Beyond the Abyss: Love, Politics, and the Path to Healing

I have been asked about my politics, and for me, the answer is always the same: The personal is political. Our values, what we believe deep in our hearts, what aligns with our humanity, how we live our lives, how and where we spend our time, energy, and money—all of this is political.

And the political is collective. This means that we can only exercise personal freedom if we assess the consequences for the collective. There is no freedom we see from the top of a mountain that exists with the oppression of others.

And the political should never be human-centered. If we base our actions solely on humans' comfort, desires, and needs, we will inevitably hurt the greater network of relations, lands, animals, plants, rivers, and skies.

Ultimately, this web of relation, this deep interconnectedness, shows us that there is no healthy political without those ancestral foundations and instruction of deep respect, reciprocity, and care.

As we are in this portal of the Aquarius age, which might take decades, if not centuries, to unfold, we are in a birth canal. Deep, heavy, and heartbreaking events are piercing our sanity and asking us to feel, bear witness, and act (not react) from wisdom.

We can resent, blame, and project our unhealed pain on others; we can keep believing that greed, power, heartless billionaires, lack of morals, and humanity should lead the world, or we can step more deeply into our medicine, clear our pain, learn our tools, and follow the ancient collective heart.

Indeed, it often looks dark. Atrocious. Inhumane. Indeed, we will feel heartbroken and at a loss for words when many cheer death, violence, colonial agendas, and children screaming in pain. The system's design for disempowering the self and blurring the truth might even lead us to hopelessness, bypassing our feelings, self-centered decisions and short-term survival.

But we are called to root again, to ground again, and to remember again. The insanity should call our sanity. The heartless should call our heart. Greed should call our giving. The soulless should call our most profound empathy. And we need to tirelessly remember how humanity often went into the dark ages first to find its way back into the light.

I do not always know how to navigate such rugged and muddy terrain. I do not always find the word that eases the pain. I only sometimes know the right action that might bring us together. I am, like everyone, imperfectly searching for and calling love into the abyss.

But what I know is my ancient foundations. The work of my ancestors. The prayer that heals. The song that soothes. The relationships that care. The tools that lift the darkness. The fire that warms my soul. And the tears, the grief, that disempower the hate and the anger that want to take hold in me.

I follow that river that keeps me trusting. The breath that keeps me alive. The flame of hope and dream in my heart will not be extinguished by the darkness we collectively witness. I owe it to my daughter, to her future children, to the burning forest and the dying oceans, to the endangered species and the displaced refugees. I owe it to the next seven generations.

I want, on my death bed, on my last breath, to look back and say, "I was there, I did plant those seeds, I did nurture that land, I cared for the web of life, I moved away from the systems of war & oppression, I tirelessly studied the ancient ways, I lent a hand to some when I could, and I am at peace with this magical and yet troubled world."