Thoughts for January 20, 2025

Friends and fellow edge walkers,

I have been debating whether to write this for the better part of a week. I have heard an increasingly loud voice telling me that this is mine to do, so I intend to honor that voice.

I am feeling a great deal of anger and sorrow around the fact that the inauguration of President Trump is taking place on the same day that we are honoring the great luminary, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I feel the need to ball my hands into fists, while I feel a tight ball, and nausea in my stomach. I am not sure I can think of many ways to dishonor everything that Dr. King stood for in a more blatant fashion. Perhaps some of you are experiencing similar feelings… in addition to the anxiety that many of us have been experiencing since the outcome of the Presidential election was decided. I can only imagine how Dr. King would feel if he were with us today, though I have no doubt he would face the situation with grace and strength. As he once said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

I think we all understand that challenging times are on the horizon. I have concerns for injustice towards all marginalized peoples, whether due to race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. I worry about injustice for all our more-than-human kin; the four-legged ones, the winged ones, the scaled ones, the rooted ones, etc. I worry about the ethos of President Trump’s; ‘drill, baby drill,’ and the subsequent additional devastation of Mother Earth and all her offspring, the pseudo-myth of perpetual growth in the economy, and the further consolidation of power into the hands of a small group of elites, who seem to care only for them$elves. I worry about the sowing of more seeds of division, hate, intolerance; all based upon superficial beliefs about our differences, rather than a universal understanding of our sacramental nature. Dr. King so eloquently said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Furthermore, he said, “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”

While I feel both sorrow and anger at just how little progress, if not regression, our society has made on these issues since Dr. King expressed all of this beautiful wisdom in the 1960’s, I am much more grateful to be a part of a community such as this one, here at Wild Spirituality at Anam Cara Fields. We have talked recently at our offerings about the importance of embracing our grief, our emotions, our feelings; of making the descent into our own inner darkness in order to find the sacred immortal flame of Mystery that lives in our core, and indeed, in the core of all of creation. Only in those depths can we stoke that flame into an inferno, an inferno of radical love for the sacrality of all Other beings. It is in that sacred darkness, in the womb of Mystery, that we gain access to a limitless well of light. As Dr. King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

To be able to share this circuitous journey with like-minded, and more importantly like-hearted, kin such as yourselves is an incredible blessing. To feel the radical love expressed by each of you, in your own beautiful way, is truly a gift. I am proud and humbled to walk beside you all on the path ahead. I hope you will join me in stoking the fires of radical love, inclusion, and acceptance for all! I would like to leave you with these words from Angi Sullins:

“…just remember a bird doesn’t sing because it’s talented. A bird sings because it has a song. The moon doesn’t only shine when it’s whole; it can show up with a single sliver of itself and still light an entire night sky. Sing. Shine. The world needs you as you are .”

Wild Blessing and Much Love!