Political Climate and Lost Faith

Why do we have to divide things, pretty much anything, into right/wrong, good/bad, us/them, your/mine, worthy/unworthy....?  What has happened to the middle ground.  I know my brain is working overtime tried to be 'good', according to my own Egocentric little ideals.  And I fail daily, and end up not being good.    It is this Lizard Brain ideology of what is right, good, worthy that our Ego ( Evil Inner Witch) decides we are none of and no matter how hard we might try, it will try harder to say we are not enough.  Heck wars, suffering, oppression are started with such ideology as I am better than You.  

Oppositional imagings happen often, as well.  We make a decision/judgment that we are not going to be like 'so and so' and we work hard weighing our self against what we perceive as something w do not want to be, someone we do not want to be.  It makes us irritable at best, frustrated at best, and downright miserable the moment we make a judgment of good or not good and set about being what we think is good.  I have taken some time to really ask myself why I am 'for or 'against' something or someone.  

I have a problem with the USA President.  Everything about his misogynistic, bullying, evil and corrupt ways have me see him as no good human being and the world would be ever so much better without him.  I have never despised him more..and his kind.  There!  I said it!  He has made it so that we cannot trust, we have stepped back ages in misogyny, and his malicious bullying goes against everything IU wanted to believe of the world.  And, from that feeling, I move to the feeling that I cannot trust those who still support him.  How can they believe in good, in kindness, in following the Golden Rule and live in blasphemy against it all?  I have always given people the benefit of doubt, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this man has made the world an unsafe place in every way.  He has crushed my hope for peace, for love, for kindness.  I am suddenly aware that this goes way beyond him just being the devil incarnate, he has smudged my desire to even know anyone who would vote for such a POS, and now I am faced with people who I love who have suddenly become legislated to someone like him.  It has hurt me incredibly.  I had it in my head that human beings would, mostly, becompassionate human beings.  Suddenly, my world exploded with the knowledge that many are not according to my idea.  It has caused me to fear even loved ones again.  I am forced to turn my face away from some I love because I fear them now.

I am having to take more and more of my thoughts into account.  Every moment of every day, someone is being bullied, hurting, mortally wounded, suicidal, because so many have let them down.  I feel let down.  I thought goodness begat goodness, of course, but I had no idea how many would turn their eyes and their seeing and their listening and sensing, towards supporting such evil.  

I am more aware than ever that my actions say more about me than anything else.  And I am working hard on thinking it still matters that I love, that I typically want peace, that I want sisterhood, that I be of some use in some good and ethereal way.  I, so, want to believe that one drop of goodness erases more of the not goodness.  I am taking notice of how I speak versus how I want to speak.  My voice, when I am panicked, sounds the same as when I am angry.  My voice, when I am adamant, sounds mad.  I try to act in kindness but then I get busy and I am not staying conscious of how I might act or react.  

Oh, I can say my negativity rises from pain I am in, or medications, or whatever, but this does not excuse that I have not paid attention to others when I think I am oh so poorly done by.   The world does not revolve around ME.. I revolve around the world and I have to remember, any tiny thing I send out into the ether causes a ripple....  and sometimes a tsunami.  I feel so badly that people hurt, are wounded, are being treated unjustly, are being discriminated against, are praying to God for something I absolutely would not.  I have to remember we all have choices and amidst all this that is causing societies to yank around in anger, itself, that maybe I might still be a safe shore, however I let the waves from across the oceans influence me.  Somehow, I must feel compassion for those who need it and are willing to receive it.  Sometimes I have to really rein myself in and realize that Hitler had a great deal of followers who would not, could not, see the truth of the evil.  

This has brought me great sorrow.  I am an empathetic person by nature.  My very soul vibrates with fear at the sound of His voice.  Just because I see the injustice, fear the consequences, I have to get to where I find that good reigns.  I fear the future for my country, for my communities, my homeland, my families.  Perhaps my concern is enough and I am being concerned for others to, for later, when they discover that, they, too, are radiating with fear as it worsens.  I am going to try hard to embody that which has sustained me all my life...  that I have not lived this life s if a dream and that I have loved and been greatly loved in return.  I must find my faith in other again.  Without that, this world would, indeed, be a lonely, lost place to be.

As I began this art journal page, I was truly trying to seek how the love amidst the fear.  I bought some wrapping paper, and glued a piece down onto my art journal
page.

Bit by bit, I get a sense of placement and then finalize some boundaries using felt tipped watercolor pens.

I use the bottom of a film canister to make the hair.

I choose some pink papers from my stash and made little heart birds.  

I made little birds out of colored cardstock and background paper.  

And wings, I needed wings.

©Carol Desjarlais 2.17.19