Pep Talk and Moon Grok
Witches, roll up your sleeves
Inside: A post election pep talk designed to give you something to focus on moving forward, including a list of principles you could print for your fridge. AND, don’t forget that this Friday the 15th at 6pm I’ll be holding my Full Moon in Taurus ritual for all subscribers. Full Moons are times to refill our cups of inspiration. If you’re feeling depleted, I hope you can join us!
My mother and I were texting after the election and she shared how depressed she felt. Many people have been reaching out to me sharing their fear and anxiety. “Why do you sound so calm about this?” she asked me.
I had to think about it.
After the election in 2016 I was devastated. I’m almost embarrassed to say it now. Anticipating the horrors the Orange Emperor would unleash, I wasn’t wrong to feel afraid. So why do I feel less upset this time, when it promises to be so much worse?
The truth is, over the past eight years I’ve become far more radical. I see now what I couldn’t see then, and I feel ashamed about it, but in a productive way.
I feel ashamed because in 2016 I’d thought a Trump presidency would make the world worse… which it did. But I didn’t fully comprehend how bad the world had been for so many people already… literally for centuries.
I mean, I knew how bad empire was in theory. Racism, sexism, colonialism, I knew all of it was bad, and I voted to end it. I did some organizing. I complained about it, I made artwork about how much I hated it. But I didn’t realize on the visceral level that I do now the horrors of empire.
Palestine changed me.
Palestine got through the decades of conditioning that had trained me not to see what has been right here in front of my eyes this whole time.
Colonialism is murderous. There is NO LIMIT to our current system’s depravity. No horror is too much. There is nothing it will not kill, no tree, no child, no ocean, our empire will not destroy in order to satisfy its insatiable hunger for capital. NOTHING is sacred to empire.
In theory, I think we all (everyone here reading this newsletter) knows that empire is willing to kill anything, even us, but in practice, I don’t think we all really see it because it’s too scary. I know I didn’t.
Because if we DID truly see that this system not only is willing to kill us, and everything else alive on this planet, and IS ACTIVELY IN THE PROCESS OF DOING IT, we wouldn’t think that voting was our best and only solution.
We’d ask ourselves, if voting actually worked, why do so many people still not have what they need?
If voting was our best solution would we still have…
poison sprayed all over our food
toxic waste causing a global extinction event
children murdered in refugee camps and in at schools
unhoused people living in squalor beneath the freeways
people being turned away from hospitals because they can’t afford treatment
corporations buying up all the affordable housing
millions of people locked in cages as a result of being born poor
indentured servitude for college but endless funding for war
I’m not saying we shouldn’t vote. We may as well. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been better if Harris had won. It would be slightly better… for privileged people.
But remember, everything that we’re afraid Trump will do here is ALREADY something the American empire has been doing to other people abroad.
We just tolerate atrocity better when it isn’t happening to us. (And for some, it was happening to “us”, in which case we were told by the status quo to suck it up and be patient and maybe someday if we voted hard enough we’d get it).
If every four years our basic rights and a livable earth, are on the chopping block… and if the only thing that stands between us and certain death is that we send the DNC twenty dollars or else… then we’re in trouble, friends.
I could go into detail about my reasoning here, and maybe someday in the future I will, but this is supposed to be a pep talk!
My point is, I don’t feel devastated about the Trump win because I was already devastated and it took me a few years of despair but I’ve made my peace with it. I’m now on the other side and you can be too!
Since 2016 I have been becoming increasingly disillusioned with the corporate liberalism. I already knew that this system was trash (it’s founded on slavery and genocide, which is STILL HAPPENING! California just voted to keep slavery for imprisoned people one week ago! Slavery!).
I already knew that no one was coming to save us. So for the past several years I’ve been dedicating myself to figuring out what to do next. It’s part of why I started my PhD program.
So, how do we move forward without collapsing in despair?
Here are some fundamental principles I invite you to practice daily to help us keep going:
Concede nothing. Don’t give an inch. For every act of violence empire throws at us, we come together harder. We protect each other harder. Stronger than ever before. We are witches. We RESIST.
Try not to give into the media panic. The world needs the wisdom of witches now. The world needs its elders, its enthusiastic youth, its artists and visionaries. Be strong for those who can’t be strong. That gives us purpose. Something to focus on. Our love for each other is our power. Our imagination our invincible weapon.
The goal we are working towards: Everyone should have their basic needs met without requirement of economic relationship. Which means: everyone gets food, shelter, and medicine without having to “earn” it. Our society should be organized around making sure everyone has what they need, not trillions for some while others sleep in a rat infested gutter. No one should go hungry. No one should be unhoused. No one should be able to walk by someone passed out on the sidewalk, half dead and think, “Welp, that’s just how the world is.” No. We have chosen this and WE CAN CHOOSE OTHERWISE. The problem with the liberal system of the Democrats is that they pretend like we can eradicate issues like homelessness and hunger while still maintaining the profit driven capitalist system and WE CAN’T. Capitalism REQUIRES gross inequality. Democrats are funded by large corporations, they are NEVER going to get rid of homelessness, or the military industrial complex, or the prison system, or police brutality, or affordable housing because the corporations don’t want them to. The best we will get from them is a rainbow flag. Fuck that. The answer is NO.
Remember, our movement needs a strong, broad, coalition of allies. Don’t waste your time bickering with people who are essentially on your side. Over and over again our movements get broken through infighting and self-policing. Our mission is to create solidarity not perfection.
Don’t waste your time on assholes. Don’t waste your time bickering with people who are committed to not seeing the horror of this system. We can come back to collect them when we’re done bringing about the changes we want, in the meantime, focus on empowering the most vulnerable, and creating the world you want to find.
Stop petitioning the powers that be hoping that they will someday give us what we want (i.e. for all humans and the biosphere to be treated as sacred) if we ask nicely enough or protest hard enough, because they truly do not care. (I mean, lobby, yes, but our primary concern should be making lobbying empire unnecessary). We have to stop thinking that if empire’s apologists understood our point of view they would change their minds. They understand, they just DGAF. Knowing that should liberate our energy to focus on getting what we want by other means, namely creating the systems we need by and for ourselves. Which brings me to…
Mutual Aid. If we succeed in creating a world where everyone has their needs met, then the capitalists will have no leverage over us. They will not be able to force people to waste the hours of their life extracting ever greater amounts from the increasingly depleted earth because people will be busy enjoying their lives and communities. So healing class inequality is crucial to ecological revitalization. We have to create systems where people get their needs met or people will just keep destroying the planet. If you participate in creating networks of mutual aid in any way, you are part of the solution.
Remember, we are inherently free. We are brainwashed into believing that we are caught in this system. And there are real material conditions that do keep us trapped in the capitalist machine. Capitalism wants us to believe there is no way out. It demands our participation, forces us to be subject to its whims. But remember, you are also part of many non-capitalist networks that you participate in every day. Your breath is free, the sun is free, your inner world is yours and it can’t be taken from you.
Your inner world is the world of enchantment. In the realms of enchantment, all life is sacred, and inspiration is the divine substance that can free us all. Enchantment is real and alive. Every time you use your imagination it grows stronger. Every time you call upon the powers of inspiration, you strike a blow against the forces of empire which seek to convince you that you are trapped in a machine that can’t be broken. But remember YOU ARE ALREADY FREE. Your imagination is the key that opens the door to your freedom.
Be weirder. Be queerer. Speak louder. Be louder in your refusal to capitulate.
Appreciate people who refuse to let themselves be ground down and silenced by empire. Gay men who sashay when they walk. Black women who show their anger. Trans men who flash their top scars. Women who shout their abortion. Crones who love their bodies. Immigrants who speak their language. Disabled people who insist on being seen. Celebrate them. Love them. Encourage them to be more joyful and more themselves.
Find a group in your area who is working to nurture and protect something that you love. Find groups who are meeting people’s basic needs. Find the resistance. And join them!
Hold space for magic, imagination, and care. There is no problem imagination cannot solve. Imagination (awen) is the strongest force in the universe. Witches have it in abundance. Keep faith that our imaginations will unleash the rivers of enchantment back into the world until every last being is free.