Resistance is matriarchal
Rage is a sane, valid response to this past week.
Wow, this week was a shit show. Merriam-Webster defines “shit show” as follows: “something (such as an event or a situation) that is chaotic, contentious, or unpleasant to an excessive or absurd degree”. Perhaps this week is better described as a shit extravaganza, since there are multiple new items to which the term shit show accurately applies.
For sure, the murder in Minneapolis of a woman by a federal agent who shot her in the face because he was big mad, then called her a “fucking bitch”, then walked off and left the scene is top of mind. How many of us have been faced with a power-mad man who seems annoyed, and have tried to assuage that with words (“I’m not mad at you”) and getting out of his way? How many of us have then been faced with further escalation by some mad (usually mayo-complected) guy who thinks that he’s entitled to respect and submission just because he “said so”? That’s rhetorical, because I guarantee that it is close to 100% of women, some of whom have had to deal with physical as well as emotional or mental violence.
If you aren’t mad, you aren’t paying attention.
But the US government also pulled funding from all the UN organizations that provide humanitarian responses in this world, thereby emphasizing their hatred for treating people with care or concern—underlined by them also withholding SNAP assistance to the state of Minnesota because the state opposes the federal government’s acts of overreach. The current administration also threatened to invade (*checks notes*) Greenland, Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba, threatening world order and established the United States as a rogue nation.
Worse, the Vice President thinks that federal agents should be going door-to-door in order to “check the papers” of everyone in every house, so they can decide who to round up for arrest and who to send to their government camps (called euphemistic things like “holding facilities”). In the past, the people doing things like that were various forms of “secret police”, tasked with stamping out any resistance or opposing viewpoints. Spoiler alert: secret police are never the good guys, and they operate outside normal rules and procedures. One of the most infamous of these organizations was widely known and feared during WWII in Germany, but the GEheime STAdtsPOlice isn’t the only example in history.
The old world is dying, and the new world waits to be born.
The phrase “the old world is dying, and the new world waits to be born: in this between-time, I swear there’s a variety of morbid symptoms” is my own translation from the Italian of Antonio Gramsci’s phrase, La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi piú svariati. (The crisis consists plainly in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born: in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.)
If you are in tune with the energies surrounding us right now, you may have found it hard to get a good night’s sleep this past week. It isn’t just the full moon (which passed last weekend); it’s the fact that the feminine energy has awoken and is swirling around us. Some devotees of various deities believe that the Morrigan, the Caileach, Athena, Hekate, and other spirits have become more active of late. People who follow astrology know that the outer planets are all poised at critical degrees and are about to tip into new signs this spring—and that all signs point to major systemic upheaval, the overthrow of the patriarchy, and the establishment of something new.
Witches and other women have been waking throughout the night all week. Some have heard knocking at doors and windows; others swear they have heard a voice calling their names. Does that all sound kinda creepy? I guess it depends on your viewpoint. To me, it sounds like women are literally waking the fuck up and getting ready to lead. We are the new world that is coming, but we aren’t quite there yet.
Instead, we are in that between-state or interregnum where patriarchy is in its death throes, and the coming matriarchy hasn’t yet coalesced. A reminder: when any system (be it a political or economic system, or a person or other animal) is in its death throes, it becomes more erratic and more dangerous. If our lives were a map, imagine one of those “YOU ARE HERE” pins appearing right about now.
Self-care and joy are acts of resistance.
Gramsci, who wrote the quote above, was an Italian writer and political theorist; he was a political prisoner during Mussolini’s fascist government. In a letter from prison, he wrote “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
Those of you who know me or who have read my blog for a while know that I am also an “optimist because of will.” It can be annoying, I’m sure, to be around someone who looks at or for the bright side of things when all you want to do is wallow, which means I am aware that I can be annoying af.
But I’d like to take a moment to point out that being an optimist, being a person who practices deep self-care (we are talking about things like sleep, nutrition, hydration, nervous system support, and energetic hygiene here), and being someone who looks for joyful experiences in the midst of really shitty circumstances is deeply transgressive and radical.
Right now, the autocrats in charge really want us all to be so upset that we give up; so scared that we stop talking back; so tired and beaten down that we don’t offer any resistance as they continue to try to sweep our country into fascism (in the president’s case) or possibly into a white Christian nationalist autocracy (in the case of the guyliner-wearing VP).
Do you know what allows us to refuel ourselves so that we don’t give up? It’s not all the rage and discomfort that we are experiencing—those only get us so far. For long-term resistance, and in order to be able to contribute to the “new world that waits to be born”, we really need to tap into our reserves of optimism and joy. And all of that requires self-care, so that we have the strength to keep going and to experience all the good things in our lives, along with all of the bad being imposed upon us. Find prior posts on self-care by using the search function below and the term “self-care”. Or read this post that followed the murder of George Floyd, or this post written just after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“For long-term resistance, and in order to be able to contribute to the ‘new world that waits to be born’, we really need to tap into our reserves of optimism and joy. ”
What will the new world look like?
That part is still a mystery. But I would like to believe that it will be more of a matriarchy, where we as a society are concerned with protecting the vulnerable, making sure that everyone has equal opportunities to survive (food, medical care, housing) and thrive (education, employment). A society where children are nurtured and cared for by the collective.
We all have the opportunity to help mold the future, even if in a very small way. Let’s mold the future with optimism, even if it takes strength for us to ignore the pessimism that looking at our current reality brings.
Experiencing joy this weekend or this week is not futile, and it is not wrong. As I said at the start of this post, this week was a shit show; but if you look globally, EVERY week is a shit show in one way or another. What makes things better is not wallowing or feeling despair; it is in choosing to take actions that bring you joy, despite the ongoing sadness. If you want to say it’s laughing at a funeral, then fine: laugh at the funeral; if it is the funeral of a dead loved one, they likely want you to be happy again; if at the funeral of someone who was awful in life, it’s fine not to let them take your joy.
This weekend, in addition to protests and rallies, there will be weddings and birthday celebrations, there will be friends and relatives getting together to enjoy one another’s company, there will be baptisms, b’nai mitzvah, and quinceañeras, there will be people celebrating promotions at works, or new jobs, or new babies. If one of those things is in your life, do not dim the light of your joy. Let it shine out so that others are reminded that (as Sam said in movie version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) “there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Rest up. Eat up. Find your joy and strength. And remember that it’s okay if you also “stay angry, . . . you will need all your anger now.’ (From A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle.) Whatever you do, please take care of yourself. The people you know and love are going to need you, and that means you need to be in fighting form.
Want to join in circle with women who are coming together to honor the old ways and holding space for that new world that waits to be born?
There are tickets still available at the time of this post for the upcoming Imbolc circle, which will take place on Sunday, February 1st from 4 pm EST to 5:15 pm EST via Zoom. Tickets are $33 each, and (in keeping with the world I want to create), a portion of ticket sales will be donated to Feeding America, which supports food banks, food pantries, and meal services.