Posted on November 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
It always happens this time of year. We jump on a trail in the early afternoon thinking we have plenty of time and are caught completely off guard when the sun sets. “What time is it?” we ask in our annual ritual of amazement. It is always earlier – much earlier – than we think. “It’s not even happy hour!” we declare, walking in the dark, as if the great-gods-of-daylight might not have fully considered the impact on happy hour before they magically turned the dial and made 4:30pm feel like midnight.
This fall we feel particularly out of sync with time. We lost the month of October to Covid. We feel as if Covid was a portal into the Twilight Zone: we entered the month with hope and health and by the time we emerged from our sickness, it was the middle of November and the world was completely changed. Darker. It feels a bit Rip-Van-Winkle-ish.
Rob once told me when I felt lost in the woods, that the best thing to do was sit down and be still. Not to panic or walk in circles. To surrender trying-to-be-found. “Sit down and be lost. Relax and pay attention,” he wrote, “then maybe a direction will reveal itself to you.”
It was sage advice and even more so in the current darkness descending on our nation. On one level, we are preparing for the storm of chaos and indecency coming down the pike. On another level, feeling lost and confused with the national inversion of dignity and civility, we are choosing to sit down. We are choosing to be lost. It is more useful, now that the initial disgust and disbelief is past, to relax and pay attention.
For all of us who value the promise of the ideal beating at the heart of our Constitution, now threatened by thuggery and incompetence, it is our belief that a direction will reveal itself.
In the meantime, we surrender trying to be found. In the meantime, we hold firmly to each other and our hope…
Posted on November 19, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
My dear Judy checked in. She was worried for me since my recent posts have been dark. Her outreach came at a good time since I have been aware of the difference between what I am currently writing and what I am experiencing as I write. For this moment in time, for my journey in this life, what I am writing may sound dark but it couldn’t be more positive.
I was writing notes to myself to try and articulate why, for me, my posts are so life-affirming, when Kerri showed me this video. I couldn’t have written a better or more clear description. If you haven’t yet seen this, take four minutes and watch it. Take it in.
I have spent much of my life attempting to “keep the peace”. Mostly, that has meant withholding my voice. To be silent in an effort not to stir the pot. To not be contradictory and rock the boat. It has never really worked. What I have achieved is voice-less-ness; laughable, I know, since I write a blog six days a week – but true. I have until recently been very careful to edit thoughts that might offend. I have consciously attended to calming the ripples of other’s feelings more than the honest expression of my own.
This video nicely encapsulates the imperative I now feel. Peace demands that we speak up for each other. Peace demands that we stand up and say, “This isn’t right.” Peace demands that we look at elected Republicans and ask, “Where is your spine? And, if you can’t find your spine, can you possibly locate your moral compass? Either will do. Either serve us in this moment.”
Peace demands that we look at ourselves and ask the same two questions. And then give voice to our disgust and outrage. An arsonist is setting our house on fire. Many people are being burned. Many more are in danger. This is no time to smile sweetly and pretend or to play peacekeeper. A lesson from Gandhi who was not silent. An example set by Martin Luther King, Tarana Burke and so many others. They were loud. They are loud. Their aim is peace.
For me – and for you – there is no peace in silence or pretending. As I am learning, we become centered, unified and stronger when we speak up and speak out.
Posted on November 15, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
The birds on a wire brought my Periwinkle book to mind. Context is everything. It is now as relevant as the day I wrote it:
Peri Winkle Rabbit was lost.
All the other animals were lost, too!
There had been a fire. Peri Winkle was asleep when grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit shook her awake and said, “RUN!”
Peri ran. At first, Peri ran with her mom and dad, her sisters and brothers and grandpa Harry Winkle, too.
All the other animals were running, too, the deer and the bears and the foxes and the squirrels. Some were running in circles but most just ran away from the fire.
It was confusing. There were so many legs and paws running this way and that. Peri could no longer see her parents. She couldn’t see her brothers or sisters. Even grandpa Harry Winkle Rabbit was nowhere to be found.
Peri stopped and got knocked down. She hopped back up and called out for her mother. She called for her father. She couldn’t see them anywhere.
A great paw scooped her up and she was suddenly eye to eye with a bear!
“This is no time for still standing, little ears!” said the bear.
“I can’t find my family,” squeaked Peri Winkle Rabbit. The bear was holding her very tight.
“We’ll find your family, little ears,” puffed the running bear, “But first we have to find a place safe and beyond the fire.”
The bear held Peri Winkle Rabbit close to his chest. Peri could hear the boom-Boom of the bear’s big heart as he ran swiftly away from the flames. Peri Winkle Rabbit felt so sad and so tired, she couldn’t help it when she fell fast asleep.
“Good morning, little ears!” The bear smiled as Peri blinked open her eyes.
“Where am I?” asked Peri.
“I don’t rightly know, “ said the bear, “but we’re now safe and far from the fire.”
That’s how Peri Winkle Rabbit came to be lost. She looked around and saw that the forest was gone! The other animals looked and they saw it too. All the green was now black and the mighty trees were charcoal twigs twisted in ruins on the ground.
The animals started to cry. Even the big bear cried. Peri cried, too. Together, they made lots of loud crying sounds and it felt good to wail the loss of their forest home.
And then, they each told their stories of escape from the fire. They told of their lost homes and missing family and friends. They told the stories of their cuts and their bruises, their fears and their worries. They told of how they came to be together, in that place at that time. Peri Winkle Rabbit told her story, too.
“What do we do now?” a red fox asked, which was exactly the question that Peri Winkle Rabbit was thinking!
No one said a word for a very long time. They looked at each other, all covered in soot, dirty and singed and ruffled and tired.
“Well,” a great ram began, “I am sure footed, I can help carry what’s needed.”
A hawk landed on the ram and said, “I can see far away and can help find your missing families and friends.”
The great bear said, “Yes, and I have a nose that can smell good smells for many miles, I will help supply all of my new friends with food!”
“I can gather nuts!” cried the squirrel, rubbing his nose with his hands.
“I have great ears!” cried Peri Winkle Rabbit! “I can hear what is needed and help find who can do it!”
And all the animals offered their great gifts in service to their new friends. They slowly began to do what was needed with whatever they could find. They found water and food. They found shelter from the rain. They looked for their families. They made new friends.
“Remember, a forest must grow back slowly, one day at a time,” said the bear when Peri felt impatient.” Our job is to help it grow.”
“It is all different than before,” said Peri, suddenly missing her old home.
“Yes,” said the bear. “We are all different now, little ears. The fire has changed us forever.”
Peri Winkle Rabbit wrinkled her nose.
The great bear smiled and hugged her close, saying, “Now might be the time for still standing, little ears, we don’t want to miss the lessons of the fire.”
So together Peri Winkle rabbit and the great bear sat very still, listening to the forest and thinking about all that had happened. And though she didn’t quite know where she was, Peri Winkle Rabbit wasn’t lost anymore.
A one-copy book made for a child who lost their family during Hurricane Katrina. I’ve never published the full text but thought it was time. I included photos of a few of the pages.
Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora
Posted on November 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
We had a quiet yet lively debate last night. The question was, “Did they know what they were voting for when they chose the candidate who vowed to end Democracy?” They certainly know that their candidate lacks all decency; he made no effort to hide his depravity. Kerri is of the opinion that they know. Only rage, fear and hatred could vote for a party that so explicitly promises violence. I am not so sure. Or, perhaps, I do not want to believe it.
The scholar of fascism (I didn’t catch his name) referenced Plato: Democracy inevitably leads to tyranny. “The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. . . . This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. . . . having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; . . . After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown.” (Plato, Republic) The scholar said it was fascinating to watch his life’s study, the rise of fascism, happen in real time. I would choose a different adjective. Horrifying, maybe. Unimaginable. Certainly it is sad.
Tyrants lack reason. Tyrants rise from emotion untethered from rationality, logic…intelligence. Emotion untethered from intelligence is a great definition of Fox News, hate-tv, the megaphone of the tyrant.
Last night Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and dinner guest of the tyrant-elect, tweeted, “Your body, my choice. Forever” It is a sentiment not unlike the famous Access Hollywood tape, the tyrant-elect bragging of his fondness of and predilection for sexual assault. “When you are a star they let you do it.” Of course, now we must seriously consider the ramifications of the word, “Forever.”
If they truly didn’t know or understand, with the coming of the promised nationwide abortion ban, their daughters, sisters, nieces, mothers, wives will soon fully grok the reality, living as they will, without any agency over their bodies. They will come to understand. Certainly they will come to understand when the women in our nation – as is happening now in Texas, are maimed and/or die when life saving treatment is available but illegal.
I don’t want to believe that they know what they voted for. I don’t want to believe so many of my fellow citizens are so ugly. I prefer to believe that they are titanically ignorant rather than malicious.
I decided during our late night quiet debate that, at this early moment in the shock of coming tyranny, it is a pointless conversation. A few years into the tyrant’s reign, we will discover whether or not they really understood what they voted for. When the greatest economy in the world tanks, when – as happened last time – family farms are driven into bankruptcy from needless tariffs, when we join the world’s autocrats rather than resist them, when the new class of oligarchs hold the reigns of power, when we are fully feeling the “promised pain,”… then the answer to our question will come out. Will the voters for tyranny ask, “What happened?”
I hope so.
I’m writing these words today so that two years from now I will not have to say what I suspect is the shallow truth of our present moment:
Posted on November 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Often, if you pay attention, the smallest pattern of action is a fractal revealing the bigger picture.
For instance, a small pattern of action: when Kamala Harris first became the Democratic nominee for president, many of our neighbors had to display their yard signs from inside their houses; if left outside their signs disappeared.
Bigger picture: the maga-candidate and his supporters promise to erase all voices of opposition. It is their pledge, their vow, the entirety of their platform.
Our democracy is a two-party system founded on the principle of healthy debate. In other words, opposition, the active engagement with opposing points of view is the magic ingredient of our form of governance . Our vote is the sacred epicenter of the ongoing, healthy debate. Our vote is literally our voice in the debate. It is how we sustain and perpetuate the gift of democracy.
Democracy is never finished. It is not a place of arrival. It is not a noun. It is an ongoing, living process, imperfect and messy, that generation to generation strives toward a more perfect union. It is an action, a verb. We are what we do. Today -and every day – we are the stewards of this high ideal: government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Today, unlike any other vote of our lives or our parents’ or grandparents’ lives, our great-grandparents’ lives – democracy in on the ballot. Kamala Harris has been clear: she will ensure that voices of opposition have a seat at the table. That is the way of democracy.
The maga-candidate has been clear: he intends to arrest and silence all voices of opposition. He will, if necessary, use the military to do it. He’s labeled voices of opposition as “the enemy within”. That is the way of fascism.
Removing opposition silences the debate and smothers the breath of democracy.
Small pattern: over time, more and more Harris/Walz signs showed up in yards, moving from inside the house to the outside where they belong.
Big picture: the voice of opposition grows stronger, louder, more vibrant, when tyrants attempt to repress it. That, too, is an American tradition. It’s in our dna, our national character. We don’t like it when we are stripped of our freedoms. As Kamala Harris reminded us, our nation was established when a petty tyrant tried to suppress our voices and restrict our rights; when the petty tyrant tried to eliminate our freedoms he unleashed an uncontrollable voice of opposition. We the people.
248 years later, another petty tyrant promises, if elected (ironically) to remove all voices of opposition. Opposition stands in the way of his lust for absolute power. He vows to abolish the magic ingredient. He is committed to the eradication of democracy, the birth of fascism. He’s already begun his erasure of opposition by once again claiming without evidence that our elections are corrupt.
And so, today, our choice could not be clearer. Today, we exercise our right of voice. We will either carry forward our inheritance of healthy opposition or we will fall into the petty divide and end it.
Today we weigh in on the debate. Democracy or fascism? We vote.
Posted on November 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
I was grateful for the meme. It gave me simple language, a shorthand, for something I was wrestling to articulate: We are not having a difference of opinion. We are having a difference of morality.
I wonder that it took a meme to open my eyes. This in not about information bubbles or dueling points-of-view or fact-checked-information.
We are on the eve of an election. This election is unlike any other in our lives. The choice before us eclipses policy differences. On the ballot is democracy or not-democracy. A constitutional republic or an autocracy.
The maga-candidate sows division, darkness and grievance. He is a pathological liar. He is obsessed with retribution. He vows to use the military to silence “the enemy within”. He promises to arrest his opponents. Last week he suggested a firing squad for Liz Cheney. In a multicultural nation, a nation of immigrants, he promises mass deportations.
This is not empty rhetoric. As we’ve learned from his overthrow of Roe, he will do what he says. He has a Heritage Foundation plan called Project 2025 to dismantle our democracy. He disavowed it when public knowledge of his embrace of this extreme fascist blueprint hurt his chances for election. It is his milksop pattern: by pretending he has no knowledge he abdicates responsibility for his words and actions. It is a damning statement of his lack of character. It is a characteristic of an authoritarian narcissist.
What is also a damning statement of character is to vote for such a man. To turn a blind eye to all that he has said, all that he has done, all the lies that he has told, is a statement of our character.
Presidential historian Jon Meacham recently reminded us that within the spirit of the Constitution lives the character of our leaders – and also the character of the led. Our national character. “Out of many, one” is more than a quaint Latin phrase printed on our currency.
A character check: compare the maga-candidate’s daily mantra, “I have no knowledge” with the sign Harry S. Truman proudly displayed on the resolute desk: The buck stops here.
A vote for the maga-candidate is literally a vote to suspend the Constitution (his words). It is a vote to suspend our national character. It is a vote absent of a moral center.
We choose our leaders as a reflection of ourselves. It is why this election is unlike any other in our lives. The image the maga-candidate reflects back to us is at best repugnant. It is empty of character. It is the opposite of our nation’s identity.
If you see yourself in this man, a misogynist, xenophobe, racist, filled with rage and retribution…we are having something much more profound, much more serious than a difference of opinion.
We have a difference of morality.
Decency matters. Conduct matters. Language matters. Character matters. Principles matter. Intentions matter. Discerning the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad behavior, matters.
It’s the spirit living in our Constitution. It’s the character our leaders ought to reflect back to us because it’s the character we should demand from our leaders.
And so we vote.
Democracy or not-democracy.
Will we live and act from a moral center, striving to fulfill the promise of a more perfect union, or will we throw it away and spiral into a fascist void?
Posted on November 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
Imaginary problems.
It is my personal favorite phrase – and point – pulled from Jimmy Kimmel’s special monologue for the republicans in our families. It’s an appeal to their sanity, a summary of the nonsensical incoherence and hate daily spewing from the mouth of their dictator wanna-be and his enablers.
He creates imaginary problems.
For instance: Imaginary problem: that there is rampant voter fraud in our elections. Reality: we have safe, fair, and free elections. There was no evidence of voter fraud in 2020. There is no evidence of voter fraud in 2024.
Other examples of a ridiculous and dangerous imaginary problem: immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Gangs of immigrants are taking over Aurora, Colorado. There are dangerous imaginary problems within the imaginary problem. For instance, immigrants are murderers and rapists set free from the world’s prisons and running amok in our nation. Or there is this: The border is an open door. In reality – yes, in reality – none of it is true.
The “invasion” rant, the immigrant-hate-speak we hear daily, the voter fraud screed…is nothing more or less than fearmongering. Fearmongering: (noun) the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable.
Imaginary problems are meant to make people afraid of something when it is not necessary or reasonable.
Real problem: People in a democracy are voting for fascism because they have been thoroughly steeped in the imaginary monsters set loose by the wanna-be-dictator and magnified by his X oligarch and the fox-megaphone. Very real problem: 47% of the voting public have lost faith in our system based on lies and imaginary problems; fear manufactured in order to sway them.
The monsters are imaginary. The hate and fear it invokes is very real.
The impact of the wild conspiracy theories and incessant lies aren’t imaginary. For instance, the refusal of the dictator-wanna-be to accept the results of the free and fair election of 2020 led to the deaths of 5 Capitol police officers. 140 police officers were injured by a mob responding to an imaginary problem. The families of the 5 officers who died viscerally know the reality of death, all due to the imaginary problem whipped up by the only president in our history who refused to accept the results of a free and fair election. Real problem: the same man – the only man in our history – who incited violence rather than carry on the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – is once again whipping up the same imaginary problem. Real problem: his maga-party is enabling his lie.
His 34 felony convictions are real. His civil conviction for rape is real. The multiple felony counts he faces are real. What’s imaginary? That the charges against him are politically motivated. He would have his supporters believe that he bears no responsibility for his actions. That is a real problem.
And so, we vote. And the question we answer with our ballots is whether or not we are capable of discerning between what is real from what is imaginary, what has substance and and what is falsehood, whether or not we will step forward as a real democracy or step off into the dark fascist imagination of a tired angry reality tv star, a fabrication of a man whose only gift seems to be creating imaginary problems.
Our vote can be an actual solution to the wanna-be-dictator’s abundant imaginary problems.
Either way the consequences of our vote will be real.
Posted on October 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
It’s a windy day and the chimes are singing to us. The wind is from the west so the temperatures are rising. We opened the windows. It feels as if the house is breathing, taking in the fresh air before the temperatures drop and the doors and windows are sealed against the cold.
I know that we are breathing. Kerri said that there’s nothing like a ride in an ambulance to give you perspective. She thought of our children. She thought of me. “Nothing else mattered,” she said. Each breath we take includes a sigh of relief.
Life can change in an instant.
We walked the rim trail. We sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It’s an awesome thing – especially for someone who is afraid of heights as I am – to sit on the edge without any guardrails. Full exposure. To me, it feels as if the canyon is pulling me over the edge. It’s disorienting. Of course, it is not pulling me, I know. The feeling, the fear, comes from inside of me.
I heard a powerful statement this week. With the supreme court’s jaw-dropping ruling on presidential immunity, with the Project 2025 plan ready to replace civil servants with those who will swear an oath of loyalty to the dictator-wanna-be, with a cabinet of sycophants and loyalists, there is only one guardrail left between our democracy and our nation being pulled into the abyss of fascism. The maga-clan isn’t even trying to mask their hatred, their authoritarian intention; it was on full display in Madison Square Garden.
The GOP has dissolved into a puddle of cowardice. Fearing it will lose a dollar, the business community and much of the media have tucked their tail, dropped their collective spine and are playing hear-no-evil-see-no-evil.
We are in the ambulance, now. What world will we leave our children?
The guardrail is us. You and me. Our vote. I suppose that is as it should be. A “Government of the people. by the people, for the people…” – a democracy in crisis – should necessarily depend upon the people to deliver it from the hands of an autocrat.
We are and should be the guardrail against tyranny.
It only takes a minute to read the full text of The Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s final thought in his very concise address are as relevant today as they were the day he dedicated The Soldier’s National Cemetery, November 19, 1863:
“—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~ Abraham Lincoln
It is our turn. We are the guardrail. We are the generation that will determine whether or not our nation, “…conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…can long endure.”
Vote as if our democracy depends on it – because it does.
Posted on October 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
We thought it was motion sickness or perhaps a brush with heat stroke. In retrospect, it was her first symptoms of COVID. Fever and nausea. Perception is a funny thing. We were on a pontoon boat on Lake Powell, a miracle of water in the middle of the desert. We ascribed her sickness to the circumstance of the moment, blinding ourselves to the presence of the virus.
20 days later, now at home, I called an ambulance. Searing pain in her back, intense nausea. She couldn’t move. She lost consciousness and when she came back into her body, she was utterly incoherent. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. I dialed 911. I thought she had a stroke or heart attack. It never occurred to me that it was COVID inflaming her spine. Sometimes we miss the obvious sickness in the pressure of the moment.
It is through these two experiences that we witness and interpret this moment in our nation’s history. The sickness is right in front of our faces. Is it the pressure of the moment, the circumstances, that make so many of our citizens willingly blind to the hate-filled virus? To what do we attribute the appeal of this maga-fascist movement within a multi-cultural democracy? I am writing ahead so am freshly disgusted by what we witnessed last night at the maga-rally at Madison Square Garden.
This morning I heard this question: Why do we hold Kamala Harris to a high standard for her position on issues, her capacity to articulate ideas, for the emotions she does or does not exhibit – and yet, there is no equal standard or expectation for her opponent? For him, there is no bar too low, no lie too repugnant, no assertion too vile…We’ve normalized his hate-speak; we’ve come to expect his racist, misogynistic rhetoric.
Why the disparity? His fascist rants drive ratings. In a decent society it should disqualify him.
Are we truly this sadly transactional? Is our moral center nothing more than quid-pro-quo?
Kamala holds herself to a high standard. She actually has ideas to articulate. She has and follows a moral compass. She holds fast to a firm belief in public service and champions the tenets of our constitution. She believes the occupant of the office of the presidency should lead by example, should elevate rather than diminish others, should support rather than threaten, should solve problems rather than make accusations, should embody and lead from a high standard, should take responsibility rather than blame. I’m almost embarrassed to write this as it should be a given for any candidate for our nation’s highest office: she also has a firm grasp of reality.
Her opponent and his party have no such expectation of themselves.
We’ve just witnessed a major newspaper withhold an endorsement for fear of retribution if maga-man wins the election. Jeff Bezos does not wish his future business deals to suffer in the event of a maga-win. We are witness to politicians – like Mitt Romney – who fear retribution and banishment from their party if they speak honestly about authoritarian big daddy. That our business leaders, that our politicians fear retribution – retribution from a candidate for president – this is the sickness. This is the fascist disease currently infecting the tongues and minds of those who have platforms to speak.
Think about it: In the United States of America, many of our senior republican politicians are so fearful of defending our democracy that they ask us not to hear what we hear. They gaslight without shame. In 2024, in the United States of America, some of our most successful business people, some who control much of our media, are choosing silence at the very moment we most need their voices. Or, worse, they are actively spreading the lies of the autocrat-wanna-be. Apparently, magnifying the bile could be good for business.
Quid pro quo. No virtue necessary. No moral fiber required. This is the virus attacking the courage- the spinal system – of our nation.
We hold Kamala Harris to a high standard because she holds us to a high standard. She believes that we will vote for a healthy future and not a diseased-fantasy-past. She believes that, after the maga-fever-dream passes, we will as a nation reunite, regain our health. We will hold ourselves and our elected officials to a higher standard. We will re-embody our famous optimism – and those who lost themselves in cowardice and hatred will reawaken, shake the sickness from their hearts and brains, and ask, as Kerri asked in the ER, “What just happened?”
Posted on October 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative
It was a rare treat to climb the stairs to the rooftop deck and gaze into the night sky, unobstructed by city lights. Years ago I worked with kids in Los Angeles, teenagers, who had never seen the stars. Standing on the roof, overwhelmed by the Milky Way, I thought about those children, now well into their adulthood, and hoped that they had, at long last, found a way to peer into the endless universe.
What else might adequately provide them the understanding of the impossibility of their existence, the enormity of their lives? What else might open their eyes and hearts to the necessity of community, the recognition that their lives only have meaning relative to the people who share this planet and this moment-in-time with them? Relationship is purpose.
We have seven days. In biblical terms that’s how long it took the metaphoric god to differentiate light from dark, land from sea, moon from sun, animals from humans. Rest from work. Humanity’s role in this story of creation is to appreciate the enormity of their unlikely existence. To steward. To name. To discern between merit and the meritless, between truth and lie. To distinguish good intention from ill-intention.
We have seven days until we vote. Although we might pretend this is normal, this election is like no other in our lifetimes. The issues have taken a back seat to the question of our existence as a democracy. We are determining whether or not we are still capable of distinguishing truth from lie, whether or not we are willing to toss away our freedoms and replace them with authoritarian rage, whether or not we will serve the needs of the greater community or the power-lust of an individual.
Seven days. We will either step forward as champions of light and truth or we will turn our backs on what we know to be true and fall backwards into the dark fascist promises of Project 2025.
Under the stars we have a choice: to continue our quest to realize the dream of a more perfect union, with liberty and justice for all – or to exchange our constitution for the autocratic craving of an angry despot. To honestly name what we know to be true.
There’s still time to climb the stairs, peer into the starry sky, and realize the power of our choices, what is at stake in this, our time, our moment.
The Direction of Intention 