and everything moves

 The sky this afternoon just before sunset, 28 days to midwinter.

 

Today, suddenly and with a strong wind, it got mild again. I went for a long walk along the river, feeling lucky and content for the moment. The nasty cold is behind me and as for the rest of my health concerns, something will work out eventually. Maybe, hopefully. Enough to feel good. For the moment.

Unlike last Friday evening, when I attended a debate on the war in Ukraine and what could, may, will happen next, now that the madman in Moscow has begun to deploy his new range of weapons. It was not an evening of easy listening. What do I know. All I could think of afterwards was how glad I am my parents are both dead, my mother would be so frightened, so freaked out. 

After reading Eve (Cat Bohannon), I am now halfway through Mother Nature (Sarah Blaffer Hrdy) another book on motherhood and evolution or according to the subtitle: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species. It helps to engage with a broader viewpoint of humanity for a change, to consider how recent and how pretty amateurish and stupid our footprint as homo sapiens has been to date and how minute in the bigger picture.

Meanwhile, this country I am living in is preparing for a general election in February. The tone is getting increasingly nasty, the hype of fake news while not quite (yet) trump material, nevertheless gaining ground. I try to remind myself that although it appears that the cement within this society is no longer solidarity with one another, but common hatred of others, every system, be it a democracy, a dictatorship, an autocracy, you name it, is led by individuals.   

In view of this, I have started to set up a little toolkit, a collection of essays, handouts, opinions, guiding voices from here and there, maybe just to calm my nerves, maybe to reassure myself that there are outspoken, sharp, caring, attentive, thoughtful people out there, around me. People who will keep their eyes and ears open, ready to step in, step up. I may figure out a way to create a link to it eventually. Currently it's just a mixed bag in three languages. While I am working on this, here the main theme (taken from here):

• As much as possible, we should do things fascists cannot do. 
• As much as possible, we should not do things fascists want us to do and we should do things fascists don't want us to do. 
• Never accept the fascist offer.

Thus,

We do have to call them out, and name them as the Windigos that they are, with all the ethical, moral jeopardy associated with that.

Robin Kimmerer

 and

What is a tyrant but a grotesque clown, a farcical reflection of humanity’s darker nature? He, like all despots, will pass. The earth will continue, wounded perhaps, but enduring. 

Philippa Perry

Hence,

Underground is where the work gets done.
For decades this has been true and the moment to get to work has been here for a long time…. A long time.
I think it’s time to go underground. Stealth care… Create women’s health clinics that are safe and secret. Create assistance and care for climate disaster victims. Create portable homes for people in motion. Create safe havens for whistle blowers and dissidents. Create help for immigrants. Create care centers for substance and tech addiction. Tend the communities of people who are making new paths. Make music. Create restoration of waters and soil that are not state bound. Time to go beyond borders and tend beyond nationalistic boundaries. Tend your and others’ mental health. It’s time to get off the stage and on the ground. Time to get to work in ways that are not ensnared in polarized politics. Unseen and unnoticed acts of generosity and triage are needed, regardless of who has the microphone.
No meme or model or glamor will do it.
Be a dandelion; persistent and filled with healing gifts. Expand into the minutia.

Nora Bateson

and more:

I'm just a sucker for courage. As I say so often, I'm moved by the gift of courage, because when you walk towards danger, in the danger, and dare to do what's needed, you put your own safety at risk so you become in some way larger than life. Fear makes you shrink, doesn't it?

Joanna Macy

As the institutional care of dominant politics breaks down, as politics becomes a vassal for something else, revealing other desirous vocations that disrupt the idea of the isolated discerning human subject, may we find the openings to do more than we think possible now. Something more compelling than victory (and the moral assemblage that makes finish lines and trophies meaningful) shimmers in the near-distance. Something that urges us to lose our way, together.

Bayo Akomolafe

We say everything comes back. You cannot divert the river from the riverbed. We say every act has its consequences. (. . . ) We say look how the water flows from this place and returns as rainfall. Everything returns, we say, and one thing follows another. There are limits, we say, on what can be done, and everything moves. 

Susan Griffin

It is a help towards sanity and calm judgment to acquire the habit of seeing contemporary events in their historical setting, and of imagining them as they will appear when they are in the past.

Bertrand Russell

 

Totally unrelated, but as (grand-)parent, I can feel it: