The tactics that this administration is using to flood us with so much, so fast, is working — at least on me.
I feel the sand my head is buried in — it’s in my ears and my eyes. It’s filling my mouth, and yet I still can’t seem to lift my head out.
I’m thinking of my parents a lot right now, and how disappointed they both would be with me, at the slow walking I’m doing, through a heavy mud, rather than running on the hard ground and doing something — anything.
I’m not resisting, I’m not fighting like I did the first time around, and instead I’m sitting here at home, clutching my…I don’t have pearls…so I’m clutching at my moonstone and the smooth blue glass I found on the beach one summer. I’m clutching at that.
Besides listening to a lot of podcasts, reading the headlines and skimming the articles. Besides signing all the petitions and donating to the causes I care about, while keeping my eye on the editorial cartoons, I’m not doing a whole lot of anything, and I don’t know why.
I feel like we — all of us in this country right now — are living in a house of terror. That we are deep inside a domestic violence, and that we can’t get out. That we can’t find the strength — all of us together — to smash through the windows and run, because:
The secret police and the snatching of people off the streets, disappearing them somewhere, we don’t know where: are they somewhere in The United States, or have they been taken to South Sudan, El Salvador, now possibly Uganda.
The silencing of radio, news, and information in rural areas where it is needed the most.
The Smithsonian and The Kennedy Center. What is happening with The Smithsonian and The Kennedy Center? The banning of books and the chills up my spine.
No more research for Covid vaccines? No preparedness for the next pandemic which we all know is coming?
Cutting the funding for research for cancer? FOR CANCER.
Medicaid cuts, SNAP cuts, cuts to reproductive health, firing federal workers, and is this true — that we may not have much of a Department of Education anymore, but that there is talk of creating a Department of War?
The hard stop of wind power projects — some of them so close to being done — and instead the re-opening of coal power plants? What?
Ignoring the starvation of Gaza; the pain and destruction of Gaza. How is that helping the hostages?
And the war in Ukraine — it is still raging.
All the things I am not mentioning — like what’s going to happen during the mid-term elections, like the gerrymandering, like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth re-posting a video from a pastor who believes woman do not have the right to vote.
Why are we not out in the streets, pounding our feet and our fists, on the streets? Where is the uprising?
I’m not out there; not out there at all. Like I said, I’m sitting here at home, so who am I to say.
But do you know? Know what to do and how to move more skillfully through the wreckage, because the water — it is rising.
Underwater Sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor.
xo,
Joanna
PS: Not about the world right now, but about two mountain retreats, up here at the house.
Come if you can, to one or to both because I think — I hope — they will nourish, vitalize, and excite:
The Inside Out and Upside Down: Sept 20th and 21st
Join Laura Brenton and Joanna Rotkin for an imaginative workshop blending painting and movement. Through guided structures and space for discovery, we’ll explore how movement can become visual, and how visual forms can move us. All are welcome—no experience needed, just curiosity.
The Comfort Zone: October 4th and/or October 5th:
Many people say we need to get out of our comfort zone if we want to grow -- like the comfort zone is a stuck place. But what if we want to get in the comfort zone, because that zone can be a good option for growing?
Join Ethan and Joanna for a weekend retreat about getting more familiar -- giddy even -- about following the path of least resistance in our movement and our stillness. In this workshop we braid two movement forms built around effortlessness and ease: Feldenkrais and The Sky Inside.
We explore and drop into the effervescent states these two forms create ground for — in our bodies and our breath. We also explore the paradox of how/why it can be uncomfortable getting comfortable, and how/why it can be unpleasant when accessing our own pleasure (hint hint: getting in our own way, expectations, “the shoulds,” the right way vs. the wrong way, etc., etc.).
Through sustained engagement with our movement, our stillness, and our own inclinations, the wholeness of who we are, exactly as we are, has the opportunity to make itself more proudly known.
Click here for more info about both.
dancing in the shop, when it was still Glen’s shop
More soon,
Jo
PS. I shouldn't have said--oh you're doing so much--I mean you are but yes there are immediate ways to take action, as you sent us! Thank you! That's the thing. What first thing can I do. I'm going to do what she said as well--the second post you sent us.
You articulate this so well, Jo. I don’t have answers & I have the same inertia. It’s like a spell is being cast & our voices are stolen. I sense we are waiting until the worst is over to come crawling out of our shelters into the light to begin to repair the damage. But the damage is ongoing & terrifying and the overwhelm is real. I want to roll up my sleeves & begin the clean up work but the hurricane is still raging, there is no breath, so we can’t really begin the repair. The martial law in DC, LA & soon San Fran & NYC is such a violation & can you imagine if Dems did this? The guns would be blazing. And the sad truth is that many of us in the US see this as tolerable in exchange for promises that won’t ever materialize. Thank you for writing boldly about it. It is very important that we name these things even when we are feeling paralyzed to act. I hope wiser folks than me have a game plan I can lend myself to soon.