speak your mind

Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth. ~ Mohandas Gandhi

http://globalgrind.com/news/rep-bobby-rush-kicked-house-floor-after-wearing-hoodie-photo 

transition

Transition. Not as in the sweet rift of evolution and transformation. Not that feeling, no, not the chrysalis of change nor the terrified gut like you're at the top of the roller coaster about to come roaring down.

This is transition, as in birth. The brick wall. The place of 'I cannot go on,' when you really truly know you have to, that there is no other way. The baby's not going back in. Even if it ends up happening by surgery, that baby comes out. Even if the most awful happens and the baby dies, he's still coming out. Even if you die, that baby's still coming out. Usually when mamas feel this way, they're dilated to 10cm and are about to start that home stretch of pushing, a heave-ho for some women, or a grueling marathon for some, like me. Either way, at transition we're close, so much closer than we've been, and that's when it feels impossible. We feel more than doubt - deep despair. Total stark hopelessness.

I've never felt quite this way when I was not in labor. Actually, I didn't quite feel so wholly this way even in labor, though I have witnessed women going through it. 

I feel it now. I appreciate that my boys are with me, constantly showing me why I have to go on. I also sometimes wish I could just take care of myself in this moment. I wish I could let it all go and dive and hit rock bottom with the force of will and gravity together. I do not want to do that to my children. I do want to do it for myself.

After being responsible for some time, I want to be irresponsible. I want to go tear shit up, I want to not care, I want to not be good. Like Mary Oliver says, 'You do not have to be good," and I say 'Hell yeah!' even though she didn't mean it in that badass way. She meant in it in that sanctimonious derisive viewpoint way, equally important. But why not be good? Why be 'free' of the things I most love? It's like when I used to give myself weekends off from my yoga practice... Why give myself time off from something that makes me feel deeply good?

Despite these struggles, the young plant takes root and rises to the light. At least she does if she'll ever go to sleep during the dark hours so she can rise during the light ones.

time to get out

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”
― Edward Abbey