12 Questions For Dreaming A Revolution
Transforming anger and hopelessness into vision and action.
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I’m writing this under the new moon in Scorpio, at its most exact point of 0.0% fullness in the night sky.
And I’m writing it rather spontaneously, having already decided to wait another week to send an email, due to university work and health stuff. But what can I say, her darkness compels me!
As a Scorpio sun (and stellium) in Scorpio season, I know something about dark nights of the soul. I know about journeys to the underworld, I know about rage, about passionate longing, about self-imposed isolation, and I know about both chasing and rejecting redemption. I know about the dermal layers under the dermal layers and the inevitability of malting them. Unintegrated, the energy of Scorpio is a poison cup. Understood and alchemised, it’s the phoenix rising from the ashes, triumphant and transcendent. The new moon offers us a chance, every cycle, to dream differently.
How many of us have had an experience of transcendence? How many of us would even want one, with its potential ego death and life-altering realisations, if we could? Prophets and avatars are often persecuted just for reporting back on one, such is their threat to the default mode network of our group thinking.
In the new season of Loki, Tom Holland’s very Scorpionic character says “it’s harder to stay”. He says that just as his likeness from another dimension is running away, burning with anger and longing for the quick solution that vengeance promises. The entire arc of the series is present in that line. It’s harder to stay. It’s harder to work. To ask questions, to find solutions, to fail because you bothered trying. It’s harder to love. To envision and create the world we say we want to live in. It’s easier to react. To hate. To repeat what we know.
As the genocidal persecution of the Palestinian people continues without a ceasefire, the uncontainable grief, fear, and righteous anger is palpable. So is hopelessness. And of course. It’s so much harder to hope. For those of us watching, even with all our power, hopelessness is often too irresistible a force.
What would it take to change that? I think it would start with an honest look at the systems of power and domination in place globally, and a crystal clear vision of their alternative. I think it would take the purposeful, intentional will to sacrifice our first world comforts for the revolution we claim we want, to take shape. To be willing to accept the life-changing consequences of mass direct action. To be willing to let go of our need for “stuff”, along with our need to be right and for an ‘other’ to be wrong. To disrupt business as usual. To find the “why” that allows us to do the hard, truly transformative things.
So what is your why? How, and to what ends, are you going to dream differently?
When I was born, I was named after the oldest city in the world, Jericho, located in the occupied West Bank. A battleground then as it is now. I have seen more dead babies and infants on my screen in the past few weeks than I thought I would see in my entire life. No people should have to compromise their dignity, their privacy, to beg the world to see them and their children as human beings.
The war machine rolls over our shared humanity. It flattens meaning, twists and snaps and reshapes the truth, rips apart the connectivity that holds all life, and people, together. The war machine—capitalist, racist imperialist, patriarchal power systems—was and is the only enemy we have.
To the spiritual or witchy people or yogis in my community: this is one of those moments—Goddess knows there’s more to come—when one’s belief is tested. What are you made of? What is your house built on? How clear is your vision for a just tomorrow? Are you living in alignment with that vision today?
Spiritual people aren’t people who buy crystals or read horoscopes. Witches aren’t metaphorical. They are a voice for earth and her most oppressed beings. They defend, they protect, they transgress borders and boundaries. They hold the grief of the whole world and alchemise it into love through action. It might feel like the ask is big; to see and hold so much suffering. But the ask is actually small. Practice living with your heart open. Resist fear, guilt, or despondence with do-able acts of creativity and resistance.
The war machine may not be at your doorstep today, but it’s gorging on ~your hard earned tax money year after year. Enough! When I step back and slow down enough to examine my truest truths; my values, I remember what I believe: there only ever was and ever will be one battle; the one happening in the mind, played out in the world by those powerful enough to. The one between the illusion of separateness, and the reality of sacred, interconnected life.
This sense of interconnectivity is the access point for my “why”—the space from which I begin to dream differently. Or perhaps, remember the dream I’ve had all along.
Journalling prompts: 12 universal questions for dreaming a revolution
What is the (specific) world I want to see?
How should I think to realise this world?
How can I behave to realise this world?
What can I do now to help build this world?
What should I *avoid* doing to help build it?
What major obstacles are in the way?
What personal/internal hurdles should I watch out for?
How will I overcome the need for instant results and remain persistent?
What do I need to take care of personally (emotionally, physically, spiritually etc) to stay persistent?
How can I entice those around me into sharing my vision?
Who is it essential to work with for cross-cultural coalition building and impact?
Who can I look to as an example of someone who embodies what I hope for everyone? Who is modelling building the world I want to see? What can I learn from them?
Some resources to aid in dreaming
~ This poem by Taha Muhammad Ali called “Revenge”.
~ This poem by Ellen Bass called “Pray for Peace”.
~ This wonderful Substack piece by Eleanor Stern called on “Pro-Palestinian Jews”.
~ Look into cross-cultural or interfaith coalition-building organisations with a joint vision for Israel Palestine’s future, such as Standing Together, A Land For All, and the One Democratic State campaign. Let it inspire your sense of the possible, and your actions at a local level.
Additional actions you can take, in parallel with dreaming and building, depending on your capacity:
~ Donate to trusted orgs (MSF, Anera, Red Crescent, Action Aid, Palestinian Youth Movement, etc.)
~ Call a representative
~ Sign petitions
~ Attend a protest
~ Talk to family and friends
~ Read a history book
~ Practice metta bhavana meditation
~ Pray or perform magic for peace
~ Hex Netanyahu
~ Watch a documentary (try Shadow of the West by Edward Said)
~ Support and vote for better leaders
~ Go to meetings, talks, grief circles, coalition-building events
~ Folllow press on the ground
~ Make art to help understand and transmute your feeling state
~ Harness your determination through daily supportive practices
~ Again, find those doggedly hopeful fellow dreamers, pragmatic bridge-builders, and take hope and inspiration in them.
~ Now, don’t be afraid to share something of your ‘why’ or your vision. Yes, it will sound naive to those who don’t dream as big or as often. No, not everyone you care about will agree. Who cares?
Onward! May the new moon’s face wash away your hopelessness, your fear of transformation, and your attachment to the status quo and its systems of separation between us. May the new moon help us begin to grow in our capacity to do the hard things, together. We are all we have. May our inexplicably linked liberation and freedom grow brighter and more visible, as it does.
Xo Jerico
What an incredibly powerful piece. Thank you, Jerico. You're a beacon 🌟