqueness of each individual, and the respect for different cultures and beliefs. We should not judge or compare ourselves or others based on superficial criteria, but rather appreciate the inherent worth and beauty of each person. We should also be proud of our own identity and heritage, without trying to conform or imitate others.

8. "Hold fast to the words of your ancestors." - Hopi proverb

This quote urges us to honor and preserve our ancestral traditions and wisdom, which are often passed down orally from generation to generation. We should not forget or neglect our roots, but rather cherish them as a source of guidance and inspiration. We should also learn from the mistakes and achievements of our forefathers, and strive to improve ourselves and our society.

9. "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave." - Dakota quote

This quote warns us of the consequences of our actions and choices, both for ourselves and for future generations. We should be mindful of how we live our lives, and what kind of legacy we want to leave behind. We should also be responsible and accountable for our impact on the world, and try to make it a better place.

10. "Those who have one foot in the canoe and one foot in the boat are going to fall in the river." - Tuscarora proverb

This quote advises us to be decisive and committed in our endeavors, and not to be distracted or divided by conflicting interests or influences. We should not try to please everyone or do everything, but rather focus on what matters most to us and what aligns with our values and goals. We should also be consistent and loyal in our relationships, and not betray or abandon those who trust and support us.

---

These are just some of the many wisdom quotes from Native American cultures that can enrich our lives and perspectives. By learning from their insights and experiences, we can gain a deeper appreciation of ourselves, others, and the world around us. We can also honor their legacy and contribution to humanity, and help preserve their culture and spirit.

[the-mothmaam]

I did something for myself today

Something I haven't done in a long time. I dared myself to step forward onto a new career path. I don't know if it will pan out, but I no longer have anything to lose.

I emailed someone at National Geographic's press room about job credentials. Maybe I don't have the right skills yet. But it doesn't mean I can't learn them.

I tried to be a supporting spouse. In one hand I know I did it so that I would have a supporting spouse in return. But I also did it because I love her.I looked for jobs, and applied for several during my marriage. But I always stayed in Houston. I thought that's what we wanted. I was wrong.

In a few months I'll be at 20 years at the library. I did it because I wanted to give back to the community. I've done that. I don't know if its enough or not, but I know that the last advice my dad gave me was that a job will never be loyal to me.

I honestly don't know what I want out of life any more. Nothing seems to make me happy anymore. All of my past times are just... ways to make time go by quicker. I spend more time cuddling dogs than doing anything else. And I can feel my life slipping past me.

The last time I tried to make a big move for myself everything went wrong. I alienated my best friend and spouse in ways I still don't understand. I put a target on my back at work, my brother wants nothing to do with me

No.

I'm not a victim. I made my choice. I've stood by it. I like what I see in the mirror. I like the way I feel. I finally think I'm attractive. And I have people who tell me that as well. I made a good choice.

There were concequences. But every action has those.

I'm not a victim and I'm not a martyr. Not anymore. When I want to do something, I do it. When I'm not interested, I say so. Does it make people sad - yes. But I have no control over the emotions of other people. If my feelings are my responsibility, then theirs are too.

I have many people who are legitimate diagnosed messed up people. Hazel is Bipolar, just like Delphina - and I've known her since grade school. AJ has D.I.D. Jenny has anxiety at least as bad as I do. Every one of them handles their own shit. I'm making sure I do that too moving forward.

I got too comfortable while I was married. I turned interdependence into codependence. I thought we were on the same page, and we were very far from it. And I never knew. I wasn't keeping score. I leaned in, expecting my partner to lean in too. I supported my spouse and best friend, in the same way that the characters in Thunderbolts* physically leaned in to climb the missle silo. It wasn't keeping score. It was voicing concern that we were about to fall down because we were faltering. She was burned out, and so was I.

I thought the vacation I planned would help with that. It did not. There must have been more she wanted. More she needed. I don't know. It was surely less of (getures at self) me.

The song I've attached is one of the best I've founs in the last two years that talks about what supporting someone like that can turn into. Marriage isn't exactly what I thought it was. That or I had some fucked up role models. I'm not sure any more.

But I'm planning my next one because it's happening again with the shitshow this year at work has been. And there's no one to blame. It just is what it is. There's good too. Mr. Weeks is a way better boss than Clara could dream of being. If you wait long enough, you outlive your bad bosses. That's what I'm finding. And in her defense, Clara was NOT bad. She was just differently comitted - I guess is the best way to put it. Anyway - vacation... I could go West and carry on past where Jess wanted us to turn around, head up the west coast like I'd plan, maybe see Chase in Washington. Or I could see my sister, drive to New York and hit D.C. along the way.

I really want to go to Michigan and demand answers, to make her feel the way she's made me feel. But she's suffered enough, and for whatever my part in it was I'm going to repect the distance she's put between us. I will end up in Michigan some day, but when I do - it will be for me and in a way that has no baring on who lives there.

But travel now... it feels anticlimactic. No-one to share it with. No one to watch be delighted. No-one to compare notes with. I'm back to just me. Like I've been so often before in life. I wish it didn't depress me like it does, but them's the breaks.

Do I write these things hoping you'll read them? Sure. But i's not for you anymore. That's what the emails were. I poured my bleeding heart out there. This isn't the place, and it's well past the time. Two years, 24 months. By all the math I should be ready to move on. I thought I was. And again, I thought I would be. But I'm not.

I don't know if its answers, or closure, or a real goodbye - but something's still in the way. And that's why Michigan calls my name. But some genies don't go back in their bottles. So its best I not make a bad situation worse. A part of my life will just always be a mystery looking back at it. I guess I'm like a haunted library, ghosts, riddles, mystery... I've got it all. But the important thing is, I'm not done. And I never will be. I may not like living anymore - but it's still better than dying.

So to quote Frank Reynolds, "Well, I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm gonna get real weird with it."

I think I'll go west. Maybe see some mountains. Gotta finish the van build first... maybe by Fall if the hurricanes stear clear.

Here's to hoping.

You taught me to do that, and it's the one last thing I refuse to give up on. Gaiman can rot in Hell, but Hope is still (and always will be) a force to reckon with. Thank you for that life lesson.

[artomatize]

tariffs and trouble: we're lowk spiraling ?!

less vintage glam .. it's giving more... chaos...? an economic one at that! yikes

think: economic breakdown meets existential dread but like... it's kinda scary isn't it...

tariffs--aka the economic equivalent of blocking someone instead of actively opening communication. allegedly "protecting" domestic businesses. it kinda does make sense but doesn't it seem a bit messy lol isn't globalization part of like the whole... reason why we're well-versed in cultures and have (RELATIVELY) good diplomatic relation ... idk tho ! i'm just merely a girl with some pent up confusion opinion & paranoia with regards to the us economy, dare I say, failing?!

cautionary tale (in sepia & retrospect)

back in the 1930s, there was this whole shindig called *drum roll* great depression~! the US passed the smoot-hawley tariff act, thinking it would boost american industries during tough economic times (post ww1) but instead sparked an int'l trade war that was soooo embarrassing rlly cos what do u actually. mean... when u said u wanted to protect the american dream but end up putting ur country's economy into shits and ruins... so like, it wasn't faired well with the international community (painfully obv *yawn*) so they retaliated and then just like that, everyone turned against the US and global trade crumbled... businesses failed, unemployment was at its all-time-high, POVERTY skyrocketed and boom: the great depression.

i mean was it bad enough that the US had the obv ego and self serving Pro American policy like all that audacity to impose such high tariffs with countries from europe POST WAR... was hoover expecting that they take it in like the good boy they were lmfao

alright so: protectionism vs interconnectedness

delulu much? there's this perception of the US gov't that isolating themselves economically will keep them safe frm the shit storm that ww1 had caused in int'l markets ? but the world runs on interdependence... one nation's tariffs can create a ripple effect that shatters supply chains, raises costs, and triggers mass layoffs. it's like trying to build a wall in a thunderstorm--you still get soaked, babe.

trump's tariff time!

fast-forward to today, the Trump administration who's BIG on "America First" movement and it led to massive tariffs on chinese imports, steel, and aluminum--you name it. the idea? punish china and revive american manufacturing. The result? well... consequences on consequences...

china slapping back with their own tariffs pulling an uno reverse

american farmers getting wrecked

inflation on everyday goods

increased uncertainty for global businesses and markets

stirred the pot so hard, the whole kitchen caught fire

how does this affect me, on a deep personal level?

if global trade slows, companies cut costs. that could mean layoffs or hiring freezes

higher tariffs = higher prices. on EVERYTHING

economic slowdowns hit small businesses hardest

if it spirals far down enough? welcome to recession 2.0 electric boogaloo~

don't get it twisted too; tariffs sound like harmless paperwork... and they actually do make a whole lot of sense (esp if ur part of the american first bandwagon and think that immigrants are stealing ur job)

but in reality, they're macroeconomic weapons that can backfire with cataclysmic consequences. the great depression isn't only going to be a part of history that's almost dystopian fiction! it's generational trauma rooted in bad policy. we're going to be cosplaying our ancestors' economic downfall.

history, when ignored, has a tendency to reemerge--not as a lesson, but as an aftermath. the use of tariffs as a form of economic protectionism may initially appear as a strategic assertion of national sovereignty. however, when wielded w/o regard for the intricacies and interdependence of global markets, such policies can become triggers for economic fragmentation, instability, and decline.

the great depression isn't just a poster or infographic of what could be... like, it quite literally offers an enduring testament to the dangers of isolationist trade measures during periods of economic vulnerability (*COUGH COUGH* sounding all too familiar almost a century later while wars are dawning upon us post-pandemic too..).

what was intended as a safeguard for domestic prosperity ultimately accelerated global economic collapse. today... as we navigate an increasingly complex and interconnected economic landscape, reviving similar tactics under the guise of economic nationalism risks replicating the VERY conditions that once led to widespread despair.

in an era defined by rapid globalization and fragile supply chains, sustainable growth cannot be achieved through antagonistic trade policies, but through strategic collaboration, innovation, and adaptability. T_T (i s2g if the world was ran by women...)

the challenge lies not in fortifying borders against the global economy, but finding the resilience to thrive WITHIN it

[dailyanarchistposts]

Taking Mugwort Can Cause Lucid Dreams

Dream one: Mugwort grows in vacant lots in a “revitalized” post-industrial neighbourhood near the Seaway. Mugwort ripped up to make way for condos. We lose all hope and give up.

Dream two: Mugwort in vacant lots is ripped up to make way for condos. Neighbourhood residents resist. Light fancy cars on fire and smash windows. Band together to cook for each other and watch each other’s kids. The fight is not over. The fight is not enough. The fight is perhaps a practicing stage for bigger fights to come. Fighting gentrification is not necessarily the same as fighting colonialism and capitalism.

Dream three: Mugwort in vacant lots is ripped up to make way for condos. The mugwort pops up in the lawns of the condo-dwellers causing allergic reactions and hayfever. The mugwort makes it impossible to grow well manicured lawns. The condo-dwellers stop paying their mortgages and the housing bubble pops. Changes are happening fast. People start to squat empty condos in an effort to build an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal resistance struggle.

Dream four: We succeed in creating bad-ass revolutionary connected-worlds-crews of people who aren’t cis men. Our self defense is a form of offense and we treat it as such. We are building anti-colonial liberated spaces and moments in the patches where capitalism grows thin. We relate to our interdependence as a liberatory form of life that sustains our relationships and shapes our responsibilities. We are shifting and burning as needed. We are full of confrontation and care and discerning about the appropriate moments for both. The mugwort has come back to the neighbourhood. We drink tea, and smoke mugwort cigarettes and teach each other new skills. We stage our attacks and build something bigger. We are transforming ourselves in the process.

My actual life: harvesting mugwort from the vacant lots. Taking it as a tincture years later, when the mugwort fields are now condos. Trying to heal from a bad break up. Trying to figure out how not to focus so much of my life on automatically taking care of everyone all the time. Exploding the care imperative in order to find more space to think about revolutionary anarchism and revolutionary strategy but feeling guilty while doing it, not feeling smart enough. Not knowing where this leads me but finding comfort in knowing that I am not alone. I never was alone.

Footnotes

[1] Anna Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

[2] Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love

[3] Ibid.

[4] Tsing, Mushroom,

[5] Conversation with IC, Fall 2017.

[6] Stephanie Phillips, “The Kahnawake Mohawks and the St. Lawrence Seaway”

[7] “Saint Lawrence Seaway”, Wikipedia

[8] Rosemary O’Flaherty, “Damming the Remains: Traces of the Lost Seaway Communities”

[9] Phillips, “The Kahnawake Mohawks and the Saint Lawrence Seaway,”

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] O’Flaherty, “Damming the Remains”

[13] Roger Benedict and Pierre Camu, “Saint Lawrence River and Seaway” Encyclopedia Britannica

[14] The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, “Tommy Trent’s ABCs of the Seaway”

[15] Alexis Shotwell, Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times

[16] Tsing, Mushroom

[17] Reproductive in the larger sense, not just child-birth, though also that.

[18] “Self-Care: Self as Other”, Crimethinc

[19] “Interview with Knowing the Land is Resistance”, Black Seed: Issue 4

[20] Gina Badger and Dori Midnight, “In & Out of Time: An Interview with Dori Midnight”

[21] Conversation with IC, Fall 2017.

[22] Nicole L. Boivin et al, “Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species diastributions.”

[23] Peter Gelderloos, Worshipping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation

[24] Tsing, Mushroom

[25] Ibid.

[26] ed. – To call this event a famine is somewhat inaccurate: despite the potato blight, throughout all these years sufficient sufficient grain, cereals and livestock in Ireland to solve the problem, but all these were exported to England. The same century saw the British Empire impose starvation many times in so-called India (and not only); when drought struck the Deccan plateau, there was still sufficient rice and wheat in the country; but, aid denied, it was exported to England in record-breaking quantities.

[27] Tsing, Mushroom

[28] Lewis, Amini, and Lannon, General Theory

[29] Tsing, Mushroom

[30] Lewis, Amini, and Lannon, General Theory

[31] Ibid.

[32] “Dear comrades in the streets”, a flier handed out at a demo against police on March 15, 2014 in Montreal.

[33] Butch Lee, The Military Strategy of Women and Children

[revlyncox]

Breathe and Push (2024)

In this third and final installment of a sermon series based on See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur, we join together in two aspects of the process of transformation: breathe and push. We must be able to breathe, to be present to life, to savor the beauty that still lives in the world; and we must be able to push, to be present to discomfort while putting forth focused attention and effort in order to bring about something new. May we draw from the wisdom of ancestors and respond to the call of the future as we practice transformation in the fullness of the present.

“None of us alone can save the world. Together--that is another possibility, waiting.”

The poetry of Rebecca Parker drew me into the imagination and theory and practice of clergy leadership, and her poetry helps me to stay connected, even when I feel alone, even when I feel like I have hit a wall and have nothing more to offer the world. Conspiring with liberation, creating beauty, spreading compassion - these are humanist in the best sense of the word to me, technologies for people together to apply human solutions to human problems. They work best when we use them together, and when we practice a rhythm of recharging, recommitting, and re-weaving. Sometimes we act, sometimes we reflect, and even when our work is solitary for a time, we are part of the “chorus of life.”

Creating a world where each person can reach their full potential, a world of justice and compassion where each person can bring out their best, has long been part of the dream of Humanists and Unitarian Universalists. This calling is perpetually urgent, to the point where it can be overwhelming. It can feel isolating, as each one of us digs into the aspect of moving toward truth and beauty that feels like ours to dig into. Yet our strength is our interdependence with each other and with all life. When we remember to give and take, to listen and act and pass along what we’ve learned, to be fully present in this moment while holding onto the vision of what can be, to entrust the work to others as we take breaks and then return with new focus … when we remember these things we are more effective. All of these are aspects of being part of something larger than ourselves, creating the new world in collaboration and solidarity and concrete, shared reality. 

There was a time when I half-joked and was half-serious that I thought death couldn’t catch me if I filled my calendar with appointments. Being busy was a shield against reckoning with my own mortality. Failing to take time to process mortality doesn’t actually work, of course. Emily Dickinson had a poem about that. Deeper down, that urge for denial may have been an attempt to leave some kind of mark on the world as soon as possible, because I knew too many people who hadn’t lived to the fullness of adulthood. I still do love my calendar, don’t get me wrong, but I am less convinced that it governs my lifespan. Being fully human asks us to live this life-- which many in this community believe is the only one we have-- to take rest and marvel and the beauty that is here and now, and not to save these things for a time to come that is not promised. 

In See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, Valarie Kaur writes that breathing is part of the practice of revolutionary love. We need to care for ourselves, we need to ground our practice in the present and in our bodies, we need to gather our strength in preparation for collective effort. She writes:

Breathing is life-giving. In every breath, we take oxygen into our bodies to nourish and sustain us. We inhale the molecules we need; we exhale what we do not need. Breath is constant: Its rhythm moves within us whether or not we are aware of it. Buddhist, Hindu, and many other wisdom traditions have taught conscious breathwork for centuries: When we pay attention to our breath, our minds are called to the present moment. Not the past, not the future. Here and now. Inhale. Exhale. Breathing creates space and time to be present. Present to emotion. Present to sensation. Present to surroundings. Present to one another. Present to ourselves. (p. 216)

Kaur is writing for a diverse audience, people of every faith and no faith. In this community, rich with the Humanist aspect of our pluralistic UU faith, I would like to emphasize that the present moment is the one where we have agency. We can learn from the past and make plans for the future, but the present moment is when we act. To lose our grounding in the present moment is to risk being lost in speculation or anxiety, and in that space we can very easily fool ourselves as to how much of our thinking is rational. To be our best as individuals and as a community calls for mindfulness. When we pause and take an inventory of our feelings, our sensations, our thoughts, our surroundings, we are better equipped to make decisions based on what is instead of what was or what we fear or what we wish. Taking a mindful breath is congruent with many of the spiritual and ethical traditions among us. 

Let’s take a brief moment of mindfulness now. Attend to your body as you take one nourishing breath. Not all of us can breathe deeply or comfortably, so receive the breath your body is able to receive. Slow down your breathing by pausing for a moment before you exhale, savoring that breath within you. Release your breath, returning air and water vapor to the world to which we are all connected. 

Honoring our need to breathe is an exercise in remembering the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Each person deserves oxygen. We have an ethic of care for ourselves and each other in community, an ethic that supports each other’s need to breathe. You have a right to breathe. This is not a neutral statement. Some of our siblings have been told that they do not have a right to breathe, and this has been demonstrated with police violence, environmental racism, and neglect for the respiratory health of others. Take a breath, make space for others to take a breath, and claim a moment for human dignity. 

Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not an act of self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” (From the epilogue to “A Burst of Light and Other Essays,” Ithaca, NY: Firebrand, 1988.) Lorde was speaking specifically of her experience as a Black woman, and I think it’s important to center Black women when we are inspired by that quote. And it’s true for any person with a marginalized identity, that when we live our lives in self-destructive ways, it serves the purposes of oppression more than revolution. 

We breathe and pause because our lives have worth. We need to stay grounded in this life and in our values and in the practice of human worth. So let’s keep breathing. 

Kaur uses “breathe” as one part of a formula that also includes “push,” using the process of giving birth as a metaphor. And here we need to pause again, because different people will have different relationships to that metaphor. Kaur notes that not all birthing people give birth vaginally, through a process of contractions, breathing, and pushing. And not all people with uteruses and not all women give birth to children. She writes that “the ability to create and nurture is a human right, not a biological one,” and she uses birthing as a metaphor for all creative endeavors. Just as not everyone who uses sports metaphors is an athlete, and not everyone who uses war metaphors has been in battle, Kaur offers birthing metaphors to everyone, whether or not giving birth has been or will be part of their experience. 

I want to acknowledge that birthing metaphors may fall painfully on people who have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth or infertility. There are people who have given birth under traumatic circumstances, who may not want to associate their creative work with that process. My own experience as a birthing person did not match the brochures. While this metaphor may not be comfortable for everyone, I hope we can recognize in this discomfort that there is power in the metaphor, and I hope we can hear the wisdom in what Kaur draws from her own experience, even if it does not resonate with our own. 

Breathing is not only a practice of mindfulness, bringing us back to the present moment where we have agency. Breathing is not only a declaration of human worth, even in the face of dehumanizing oppression. Breathing is part of a rhythm that helps us to keep the work of transformation sustainable. We hold on and we let go. We surge forward and we recharge. We breathe and we push. 

Pushing, in this case, means being present to discomfort while putting forth focused effort and attention to bring about something new. One of the challenges with this is recognizing the difference between discomfort and danger. There are many reasons why we might conflate comfort and safety. Sometimes it’s because we’ve seen too much harm or danger, and our fight-or-flight response is attuned to react at the first sign of a problem. Or we’ve seen so much harm that we minimize the danger we’re actually in. Sometimes it’s because we aren’t accustomed to certain kinds of challenge, we don’t have experience with feeling this unfamiliar discomfort and yet having things turn out OK. Sometimes we’ve been told that a feeling of shame or embarrassment is a signal that all of our external support is about to be withdrawn, and it feels like a fight for our lives to prove our worthiness. We need each other, and we need a practice of mindfulness to help us with the discernment about when to push and when to pause for healing. 

I was on a swim team in middle school and high school. My coach was all about helping each swimmer be their best. She helped us set goals based on our own improvement, not on comparing ourselves to others. She insisted that we stretch before practice. It was on the swim team that I started to understand the meaning of the phrase, “a good kind of hurt.” Muscles that are sore from building strength do not feel the same as muscles that are actually sprained or torn. That doesn’t mean it’s comfortable to be on the verge of a new level of strength or skill, and it doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to keep pushing too far past your limits, but you can have a stretching discomfort–the good kind of hurt–without anything being really wrong. 

I can’t think of a way to learn the difference between the discomfort of stretching and strengthening and the damaging kind of hurt other than experience in the presence of someone who is caring and knowledgeable, someone who has accompanied other people through a process of transformation, someone who will help with setting realistic challenges and compassionate limits. In my case, that was a good coach. Kaur speaks about midwives for transformation, people who help bring new movements and new paradigms to birth. In any case, learning when to breathe and when to push is more safely and effectively done in companionship. We need people to hold us when we are hurting, whether that pain is from rising to a challenge or from an injury that requires time to heal. 

Kaur speaks of a personal experience of truth and reconciliation with a family member who hurt her. This process of accountability and repair took years. For her and especially for the person who hurt her, it took honesty and vulnerability and a willingness to stay with the process when it was uncomfortable. Speaking of this process with her family member, she writes that they “pushed together to the other side and transitioned our family into a new place--broken and whole, wounded and healed, which is, I think, the best shape for a family to be in. Sometimes reconciliation happens in the course of healing; sometimes it does not. What matters is the insistence that our liberation is possible. Pushing together through healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation was the labor of revolutionary love.” (p.270)

Echoing Bryan Stevenson, she continues, “In tending our wounds, we show mercy to ourselves and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy to others. We are released from our attachment to punishment. We evolve our pursuit of justice from retribution--an eye for an eye--to collective liberation.” 

Kaur is right to connect breathing and pushing. Moving through discomfort toward liberation is extremely difficult. Being able to breathe, to get grounded in the present moment and to find renewal in between periods of intense effort, helps us to keep moving forward. 

Continuing the birthing metaphor, the next thing after “breathe and push” is “transition.” Kaur explains:

The final stage of birthing is the most dangerous stage, and the most painful... The medical term is “transition.” Transition feels like dying but it is the stage that precedes the birth of new life. After my labor, I began to think about transition as a metaphor for the most difficult fiery moments in our lives. In all our various creative labors--making a living, raising a family, building a nation--there are moments that are so painful, we want to give up. But inside searing pain and encroaching numbness, we might also find the depths of our courage, hear our deepest wisdom, and transition to the other side. (p. 278-279)

To get through transition, Kaur says, we need the voices of wisdom. Some of those voices are the beloveds around us, and some of those voices are the inner voices. Within us or around us, wise voices are the ones that tell us we are strong enough and brave enough and capable enough to be part of this new thing that is happening. My mother used to have a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt in her email signature:

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

It is this quote in my mother’s voice that I hear in those transition moments, when doubt and pain and fear tell me I can’t. And perhaps alone I can’t. But with the voices of wisdom, we can. 

As we transition to the world that can be, a community of practice helps us to breathe and to have courage. And we can often be more effective together than we can alone. At the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Trenton on March 2, a group of us heard testimony from different groups of impacted people, mourned together over the lives lost to poverty, and came to understand again that our wellbeing and our solutions are linked. That meeting was meant to provide spiritual grounding and to inspire solidarity, leading to unified advocacy in the state legislature and commitment to democracy in the upcoming elections. 

The upcoming MLK@TUS event on April 7 will provide music and readings to get people grounded and inspired, and maybe a good word about what comes next from Bruce Morgan, New Brunswick Area NAACP President. This congregation’s work in the past in coalition with the NAACP, including the Lost Souls Project, and future plans about voter education and mobilization, represent an investment in a community of practice. 

Interfaith RISE, UU Faith Action New Jersey, and Food and Water Watch are some of this congregation’s other partners in breathing and pushing. The work can be boring or exciting at different times, frustrating or confusing or illuminating, and always human. We can move through transition with more joy and wisdom together than we can alone. 

There are a lot of things we hope to see on the other side of transition. We hope to see liberation, a society that reflects our interdependence with each other and the planet, compassionate and dignified medical care for every person, abundance and generosity, reparations for those who have been wronged, repair for the earth, an end to war and violence, space and time and resources for beauty and joy for all people. In this moment, I am also conscious of another transition: the slow and non-linear emergence into a post-COVID world. We must re-imagine ourselves and our community in light of our experiences over the past four years. 

Retreat is so tempting. We may be tempted to retreat into privilege, to shrink from our interdependence. We may be tempted to retreat into an idealized version of the past, to crave the best out of what we remember instead of sallying forth into the best of what we can be in the new world. Ground your plans for the future on your collective vision and values, not on nostalgia. We may be tempted to retreat into perfectionism, to give up on what is hard or messy or imperfect, to blame and complain and attempt to exert control when comfort is slow and the emerging reality is unfamiliar. Beloveds, let us breathe together and concentrate our energies on what is possible. A new thing is happening. We won’t know what it looks like until we have lived in it for awhile. We can help shape it to be something beautiful, equitable, and exciting. We need to be patient, imaginative, and caring as we help each other through this. 

The things that are worth doing are worth doing together, sustainably, through times of healing and times of discomfort and times of intense transition. Let’s breathe, and reconnect with human worth in the present moment. Let’s push, and hang in there through the discomfort of positive transformation. Let’s follow the voices of wisdom through transition, and bring into the world something new.

May it be so. 

[theutopiaproject]

The Black Utopian Vision: A Code Switch Exploration

Reading NPR’s latest article on Code Switch titled “Black Utopians” was both grounding and illuminating. It dives deep into the ways Black creators, thinkers, and communities have imagined utopia—not as escapist fantasy, but as a necessary act of survival and hope. The piece paints a vivid picture of how Black people have historically carved out spaces, both literal and imaginary, to dream of futures beyond systemic oppression. From the Harlem Renaissance to Afrofuturism, there’s an unbroken thread of art, writing, and activism that reflects not just resilience, but radical imagination. I particularly resonated with the discussion on how Black utopian thought isn’t about ignoring the realities of oppression—it’s about creating blueprints for liberation. These visions challenge the idea that progress must be incremental or constrained by the systems we currently live under. Instead, they call for reimagining everything: governance, justice, relationships, and the way we understand power. One standout point in the article was how these utopias often center collective care and interdependence, something society at large could stand to learn from. In these imagined futures, wealth isn’t hoarded, safety isn’t enforced by punishment, and success isn’t defined by exploitation.

It’s a reminder that utopias are more than just dreams—they’re tools. They help us critique the present and push us to build something better. And for Black communities, these visions have always been an act of defiance against a world that too often refuses to see their humanity.

What are your thoughts on utopia? Do you see it as a reachable goal or a guiding star? Let’s talk in the notes!