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DID YOU NOTICE? . . .
This past week, there was yet another shift. Amidst the cascade of intense news, I could feel something break through. Yes, we've had these moments before, and with each one, we wonder, 'Will this be the catalyst that finally changes the status quo?' This week, let's unfold that question into the long, slow perspective of striving for human values over time . . .
Astrologically speaking, we are right where we need to be. While the Gregorian calendar says the refresh of the new year has already come and gone, the lunar cycles don't fully transition until February 17th. This final stretch in the year of the snake is meant to be the most uncomfortable: right before the final shedding is the constriction. The pressure builds up, by design, in a way you can't ignore. When you feel the squeeze, it is showing you exactly what is too tight for you to continue in this way. It is clarifying exactly what you need to shed.
Part of the discomfort is the fear of shedding what is familiar. No matter how constricting or ill-fitting, it's human to resist change, to lean toward what we had before. And when we do lean toward change, many of us get caught in the cycles of overwhelm and exhaustion that lead us back to swimming in the current of everyday life, thinking, 'What can I possibly to do that will be enough?'
But the answer always lies in the collective. The tide doesn't change all at once, it shifts slowly, almost imperceptibly, until the landscape is unrecognizably different. A billion droplets of water, all swayed by the cycles of the moon, and little by little, the momentum moves in another direction. The tide is a collective: it's volume of water, moving in unison, is what gives it such strength.
In Eternal Echoes, John O'Donohue writes, "The ideal of community is not the forcing together of separate individuals into the spurious unity of community. The great traditions tell us that community somehow already exists. When we come together in compassion and generosity, this hidden belonging begins to come alive between us. ...We do not so much build community as if it were some external and objective structure as we allow community to emerge. ...We are born into community. We enter as new participants into a drama that is already on. We are required to maintain and, often, to reawaken community."
Too often we imagine that if we wade in, we will buckle under the weight of harmful systems, and the work required to shift them. Absorbing the grief and letting it move through us is the very thing that connects us, and gives us the deep knowing that the answer is always choosing each other, over and over and over again. Much like the small act of making a meal or an item of food to share can seem insignificant placed next to a lifetime of hunger, and the need to sustain a person across time...when you look closely at what it takes to gather ingredients, to alchemize them into a dish using desire, memory, wisdom, and uniqueness, and to offer the dish as a point of connection between those who will savor it...suddenly, the act of organizing is inherent.
No one meal will feed us, just as no one act will save us. There is only the daily practice: continually attuning your eyes and ears and heart to notice the opportunities to communicate, connect, and support each other. They are all around us at any given moment. It starts with letting yourself feel.
In Solidarity,
Tay + Dor
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