A Tale of Two Dreams
You get to decide—will you choose the dark dream of the tech-bros and their cronies? Or a brighter dream of a better world?
American exceptionalism often puts rose-colored blinders on even the most astute pundits and commentators.
If this were happening in another country, the US media would not hesitate to call it a coup. But here, The New York Times is decorously calling Musk’s illegal takeover of US government computers “an aggressive incursion.” WHAAAT??
Republicans have been mum as Musk’s illegal pillaging rampage goes on.
Inserting code and AI into the US Treasury computers? HELLO???
This is the same party that went ballistic because Hilary Clinton had a secondary email server in her home office and sent some work emails from it.
That caused a huge crisis…but Musk and his merry band of tech bro-boys (I call them the muskrats, though it does disservice to that cute, harmless animal) can commandeer US government mainframe computers, perp-walk their legal guardians out of the building, sit down and take over of a Saturday afternoon? HELLO???
Today protests are scheduled in all 50 states. People have been complaining about the “poor organization” of these protests, which were started, it appears, by a Reddit group and spread virally, in a leaderless way.
Yesterday a few organizations stepped in to claim leadership (Third Act, Indivisible) while individual activists were divided (Rebecca Solnit apologized for sharing the unattributed meme, while Bill McKibben said “see you there”).
In fact, this form of “leaderless protest” is appropriate for these leaderless times, empowering anyone in any town to stand up with a sign and make their feelings known.
If you remember back to the quaint days of 2017, when Trump tried to impose a “Muslim ban” via the TSA, there were pop-up protests at the airports, spontaneously organized on Twitter, and they were remarkably effective.
My 30-something son scoffs at the effectiveness of physical protest, but look around the world and you see that when people are sufficiently enraged and turn out in sufficient numbers, corrupt leaders back down or are toppled.
No more American exceptionalism—that could very well happen here.
Or not.
If the population stays quiet, passive and subdued, then we get a Russian-style scenario, the oligarchs taking charge, with their massive gulags for any dissenters. Sending American citizens to Guantanamo or El Salvador? It’s already in the works.
My last post was about how mysticism and activism can and do often work together. What is my inner mystic’s take on what’s happening in the US now?
It’s clear to me that humans are remarkably adept at manifesting their dreams into reality.
What is happening now is a manifestation of the wet dreams of a crowd of corrupt, narcissistic, greedy, megalomaniac men.
We might call what is happening in the US “insanity” as a figure of speech, but it actually is insanity in point of fact, insanity projected out into a world made in its image.
Meanwhile, Gaia goes about her business as best she can. The storms and droughts, fires and floods, are all signs of the Earth trying to rebalance her basic life systems. Many species are going down into the darkness of extinction, escaping the madness of life in this time of destructive human over-population and over-consumption.
To be a human in this time, especially a privileged American, is to know that you are complicit in this destruction—and now more than ever, since we are now under the thrall of a bunch of power-hungry tech barons.
Now is a time when those of us who dream of a different, kinder, happier future must put our psychic and physical energy into elaborating and manifesting those dreams.
What kind of world do you want to leave to your children and all future generations?
Spell it out. Paint it, draw it, write it, speak it, share it…use all of your formidable powers as a human communicator to clearly envision what you want to see in the world…and then start thinking about how you can make even a small piece of that vision come true.
Those of us who are writers can be part of a visionary team of worldbuilders who can articulate and sketch out possible futures in ways that will persuade others, welcome them into your beautiful dream, and invite them to help you make it a reality.
This must not be outsourced to AI, which only gives us new versions of what has been thought before. We need bold new ideas, suited to our unprecedented new epoch.
We have the potential to understand as never before how we humans can contribute to the health of the intricate Gaian system—and how, when we destroy the health of Gaia, we are signing our own suicide pact.
Right now the US government has been taken over by people with a dark, frightening dream of the future of America and the world.
The critical battleground is not physical, but psychic. They cannot be allowed to impose their dark dream on our country.
The only way out is through this painful passage in human history. As Valarie Kaur says, “perhaps this is the darkness of the womb, not the tomb.”
Let’s make it so.
Yours, reaching for the Light,
Jennifer
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Four Fridays, Feb. 28 - March 21, 2025, live online from 12 - 1:30 pm with recordings available.
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Meet me in Petaluma, California on March 30 for a daylong writing retreat!
Come on retreat with me and Birth Your Truest Story co-host Audrey Kalman along the Petaluma River in northern California. We'll write, share, grab lunch at a neighborhood cafe, and amble to the river for inspiration. Join us to:
Trace your inspiration back to its source
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Write together and share your work
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March 30, 2025. Early registration ($139) runs through February 28.
Meet me in Rowe, Massachusetts for a weekend retreat in the beautiful month of May!
Come on retreat with me in the budding springtime setting of Rowe, Massachusetts, where we’ll write to explore our deep connections with our Mother Earth, Gaia, as well as how the potent theme of mothering and nurturing has shown up in our lives.
Rowe is a magical retreat center nestled in the northern Berkshire mountains, with trails through mature forests bordering a tranquil lake. It’s rustic in a way that encourages communion with the land and camaraderie with the kindred spirits in our circle.
May 9 - 11, 2025. Sliding scale tuition and a variety of accommodations on site. I can’t wait to share this special experience with you!
Come Riding & Writing in Iceland with me in June!
Riding & Writing in Iceland!
June 2 - 8, 2025
The creative tonic of Iceland has to be experienced to be understood.
Come experience the body, mind and spirit glow that comes from Riding & Writing in good company in a beautiful place, warmly hosted by our friends Gudmar and Christina at Hestaland.
Click here to find out more and see beautiful photos from my past Riding & Writing trips to Iceland.
Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
The motto of my author consulting business is “Writing to Right the World,” and the motto of my book publishing business, Green Fire Press, is “Books that Make the World Better.”
If these intentions resonate with you and you are working on a book, or have one in mind, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Supporting creative people bring their work more strongly out into the world is one way I try to make the world better.
Love this piece Jennifer. I appreciate the challenge it is to incorporate reflections and acknowledgment of the serious and dark crisis the US is in at the moment, and yet look to the intentional way we can go about recreating the world we want without making it sound like out- of-touch positivity. I find people are either focused on the doom, as I often am, although trying to stick to the facts rather than project an outcome, or else seemingly blithely unaware that there is a world in crisis out there as they go about trying to create magical unicorns.
As an artist going into my studio, I am struggling to create anything lately beyond painting a few Valentine cards, which are sort of low-investment doodles, although trying to keep me focused on the good.... and yet there's a part of me that feels like it's foolish "in times like these". If I was an American I would join protest marches and calll my representatives, but from here all I can do to help is perhaps share some of the information I find to help galvanize others. Most of my American friends are eerily silent on social media. I am very concerned, for as you well know, a major crisis in the US will likely have ripple effects for us next door, and possibly around the world. I will try to find balance and paint for good.