Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains of Australia (mysterious photographer) (thinking about caves a lot this week)

How are we all holding up, Zephyr readers?  The news is rough and I have a lot to say today in the face of it

but I hope this finds you anchored firmly to whatever anchors you, and getting a lot of whatever's good for you.

I want to start with a story about Election Night in 2016,

since it's going to set us up for where we're going later.

Night of November 8th.   The results came in, the shock of Trump began.

I wept discreetly in the garden to avoid frightening the children, applied game face, came back in the house,

let them know that human history and the big wide Earth are full of times and places where people come to power that aren't good, we're not exempt, that's the deal here, it's happened a thousand times before and will happen again and we go on doing our best

and got them to bed. Then I fogged around in muffled horror with my husband for an hour or so, gave up and went to bed myself.   As I was lying there in that half-state between awake and asleep, something weird and wonderful happened.   I will never be able to explain it, source it, anything like that, and I'm going to screw it up for sure trying to get it across to you, but I want you to have the thing that was in it.

 The news out there today is so dark and this thing was so golden, see. 

Something, uh. How do I want to put this? Something or someone came to visit me.

I don't know what I knew first but here's what was there:

1. A collective presence of some kind came in close around me. I was not alone. But it was lovely, it was cozy. Nothing scary.   2. Something 100x better than the best pep talk I ever got was poured into my being. There was no sound, there were no words, not even in my head, but it went in the same as a pep talk. And it went on awhile, and shifted subtly, so it wasn't like a singular blast of good vibe. It was a talk, it was a message. It had, I don't know, narrative, or reasoning. Arc, a quality of development. I just couldn't hear it is all. I felt it.   3. My emotional state shifted from despair to maximum elated peace, if that can be a thing. It was gorgeous. I basked.  4. The messenger? or messengers? whatever they were? LOOK, I HAVE NO IDEA were as close to me as the air is to my skin, and they weren’t temperature-warm, but they were warm, it all felt golden, and I couldn't even remember despair with this cloud of presence there. I never wanted it to leave.   5. It went on until I fell asleep

    and when I woke up I was devastated again and the world looked horrendous and I wept getting ready for work and on the drive to work and in the elevator up to work and in the bathroom at work and at my desk, etc,  you know.         BUT THE THING IN BETWEEN HAPPENED.   It was real. That...event, whatever it was...gave me an infusion of something beautiful that I still draw on.   What else do I want to say about this? It was better than hope while it was happening, but what it left behind was hope.  I'm going to try to reach into that silent pep talk memory cloud and get something we can share.    

cave painting, Dordogne

 I don't know what you see when you flash on human history in your own mind,   the timeline, and the mental picture you see representing the span of it   I see something like a long, dark, earthy tunnel with pockets of light. The idea, I guess, in my mental picture is that the Earth is fundamentally a dark place, a place for heavy experiences. We gather around fires and each other for solace and togetherness and we always at least have that firelight. Sometimes it gets very dense and dark, and then sometimes a column of light appears in answer—something different than our normal fires—a column of light that rises up/shoots down/who knows which way it goes. Those columns represent flashes of human greatness, the kind born of extra necessity.   That's what I see.

and I think everyone carries the seed of this greatness, by the way, but activating it or coming in with it already lit is another thing

Anyway. We're in a heavy, foul patch of the history tunnel.

Forces of darkness are real, and not just the embodied human kind.  I think there's a streak of darkness working through the universe that takes advantage of our worst human tendencies and works us where it can like so many puppets. 

And I think that those forces of darkness like to eat our despair and get stronger.

Thomas Allen, Two One

Let's talk about resistance

You don't need for me to talk to you about political resistance. You know by now who to call, what to say, where to donate, and if you don't, you know where to find that information, and if you don't know where to find that information, you know someone that does. I do not have something new for you there. I think you also know that this is the time to call, to say, to donate, etc. This is the time to do things.

I'm talking about cultivating the gold thing that cuts through darkness and stands you up like a column of light

JOYFUL RESISTANCE PRACTICES FOR DARK TIMES

1. Engage without fetishizing and reinforcing conflict

Food for thought: The significance of plot without conflict   If you care about storytelling, that's a great read. (Thanks to the brilliant Tamiko Nimura for bringing it to my attention.) 

I'm asking you to imagine that you're a gigantic being of immeasurable force.

 Imagine that when you put your foot down, it goes down with thunderousness and finality. When you act, you act from the core of your being and your action goes out to and past the horizon and affects everyone in its reach, which is everyone everywhere.  What's the energy you want sweeping over your adversaries and everyone else all at once? If it's going to blow through everybody alive, what will it hold?

Choose that.

 Picture each action you take ten thousand times the size it seems to be on the surface. Fill it with the energy you want it filled with, how you would want the next giant over to fill it when you know it's going to blow through you.   Because it is blowing through you. We're not discrete packets of humanity. We mix constantly.

2. some notes from my Notes on keeping your resistance fresh

3. An Energizing, Despair-Banishing Practice

I learned about this practice recently from Damien Echols' book "High Magick" (which right there at the title you'll know is for you or not) (the book, I mean) (I think everyone should experiment with this practice) and I've been working with it and digging it. It's simple and straightforward.   The Fourfold Solar Breath (first one's the fuller version, then I'll pop in the simpler version that I do)

and here's the quicker version  

btw, here's an article from Rolling Stone How Damien Echols Used Magick to Survive Death Row  and here's a cool interview with him on Buddha at the Gas Pump

4. AND FINALLY

Look around and enjoy the hell out of your chosen companions in this place, the ones close to you and the ones far away that you admire. Look sideways and backwards in time. Contemplate the people doing beautiful things, the people who did beautiful things. Give them attention, study their talents, try their moves. Let the thought and the sight of them lift you up.  Look who you ride with. Right? Columns of flipping light!    

We're in good company making our way through this place. I hope you bask in it.

Love, strength, solidarity. XO