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This week’s WELLREAD is full of really frightening prophecies and hopeful possibilities. I know - that sounds like a contradiction. But this moment is challenging us to hold the complexity of multiple truths simultaneously. It’s asking us to feel the fear and despair that comes with becoming awake to the suffering all around us. Rebecca Solnit says “if you are sad and frightened, it is a sign that you care and that you are connected to spirit”.
But it is also asking us to have hope. Not the hopey-changey kind that is sugar coated and optimistic. But the kind that embraces the unknown with courage. When you recognize the uncertainty of the future, it opens up the imagination for what is possible beyond the status quo. And it calls us to act.
Rev Dr Jacqui Lewis reminds us that “movements are messy, but we have to move.” Let us move forward together with radical awareness and active hope.
CTZN Summit: Building a Politics of Care [[link removed]] starts TONIGHT. Join us for radical practice and collective action around the election and beyond.
Kerri (she/her)
Is the Wellness Movement Being Tainted by QAnon and the New Age Right? YES. Here’s what you need to know about the “superspreaders of polluted information”. [[link removed]] [click to tweet [[link removed]]]
What’s the worse that can happen? [[link removed]] The Transition Integrity Project breaks down the election scenarios that will determine our future. Prepare yourself. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
Barbara Smith’s got a plan. To end systemic racism, the country needs a comprehensive racial justice program even more sweeping than the Marshall Plan. It needs the Hamer-Baker Plan. Here’s how we get started. [[link removed]] [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
By framing voting as the be all, we minimize protesting’s power to change policy. We also ignore why people have taken to the streets in the first place. Protesting is as important as voting [[link removed]]. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
Trump is prepared to do whatever it takes to keep power, including embracing militant white supremacists and using federal troops to tear gas and arrest peaceful protesters. What if Trump won’t leave? [[link removed]] [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
September is “get your shit together” month for the upcoming election. That means getting informed about your local voting rules and restrictions and getting your community organized. Here’s an extremely comprehensive guide to making sure your ballot gets counted [[link removed]], no matter where in America you live. Sign up to host a “Plan Your Vote” zoom event [[link removed]] for your local community on September 22nd (includes voting checklist and meeting guide).
Finding “hope in the dark” (as Rebecca Solnit calls it) can be challenging in these times. Navigating multiple pandemics at once is a recipe for despair. For others, hope can be used as an escape hatch from the discomfort of this moment and the demand to change. But Roshi Joan Halifax says “wise hope doesn’t mean denying these realities. It means facing them”. [[link removed]] It also means acknowledging what else is emerging in this moment - like our awakening to truth and alignment with values that propels us to face this moment with grace and choose something different. Solnit adds: “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”
It’s not too late to sign up for CTZN SUMMIT: BUILDING A POLITICS OF CARE [[link removed]], a gathering of spiritual activists. community organizers and creative disruptors as we imagine a future of collective care where everyone can thrive. You can expect shared practice, collective healing and grief work, tools for community care and strategies for how we mobilize around the election and beyond. See you there!
WELLREAD is community powered and crowd-sourced. That’s how we keep it real. Join us on Patreon [[link removed]] for as little as $2/month so that we can keep creating content that matters for CTZNs who care.