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The times we’re living in are not so much unprecedented (except of course, for climate catastrophe) as they are untenable. The wealth of knowledge at our fingertips has both hardened our minds with cartesian pretension and softened our will to act, individually and collectively. Perfectionism pervades social justice and environmentalism “discourse” and global corporations, tracking are every thought and movement, have a vested interest in keeping us logged on and half-alive.
There’s a lot to be despondent about. It’s easy to feel angry. To shrug and reach for distraction or immediate gratification. It’s sooo easy. It’s designed to be.
That’s why hope is a daily practice. That’s why imagination is a political tool for world-changing. Why creativity is so necessary. Why joy is revolutionary. And why acting (in small and local or big and global ways) with the spirit of bravery, anti-perfectionism, steadfast defence of goodness, and love is radical.
The beginning of a new Gregorian year is often a time of promises; “I will do this,” “I won’t do that”. While weaponised, they can be the same scourge of perfectionism we lash ourselves with—they can also be an invitation into reconsidering our actual, present values.
What do I want my life to stand for? How do I want to live? How can I demonstrate my most meaningful values—my love—through my daily actions?
For me, this involves committing to a more consistent and thoughtful approach in how I act and what I purchase—especially clothes and groceries. In terms of the former, I’m talking unmasking and specifically, unmasking my tone of voice, depth of interest/opinion, and understanding my sensory body. And as for the later, for the last six months or so I’ve been purchasing only second-hand clothing, which I’ll continue to do, but my food and house supplies are still a little too plastic-y. This small change in where I shop and for what is something I can easily do, with planning and a tiny bit more spending.
What first small step feels easy for you? What convictions do you commit to not just thinking, but living right now? Whatever it is, I wish you a safe, healthy, and happy 2023.
2023: The Chariot Year
2022 corresponded to The Lovers in tarot. We were asked to make heart-led choices that would make our values clearer and lead us closer to our divine, unique expression. Now, we act.
The Chariot card makes 2023 a year to start walking the walk of conviction. It’s time to stop simply being a consumer and start being a creator; a creator of your life and all your cultivate and express within it. It’s time to get into the driver’s seat of your life and start moving.
But don’t be conned into a state of hastiness or urgency. Most of us have a tendency to jump onto a hedonic treadmill of our own making with such enthusiasm that it takes us decades and decades to notice it’s a wheel. Consider your path carefully before you take it further. Removing your armour and lightening your load, emotionally speaking, will mean you go further in the long run.
Poetry Corner
I came across this poem twice within two weeks, courtesy of Rob Brezsny and Giselle Buchanan. And it’s everything I’m feeling into for this upcoming year.
I invite you to close your eyes if that’s comfortable, put your hands over your heart, take a deep and slow breath in and then let it all go. Now do that twice more, open your eyes, keep your hands on your heart, and read along with the (on average) three thousand other dreamers here in this space with you—all visioning and enacting a better world into being.
“Imagine The Angels Of Bread” by Martín Espada
This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges,
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year
that darkskinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.
This is the year that those
who swim the border’s undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will that owns
the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes
stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth;
this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.
If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorium,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback
are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.
So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.
~
How to work with me in 2023 *:・゚✧
Creative coaching: Come Alive is my three-month 1:1 coaching series for creatives, dreamers, and weirdos. And I’m currently taking complimentary 30-min Zoom calls with prospective clients for Jan—March! Read about other people’s experience and get more information HERE.
Rainbow Power: My new book, Rainbow Power: Manifest your dream life with the creative magic of color, is out and about wherever good books are sold. Start the new year by embracing the creative and magical power of colour—a witch’s best friend. And if you love it, leave a review. <3
Tarot reading: My books are open for January right now and will open for February in a couple of week.
xo Jerico
P.S.