Poetic Revelations: The Fire This Time
"You have to go the way your blood beats"
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. ~ James Baldwin
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Because Human-ing is harder than Adulting. This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, swimming through this thing called Life.
Selected Readings and Sounds:
I Am Not Needed There…Fire! Give me Fire!, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Let America Be America Again, Langston Hughes
- , William A. Finnegan
- , Kathryn Ann Edwards
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
For the past few weeks, I succumbed. I have been scrolling, my mind desperate for information that wades through the nonsense and well, makes sense of it. I have to share the work of two WONDERFUL Americans who are using their training to empower us regarding two large systems we operate in: our economy and our shared legal and regulatory structure. I especially want to give this Tik Tok by Kathryn Edwards a shout out regarding taxes, billionaires, and us.
Fire. These individuals are leaning into the issues that concern them most and raising their voice. And that brings me to a tiny pattern I am noticing online. More and more, ordinary individuals in red states are getting angry. I don’t mean angry like MAGA spewing vitriol angry. I mean anger like fiery anger, the one that stands in personal truth. In my culture, we have a story about Sita, Ram’s wife who proved her truth by walking through fire. I grew up with an inherent understanding that fire purifies and illuminates the truth. So it is with you. Here is Rumi:
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop. Be like fire and burn all that is not you.
Each person I saw has reached some kind of personal limit that prompted them to choose an action for themselves. What’s beautiful about this is that in the process of being pushed and reaching a limit, people get clear on their tradeoffs: what they are willing to stick up for and why. This is what ignites your fire and starts it dancing in you. Fire is a different way to be “lit up.”
Your Choice. Your fire requires personal truths. Your anger has to be on behalf of something vital to YOU, not someone else, in order to make a fiery impact. These are people reaching their breaking point trying to get a critical doctor’s visit for their loved one, accessing Social Security benefits they worked a lifetime to achieve, or beseeching Christians to choose between MAGA or Jesus.
It comes from within that community, not without. This is all good news. My community development training taught me all leadership is indigenous. I cannot stick up as effectively for village women as one of them can. It’s not just her lived experience, it’s about the tradeoffs she is willing and not willing to make. No one else can articulate this for YOU. This is why you have free will. It the basis for all true choices you have when you live in a truly free country. Where your right to choose is protected and supported—as a voter, a worker, and economically.
One of the more powerful economic theorems I was taught at the Kennedy School of Government was Coase’s theorem. Coase's Theorem tells us that efficient outcomes happen when those affected can negotiate directly (assuming low transaction costs). [Efficient means resources are allocated for the highest value.] When each of us speaks for ourselves, we make choices aligned with our values, lived experience, and what we’re willing to give or not give up. My whole life became still the past few weeks and it’s precisely because of this reason: no one else can articulate these choices for me.
That brings us to the opportunity of today: April 4th. What do you want to speak for? What fires you up enough that you are going to take this wild animal body to take a stand? Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ poem captures her search beautifully. She concludes:
And this fire
sets ablaze whatever is needing
warmth…
This fire sets ablaze
And burns away
whatever is no longer needed.
Here I have found my place.
On Cue. I succumbed because I lost my focus. Without focus, my motivation lagged. I succumbed to indignation (and doom scrolling), which is not the same as pure anger. But this morning, our leader invited us to imagine the new. Here, my heart and focus reunited. My physical energy—and that of my playmates—shifted powerfully as we spoke from our core values. We all felt so lifted up. What a vibrational boost.
This is the promise of your inner fire. And this is why this letter must pay homage to James Baldwin, author of The Fire Next Time (and much more). He lived at this inflection point all the bloody time! His words:
"You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all."
Not hate, not resentment, not indignation. Follow the arrow outside the crowd, the one that says, Create the world you want to be part of. Who and what do you speak for?
To your exquisite unfolding. Stay #heartwoke and trust that beautiful heart of yours!
Monisha
When we belong to ourselves, we move freely. ~ Monisha Mittal
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