I had the damnedest time coming up with a title for this piece. They all felt trite, inadequate, and just not right for this moment. So, this was the best of the worst.
The shock of last week’s election results has not yet worn off. I think I must be in some level of dissociation or denial as I have not yet once cried. I have felt some anger and have had to hold myself back from lashing out at people I know who voted for him. It does me no good to scream at someone so broken that they would make this choice.
The coded conversations I have had with people out in public this week have been abundant. Based on their response to my, “How are you doing?” I then know whether or not it’s safe to proceed in being honest when they ask me the same in return.
“Hanging in there,” with a shake of the head or wry smile has often been the clue needed. There is no denying what this means right now.
We went to Helena’s wedding this weekend, Jon and I, Helena, who as a child and teenager used to sleep in the room from which I am currently typing. She was so beautiful in the celebration of her love for her husband, Ricky, and their life together. She is and always has been beautiful inside and out.
The merrymaking was the perfect temporary antidote to the grief and powerlessness induced by the event just four days earlier. For a few hours, Jon and I slipped into blissful joy as we ate and talked and laughed and danced and danced and danced.
Taking a break, he and I snuck out to the entryway, which was just a giant open room. We sat in the loveseat along the wall next to the bathroom entrances.
We found ourselves mobbed there by most of Helena’s female cousins all of whom we knew twenty years ago as children. One by one they showed up and leaned in with hugs and love. Some lingered longer than others and we had wonderful chats about their lives and adventures. One of them let me know she still had the tarot deck I passed on to her when we left here twenty years ago, and this made me so happy.
To be with our chosen family at this time was healing and will continue to be so.
I keep wondering if we are at the moment so many Europeans faced when they could have left and chose to stay. Leaving a country of origin is not easy for many reasons - identity, finances, attachments, work, relationships with loved ones, belongings, wanting to help shift what’s happening, and on and on. There are many reasons to stay.
I also am aware that this current timeline is very unstable and things can change in an instant.
For now, we are listening closely as we did just one year ago when we were told we needed to leave the house we’d been renting for fifteen years, over half of this country away from where I now sit, initiating a release of most of our belongings and a return to our place of origins. That phone call changing our lives in an instant.
“I am so glad we got evicted!” I shouted in the car as Theresa (Helena’s mother and our friend), Rhonda (our neighbor and new friend), and I headed to decorate the banquet hall the day before the wedding. Being evicted sucked and yet seeking the joy on the other side has been a wonderful adventure.
We are once again waiting for the magic to happen and are also tuned in to take action towards that magic whenever and however it arrives, whether it’s staying right where we are or heading elsewhere.
For now, we get to revel in the magic of having returned in time to celebrate with Helena and her/our family.
How are you??!! Please drop me a comment below and let me know.
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Thank you, Nora, for your openness and for sharing your experiences during such a devastating time. I’m also so glad that, despite the time that is in it, you and Jon found joy with your friends and chosen “family” at the celebration of the marriage. I find it very hard to cry, so for me, a welling up of tears is what I consider full-on crying—and I’ve had plenty of moments like that lately. It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut, barely able to catch my breath. I’ve taken some steps, like demanding a recount and calling for an investigation through senators on the Judiciary Committee. Part of me feels this may be futile, but I won’t stop insisting that our elected officials work for all of us. And yes, it is in my Jewish family line, my DNA somewhere, get out while the going is good. Some of them did not and fell to their death in concentration camps. I have worked so hard on healing that terror that must live somewhere inside of me. And I know I have done a great job at transmuting that, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a threatening time, and I’m white, heterosexual, albeit female. And since we are all one, I feel the threats that were most likely always here but now being activated to action. Oh dear, I am still VERY unsettled, but know to always return to asking for support and love and act with kindness and with care. I love you Nora and give you and Jon a big hug, as well as to the people in this wonderful community you have created.
Hanging in there :) up and down. Thinking about what to do next but realizing I'm not really at a place to think solidly ahead about anything, although I'm pretty sure volunteering at my local library is going to be one positive step in my future when the time feels right. Your last transmission was so healing and reassuring, nora, and I thank you so much. I couldn't even get myself in a place to take any input from anyone for so many months as if just life was weighty enough or something. But now I'm back in that regard. As you said I am better. And thinking about more kinds of self care to help me do that. So, the physical healing continues and I have faith that it will. The emotional and mental levels are huge WTAFs, and I have come out of all of this with a increase sense of precognizance though I have nothing about the political and related past this country is on. Another huge WTAF. Thank you Nora for your writings and channelings and the energy work that you did for me while I was in the worst of my train crash. I love you and honor you and Jon.