When Desire Does a Bait and Switch

He fell hard for the dream he projected onto her. She was a match to his imagination, and the fire caught on dry tinder, years in the making. She was the "if only" of his fantasies, and he could see the far horizons of possibility in her -- a playmate, a travel buddy, a perfect fit for all the good times. We can make our world just right, he said, no problems, not muss, no fuss, all fun and comfort. It came as a surprise when she asserted her difference, stepping outside his narrow slice of what he thought was possible. The real journey, she said, lay within, a place he had locked up tight in the taboo of never-in-this-life; too much pain there, the thing he avoided most, the thing that ran him, the silent advisor behind all of his decisions, that raw nerve of loss. He had braided suffering into the inevitable pain that comes with a life and had identified with that. One might say that this was the end, but one would be mistaken. The departure from the known, the line of sight he thought was all there was, became an answer to a question he didn't know he was asking. There was a more to this life than he imagined and it took a shattering of the self and the surrender to a heart breaking open to loosen the scales from his eyes.

Darkness Is On the Move

Some Americans, roughly a third of us, have chosen the Dark Side: fear, greed,violent domination, regimentation, -- meanness. They/we have chosen not to work through their shadows, the trauma hidden in the psyche. They/we choose instead to locate the "enemy" "out there," in people of color, poverty, and lack of power -- immigrants and other marginalized groups, mainly, but also anyone who disagrees with them. These/we Americans hate and want to destroy these "enemies." They/we will destroy every vestige of democracy to do so. They/we are like a snake eating itself out of anger, spite, and terror of its own, self-created monsters.

The other two thirds of Americans, if they want to live in a freer, more democratic state, have to organize and regain power. It will take courage to stand up to the brutality of a police state. It will require that we overcome differences to work together to reinstate a democracy. 

The times will be hard, because the fearful, our brothers and sisters, have already erected walls, fences, and weapons. Courage, community, and clarity of vision are the tools we need and have to use. 

The work is there, waiting. The consequences of denial or forfeit of action will be dire, for we all will enter a long night of shadow.