Hola Reader,

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It's been another tough week to be an American (even abroad). Personally I'm also settling into the reality that I have less than 8 weeks until my maternity leave, and feeling like there is a lot on my plate to be cleared by then. I'm grateful to have found some reserves to write this week, and to have the opportunity to share. However, I'm going to opt for a simpler format this week and from now on will be rotating the sections that accompany my Reflections. This week I have a beautiful and nourishing album to share.

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Reflection

Read on the Web

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What I am going to share here is unabashedly idealistic. It feels more important than ever to return to our values and first principles in this time of confusion and division. With uncertainty, misinformation and so many shifting panoramas, tapping into our core decency and discernment is a critical tool - both personally and in service of the greater good.

There are those who interpreted 2020 as a great equalizer. That “we are all in the same boat” at last. This is not entirely true. My preferred phrase is that “we are all in different boats on the same tumultuous sea”. The waves rise and fall. Cases peak and dip, the economy surges and contracts, social unrest and violence heave and subside. The world around is changing moment to moment, yet each of us is experiencing it in our way.

This is both objective and subjective. Our objective experience is shaped by the industries in which we work, whether our jobs can be done remotely, what our childcare options are, and so many other factors. Our subjective reality is shaped more by our system of beliefs and the lenses through which we view the world.

Early on in the pandemic, I had made notes for a piece about Humanity in Cohesion. About how we might come together in the face of this crisis. And then the reckoning of racial oppression. How we might unite and use our shared energy to overcome the pandemic, dismantle white supremacy, and so much more. How we might rally around the climate crisis next, and organize ourselves globally to address poverty, hunger, infant mortality. As Charles Eisenstein posits, “If we can change so radically for Covid-19, we can do it for these other conditions [hunger, obesity, mental illness] too.”

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Unraveling

Then came the great unraveling. The divisive election. The tribal camps staking claims around vaccines and masks and what justice really means. Now, a domestic terror attack and attempted coup tearing at the tattered seams of American democracy. It certainly feels like an odd time to return to this topic. To this hopeful vision of Humanity in Cohesion.

Yet, I cannot help but return to my cautious optimism. Perhaps it is the life I harbor within, and a deep desire to see a brighter future for my children. Perhaps it is the sense of a crossing a threshold with a new year and soon to be a new administration. I hope it is simply intuition and a vision of what is emerging.

It would be foolish to deny the division in this time. The different approaches, fears, preferences, conspiracies, polarization, and extremism. It is real and at moments (such as last Wednesday) profoundly visceral. What I am holding space for is that this tattering of our social fabric is simply a process of decomposition. Part of the natural cycle of death and life. That all that is torn asunder is to become compost for bountiful new crops. That those tattered threads may be re-woven in a new image.

How? Well, here I give space to some wisdom my own father shared with me today. We have been corresponding over the past week as we process what is happening and today we observed the tendency to dig in and stake a moral high ground. This is exactly what gets us into conflict, though. So I inquired, what might we do to mend this tattered fabric (or weave it anew). To which my Dad responded “I feel strongly that it is a daily person to person task”.

So there it is. The way that Humanity in Cohesion becomes possible. That this humanity triumphs over the great challenges of our time. Not through bold and heroic initiatives, but through kindness. Decency. Empathy. Only by listening, creating a meaningful discourse, and respecting each other might we come to a place of enough cooperation from which we will be able to take significant action to emerge from these many-fold crises.

So what is it that I might do today in service of cohesion?

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Audio-Visual Landscape

What a delight to stumble upon the album Aurora by Minük. I actually first found the album as remixed by El Buho, which has more electronic production. Both are spectacular. Minük is the husband-and-wife duo of Alejandra Ortiz (Colombian singer of Lulacruza) and Marcus Berg (Swedish signer of Kultiration / Markandeya). The fusion of Nordic and Andean traditions lands beautifully for me because I have Swedish heritage and spent formative years in the Andes. The beauty of this musical tapestry transcends that personal connection, though. You can hear this couple's spiritual and creative connection throughout the album and it is deeply inspiring.

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Be good to yourselves,

Kate

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