Last time Trump won, in 2016, I encouraged, rallied, gave the pep talk.
I called you to stand up, be loud, be the change you wanted to see in the world.
I said it was more important than ever to hold the light, have your say, raise your voice.
And it was.
But this time?
My partner came in from the office, and I was barefoot in the kitchen. I’d made dinner. I was wearing a dress.
I assured him I’d not had any intelligent thoughts, and I’d not gone near the bookshelf or accessed anything that might cause me to think. I asked how much food he wanted on his plate, and served it to him with a facetious little, “Is this how it is now? Are you happy with this?”
“It must be so scary for you right now,” he said.
“Yes. Yes it is.”
It was scary last time too. 2016 was a voyage into the unknown, a blank space where unknown dangers lurked in the guise of funhouse clowns.
This time it’s different, because it’s a known threat. It feels like there’s more at stake, because there is.
This time I have no words.
What I do have is a bone-deep weariness.
I know that I’ll get up in the morning to a new day and a new determination, one day soon.
I know that we get to process our feelings and then step up again, shoulders back and chin up. Ready to defend.
I know to remember to breathe. And regulate my nervous system in all the ways I know how. And limit news media I consume.
But this time around the weariness feels all-consuming.
When do we get to the bit where it gets better?
When does unity and equity and looking out for others happen?
When do we get to save our burning planet?
When do we get to not be scared, look our children in the face and assure them that everything will work out without feeling like liars?
I close my eyes and I sink. And sink. And sink.
The blackness – its velvet calls to me, a song of deep despair that’s almost sweet.
It’s exhausting hoping against hope all the time. Optimism leaches the strength from my bones, the calcium of long-gone fossils evaporating and leaving me crumbled, a pile of dust on the footpath.
The wind scatters my molecules and now I’m free on the breeze I can see women all over the globe.
Hope, crushed.
Fear, amplified.
Rights, at stake.
If I still had a heart that beat in my chest, it would ache for the fear of my trans family, my LGBTQIA+ brethren.
But I am dust, not even a whisper on the cheek of the woman waiting to cross the road. She can’t see me, but I know she’s wondering if a time is coming when she’ll be up against the administration, wishing she still had the right to decide what happens to her body, herself. If I had a body right now, I would be wondering too.
I keep remembering my 2016 fire and determination; my rallying call to arms. If I poke the embers, will they ignite? No, they won’t. And I can’t muster the energy to do it again. To inspire, shout, push, activate. It feels so loud, so masculine, so patriarchal to call it a fight. To rally people to the front lines and inspire them to march, and win.
Instead, I want to meld with the darkness. I want to sink, to rest. To be held.
It’s time to descend. Renounce the brittleness of battling for recognition, pleading for rights, begging for scraps at the table.
Remember, without us, the possibility of the table wouldn’t exist, and neither would the people around it.
It’s time to descend. To sink into that fertile depth, where the possibilities of the feminine thrum and thrive. The dark womb of creation that patriarchy fears. The well we all spring from and where we return.
It’s time to descend. Voyage into ourselves and recognise that what we’ve striven for over thousands of years, is right there. Inside in the velvet black.
It’s time for the return of the feminine.
We are the answer we’re looking for.
We can breathe and remember how to tend to ourselves. Regulate our own nervous systems, speak in the codes and tongues only we know. We can recall the deep knowing, the truth that’s so powerful we periodically forget it because you can’t see a forest when you’re among the trees, but the trees are all around and we are the trees, the leaves, the dirt and the whole damned ecosystem down to the twigs, beetles and mycelium.
We are the answer we’re looking for.
And we don’t have to fight.
We’ll do this our way now.
The way we’ve always done it. We gave patriarchy a chance to have it happen their way: with an overt female president in the US, a structure that can be understood.
But they chose otherwise, and that’s ok. Patriarchy now has to live with its choice, and may it be the choice it so richly deserves.
We’ll do this our way now, in the dark spaces of rest, in the sweet cocoon of the underworld, where fragrant teas and soft singing mingles with the teaching of the mysteries of how we live.
We don’t fear the descent because it’s a letting-go, and that’s something we’re good at. We’ve always let go, borne the pain of loss, the wrench of disconnection. We’ve learned that it’s not an ending but a beginning; the loss must occur so we can renew.
Our connection is inside us, and we choose to descend, and in our descent and rest we’re renewed.
We have a healing room inside us. (Thanks Sinead O’Connor)
And the patriarchy won’t know where to look to find us.
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