Compassion, with accountability
Taking action, however imperfectly.
I’ve tried to start writing this week’s letter a handful of times and still find myself struggling with the words. It’s easy to feel small, helpless, even hopeless seeing the continuous perpetuation of state-sanctioned brutality and violence in the United States, and recognizing the fear that so many, including my neighbors in Tucson, are having to live with, a fear that people of color have long known.
Holding all of this on some level, but going about the laundry list of life in a haze of cognitive dissonance…it can take a toll on your system. Some of these recent nights, I’ve opted to numb out (doom-scroll, followed by endlessly adorable Junior Bake Off), but this week I finally folded over and started sobbing at the dinner table and luckily I didn’t have to explain to my partner, who understood.
That overwhelming feeling that we have gone very astray as a species also has to be processed through action. In the Yoga Sutras, there’s this term ahimsa, an ethical principle focused on compassionate nonviolence in action. In the face of injustice, authentic compassion requires accountability. As generations of leaders in nonviolent movements have taught us, active civic resistance is what allows us to pursue accountability.
Sharing some actions I have taken over the past couple weeks to hold myself accountable:
Donated $500 to the Florence Project in Arizona, which provides free legal services, social services, and advocacy to immigrants. (BTW- if you don’t have money to donate, but you do have a car, see if you can save any money by switching car insurance this year, then give the difference. Sometimes it works!)
Called my senators using the 5Calls.org app. (Take it from me, an awkward introvert…you can just read from the script, it is very do-able. You’ll need to call ASAP though.)
Switched to Apple Music from Spotify. If you have playlists, you can transfer those in about five seconds. Bonus: Apple Music pays artists better and is also cheaper.
Gathered with a group of friends as we supported our mutual friend going through a very hard time while out-of-state, to organize and pack up her house, and brought a collection of items of Goodwill that will hopefully help someone else facing a hard time.
Gathered with folks at my yoga studio, where we lit candles for lives lost and processed together.
Learned about automatic writing from Jools Sinclair at a local workshop, and wrote from a spirit-like place, as the world burns (but the pen is mighty, as Maggie Smith reminds us).
Leona Waller also offers a round-up of actions that you can do in your own community, and there is an ICE Out Nationwide Shutdown on Friday, Jan. 30th so at the very least, let’s try our best not to buy from huge, complicit companies that day.
If you, like me, are feeling a cycling of anger, sadness, numbness, overwhelm, then tryingtryingtrying your best to preserve your mental health, I see you and feel you, and me too. It may feel like no action you can take is ever enough, but I think that’s just cynicism talking and the best way to quiet that voice is to take some small action anyway.1 There is room for it all, in due time. To act, grieve, gather, process, strategize, decompress, dance ecstatically, nourish.
Speaking of nourishing, I wanted to share a few pieces and poems that have touched me as of late (below).
With love,
Kelly
Some Good Reads & Beautiful Poems
“On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” (by Renée Nicole Good)
“Hope is a discipline, a practice that I engage in daily (and on some days hourly).” // Read This If You’re New and Trying to Find Your Way by abolitionist organizer and author Mariame Kaba
From the archives, July 2016: “Allowables” by Nikki Giovanni
“Proof” by Cornelius Eady
“Burn Out” by Amy M. Alvarez
“Wildflowers Praying at Midnight” by Jaiya John
Brands want to post like humans. Where is their humanity now? by Rachel Karten
“Revolutionary Letter #8” by Diane di Prima
she says, reminding herself