The end of 2020. Thank god, I hear people say.
We are hoping for hope. For light. A way out of the dark times of 2020. Its not that simple. This, afterall, is history. The most corrupt presidential administration—four decades in the making. Things slipped by without much notice over a long period of time. And voila—we have a pandemic, a recession, a Trump-based mob politics, sold the damn PPE to others, cronies reaping millions, if not billions of dollars, the sale of arms and nuclear technologies to murderous regimes (all for private gain). So many things have been “wrong.” Hard to sum it in a simple way. If I had to say— its not just one thing, or event, its a loss of faith in politics, people, and institutions. “They’re all corrup” is, in my view, not discernment. A politics of distrust. We do not trust the other, we do not trust institutions. We don’t know what or who is trustworthy. And that right there, the distrust, is for me, four decades in development. So many pieces of this—changes in finance, flat wages, globalization of production, the demographic change in the race/ethic composition of the West. This is our dusty realm of anger, resentment, frustration and grief.
In dust, in pain, there is often, also, thriving—inequality conditions creative becoming. Art, music, movements, video, politics. Its there, if you look. Changing the lens with which to view the beauty of unfoldings, becomings. This does not mean everything will be okay afterall. But hopefully, we can see, in corners, under and over dust, the beginnings of a becoming.
Ah, the realm has always been dust. No new year promises except to stay with… what is. Maybe read some history. Oh, and clean your space. Wash your belongings and scrub your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom… to do the inner turning, of purification for the new year. Clear some feng shui if you believe in such things as I do.
Of the many things that have happened this year, near and far, with the anger, the fear, the shock, and some minor delights, I can think of only one thing to say this week: we will miss our friends and family who have left this dusty world.
On new year’s day, bow in the direction of a new day, in dust, in life.