There are only ever 2 choices to be made. In the nuance and confusion of our “alternative facts” world, there are still only two choices available.

We are choosing bridges or we are choosing walls.

That’s it. That’s all.

What do I choose?

George Lakoff’s “Strict Father” is a model I return to when I’m grappling with the steady increase in fear and fascism. It illustrates how our fall into authoritarianism and oppression starts in our family roots and is hardwired learning, not a question of good or evil.

One of the main divergences between those who support totalitarian regimes and those that don’t, is the foundational belief in the nature of the world. Seriously.

Those that tend towards fascism fundamentally believe that the world is not a safe place, and you have to fight to protect yourself and those you love, at all costs. This fear is so total that any level of oppression and violence is acceptable to keep “us” safe from “them”.

This is the first wall.

This or that

Safety vs. fear, co-operation vs. competition, abundance vs. scarcity, victim vs. power, community vs. the lone wolf, indigenous vs. colonizer… which ever binary you choose fabricates your experience of reality and how you interact with people and communities we deem “unlike” our own.

The collective choice in how we see the nature of reality literally creates the world.

There is no objective world - we are choosing at all times what this world is, and we are choosing not just for ourselves. How we perceive others and then make up laws and reasons and institutions around those perceptions changes the structures of our collective reality. How we perceive and treat others cannot fail to impact their world experience as well.

I don’t fear evil.

Evil doesn’t exist. It’s just a word for the belief in separation. It’s Separation Sickness. There is nothing that exists in this Creation that isn’t, at source, part of the whole. That’s the reality of existence - worthy and valuable for existing in Creation.

Ogichitibakonigaywin. The Great Binding Law.

What I fear is ignorance and cowardice. In myself and in others.

The cowardice is choosing to hide and stay silent in our daily lives. The cowardice is the fear of speaking truth to power in the everyday. The cowardice is avoiding all the small moments, every day where we can stand for truth bigger than ourselves, to stand for the world that we believe is available to us if we’re willing to be uncomfortable for just a second.

It so often seems easier to give in and go along and nod and agree that things are awful and that’s just the way it is and there’s nothing that can be done and it’s just always been this way and will always be this way.

That is the cowardice that opens the door to fascism.

As our systems crumble, many will choose fear and fascism because it seems like the obvious right choice. Many will choose fear and fascism because those around them are too scared to stand for a better choice.

When we are afraid to build bridges we allow walls.

Defencelessness seems insane when we feel threatened, but it is the only right action if we want to build bridges and avoid the walls that lead to war. To defend ourselves turns the “other” into an enemy that attacks. We build walls to keep ourselves safe; but walls isolate us into the separation of good and evil, right and wrong, the just and the corrupt.

Boundaries are not defense. Boundaries are the parameters of our own action. Boundaries are the guidelines of our acceptance and are not an action or control of other people.

Have boundaries. Build bridges.

Hard Truths (sorry / not sorry)

In a world of violent oppressors, there will always be more and greater violence. Eventually all oppressors become those oppressed.

There is no guarantee of physical safety for a single being in this Creation.

The world of form is designed to perish.

There is nothing here but change. Every living being will get sick and die. Even the mountains will fall into the sea. Why waste our time building walls and wars to prevent the inevitable?

What we need is a change in our relationship with safety. You have no ultimate control over your physical safety. You do have control over your spiritual, emotional and mental safety. Peace is yours in trust. Trust that you are worthy and valuable and loved by all of Creation - even if they don’t know it yet.

The only safety is trusting that you will be okay no matter what happens.

There is a sense of peace and physical safety available to us when we return to the Land to which we belong. Belong as kin - not the perception of a dead Land of resources we defend and fight over for using and exploiting.

It’s a nightmare of misunderstanding the nature of reality. A twisted, deranged reality, where only walls can make sense.

In scarcity we fear losing what we have. When having is the only source of safety, there can never be enough. There is never enough having to make anyone safe for ever. There’s never enough for you, never enough for others, and the need to feel safe is so overwhelming that anything is preferable to the fear of not safe.

People do awful things when afraid.

Having will never replace love or the safety that trusting in wholeness brings. Bridges build support and makes roadways for many ways of having for all. Having as a way to safety will guarantee that eventually we will lose everything.

When having is the only source of safety, there can never be enough.

Pssst… fear turns us all in victims.

Victims by their nature feel powerless. Victims do not believe in their own worth, value or agency. Victims do not trust or believe in other people. Victims do not trust or believe in themselves. Victims believe that the locus of power lies outside their control in the hands of “others”. As long as the victim believes they have no power, they remain a victim.

Victims try and control people and situations through coercion and manipulation. If a victim felt strong enough and safe enough to stand for their needs, they would experience personal power and sovereignty and no longer be a victim. Fear of standing for ourselves makes victims of us all.

Victims have been harmed and stay safe in the righteous morality of their victimhood.

The phase of victim is a necessary stage of healing for all who have experienced harm.

We must fully process how we have been harmed by people and situations. We must fully process that we are innocent and that we do not deserve the harm done to us. When we are ready, when we choose - we can move on to the phase of agency and responsibility after harm.

We are ultimately responsible for what we make the harm mean about ourselves and the world. We are never at fault for the harm done to us, but we do decide if the harm we experienced means we build walls or we build bridges. If we remain in the belief that we are a morally righteous victim who was unfairly harmed and deserve to be paid back for our experience, we will remain in a state of powerless victimhood.

No one can tell you what your life means or tell you how to make your experiences meaningful or build the moments of your life into a fabric of love and worth and warm welcome. That’s all you. That is always yours alone.

There is no center of your life besides you.

You are the maker of meaning and the chooser of your own life. You decide if you have power and agency. You decide if you remain a victim. You decide what the events of your life mean to you. You decide if you build walls or bridges.

The only road forward is the one where everyone wins.

The current systems are failing. They are. Don’t look away. Don’t fall for the Emperor’s naked ass. Don’t accept the hypernormalization.

This is a great and fertile possibility to plant something new in the cracks of the failing systems. We don’t have to cling to the decrepit hull of this festering ship as it sinks. We are beautiful, magickal, radiant beings with the genius of all of Land + Spirit with us. How could we possibly fail?

This too, takes courage. Which means following the message of our hearts. It’s why cowardice is so scary. Cowardice is NOT following our heart.

The 7th Fire is now. We are choosing to turn back and reclaim and recover what we left behind. Healing our roots, healing our cut off, healing our disconnection from Anam + Ancestors and connection to our Indigenous Spiritual beliefs and practice. We return to Belonging to Land. We return to Belonging to all as Kin and loving what is. We heal our disconnect from Land + Spirit. We cannot fail.

We can fail if we choose walls.

If we react to the fear of change and transition by turtling and being hidden, we can fail to support each other in anchoring this new way of being on the planet. We need the normalization of hope and belief in the bridges we are building. We need reminders of our hope and belief in one another and the reminder that we are in this together and that no one is free until everyone is free.

John Paul Lederach knows what we’re facing. The way we all win is through the relationships and action of everyday people in conflict-affected communities. These personal and direct interactions are often the most meaningful and create the most enduring change. We don’t change the structures of society through laws and policy, we shift our experience of reality through changing our hearts.

Focusing on local efforts, fostering relationships across divides, and creatively resisting violence is the way that we transition this change to. This is how we plant abundance in the cracks of the failing systems.

Build bridges not walls in every area of our lives.

Victory without an Enemy

Victory without an Enemy is a message I’ve heard for over 30 years. There is only fear and safety, not right and wrong. There is only fear and safety, not good and evil.

We can’t logic someone out of their fear. It doesn’t matter how well reasoned and objective your argument or your facts. Fear isn’t objective or nuanced. Fear is subjective and overpowering and the only response to fear is love, compassion and the insistence that you too are warmly welcome here. You too are loved and wanted and needed, even in your fear.

The only possible response to fear is love and safe space.

Don’t hurt yourself when you forget.

You will forget.

Don’t crucify yourself when you offer attack to fear.

You will offer attack.

Don’t fall into despair when you can’t find love or compassion.

You will find love and compassion again.

All that you are asked to do is to try again.

I used to think that people were actively, purposely choosing to be harmful.

They aren’t. No one is. Everyone is literally making the best choices based on the world view they have.

Evil is just a word that we use to describe not seeing the loving wholeness that is.

Some people don’t know that yet, and how are they to learn of love and wholeness if we offer them hateful attack and blame and prove to them that they are separate and alone?

Everyone is doing the very best that they can, until they heal and learn and can do better. Not everyone was given the tools to emotionally process and heal. No one does better through shame and threat, and every single person thinks that they are doing the right thing. Every single person.

Anything can be the right thing when there are exceptions to love and wholeness.

Once there are no exceptions to love and wholeness, the right thing is very clear, and anything else seems like an awful, unthinkable choice.

We are being asked now to hold space for connecting to more than the current small, fractured, disconnected world view that we hold. We are being asked to build bridges.

You are a fucking miracle.

You bring magick, re-enchantment and healing wholeness to a sad and hurting world. You are literally changing the world by seeing everyone included in love and warm welcome. You are the solution the world is waiting for. We all are.

Everyone. Every Being. No exceptions.