I’m trying to practice non-outrage. Mindful awareness of the dangers of powerful narcissists and greed-heads, but non-outrage in the response. They feed on our outrage (and by they, I mean he).
So. Attention not to the energy-vampires, but to the quiet, dedicated ones who keep going, keep doing, keep meeting the needs. Attention to the hurting ones, to the seekers, to my own unmoored emotions.
I will no longer feed the ravenous energies of the attention-whores in the halls of power.
Starve them, I say. No more oxygen, no more yeast, no more feeding.
They prey upon our energies, these public carrion eaters, draining, destroying, getting larger and more vicious with each ounce of outrage and anxiety we place into their bowls. They howl for more. And we give it to them.
No more, I say. (At least for now. At least as long as I can stay mindful.)
Let’s circle up, tell our own brilliant stories, share our laughter and our poems, plan the revolution.
Sure, we’ll poke holes in the balloons of lies and destroy the shining facades to reveal the rotting heart, but not through outrage and fear. Step into the circle. Let’s turn our faces away from the bullies who can survive only as long as we give them attention.
The bullies we contend with will not hesitate to find some small and vulnerable one to harm in order to get our attention, so let’s be ready to step in and stop harm, let’s shore up the walls of protection, but always with our backs to the bullies, our focus on the need, on healing the harm.
Gratitude List:
1. Sourdough bread for supper. My Local Flock of Yeast is getting excitable. I almost set them free yesterday, but they showed me their stuff.
2. Whole Wheat flour. I had to go to school just one more time, to find a couple things before my classroom was dismantled, so I went to Miller’s and found whole wheat flour!
3. Reminders that I am not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone.
4. The way the sun is slanting through the house at this time of morning.
5. The way trees bud in pink and orange andred before the green leaves pop out.
May we walk in Beauty!
“At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude.” —Eston Williams
“Free me. . .from words, that I may discover the signified, the word unspoken in the darkness.” —Byzantine Prayer
“Some days, you don’t know whether
you are stepping on earth or water or air.
Place each foot carefully before you
and offer your weight gratefully to
whatever it is that holds you.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider
“Father, Mother, God,
Thank you for your presence
during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.
For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak.
For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love out
in waterfalls of tenderness.
For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them
in the river of your healing.
Dear Creator, You, the borderless
sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the
world that which we need most—Peace.”
—Maya Angelou
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
—Leonard Bernstein
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.”
—Mary Oliver
“If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” —Harper Lee
Mockingbird Chronicles 