Raising a family, caring for children day in and day out, growing deeply sensitive to their ever-changing needs, attending to nutritional, emotional, physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual needs, not to mention needs for adventure and expression, and raising a family well – in this ill society that grows increasingly sicker year after year – is the hardest job imaginable.
I’ve been an activist as long as I have been able to call myself a (more or less) well adjusted adult. Alongside one of my justice heroes Amy Goodman, who I “discovered” in college believing she was already a superstar for calling out corporate bullies with a platform, sits Josh Fox.
How have you experienced the Solidarity Economy? What does it mean to you? This past weekend I had the sweet and good for-tune of finding resonance with dozens of clearly vibrating humans at the annual Solidarity Economy Network festival in the fresh air Berkshires of Massachusetts. Day one was filled with loosely planned and elegantly facilitated workshops that included topics like Economics 4 Emancipation and activities like laughter yoga.
And maybe the second thing you think of could be the essence of what these two perennials are exchanging here? Can you see the love, the leaning in that happens when one wants to fully receive what the other, the beloved, is sharing?
the only love we know is the love we make. A TransFormation Plan is coming together.
It’s a funny thing to speak in front of strangers. Strangers who arrive at a common destination can have more potential for intimacy, resonance, and shared perspective than blood relatives. Speaking in care-full and curated spaces can also uplift and spotlight our emotional edges in a very real way. This is why we stand up ... rinse and repeat.
The white mind, in order to choose to face and address multifaceted and intersectional traumas, must first understand community and emotional safety in a fresh way -- as a vulnerable seeker of support, encouragement, and love; as a wounded, perhaps broken, traveler -- not as a provider of exceptionality ... and most definitely not as a trader seeking an upper handed gain.
52 Days ago I started a process of listening to my heart with an ... open heart. It has been amazing and I will continue this, ideally for 7 more cycles, to complete a full year. I am also 52 years old and on my birthday quipped that I'm now officially "a full deck" (and I love to play cards). This post is a tribute to the abundant love that is everywhere we seek it.
I want to heal my intensity so that the love I have for life, for myself, for others, shines through and becomes contagious. Mental - literal brain/head pressure - overheats my body-mind-spirit like the planet, and if I want to do my part to get that to slow down, to reverse global warming, I need to truly chill, deconstruct, unpack, and reverse the programming that keeps me spinning. I am slowly facing my complicity.
My point is this: for better or worse, middle-aged women, the "sandwich" generation caring for their children and their aging parents, while juggling careers and performing as the "you can have it all" epitome of the American Dream on the shoulders of gazillions of feminists who have come before us, are the foundation of society and the seismic quake to crack that foundation wide open is underway. Do we care? Do we have any collective capacity to care?
