What now?

How I plan to get navigate this

I wanted to get something out to my readers as soon as possible. So this my rather stream-of-consciousness processing so far. I hope it’s helpful.

I was very wrong in my estimation of my fellow Americans with this election. But I think the wave we all saw and felt forming is still forming. It just wasn’t yet big enough to overtake the negative emotions of hate and fear that have our fellow citizens in their grip.

I get now, why some believe in demons. Negative emotions are like a possession which is like an addiction, if only because they both gain momentum, becoming ever-harder to resist, much less reverse.

I am reminding myself today that hate is an expression of fear, which is an expression of pain. At the core, the haters are in unbearable pain.

What to do now

I need to mull on this, and process it. We all do, so take the time. Grieve the future you thought was here, but only grieve that it’s been delayed. It has not been destroyed. We have seen it, we know what it looks like, we felt it near to our grasp, we celebrated it early, adding energy to its inevitable arrival.

The future we want is coming. Evolution is on our side. There is no stopping it, long term.

My plan: Meditate today. Go outdoors. Turn off the news. Just for a little while, I’m going to turn my attention inward. I’m going to focus on my own little bubble of life, where things are good right this moment. I’m going to start getting out holiday decorations and watch Hallmark Christmas Romances.

I’m going to take my attention away from that which does not please me. I’m going to find things right here, in my immediate surroundings, that bring me pleasure to raise my vibration back up to good. I don’t want to linger in those lower realms of disappointment and devastation and shock and grief for very long. I need to feel them, move through them, and process what’s happened. And then as quickly as I feel I can, shift my focus toward the positive and the future.

Turning inward

Obviously, there’s still work to be done. But for now, we need to give ourselves the space to feel this, to grieve, to process, and to heal.

The dark season, the coming winter, is the time of year most perfectly aligned for this journey inward. The very essence of the dark half of the year is that everything goes in. The plants’ upper parts die off while their roots settle in for a long winter’s nap. So do many of the animals, some into hibernation or torpor, some just into their dens where they have food stored up. The outer world goes white and frozen, so the inner world, home and hearth, body and soul, must become the focus.

This is the time to do that. Retreat a little bit. Drawn into your most comforting things. For me, that’s shifting full on into holiday mode. It’s the only thing that can bring light to this darkness.

We need to be extra good to ourselves throughout the rest of this year. We need to really be sure we work through the trauma this is to some of us, especially survivors of violence, sexual or otherwise, at the hands of men. Talk it out. Be open about it. Talk to the women in your life. Figure out how you feel about this, what this means to you, and what you can do about it. And then move ever-toward the fulcrum point of shifting away from what happened, and into the next phase on the way to the solution.

I’m really going to throw myself into the Winter Solstice and Christmas this year. It’s the holiday season of my heart, always has been. I hope that when my soul leaves my body at death, Santa shows up to carry me over in his sleigh, so I can say, “I knew it! I knew you were real!”

So the season of lights will be especially healing for me this year.

Looking Ahead

And then, renewed and strong in 2025, we begin again marching into the future. We know where we’re going, and we know we will inevitably get there. Maybe during our lifetimes, maybe not.

Who knows what lies ahead? Who ever did, though?

There are mid-terms in two years. They are another chance to strengthen checks on power.

But for right now

For my own mental health, I have turned off the noise, withdrawn into my own life a bit, and will wallow as deeply as I can in that stuff they call Yuletide spirit.

It’s energy is that of light in the midst of ultimate darkness.

The very next dawn afterWinter Solstice, the longest night, the sun begins to grow stronger. The day will be a bit longer than the one before, and each one longer after that. At the moment of the darkest, longest night, the power of light has already begun its inevitable ascent.

The energy of the light being born in the midst of darkness is the very energy of the holiday season. And it feels to me like the very energy we need right now.

So that’s going to be my focus to get me through this setback. That, and knowing that it’s only a setback. Progress in inevitable. Remember that.

((((((((HUGS))))))))