Choose Your Leaders Well

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November 5
Day 5: Dispatches from the Belly of Empire

Anna the Prophetess Appears on the Capital Steps
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Anna the Prophetess stands on the Capital steps.
At just over two thousand years of age,
it’s no wonder you can see the autumn light
shining through her. Even leaves
tossed up by the breeze sift through her shimmer.

Of course you must allow yourself to hope, she says
You should join the whirling dances in the street.
She points a gnarled finger at your heart.
But spend your trust wisely.
Now is the time for reckoning.
Accountability is not the same as vengeance.
It is not the time to reach across the aisle
unless you know for certain
that the hand you take is not defiled
by corruption, rape, and murder,
or from protecting those who do.

A gust of wind blows through her,
and she fades into a ray of sunlight,
but you can hear her voice in the distance
as if calling down a long tunnel:
Choose your leaders well,
but put your real trust in your neighbors.

On the Nature of a Blue Wave

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Day 4: Dispatches from the Belly of Empire

On the Nature of a Blue Wave
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

On this day in the belly of Empire,
it seems the world might be saved,
when the waves of change
bring in a new tide, widening
the seas of possibilities.

And, too, we knew
that much of the power
behind the flood was
not the ones who’ve kept the good
of our neighbors at heart,
but those who’ve bought the lies
of phobic thinking, who last time voted
robotically in their own self-interest,
and have done so yet again.

Gentle Citizens, today we celebrate.
And tomorrow we get down to work.
Too much has been lost,
(and now so much re-gained)
to let this tide wash out again
unless we secure the treasures
washed upon the beach,
the rights we long thought lost.

It’s a Choice

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Day 3: Dispatches from the Belly of the Empire

Choice
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

It’s a choice between the devil
between the devil and the deep
the deep
between the devil and
the deep blue wave.

Draw the Circle

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Second: Draw the Circle
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Today we set our hair on fire.
We call upon the ancient matriarchs,
the giants and the hags who crossed the hedge,
who shifted shape to rabbit, to raven, to spider, to bear,
to antlered child running through forest.

Today we draw a circle
ringed about with women,
hair ablaze, and raging,
a community creating safety
for all who long for shelter,
women circled round,
a boundary of sisters enkindled.

Tomorrow the ballots will be cast
like spells.

Dispatches from the Belly of Empire

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Hello November! It’s time for another round of poem-a-day.

This year’s poems will be Dispatches from the Belly of Empire, notes and reports about living in the dangerous moment of a waning democracy.

First: Hold The Line
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

You say that times are dire
and I will not try to dissuade you
from your despair. The fires
have indeed sprung up around us.
Just don’t let go of the rope
which ties you to your neighbor,
the hope, slim as it may feel
as it slips through your fingers,
that justice will prevail.

A Brief for the Reckoning

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by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Whereas he has harmed her;
Whereas he has hid the harms
that his brethren have done her;
Whereas he has forced entry;
Whereas he has broken her doors
and made her afraid;

Whereas he has taken what is not his–
namely her body,
namely her peace of mind,
namely her sense of safety,
namely her agency;

Whereas he has controlled her
and forced her submission;
Whereas he has set himself above her;
Whereas he has turned a deaf ear
to the sound of her voice;
Whereas he has denied her her sovereignty;
Whereas he has created a god
to bless his wars and pillaging
and denied her the comforting arms
of her divine mother;

It is hereby resolved:
There shall be a reckoning–

The trees shall be told, and the rivers,
the creatures of the woods, and the birds of the air.
To the fish shall it be made known,
to the winds and the waters,
to the dancing flame, and to the stones.
Nemesis with Furies, and Medusa,
shall bring him his due.

He shall be brought to account.
Both his deeds and his refusal to act
when confronted with her harm
shall visit him in nightmare;
He shall absorb her fear as his own;
Her voice shall echo in the chamber of his skull
night and day, ceaselessly;
He shall feel in his body
the battlefield he has made of hers;

He shall speak a word
and no one believe him;
He shall cease to prosper;
His power shall wane and diminish;
His brothers shall call him out and name him.
His vitality, drawn from her sorrow and labor,
shall be drained away;
His fortunes, wrought by her travail,
shall vanish.

In witness whereof,
her sisters shall stand vigil.
So mote it be.

Shell Game

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If we know anything about the Trump administration, we know that it’s a constant shell game, constant sleight of hand, flooding the signal with ever more preposterous and bizarre antics in order to cover up for some new grift, scandal or war crime.

So, I watched in agonized secondary mortification as Katie Zacharia stumbled through her first press conference like a fifth grader reading her first five-paragraph essay. And I wonder, What is she meant to distract us from? Likely it had something to do with calling our attention away from the war crime being committed when the White House commanded Starshield to disrupt communications in Ukraine.

Is it the Relentless and Indomitable Katie Phang’s continuing pressure to release all the Epstein Files? Is it to get us looking away from the inhuman and brutal culture of fraternities before someone goes digging into the frat histories of members of the administration?

Maybe they’re trying to distract us from the rising questions about war crimes Hegseth is committing in the Caribbean.

Or from the No Kings rally coming up today. Or their attempt to intimidate people from voting. Or their attempt to rig the vote.

Or the fact that the President and his family and his cronies are stealing billions from the American people.

If you get a mail-in ballot, fill it out and send it in today.

Go here to find a No Kings rally near you. Join the movement for democracy.

Waking the Goddess

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Illustration by Arthur Rackham

There was an old woman lived under a hill,
and if she’s not gone, she lives there still.

I’ve been thinking again about the poem about the old woman who lives under the hill, the woman who is the Goddess, sleeping, still there, always there, as she has been through these many hundreds of years of patriarchy. Thinking about how I can feel her Awakening again. How I want my prayers to awaken her.

Thinking about the maidens in Faerie Tales who fall asleep for a hundred years. Thinking about Mother Mary in her Dormition, falling into sacred sleep as she is transported to heaven.

And then as I was howling in my prayer this week, it struck me again how we do magic for our selves. How are prayers and our desires have to begin in the work we do in ourselves. And so waking up the Goddess means waking myself up. And waking myself up again. And waking and waking and waking and waking myself again and again and again and staying awake.

And now, when I pray the Glorious Mysteries, and I reach the Mystery of the Dormition, I am calling it the Mystery of the Awakening, and I am Mary, and Mary is the Goddess, and we are all the Earth. And we are howling ourselves Awake.

And we are shaking off the patriarchy with the circles we are building, the baskets and the bowls, the linked hands and arms–where we protect the children and the elderly, the vulnerable, those who need respite. We are setting the captives free. We are raging in the streets. We are howling at our sister the moon. We are waking and waking and waking and waking.

The End: 100 Days (100)

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Tying Up Loose Ends

Day 100:

Here are four of my finished (and nearly finished projects) from the last 100 days. The quilt is a fifth project that I worked on.  I also made a couple hundred hearts and flowers, and dolls for Radiance.

I have learned quite a bit about myself during the months of this project:

1. While I do sometimes abandon projects because I forget about them or get a little bored or get busy with other things, I think the main reason I have abandoned projects is when I hit a problem-solving challenge that overwhelms me, or when I don’t like what something looks like, and I am too overwhelmed to take it back a step and re-do. I am doing a lot of inner work and mindfulness meditations right now to break my cycles of overwhelm and self-criticism.

2. It is SOOOO satisfying to finish a garment! I don’t know how many times I have heard myself say, “I don’t have the attention span for big projects.” Ugh. Well, I have disproved that to myself right now, and I am definitely making myself more garments!

3. Working with others is incredibly inspiring. During this 100 Days, my friend Michael asked me to teach him and some other friends to knit. We’ve met three times, and one of the crew has finished a baby blanket and a baby hat, and most of the others are far along on scarves, and I am incredibly inspired.

4. Bamboo yarn may be hard to work with, but the finished cloth has such a beautiful drape, and it feels luxurious on the skin.

5. I see texture and color differently when I spend part of every day working with texture and color.

6. Art doesn’t have to be slogans and rage in order to be an act of Resistance. Authoritarians are against humor and art and tenderness and beauty. Create those things in everyday life, and you are doing acts of Resistance.

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@dothe100dayproject
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