Perspectives

Last week - looking back

The other day as I was relaxing in the hot tub at my local rec centre, my aquafit buddy remarked that I had come across as uncomfortably angry in my last newsletter. Kind of ironic as I'd been writing all about how I've been letting go of my rage just a few weeks previously. But, I mean, who can blame me for feeling so pissed off last week (last month, last year, this week...) with all the crimes against humanity and the planet going on? I think that most of us who are paying attention are feeling furious, heartbroken, befuddled, scared, and totally fed up. However, I know full-well that allowing these exhausting responses to consume me is decidedly unsustainable. As I keep noting, we're in this for the long haul. What do you need to do to stay healthy, stay strong, stay in the game as we re-imagine a world free from the ills of patriarchy?

Love is love. Love will get us through.

I missed Pride this year, but couldn't get enough of the videos and photos I saw online. So. Much. Joy. It was just what I needed after last week's dive into anger and grief. And, here's the thing - there were more than 80,000 people at this year's Victoria Pride celebration, bedecked in all the colours of the rainbow, with big, happy grins on every face. More than 80,000 people of all ages, loving this organized eruption of love. More than 80,000 people rejecting the toxic patterns of exclusion and destruction, and choosing love instead. This year's Pride celebration was yet another great reminder of how beautiful we humans can be. Yet another great reminder that most of us choose love and kindness and inclusion and joy and all the colours of the rainbow over the dark, cruel, lonely, and utterly unimaginative narrative we are being sold everyday.

Binary schminary! On nourishing ourselves.

I've been thinking a lot about how, like it or not, our world is moving towards a less binary way of being, not just in terms of gender, but in all the places where we've created (false) binary boxes for life to exist. I have learned sooooo much from my own non-binary kiddo and their community over the past 6 or 7 years. Victoria is a bit of a haven for the gender nonconforming crowd, and I've gotta say, my heart skips a beat whenever I spy these individuals embracing their uniqueness, boy/girl binary, be damned! I feel quite strongly that the people who are choosing to openly live as trans and/or non-binary are just at the forefront of the world that's coming, and I carry a huge amount of gratitude for their courage and leadership.

Of course, I'm not alone in thinking this. On Tuesday, my friend Erin posted this wonderful observation about how we should be making the most of our opportunities to live in a less binary way:

Today is International Non-Binary Persons Day. And it’s also a new moon in Cancer. Most people know Cancer as a maternal, loving sign - all about the feelings and care and support. Like so many things in our world, we often focus on the outward manifestation of that energy and neglect the invisible, the inward way that this energy manifests.

At its core, Cancer energy is about belonging. Not just belonging to a group of people or a family system, but belonging to yourself first and foremost. It’s about caring for oneself and nurturing and nourishing oneself. Before we can nourish or nurture anyone else, we have to get good at doing it for ourselves.

It’s beautifully fitting then, for the new moon in Cancer to be the same day as International Non-Binary People's Day. Because when it comes down to it, the movement towards gender awareness, regardless of the outward expression, is all about the nourishment and nurturing of oneself. Perhaps that’s actually why it gets so much flack and hate, especially for people who have never learned to love or nourish themselves.

There’s an energy within Cancer, which can look like belonging, regardless of the cost to oneself. The over-giving of oneself to the point of burnout. The taking care of others while burning with resentment within. Some might call this the dark side of Cancer, but I would suggest that maybe it’s the unconscious, conditioned side of Cancer. It’s the part of Cancer energy that asks someone to give up everything they are in order to care for those around them.

A new moon in Cancer offers us a chance to plant new seeds. To do it differently. To honour our own needs without denying the call to love each other. To pay attention to how we are nurtured or nourishing ourselves in a way that allows us to nourish and nurture others.

Exploring gender allows us on an individual level to look deeply at where we have been conditioned, where we are unconscious in our responses, and where we are denying our own truth to care for other people. It allows us then to choose a different path. To choose to nourish and nurture and care for ourselves first. To not give up who we are in order to love each other other. To not stay within the box we were given at birth in order to belong. But to belong first and foremost to ourselves.

I have a theory that every time some one comes out as trans, another brick in the wall of patriarchy turns to dust. Be sure to thank your trans friends for helping to hasten the demise of the patriarchy.

Up, down. Forward, backward. Left, right. Male, female. It's all about perspective.

All that to say that, every day we are confronted with new horrors from the worst of humanity, but at the same moments that our hearts are breaking, we can also bear witness to amazing acts of love from the best of humanity. I am certainly no stranger to the depths of despair, but it's not a place I like to linger. The rungs on my ladder for climbing out of these dark places are the lessons we take from history that there have always been shitty people and excruciating times, and they have always, always passed, even when it seemed that they will last forever.

I also like to look to the future where I can envision the likes of the entire Trump clan dressed in orange jumpsuits, locked behind bars. Stephen Adolf Miller. Pete Hegseth. Kash Patel. Kristi Noem. Netan-fucking-yahu. All of them, put on trial for all the obscene crimes they have committed. All of them left to rot in the for-profit prisons they adore. Justice served. Can you picture it? Can we make it so?

Keeping fit for the long haul

How are you nurturing and nourishing yourself these days? I go to the public pool (yay, socialism!) twice a week for aquafit classes. I love splashing around in the pool with dozens of other old ladies (and a few old men), but perhaps the thing I love most about my mornings at the pool is observing all the other people who are there for the sole purpose of self care. There are the older folks with walkers who find freedom once they are submerged in the water. There are the early-morning retired hot tub dudes who have found their social milieu in this pool of hot swirling water. There are the sauna and steam room devotees. I am obsessed with the older Chinese gentleman who does Qi Gong in the kiddies' pool. High schoolers and college kids get there early to swim laps. And that's not to mention the individuals of all shapes, sizes and ages who are working out in the gym located above the pool area. All of us show up to this wonderfully subsidized (I'll say it again - yay, socialism!) facility to do what feels beneficial for us on a uniquely personal level, to maintain our wellbeing - mental, emotional, and physical. Being the sensitive flower that I am, bearing witness to this wonderful collection of individuals committing to self care makes me want to weep with sentimental joy. Being privy to these moments of raw humanity each week is one of the things that reminds me of how delightful humans can be.

The patriarchal systems are designed to make us to fear each other, fear those who have seized power, fear scarcity and loss. But, when we look around, the world is so much more beautiful than the stories they tell us. The world is full of millions of people attending joyful Pride parades in almost every corner of this earth. The world is full of wonderfully unique characters who frequent your local pool or library or other public space. The world is full of neighbours helping neighbours, strangers helping strangers, people who are figuring out how to love each other and spread kindness and support. The world is full of breathtaking natural beauty. There's no denying that we're living through a very scary time with very shitty people doing very shitty things. I don't believe that we can ignore them, and we must do all we can to fight them, but we also cannot dwell on them when there is so much to love in the world. As Andrea Gibson said, "In the end, I want my heart to be covered in stretch marks.

Love you all - Jessica (she/her)