Today is a full moon—a super moon in stabilizing Taurus, no less—and full moons are for release. It is not in my nature to feel relentless anger and grief. But for the last week, I’ve been unable to spin the tragedy we just birthed into the world. Spin is how we got into this fucked-up mess in the first place, and I feel a bottomless despair. So today I’m surrendering my sorrow, my rage, and my hopelessness to something bigger than myself. I am surrendering it to Mary, to Yemaya, to Oshun, to the divine feminine that has always nourished me and everyone else even when we paid her no mind. The powerful, limitlessly kind energy that I felt as a lonely, terrified child unshored by anyone or anything else. I hope I will be brave again tomorrow but today I am at my littlest and most helpless. I need a strong, unsolicited embrace. I need a meal cooked tenderly by someone else. I need a cool hand on my forehand. I need a mother, so today I am giving it up to Her.
My birthday falls on the day before Trump begins his oligarchy. Because I believe that what you do on your birthday sets the tone for your whole year, I already am planning to be in D.C. to participate in all and every protest that weekend, including of course the Billion Women March (yes, I’ve upgraded its title). The nation’s capital is not his. It is ours.
I am the descendent of Pogrom and Holocaust survivors, Jews who came to this country as refugees from a Europe torn up by xenophobic dictators. When people on my father’s side arrived at Ellis Island, the United States was their safe space, their beacon, their golden land of opportunities. Until this week, I’d never shed their optimism no matter how much others legitimately complained about America. I knew that many people of color and indigent people never had that glow about this nation. I knew their ancestors did not arrive here with the same triumph. They were dragged here in chains, or already had been here, only to be robbed, tortured, serially murdered. My mother’s people said Sioux Nation members in our line had experienced such horrors. I knew all too well that this country was as founded on blood as it was on hope. Continue Reading →
Today is a full moon—a super moon in stabilizing Taurus, no less—and full moons are for release. It is not in my nature to feel relentless anger and grief. But for the last week, I’ve been unable to spin the tragedy we just birthed into the world. Spin is how we got into this fucked-up mess in the first place, and I feel a bottomless despair. So today I’m surrendering my sorrow, my rage, and my hopelessness to something bigger than myself. I am surrendering it to Mary, to Yemaya, to Oshun, to the divine feminine that has always nourished me and everyone else even when we paid her no mind. The powerful, limitlessly kind energy that I felt as a lonely, terrified child unshored by anyone or anything else. I hope I will be brave again tomorrow but today I am at my littlest and most helpless. I need a strong, unsolicited embrace. I need a meal cooked tenderly by someone else. I need a cool hand on my forehand. I need a mother, so today I am giving it up to Her.
My birthday falls on the day before Trump begins his oligarchy. Because I believe that what you do on your birthday sets the tone for your whole year, I already am planning to be in D.C. to participate in all and every protest that weekend, including of course the Billion Women March (yes, I’ve upgraded its title). The nation’s capital is not his. It is ours.
I am the descendent of Pogrom and Holocaust survivors, Jews who came to this country as refugees from a Europe torn up by xenophobic dictators. When people on my father’s side arrived at Ellis Island, the United States was their safe space, their beacon, their golden land of opportunities. Until this week, I’d never shed their optimism no matter how much others legitimately complained about America. I knew that many people of color and indigent people never had that glow about this nation. I knew their ancestors did not arrive here with the same triumph. They were dragged here in chains, or already had been here, only to be robbed, tortured, serially murdered. My mother’s people said Sioux Nation members in our line had experienced such horrors. I knew all too well that this country was as founded on blood as it was on hope. Continue Reading →