Imbolc and the 78th Birthday Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: Day 7, the Shadow trial. Cold. 4 this morning. My son and Seoah come tomorrow! The coup. The New Apostolic Reformation. Shadow. Rethinking politics. Resistance. Is powerful. Aging. Sarcopenia. Cancer. Puppy learning. Me learning puppy. Tired.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here tomorrow
Week kavannah: Love. Ahavah.
One brief shining: At times I feel old, and by that I mean losing a sense of capacity, agency, as fingers trigger, my back says walking any distance is too far, the steady drumbeat of this medicine, that doctor, and at times I know that’s only my carapace, certainly part of my journey, the bearer of my soul, yet not my soul, not my mind, not my lev, other parts of my eternal journey that feel mature, enriched by years of experience in this most wonderful of worlds.
Margaret Renkl is one of my favorite NYT columnists. Here are two paragraphs from a column yesterday titled Tenderness as an Act of Resistance:
“Fury is a powerful motivator of resistance, but there is only so much rage a person can harbor without nurturing something cold and still and hard in the place where a warm, living heart once beat. Already I am exhausted by my own fury, and the second Trump presidency is only three weeks old…
Anger lets in too little beauty, but heartbreak? A tender heart feels the fury and the fear, the sorrow and suffering, the beauty and the bravery alike. In the years ahead, we will need them all.”
This reminded me of parsha Bo where Pharaoh’s heart hardens as Moses and Aaron confront him. Note: Pharaoh’s heart. The learning I’m taking from Renkl and Pharaoh is this: hardening the heart, though it may make taking action seem easier, ultimately leads to defeat.
What does that mean for us right now, in only the third week of an assault on our democracy? First it means we can’t look away. We need to see and feel the wrongness, understand and know the slings and arrows of outrageous politicians.
And we must allow our dream, a nation made of many, and of difference, and of laws, and of equity and fairness from sea to shining sea to crash into that wrongness and break our hearts.
The way of the open heart is not easy. But a tender heart, not a hardened one, is the only response that carry us through these next few years as Seed-Keepers of the American Dream.
In that way, when this storm of cruelty and avarice has blown out, we or those we have influenced with our tender hearts will still be strong, still be true, still be ourselves.
Just a moment: Got Shadow out of the bedroom once again. Her skittishness remains an inscrutable problem for me. She’s afraid of my voice, movement, things in her way. A fearful doggy. And, in touch with the thoughts above: it breaks my heart.
Still in it though. Working for a breakthrough to her trust.