On grief, belief, and voting.

When I sat down to write this piece I casually scrolled back through the blog and clicked on this post I wrote 5 years ago, when I was pregnant with Dia. I was struck that even though so much has changed, I recognize so clearly the feeling that I had then as being the same I feel today: real fear and worry about the world we live in and what it means for our babies, but also this real hope and determination to bring forward new life, to foster a loving community, and to dig deep in this land and give it my best shot. It is amazing to live within the cyclical pattern of the farm and this land. It is remarkable to have such a detailed written record (both through this blog and through our weekly newsletter) of my evolution therein and to see the throughlines that guide me year in and year out. Honestly, it’s comforting.

Some dear friends of ours are visiting this weekend. They are the kind of friends who make you stay up late baring your soul and opening your heart; the friends that leave you sore from laughter and full up to the brim with love. Anam and Matt are the people who connected me with Gaza Champions and introduced us to our friend Yousef and his family around this time last year. It’s hard to describe the depth and richness I have gained from these connections and the incredible honor it has been to be a small part of such a beautiful community of care in the midst of devastating genocide.

Witnessing the destruction of Gaza and its people through the lens of a direct personal connection has brought home the pain of war much more powerfully than I was prepared for. The past year has been shockingly brutal and heartbreaking on so many levels. It has pushed me to see and grieve for the pain and suffering we as a people have perpetuated, not just in Gaza but the world over; not just today, but throughout our brutal, settler-colonial history. Honestly, it has been an important, and very challenging year of reckoning for me.

Now, 13 months into genocide and two days before the most anxiety-producing election season I’ve ever had the misfortune of living through, I feel myself grounding into a new understanding of the work I need to do to keep my head up and raise my girls through this era. I have developed a kind of meditative practice to help guide my heart and keep myself grounded in what I know to be true. I’m sharing it here now just for posterity and just in case it is at all helpful to any of you who find yourself similarly mired in the struggle of this moment. It goes like this:

My heart is big enough to hold pain and suffering while also experiencing joy and loving deeply. Holding pain and love together in my heart does not diminish one but instead expands my capacity to feel both fully. Feeling fully with my eyes and heart open is what it means to be alive and present. I take my strength from this land under my feet and in return I give her my utter care and devotion. It is only from this physically grounded place that I can open my arms and heart to the daily work of hope.

With that in mind, I turn to the dreaded election. I wish our political system was different. I wish it wish it was kinder. I wish it was stronger. But we are where we are and we need to live to fight another day. So yes, I’m asking you: please vote. Not because it is the answer, or because it will make anything better, but because we need to do the work of hope. Let’s put one foot in front of the other and foster this little flickering flame with the knowledge that the arc of history is long and we still have a chance to make the world a better place. Onward!