Sacred Voice [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

My niece said it perfectly: for the first time in eight years I can vote FOR someone rather than against someone. The direction of intention. Moving toward the light instead of reacting against the darkness. And now, with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, there is at long last a brilliant sunrise.

Beneath every action is a reason. A purpose or desire.

A vote is an action. It is the single action at the epicenter of every democracy. If there is a sacred action in the idea of democracy, voting is it. It is how we-the-people choose our path forward. It is how we participate (take responsibility) in our development. It is how we give voice to our intentions. To date, the people in the United States have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the world. Only 62%.

Choosing not to vote is…a choice. An inaction.

Over and over again in my career I heard people decry their voice-less-ness. Sunk in the quicksand-belief that their actions did not matter, their voice did not matter, they simply ceased trying. “No matter what I do, nothing changes.” Somehow, the connection between action and impact is snapped. And, the space between the broken pieces fills with the anger of helplessness.

As my former business partner responded to a woman who claimed voicelessness, “If you had a voice, what would you say?”

You have a voice. It’s called a vote. If you choose to use it, what will you say? Will you speak with dark fear or proclaim joy-filled-light? Will you declare possibility or mean-spirited-pout?

Our actions in the next few months, our vote this November, is our voice. I choose the light. My vote, my voice, will speak to a world that serves and shines on the whole community, that reaches for the central ideal: the creation of a nation built on the notion Out-Of-Many–One. Service to all. It is the reason we have a sacred vote, a voice of We-The-People.

There’s never been a better time, a more necessary time, to stand up and speak loud and clear. There’s never been a more important time to help others who have become complacent to claim – to reclaim – their sacred voice.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ACTION

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Avoid The Vortex [on Two Artists Tuesday]

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I miss my friend dearly. We spoke on the phone for almost two hours this morning. It had been too long since our last check-in. He said something very pertinent to our times. Although he does not believe in the devil, by way of metaphor he said this: The devil’s job is to pull us into a negative vortex. And, these days, the devil is winning.

I am guilty of being pulled into the angry vortex and his caution hit home.

Yesterday, Kerri’s entire catalogue of posts was blocked by Facebook. That’s 130 weeks times 5-posts-a-week = 650 posts. We have no idea why. We read FB’s new Community Standards, the reasons they give for blocking content, and can’t find evidence of a single violation. It’s almost a mystery.

Almost. A few minutes before her posts were wiped from FB, someone visited our business page, scanned Kerri’s blog-posts from last week, and alerted FB that they were spam. Coincidence is not always correspondence however, in this case, one action – the alerts – triggered the other action – the blocking of Kerri’s posts. It was an intentional act and not an accident.

In this age of information there is, of course, no person to call, no help line or customer service agent. There is a firewall, a form, a void or black hole, that accepts feedback. The feedback form, however, informs givers of feedback [human beings] that their feedback will not be read.

I scratch my head at the existential drama I am currently living. Sarte. No Exit.

The Facebook-content-scrubbing may be temporary. It may not. The blog-posts may be reviewed or they might not. There’s no one to ask and there’s no next-level-information available. I wrote about this a few months ago, the good-bots at FB suddenly sent Kerri copyright violation warnings on her recordings. She wrote, recorded, and owns the copyrights to all of her music and albums. FB now blocks her from sharing her own music. Her protests went into the same black hole as her blog-post-feedback.

The intelligence is, at best, artificial.

People are angry. It takes a special kind of anger to systematically go through someone’s posts and mark them as spam. They had to jump my posts to reach Kerri’s so it seems obvious that the anger is personal though the none-the-less feeble. Any poltroon can hit a button; it takes a bit of courage to give voice, especially when it is in opposition.

The vortex may be attempting to suck the light from all of us but I doubt the devil will win. Life is not a win/lose game. It moves. It changes. Day follows night.

My friend said something else that I found hopeful in these dark times: out of ashes, out of chaos, the phoenix always rises. That is important to remember. It is best to stand still when all things seem like they are spinning, spinning out of control.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about SHHHHH! [it’s possible that her posts may never reappear so, if you enjoy reading Kerri’s blog, consider subscribing. I know we publish waaay too much but, with the minor exception of us, no one reads everything that we write.]

 

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