Magnificence Everywhere!
Aren't we magnificent? You. Me. Every one of us who is tapping into our compassionate, righteous, creative depths and figuring out how we can use our unique personal powers to contribute to our collective fight for justice.
Dear friends,
Aren't we magnificent? You. Me. Every one of us who is tapping into our compassionate, righteous, creative depths and figuring out how we can use our unique personal powers to contribute to our collective fight for justice. In the before times, when we could get through days at a time without being violently slapped by rapid-fire crises, we went about our daily lives without much need to out our inner heroes. These days, however, we are all being called upon to pull out the best of who we are and put our hero-selves to work. We all carry some level of magnificence within us (when I say 'we', please understand that I am under no illusions that this applies to the cruel assholes causing all the problems), and we are now living in a time where anyone who cares is finding ways to step up and join the growing throngs of magnificent resistors. That's you. That's me. That's the millions upon millions of us who are facing fascism and all kinds of cruel and stupid injustices, and saying, "Not on my watch." We have what it takes to fight this monster and we're doing it!
This or that?
For a while now I've found myself mainly thinking in terms of comparisons. For instance, as my local friend sends her sweet li'l trans daughter off to Grade 1 with very little worry (This wee one declared last year in Kindergarten that she was a girl, and while my friend was cool with it, she was worried what would happen at school. Kiddo announced it to her classmates at show & tell, and no one batted an eye, they just wanted to play with her. Teacher was cool too. As it should be.), one province over in Alberta, trans kids and their parents are facing an abundance of Province-fuelled oppression and hatred as this school year commences. While women in BC are receiving free period products, contraceptives, and access to abortion, women across the border are left to bleed out with pregnancy complications. We are bearing witness to the beauty and power created by millions of individuals finding ways to protest against fascism and genocide, but what would it look like if, one by one, each of these individuals decided not to show up? You get the idea.
So, when I declare that magnificence is everywhere, what I'm saying is that the personal and collective qualities that, in calmer times, we just assumed to be normal, now feel quite magnificent in comparison to some of the unbelievably vile personality traits and behaviours we are witnessing every day. It used to be that shitty people would generally try to mask some of their shittiness as, even they, understood that it was not generally acceptable. Now, however, it's a free-for-all for some of the most powerful people in the world to expose their most abhorrent selves and inflict their cruelty on all of us. Now is when we all step up and let them know that we are absolutely not going to let them carry through with turning our beautiful world into their own personal hellhole. Now is when we all pull out our goodness, our kindness, our fairness, our compassion, our creativity, our humanity that we just assumed were normal parts of who we are, and wear them like super-hero capes, empowering us to fight this fucking nightmare.
Rainbows Everywhere!
Imagine that! In a distinctly NOT magnificent move, in the dead of night a few weeks ago, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered the Pulse Memorial Rainbow Crosswalk painted over in black and white. Imagine being so petty and cruel and colourless as to demand the removal, of bright rainbows that don't just add beauty to dusty streets, but actually make everyone safer. Apparently, DeSantis is this petty and cruel and is having a hissy fit as Floridians refuse to obey his dull orders. The day after the Florida Dept. of Transportation pulled out their tins of black and white road paint to deface this beautiful memorial to the murder victims of Pulse Night Club (just following orders, eh?), Orlando showed up with chalk and paint, in all the colours of the rainbow to restore beauty in their communities. In fact, it seems that the more DeSantis stomps his angry homophobic feet, the more rainbows are springing up all over that state. Risking arrest from an increasingly totalitarian regime, so many magnificent Floridians are still showing up everywhere with their very pretty rainbows to show their love and support for the LGBTQ2+ community and their collective might against homophobic fascists.
Every time the black & white brigade try to remove rainbows from our daily lives, lo and behold, the colour-loving crowd unleash more rainbows everywhere, even around pot holes.
Magnificence appears in the least expected places!
Whoa! Even Marjorie Taylor Greene - by all accounts, one of the most despicable excuses for a human being - reached down into the depths of her dark soul and pulled out a tiny glimmer of her own personal magnificence recently. On September 3rd, when I joined the rest of the world to tune into the press conference being held by some of the survivors of the Epstein atrocities, I thought to myself that the blonde woman in the front bore an uncanny resemblance to MTG, generally known for being immensely shitty to folk who have experienced trauma. Obviously, this wouldn't, couldn't be the same Trump-loving monster we've all grown to know and loathe. But, SWEET JESUS! It was her! And, my goodness, did she ever step up for these brave survivors.
An equally gobsmacking and unexpected show of solidarity for these brave survivors has come from Rep. Thomas Massie who is one of the Republican congressdudes leading the charge to have the Epstein files released. For anyone such as myself seeing him for the first time at the survivors' press conference, you'd think he's an absolutely great guy. A quick Google search proves that, like MTG, he has a truly appalling track record when it comes to lacking human decency. And yet, there he was, demanding justice for these victims of Epstein's pedophile ring, and he continues to put his career on the line while demanding the release of those damned Epstein files. While I'm sure that both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie remain, on the whole, deeply unpleasant human beings, they have both managed to produce a hearty dose of decency for this very important call for justice. Miracles do happen. Magnificence is everywhere!
Let's change the narrative!
In her more recent newsletter, We Were Made for This, Rebecca Solnit (I told you I'm her biggest fan, but can you blame me?) writes about the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. Pointing directly to the nonsense coming out of the Whitehouse and supported by mainstream media, Rebecca says:
"There is a story about human nature that serves authoritarianism well: the idea that we are either too feckless or too vicious to function in the absence of strong authority backed by the threat of violence. That our weak, chaotic nature requires them and their domination and brutality."
But, as Rebecca points out over and over again, we're neither too feckless nor too vicious to function. I'm here to tell you that we are magnificent. We are bodies of flesh and blood and bones imbued with kindness and care, loving, strength, compassion, and justice. We are walking warehouses of goodness and courage, wisdom and expansive creativity. We are here for each other with all our magnificence. And, in these dark times, we all have the opportunity (and responsibility) to let our magnificence shine.
Rebecca goes on to say in her newsletter:
"Disasters are hell. But the way people respond, the experiences they have, the way they show up for each other can create a sort of paradise of generosity, solidarity, courage, immediacy, purposefulness."
We are deep in the throes of a major patriarchal disaster now. From the global governments either staying shtum, or actively participating in the genocide being committed before our very eyes (not to mention the ones we aren't seeing), to the cruel clown regime working out of Washington DC that is hellbent on destroying the rights and lives of anyone who is not a cis white dude, this disaster is wrought by the powers of the patriarchy and it is, indeed, hell.
This is a true story, and one we cannot ignore, but it is not the only story, and perhaps, it is not the main story. If we're going to tell this depressing story of concurrent hellish disasters, let's also tell the stories about the millions of magnificent individuals who are coming together in a million creative ways to fight this disaster, these crises, the patriarchy. Let's tell the stories of the rainbows that won't disappear. Let's tell the stories of the neighbours standing up to ICE to protect their neighbours who are under assault. Let's tell the stories of millions of people, from young children to old crones, protesting everywhere, all the time, over and over, to demand an end to Israel's unbearable crimes against humanity. Let's tell the stories about individuals who volunteer in their neighbourhoods, or make monthly donations to organizations doing important work, or post helpful information (or funny kitten videos) online, or harangue their political representatives, or make art.
We tell these better, happier stories to remind ourselves and each other that, yeah - a handful of shitmeisters are shitting everywhere and making things really shitty for far too many people, but there are waaaaaaay more magnificent people doing magnificent things, and we are each a vital part of this story. We tell these better, happier stories because they remind us what the best of humanity looks like and they remind us how to find the best of ourselves and bring this magnificent piece of who we are to the party.
With love & solidarity,
Jessica
