"Everything felt right with the world . . .

for a short time this afternoon", said a good friend following a concert of the Florida Chamber Music Project*. While the comment and the concert warmed my heart, I couldn't help wondering if this is our new norm? Being suspended momentarily from life's dailyness is always welcome, yet, this is something else. This is the moment when we realize "we are not in Kansas anymore". I will not label it a wake-up call, nor an existential crisis, though it is both, this is more than that. Much more. When the music in our ears and the sunshine on our faces begins to feel like a short moment when everything is right with the world, what does that say about all the other moments? Are we already swimming in sentiments of the "good ol' days" when we enjoyed an afternoon outing, then easily got on with everything else even as the music lingered in our minds? If so, this is a marker between what was and what is now.

When something begins to feel nostalgic it is because it has already been lost. Some things are already beginning to seem like a distant memory the way a dream recedes in the waking moment. Everything that was easy is getting harder; everything that was already hard is getting harder.

Remember when it used to be easy to buy a dozen eggs, scramble 'em up for breakfast, and call it a day? Today, bare store shelves and soaring prices make "over-easy" seem hard-boiled. It is not a stretch to imagine other shortages of this or that until pretty soon we forget about the price of eggs because we will have forgotten about eggs altogether. This is the way it goes when easy things become harder. We begin to ask ourselves, "Remember when we used to _______________?" In isolated places like Cuba, this is the norm. In March 2024, one year ago, protests began over food shortages as the country experienced the worst living crisis since the early 1990's. When I visited Havanna with a group of American artists in 2015, ten years ago, those store shelves were already bare. I waited on the sidewalk with the locals each with a voucher, or the"other" currency distinguishable from the coins given to tourists, only to enter the dusty concrete store where there was barely a thing to buy. Nada!

The island is just 90 miles south of Miami and a world apart. It may seem like a leap to think we might find ourselves repressed and oppressed by a government that cares little or not at all about its peoples' basic needs. I want to be proven wrong on this. I really do. However, as the already hard things become harder from finding a place to live to finding the truth in the news, to finding the news itself, or finding the books we want to read, finding what is right with the world becomes increasingly hard and ever more significant. Those moments when for a short time everything seems right with the world is one way of holding onto hope.

The U.S. Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, in a recent interview** holds such hope in her words even as her book has been banned in public schools in Florida. Wise beyond her years, she asks why any one person should get to say what is best for the rest of us? That is the question that needs to be answered now, not on some future day, and not when we look back with nostalgia for what we have lost.

https://contentmanager.med.uvm.edu/docs/the_hill_we_climb/vccyf-documents/the_hill_we_climb.pdf?sfvrsn=44a33335_2

*https://flchambermusic.org/

***https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR-yervhhBc

Both/And

The Moon shot was taken in Washington State by photographer David Salisbury.*

We are living in a dichotomy of Awe and Wonder and Shock and Awe from Washington state to Washington, D.C. These are not flip sides of the same coin, but are as different as a majestic moon and a steely rat.

President's Day Protester's sign at a rally opposing what is happening in Washington D.C.

The Both/And of these two worlds will never be of a piece, but both will continue to co-exist whether or not we notice. There is a choice to be made by each of us in the way that we accept or reject one world or the other. Will we choose one over the other? Or, a little more of one than the other? Or, neither one? It is ours to decide.

So, let's imagine that each day there is at least one opportunity to see the sunrise or sunset and that watching this happen before our very eyes is worthwhile. Our amazing eyes can see millions of miles so as to notice a sparkling jewel like Venus suspended in the darkness. We just have to look up! How different things might look if Awe and Wonder framed the day rather than an endless cycle of stories intended to Shock and Awe for the sake of it.

When a sense of pure awe pervades all that we perceive, we are reminded of the Wonder that has always been and always will be, and that we ourselves are dust in the wind.

*According to the Pagan Grimoire, the Snow Moon “shines brightly during a time when winter still grips the earth but signs of spring are just around the corner. The Snow Moon represents transformation, hope and renewal, making it a powerful time for self-reflection and setting intentions for growth as you move into the next season.”

Be like water . . .

At this crtical juncture in our American story, we find ourselves facing monumental consequences for our children, their children, and life as we know it today.

Tearing down a society does not require leadership anymore than clear-cutting a forest for the sake of replacing what has existed for centuries. Who doesn't know how to do that? Get yourself a large bulldozer and off you go. In essence and fact, this is happening before our very eyes: "Now you see it; now you don't" as systems succumb to the bulldozer of autocracy without regard or respect for what actually makes America "Great"!

There is a difference between the words "great and first". Great means "above average" as in your kid getting the best report card because she/he/they is "above the average" within the class. Kudos! The word "first" means "preceding others" as in your kid cutting to the front of the line before all the other kids. Boo!

As the world watches bullies in the playground of these United States of America, the difference is obvious between making America "Great" and intending to cut to the front of the line, no matter who or what has been standing for centuries, be it a shared borderline, or a sovereign Constitution. It is not a pretty sight to watch any more than seeing hundreds of felled trees their root systems exposed, intentionally left to die. Die they do. Replacing a two-hundred year-old living and breathing thing whether trees or countries, will take another two-hundred years of growing pains just to recover from the self-imposed destruction. That's where we are in 2025, believe it or not.

Our homeland is somewhere in-between autonomy and autocracy. Autonomy means "the right or condition of self-government". The word autocracy means "a system of government by one person with absolute power". This is basic fifth-grade civics that every American who went to public or private school learned is our foundational understanding of the country in which we live. While we were not all "great" students, we were all taught the right and wrong of being a bully pushing out whatever or whomever to be "first" regardless of others. Bullies were punished by the principal to teach that fundamental difference between being "Great" and being "First": Striving for great will never hurt others, and will enhance oneself. Pushing to be first, destroys others, and harms oneself . . . greatly!

We are an autonomous society under pressure by an autocratic faction. Autonomy was granted to all free citizens who with hand over heart pledged an allegiance to one country, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That has not changed. That is a pledge that cannot be taken back. It is our pledge of freedom.

This freedom is worth protecting for it is our future. The cavalry is not coming to save us. Leaders are not rising up to guide us. It is up to each of us for all the individual and collective reasons we can think of to speak up, speak out, stand up, but never to give up. Be like water, find a way. We must.

https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny