November 3, 2020
The Puzzle
We see the political puzzle pieces scattered. Upon first seeing, no one wants to take the time to put the whole picture together—global warming, voter suppression, and health care rights feel insurmountable enough on their own, let alone put together to make a fuller picture. For to see the whole picture, we accurately detect, will take us beyond politics and shatter our current sense of self and safety. We’re being asked to see beyond our immediate, independent experience, to not only the immediate experiences of so many others, but also a legacy of thousands of years of suffering of many, including ourselves, in the name of maintaining the comfort and power of a few. It’s important to note that those few have also suffered in this paradigm.
None of the following identifiers are mutually exclusive—I myself am white, Latina, “educated,” and currently have an income that puts me below the poverty line—but I speak to our prejudice when I say: if we recognize that Black people and Native people and “uneducated” people and homeless people and immigrants and poor people have feelings and thoughts and inherent worth equal to an “educated” person or a wealthy person or a white person, we experience life-altering heartbreak. But if we open the floodgates of acknowledgement, it cannot and will not stop there. We then have to recognize that the earth itself is sentient. And if every single one of us hasn’t blindly or knowingly been on the train of objectifying, abusing, and taking this earth for granted…
Nobody wants to recognize this picture of suffering, because when we recognize it, we only have two options: to run away and be chased relentlessly by the knowledge of it or to experience it directly.
So just take a moment to pause. If you’ve read this far, you might be feeling the feels. That’s good. Don’t hide from it. Breathe. Find something away from the screen to look at that feels pleasant and grounding for a moment. Take your time.
Then come back.
It’s no wonder that so many us want to stop the conversation at politics and our individual experiences and beliefs. It’s overwhelmingly painful to actually recognize the scope of the challenges that face us. We’ve all played a part and so many of us are terrified to look. And yet...this is what we are called to do. This is what we must grow the capacity to do, sí o sí.
While there is this cumulative reckoning that we are compelled to come to that triggers a cumulative grieving, it also invites a cumulative prodigal-son-like return home to having regard for all life. Contrary to popular fear, we do not get stuck in pain forever when we acknowledge it. We wade through it together. Like icebergs of trapped traumatic energy, our pain becomes fluid and flows from us, creating space and reconverting into potential energy, ready to sustain us and carry us forward. That is what is on the other side of this thin political veneer.
This is not about blame or guilt. Do not be seduced by either—they are easy places to get stuck. It’s about coming together and growing up, having the courage to see the whole picture and be seen in our mutual failures, and taking responsibility for the change that’s imperative for us to all survive and thrive.
What have we got to lose?