joy

Saturday, May 21, 2022

To solve humanity’s problems, we need well-functioning brains…eating and living well with kindness and awareness…always compassion…building our brain architecture.

Tending body is tending to the self, and tending to the self is tending community, tending community is tending country.

[On Being]

J

O

Y

“The joy of life is to put out one’s power in some natural and useful or harmless way.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Valerie Kaur

Oh my loves.

“They’re going to keep killing us.” This was my first thought after the news broke about the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo. Terror and fatigue.

I’ve organized around white supremacist hate for 21 years, since before this gunman was born. The killings have become more frequent, more effective, and more efficient at taking life. I got the news while working on a memorial video on the white supremacist mass shooting in Oak Creek 10 years ago, revisiting all that pain. How to feel fresh grief when we are already in grief? How does the heart expand, instead of shut down?

Revolutionary love is the choice to labor for others, opponents, and ourselves. What is your role right now?

Will you focus on others? Grieve with Black people, show up to local vigils and gatherings, listen to the stories, fight for anti-racist policies, build new relationships of solidarity. Do one thing in your sphere of influence — your school, workplace, house of worship, or home — to stand in love. 

Will you focus on opponents? The gunman cited “replacement theory” in his manifesto, a theory that nearly one in three Americans believe. Reach out to the colleagues, neighbors, relatives in your life who subscribe to this dangerous and racist belief. Open a channel for deep listening, share stories, stop the spread of misinformation. 

Will you focus on your body and your people? If you can feel how this shooting touches trauma in yourself and in people you love, this is the time to make space for healing. Grieve and rage, wail and scream, rest and breathe. Be with people who make you feel safe. Let in softness and love into the places that ache. Together, we survive this. {And what is yet inevitably to come. -dayle}

[1,000,000 + have died from COVID. 1 in 3 U.S. citizens believe the plague has ended. It has not.]

More from Valerie:

Where do you notice feeling grief in your body? What is the quality of that grief? What is the shape of grief inside of you? If it feels uncomfortable, take another deep breath and stay with it. Breathe through it. 

What does your body need to be brave with this grief? What do you need to feel it and to move through this energy? What rituals are you called to? Who do you need by your side.

Who have you not yet grieved with? Whose story have you not fully let into your heart? What community’s struggle have you not fully taken in? Notice what is happening in your body. If your fists tighten, or your heart beats fast, or if shame rises to your face, it’s okay. Breathe through it. Trust that you can. The heart is a muscle: The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. You don’t need to know people in order to grieve with them. You grieve with them in order to know them.

What do you need to do to be able to grieve with them? What vigils or marches need you? What houses of worship are you ready to visit? What phone call are you ready to make? You can begin where you are, with a simple text or email, saying to someone “I’m here for you.”

How to be brave with your grief.

https://valariekaur.com/2022/04/how-to-be-brave-with-your-grief/

“Loving someone means that one day, there will be grieving. They will leave you, or you will leave them. The more you love, the more you grieve. And so I invite you to honor your grief: it’s a sign of how deeply you have loved.” 

-Valerie

Community, then country.

Coronado Times

Meet Brian Trotier

Triangle Project, located in the East Village of San Diego, just across the bay.

“The Triangle Project is a pilot program created to help improve the lives of unhoused people. Brian has been helping out in this area for about fifteen years and has developed relationships with many of the residents. A huge issue has been the trash in the area. The residents, mainly living in tents, don’t have a place to dispose of their trash which is unsightly, unsanitary, and demoralizing for them. Richard Aaron Horton, 64, a longtime resident, started improving the area by picking up trash. Brian Trotier knows Richard well and has expanded the effort by securing funding from the Lucky Duck Foundation. This local foundation focuses on the homeless and has contracted with EDCO for a dumpster to collect the trash.

The concept is simple, and the results so far have been amazing. Brian reported that, as of last week, the Triangle Project had collected in the previous 20 days, 3,794 bags of trash weighing a total of 23.89 tons. It is likely that much of this, including plastic, would have found its way into our bay and ocean. Here is how it works: every Monday and Thursday, EDCO drops off a dumpster at 8 am. Brian brings bags, gloves, and a stack of cash. Volunteers walk around the area greeting residents and asking if they’d like trash bags. For almost all, the answer is an enthusiastic “yes!” Residents get to work cleaning up their neighborhood. For every full bag of trash they bring to the dumpster, Brian gives them $2. The roughly two-block area goes from being very littered to being very clean within an hour.”

“riangle Project’s results are about double what Brian and Lucky Duck projected, and the benefits have gone far beyond a cleaner neighborhood (and bay). Residents express appreciation for being seen; they get along better with each other. “They have a common enemy—trash,” Brian acknowledged.”

“Keeping the Earth clean. That’s what’s happening in the long run. It’s a domino effect.”

https://coronadotimes.com/news/2022/05/18/meet-emerald-keeper-of-the-month-brian-trotier/

The Independent

My Carbon Footprint: the rise of the nearly new
by, Kate Hughes

“So often, being more eco is inaccurately pinned to greater cost, when actually – especially when it comes to everyday buying decisions – the opposite is true.

This widespread, if subtle shift in the way we shop, including the disintegration of the stigma around nearly new, vintage, and preloved may well have some relationship with the climate crisis but make no mistake, this is largely financially led.

What I love about second-hand too, is that it doesn’t preclude us from layering up further planet and cash-saving approaches.

When the old boy on our street moved into a retirement flat the neighbours bought his lawnmower off him. There’s now one lawnmower between five households, saving space, cash and helping maintain and develop lines of local communication and a sense of community.

More than four in 10 of us gave goods away for free locally in the first few months of the year, while half donated products to charity and more than a third even made financial donations despite experiencing hardship.

Free stuff – everything from haircuts to sofas are also on the rise, the site reports.

So go forth and embrace the charity shop, the quirky apps, the leviathan websites.”

HuffPost

Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho

A radical GOP faction, in open alliance with extremists, is seizing power and targeting its opponents with cruelty.

Some wonder: Is it time to leave? (Yes. It is.)

Jennifer Ellis, photographed in her home on April 3, 2022, created Take Back Idaho to push back against the right-wing, extremist views and tactics that have dominated the state’s politics.

‘A lot has been written about both the radicalization of the Republican Party and the decline of democracy in the U.S. — about the country being at a precipice. It’s maybe easy for those warnings to become background noise, or to dismiss them as doom-mongering pieces of clickbait. But in Idaho, the nightmare scenario is crossing into reality, as an authoritarian GOP sets about to create a whiter, Christian nation.
These MAGA radicals have gestured at the future they want: no rape and incest exceptions to Idaho’s abortion ban; no emergency contraception; no gender-affirming health care for minors; the banning of books; the jailing of librarians; and maybe no public education altogether.
I recently spent a week traveling across the state, from Sandpoint in the northern panhandle down through the green slopes and whitewater of Hell’s Canyon to the plains of Ada County, and then across lava rock and sagebrush to Blackfoot. In all these places, Democrats and more moderate Republicans view Tuesday’s primaries as an existential affair. Some are considering leaving the state if MAGA extremists consolidate more power. Others are digging in their heels.
The people I talked to were not all that accustomed to alarmism, which made it striking to hear some of their voices tremble when they talked about what’s happening to their home. Their message for the rest of the country? It’s gonna get bad. The GOP really will go that far.

“They have completely rebranded what it is to be a conservative here in north Idaho, and they have literally excommunicated and cleaned house of any rational, regular conservative from their ranks.”

– Shawn Keenan, local Democratic activist

“As much as I want to point to examples of their adverse impact on the legislative process — and there’s many things to point to — part of me, the social scientist in me, the military veteran in me, wants to, you know, not just hate the player, but hate the game,” said Mathias, who served in the Coast Guard and has a Ph.D. in public policy.
A grading system like the Freedom Index makes the often inscrutable process of legislating more accessible to voters, Mathias said, and the IFF is an outrageous arbiter.

Mathias is intimately familiar with the group. Last spring, he watched state Rep. Ron Nate (FI Score: 97%) and other far-right legislators manufacture a racist moral panic about Boise State University indoctrinating students with “critical race theory.” (It was not.) Nate, using talking points lifted from an IFF white paper, argued for cutting part of the school’s budget.

Mathias says he typically likes to “keep his powder dry” in the statehouse — Democrats are such a minority there, it’s not worth the fuss to debate every proposal — but in this case, both as the only Black man in the legislature and as a Boise State alumni, he felt compelled to speak.

Going to Boise State on the GI Bill, he told his colleagues in a speech on the House floor, pausing to fight back his emotions, “provided opportunities I’d never seen in my life. It changed my life.”

Critical race theory, he continued, simply recognizes that there are institutional biases — in “housing, health, education, wealth, income,” Mathias said — that have existed since our country was founded. “People of color always come out on the losing end,” he added, his voice breaking. “Always. And I don’t think it’s unfair to acknowledge it.”

Across Idaho, the far right has laid siege to nonpartisan positions, some of which require specific expertise, and made them partisan, installing loyalists with sometimes disastrous results.

A recent Vanity Fair piece, for example, profiled members of the national neoreactionary movement, acolytes of a philosopher named Curtis Yarvin, who is a close ally of billionaire Peter Thiel. This movement, which has buy-in from powerful GOP figures, is explicit about wanting to usher in the end of democracy by purging the current government of its enemies and establishing one-party control — or, put another way, authoritarianism.

J.D. Vance — the venture capitalist and “Hillbilly Elegy” author who recently won the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate — is a follower of Yarvin’s. He positively likened this prospective purge to the deadly “de-Baathification of Iraq.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” Vance told Vanity Fair. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

Vance and Trump might look to north Idaho for inspiration. 

“We’re losing here. We’re losing our state. We’re losing our town. … It’s just becoming overwhelming.”

– Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad

Full report:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/far-right-idaho_n_628277e2e4b0c84db7282bd6/amp

This month: ‘Loving ourselves…breathe and push.’

Valerie Kaur

Breath: A Guided Inquiry

Transition: Ways to Practice

“Transition is both a noun and a verb. Transition is the fiery process that is required to move from one reality into another. To transition is to summon the courage to stay in the labors of love and justice, even when we want to give up. It requires us to draw upon collective wisdom to birth something new together.”

Create a wisdom practice. Choose ways to listen to your deepest wisdom, the parts of yourselves that are wise and brave and unfailingly loving. This might mean protecting a few minutes daily to journal, meditate, draw or color or create—whatever gives you the stillness to quiet the noise of the world and listen to the wisest voice within you. If you do not yet hear anything, that is okay. Keep breathing.  Keep listening.

Surround yourself with sources of bravery. Who makes you brave?  These may be people in your life, or they may be ancestors, authors, artists, or activists you have never met. Keep these people and their voices close to you so that you can nourish the root of your own deepest wisdom.

Transition requires endings as well as new beginnings. As individuals we can ask: What stories am I willing to let die in order for new possibilities to be born? As a society we can ask: What stories about our nation have to die for a new America to be born?

Reflect in your wisdom journal. The wise voice in you will tell you what practice you need on the revolutionary love compass — when you need to breathe, push, grieve, rage, fight, and on. What do you need on any given day, in any given moment?  Calling forth our deepest wisdom is not just how we love ourselves. When we lead with our deepest wisdom, not our fear, we can play our role in transitioning the world around us. Imagine a critical mass of people leading from their deepest wisdom: We can transition humanity as a whole.

“Joy is the gift of love. To let in joy is to give our senses over to what is beautiful, delightful, pleasurable, or wondrous in the present moment. Joy returns us to everything good and beautiful and worth fighting for. It gives us energy for the long labor.”

What brings you joy? Choose one thing that is simple and accessible. A person, a place, or an activity that you could go to right now if you wanted to.

The Revolutionary Love Project envisions a world where love is a public ethic and shared practice in our lives and politics. We generate stories, tools, and thought leadership to equip people to practice the ethic of love in the fight for social justice.

‘…keep going.’

Ketchum, Idaho on Tuesday evening, September 15th. Smoke from the wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington has settled in Idaho.

The Department of Environmental Quality iAir quality is currently ‘unhealthy’ for sensitive groups.

When air quality is unhealthy, persons may experience health effects and should limit prolonged or heavy exertion and limit time spent outdoors. The general public is unlikely to be affected.

Voluntary burn ban for residential wood burning activities is in place.

Power Path

The New Moon in Virgo is Thursday, September 17 at 5:00AM Mountain Daylight Time

This New Moon in Virgo challenges us to get organized with our thoughts and intentions.

It challenges us to focus on clear practical communication and to take responsibility for the details of our lives.

It is time to get ready for the slow but steady crawling out from under intense change and to use the energy for solid transformation as the momentum builds.
It is important to keep your eye on the lofty goals for the future but not to get lost in the illusion or fantasy of what is true right at the moment. Keep your tasks practical and grounded, and keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what.

This is an important equinox as we ask ourselves, “what’s the plan?”. Instead of waiting for more clarity, work with what you have and set some practical intentions (always subject to change) for yourself. The most important lessons during this time are the ones that show you clearly what you do not want to dream up or manifest for yourself.

Take an inventory of what has not worked for you in the past, what you are complete with in your life, and give it all over to the West with great gratitude for being part of your container up until now.

You may not have the whole picture of where you are headed however you can begin to organize your energy by focusing on what brings you joy right now in these times and go from there. Beware of the mental quagmire of thoughts, anxieties and worries that have you spinning in circles. You cannot manifest a good future from the place of “too many thinking”.

The best way to use the Equinox is to practice gratitude, to focus on love and do something higher centered that gives you joy, preferably in nature.

[And wear your mask.]

The Equinox is Tuesday, September 22 at 7:31AM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).

Remember.

❥

Four things I know are true but have to remember to remember:

1. santosha (the joy is there, I just have to scan for the good)
2. impermanence (everything I love will someday disappear)
3. karma (what I give is what I get)
4. dukkah (suffering is wanting things to be different than they are)

-Abby Falik, Global Citizen Academy

https://www.globalcitizenyear.org

Jennifer Rose ❁

‘You must know what you believe & why. Only then can you know who you are & what sort of world you want to live in.’

From Gloom to Gratitude to Joy

“Lots of us have a bit of Eeyore’s angst and gloom.”

“When you’re experiencing a lot of stress, it’s easy to head into a downward spiral,” says Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University. She is trained as a psychologist and studies the ways positive emotions can influence people’s health and stress. She developed the program taught to the caregivers.”

NPR

Here’s a quick summary of the eight techniques used in Moskowitz’ study:

1. Take a moment to identify one positive event each day.
2. Tell someone about the positive event or share it on social media. This can help you savor the moment a little longer.
3. Start a daily gratitude journal. Aim to find little things you’re grateful for, such as a good cup of coffee, a pretty sunrise or nice weather.
4. Identify a personal strength and reflect on how you’ve used this strength today or in recent weeks.
5. Set a daily goal and track your progress. “This is based on research that shows when we feel progress towards a goal, we have more positive emotions,” Moskowitz says. The goal should not be too lofty. You want to be able to perceive progress.
6. Try to practice “positive reappraisal”: Identify an event or daily activity that is a hassle. Then, try to reframe the event in a more positive light. Example: If you’re stuck in traffic, try to savor the quiet time. If you practice this enough, it can start to become a habit.
7. Do something nice for someone else each day. These daily acts of kindness can be as simple as giving someone a smile or giving up your seat on a crowded train. Research shows we feel better when we’re kind to others.
8. Practice mindfulness by paying attention to the present moment. You can also try a 10-minute breathing exercise that uses a focus on breathing to help calm the mind.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/05/719780061/from-gloom-to-gratitude-8-skills-to-cultivate-joy

Joy within me.

Joy has come to live with me. How can I be sad?

I do so love Thy presence, which is joy within me.

-Ernest Holmes

Be like the bird

That, pausing in her flight

Awhile on boughs too slight,

Feels them give way

Beneath her and yet sings,

Knowing that she had wings.

-Victor Hugo

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your

grasp, but which if you will sit down quiet, may alight upon you.

-Nathanial Hawthorne

Joy is the realization of the truth of one-ness, the oneness of our soul with

the Supreme love.

-Ravindranath Tagore

Happy May. Happy new birth. Happy love.

Spontaneous Enthusiasm

The blade of grass may wither and petals fall from the flower, but the idea, “the word of the Lord…Gaia…endureth forever.

I know that all things are good when rightly used. I enter the game of living, then, with joyful anticipation, with spontaneous enthusiasm, and with the determination to play the game well and to enjoy it.”

-Ernest Holmes

Grief becoming joy.

‘Breathing in and out of the grief point as it becomes the touch point of the heart. Experiencing joy where once grief was felt, there arises a new confidence and gratitude. And that sweet ache of connection becomes like Krishna’s flute calling, offering its pain to the Beloved.’

-Stephen & Ondrea Levine