Maybe, It doesn’t help that I am reading Stephen King’s “Under the Dome”, the one where people do not shine during the breakdown of their town and its separation from the outside world. Yikes. With technology and usual destinations thwarted, I have tried to do a few meaningful things (in between King chapters).

[We hold these truths…]

For instance, I made new signs that remind folks of the climate crisis (see pictures). If I stand in a town with no power, will some finally “get it”?

I identified a butterfly.

I ordered a new doormat that says “No shoes, no fascists, no exceptions”.

We drove south to the brave “woke” restaurant that is my county seat, and I ate a vegan meal with my husband and my chihuahua, al fresco, in-between the rains. Not too busy, but a few fellas at the neighboring gas station seemed to find my IMPEACH TRUMP shirt worth a discussion.

I decided to become more radical.

Backing up just a bit. Before the storms, I attended an event co-hosted by two Audubon groups. It was good – no, honestly, it was not good. It would have been fine ten years ago. In fact, it was the same agenda, practically the same talks, from the last one I sat through, two or three years ago.

Discussed: Birds are in a bad way. Here are some things we are doing. Yay, we have even managed to work with a few Republicans! Here are some things you can do: Plant native, buy an environmental plate, take your (GOP) elected official on a nature walk so they can love bords, too.

Okay, I am being a little snarky. I was probably a little snarky in the email I sent to one speaker and one sponsoring group the next day. Here it is, in its imperfect totality:

Hello XXXXXX,

Thank you for your knowledge and kindness last night.

I am the woman who approached you afterword to discuss where my husband and I might find like-mindedness in our farm-centric area (we are rewilding 30 acres in Demotte, Jasper County). While I am sure I simply appeared frustrated about doing that work for animals and the planet out here in agri-business land, I realized later it was a bit more than that.

I hope explaining my frustration is of some benefit. 

First and foremost, I was frustrated that the event seemed so much like the one I attended a few years back – and so NORMAL. I appreciate the need for non-partisanship, working with anyone who will work with us, and so on….but business as usual in the face of the end of democracy, rule of law, an increasingly dying planet and extinction of species….well, it is not going to save us. To pretend like we are not in an existential crisis gets us one step forward and 100 steps back.

For example, kudos to Senator Young for doing a few good things. But he is 99% enabling Trump and fascism, and Trump and fascism are destroying both democracy and all the things we gathered to support last evening. That said, once one comes out against Trump, one cannot get a meeting with a GOP elected official, let alone a nature walk!

I guess what I am trying to say is that for most of us in that room, perhaps unlike the panelists and their groups, we have to pick between 1) being an activist to save democracy or 2) being a business-as-usual activist for animals and the planet (if we want to get in the doors like you do). I have chosen the former because it is more fundamental – once I have no free speech, I cannot speak for the birds! Once I live in tyranny, how do I save anything? Again, to think my MAGA reps would meet me, let alone walk with me, is laughable. I have called too often on topics like detention (concentration) camps, war, rule of law, corruption (and, yes, public lands, wolves, climate crisis….). I bet you do not, cannot, mention concentration camps to the GOP officials you work with on land projects? See the difference?

Now, of course, it is not quite so black-and-white, but it is close.

Second, if we all do not face the fact that industrial, animal agriculture is the main culprit killing our lands (and planet), I don’t know how we turn the tide. Out here, people want everything to be crops or lawn, and they spray tons of chemicals on both. Period. And almost all crops go to feed animals to then slaughter and eat. I am vegetarian and not vegan, so no purity here, but it needs said in every gathering: We cannot save enough land, we cannot do enough of anything conservation-wise, and save the planet with 8 billion people, if those people do not eat less or no meat. No matter how many ranchers, farmers, hunters, and so on we work with.

My point? My plea? One could start saying: Plant native and eat less meat. Buy the license plate and vote in the midterm.

Given these facts on fascism and meat-eating, I thought what we were discussing was surreal. Denial. Dare I say doomed? Again, I am not giving up. I continue to rewild 30 acres into mostly native biodiversity. I have my license plate. I call my elected officials regularly. I also write a substack column, protest, give money, weave these topics into most conversations, wear my beliefs on my clothing and car, and pray. My hubby and I founded and run a small anti-poaching NFP in Southern Africa. I am trying with all my mind and heart. I know others are, too. Like you.

But all is for naught if wonderful groups like those in the room do not stop business as usual and state/face/address these facts.

I might have to start supporting edgier groups☹.

Thanks for listening and thanks for caring. Forgive my bluntness but we have so little time.

Best, Linda

END OF MESSAGE 

No answers received.

So, now, as the floods come to Indiana and the drought and wildfires rock the West, as species disappear as I write this, as my neighbor mows down the milkweed just as the migrating monarch generation starts to emerge, as I beg stunned and power-less passersby to believe that the climate crisis is real and Trump is the grifting hoax…

…I shift my contributions from Audubon to Earthjustice, from the business-as-usual to “Trump is a fascist and is killing the planet and this is an existentialist crisis” groups and candidates.

…I remind myself not to shirk any discussion, or email, no matter how bridge-burning or awkward or challenging and uncomfortable.

…I pledge to try and go out twice a week and not once.

…I choose most carefully, with every dollar and every choice.

Well, you get the idea. Do you know what radical means? Getting to the root of something.

Time to get to that root. Whether or not your MAGA elected official will walk in the woods with you.

[I am here to get to the root. If a few good people like or understand me, that’s good, too.]

Perhaps, you are not normal; I cannot be the only one. Even I am not that arrogant – ha! It is indeed often found in individuals who are (sometimes derisively) labelled as activists, for animals, the planet, democracy, the downtrodden. Some MS Now and Substack journalists. Artists are possible candidates. Curmudgeons and misanthropes. Misanthropic curmudgeons and curmudgeonly misanthropes. Yes, there may be many. The problem is that the abnormal are usually sprinkled amidst the normal, and so often seem (are?) arrogant, weird, judgmental – and lonely. Signs often include depression, addictions, misery, anger.  They do not fit in, in the crowd: they often do not fit in, in the few.

This alone is not an insurmountable problem. After all, I have been living like this all of my life and I know nothing else. Sometimes, it even comes as a surprise, realizing one is abnormal, after being an abnormal being for so long. Do you mean, I say, that most people do not hear an individual cow’s last mourning cry as its throat was slit and its blood splashed on the ground, before it became a hamburger? The hamburger someone next to you is eating. Really, I ask -  you do not feel immense guilt when eating an egg? That egg, from a female chicken, caused a host of male baby chicks to roll innocently into a shredder, their crime that they could not make an egg for my breakfast. You do not think about that? I ask.

Most of the time, on these issues, I stay quiet. I am only abnormal on the inside. And, too, I am only vegetarian and not vegan, so my guilt and hypocrisy shut me up. What really bothers me is when almost all others do not even think about it. Not a thought. They are normal. I am not.

So, while eating no or less meat is the #1 thing any one person can do for animals and the planet, even I realize that eating meat is also the #1 collective denial of our time. Let’s focus on something a small bit easier, then…

Do not most people, those with good minds and kind hearts, sit in wonder that the streets aren’t full of protesters every day and night until ICE is dismantled, the war ended, and rule of law restored? Do others wake for the hour of God (or the Wolf) and ponder Death as both enemy and friend, and then ask why so many people act as if they will live forever? That death will not come for them? That what we do and who we are, when Death comes, matters more than the illusions of safety and apathy?

Is this appeal, this lure of safety and apathy – what if I get on a list? What if my family member stops talking to me? Let others do it! – why so many act normal?

These are not occasional questions. The not-normal person burns with the fire of injustice and lives at least partly in an alternative universe. When they ask the questions too often, they irritate people. They are called judgmental, even though the ones feeling judged do not know that the abnormal one is judging themselves far more than anyone else. They love those close to them but often do not understand even their friends and family, because they seem so normal. They ask if their normal mask is worn by those others, if they are all pretending and not normal, if their reality is Reality…but come back to this: How the fuck can everything go on as if this all is NORMAL?

Examples.

First, an easy one. The White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Journalists, mostly women in shiny gowns, smiled at Trump, a rapist; shook his hand, a crook; dined with him, destroyer of all things good. As if a few verbal challenges to Trump, in a few speeches, made business-as-usual in the media world, well, okay. Nothing to see here. Did they not hear the cries of those 100,000 children, separated from their mothers and fathers, simply because they are brown? Best to sit quietly and smile at your tablemates, not hear the sobbing children, claim later that you were appalled and surprised by the words from the psychopath’s mouth. Above all, act normal. BE normal. Do not exclaim “that is a lie!” or walk out.

[My latest attempt to break normalcy in our small, rural Indiana town]

We stand on the street corner. Many support us. They do not join us. They go about their commute or errands or whatever. Do they not feel our rights, rights formed over hundreds if not thousands of years, slipping away? Best not to think about it too much and go home to roast the chicken. Do not go home and make a sign, and come back, thereby telling your neighbors you have had enough. That you see your rights vanishing and your country dying. Stay normal.

I wear an anti- Trump, anti-fascist shirt every day. And my hat, with buttons. Stop ICE. Impeach Trump. Immigrants are not criminals but the president is. Sometimes: Every animal is somebody. People whisper that they like my message, in stores and airports. I see no others wearing attire of principle. How can they not want to wear one, too? State to the world that things are wrong, things could be better, let us make them better, together, this is not, should not be normal. Say something, anything, everything…but not nothing, as if all is normal. Can you hear the crying in my heart behind the shirt, sense my wonder in the head beneath my hat, share the flame of injustice and sorrow that is burning, burning, burning in my soul.

Nothing to see here. Go about the business. Work and friends. Sports and dinner. Do they think this is normal, or do they hope that acting normal will make it so? I do not understand.

[With my mixed activist gear - save democracy! Save the animals! - do I look normal? Ha! I still have my humor!]

Okay, okay. I am calm now. I know life goes on. I understand we need to keep living. We have to work and eat, and we need to guard our mental health. Even I am learning that two things can be true at the same time: One, the world is in trouble and that is a sorrowful thing. Two, the world can be beautiful and that is a joyful thing. I can hold both sorrow and joy.

[So grateful to Nature for gifting me Joy]

But that does not mean that things are normal. That this is what we should think and do, how we ought to act when there is so much suffering and America is being destroyed.

I might have to pretend. Really. If I show the world my burning flame of red hot emotions and thoughts, the pining spirit, it scares the hell out of people. Or they get burnt and move away. So, I will fake it (all is well, all is well with my soul; yes, I am fine, thank you) until I make it (what will that look lie, exactly?). I will let you know how that goes.

[BTW, nothing normal about Pope Leo. And I love him. Gets the gospel, filled with the Spirit. And this made me laugh. Who can crochet?]

A few postscript thoughts. I know I was supposed to finish my “8 things one needs to know” that I started in the last missive. I decided this was more important. Plus, to be honest, I have been too depressed to finish the 8 things – or anything, really. My anger has yielded to a spell of melancholy. (If you wish to unsubscribe because of my long absences, I do very much understand, especially those of you who pay. No hard feelings!) In addition, my therapist is urging drugs for my PTSD. But I fear those, too. Will they make me a normie? Do I want to be one?

 [My granddog. Because we all love dogs and dog pictures…#Adoptdontshop…]

But I was, we were, so proud then, and not without some cause: 200 years of trying hard to live up to our ideals. Progress. Pain. Pain but progress. Now, it is the 250^th birthday and I will spend the 4^th of July grieving. I was going to write about that. But so many have done so, and well. They have expressed the ache of our patriotism as we watch fascism take hold. I need not add another squeaky voice to that chorus of sorrow.

Here is another tune, then. Because, besides grieving on the 4^th, I will be preparing to re-enter the fight for my country immediately after, the fight for the ideals those Chilean school children conveyed to me many years ago, even as they faced their own fascist regime.

And when I prepare, I make lists. When I am overwhelmed with anger or grief or hopelessness, I pray or cry or both, then make a list. My husband laughs at my lists – I have lists of lists, sometimes – but they keep me sane(ish). They get me from thinking to acting. They help me make sure that when I am doing something, I do something from each of the big categories: saving democracy, helping animals and the planet, seeking God, cleaning the bugs off of the basement floor. If I can tick enough items off of my list, I can watch a British murder mystery without guilt. If I am overwhelmed, a list is almost like doing the darn things that roll around in my mind (and heart) like incessant little hedgehog. At least, they are a step in that direction. Yep, I love lists.

First, an admission, and then I will get to today’s list. I get frustrated when smart and kind people I know do not know something I think they should know. It is not fair; how many things do they think I should know that I do not know? But there it is. So, I thought it might be fun to offer a few things that I think you should know. Give yourself a point for each one you already know. Or offer your own list of things I should know (and might not) in the comments. Or tell me to get over myself and kiss your bottom. Maybe, just humor me and play along.

Because I really, really think it is good to know these things. Knowing these things, and things like them, may help us save our country. Knowledge really is POWER.

Why 8? It is my favorite, magic number. The shape of infinity. The balance between the physical and the spiritual. The power of Saturn. So, here is the power of the 8; bits of knowledge that might help you make your own list of things you know and things you will do.

ONE: Democracy versus Republic.

“We are a republic, not a democracy!” yelled several fellows the other day when I was protesting in my little town. They were reacting to my friend’s sign: “Honk if you support democracy!” Because this was a first, and two separate fellows yelled it, I assume FOX or some rightwing podcaster had emphasized the claim lately. “You are right!” I yelled back.

My friend’s sign was right. The yelling fellows were right. Really.

We are a constitutional democracy, a republic, a democracy limited by rights and institutions. The Framers feared democracy, at least pure democracy, which is rule by majority – or, as they saw it, and I see it, rule by mob. In pure majoritarianism, you have no rights unless the majority gives them to you. A majority rule can enslave people, abuse any minority…and leads to the truth of the old adage: three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.

We limit democracy through, primarily, the Constitution. If the majority, or even every person in America, wants to take away your right, say, to free speech, they cannot. At least, they should not be able to, because you have a First Amendment right. Same with all of your rights, from right to due process to property rights. That is why we are not a “pure” democracy.

For shorthand, we say: Save our democracy! The right to vote. The right of majority rule…within limits. Very important limits. Best to remember them. And when a MAGA supporter claims we are a republic, feel free to agree with them. It knocks their socks off.

[BONUS: If you ever wondered where the two parties get their names, now you know. Democrats have traditionally favored populism, or majority rule, and Republicans used to favor individual, even minority, rights. The latter is the party that arose from the abolition of slavery, after all. Ironies abound.]

TWO: Socialism versus Social Welfare.

Okay, this one gets me especially riled. For one thing, all this socialist push within the Democratic party is not going to help in the midterms. I really wish socialism advocates and candidates would shut up about it until we defeat fascism.

Second, in certain forms, there really isn’t that much difference between fascism and socialism. The far right and far left meet in tyranny.

But it is democratic socialism! I hear some of you yelling. I respond: What does that mean? That socialism is brought and run by the majority instead of a dictator like Mao or Stalin? That it stops short of Communism? That is not necessarily comforting or liberating (see #2)., as the majority can be quite tyrannical. Before you yell some more, that isn’t my main complaint. My main complaint – and concern – is that most of the folks pushing socialism do not know what it means.

What socialism is, or the definition of socialism: Government owns all, most, or the most important means of production. That’s it. Now, fascism is when government is in cahoots with big business, or corporations, and so they control the important economic stuff together, to their benefit and not yours. (And fascism usually adds a flavor of racial purity or some other “us versus them” evil.) But they both rely on big government to be fair and just and good. They both rely on force and not freedom. They both deny rights, either personal or property. Neither are American. That is, neither win at the ballot box by name, at least not here in middle America.

What most Americans touting socialism actually mean and want: An expanded social welfare state. Wealth redistribution. A reigning in of corporatism, fascism, oligarchy, gross income inequality.

The bottom line is we can have the second without the first. And we will not win the midterms if we tout the first.

[BONUS: Now you know why the Nazis called themselves National Socialists. No? Because, for one, they wanted socialism, but on a national and racially “pure” basis. For another, socialism and fascism, again, are not that far apart. Second BONUS: Trump is an authoritarian of both fascist and socialist bent. His fascism is obvious. But remember that he likes it when the government owns parts of companies? That is socialism.]

[Geese demonstrating the faulty left/right political spectrum. Explained below and  thanks to my son for the picture❤️]

THREE: The political spectrum is not just left and right.

Again, the left and right can be much alike. Have you ever wondered where you land if you aren’t either? On the usual left/right political spectrum, you might land in the mushy middle. That is okay, you can be moderate, but where do anarchists and totalitarians fit? Libertarians? Anything else? They do not – there is no place for them on the spectrum - and that is why the oft-utilized left/right political spectrum is faulty.

Think, instead, of a diamond. At the left is the left; the right is the right. Put anarchy (no government) at, say, the top. Put tyranny (total government) at, say the bottom. Now you have a complete spectrum and gradations within it.

Look it up. Diamond political spectrum. There are even quizzes you can take to see where you land. Good to know.

[BONUS: The diamond political spectrum shows how, when one goes further left or right, the left and right get both closer together and closer to tyranny. Just an aside, I fall somewhere around centrist libertarian, leaning left, most days.]

FOUR: There are different jurisprudential philosophies and SCOTUS holds none of them.

The Supreme Court had quite a week. It is always quite a (sad) week when a black Justice tries to return us to pre-Civil War America. It is always quite a (frightening) week when a strong minority of the Court cannot read the plain language of the Constitution. It is always quite a (frustrating) week when SCOTUS shows us once again how they stake a political position and then “reason” to it.

This is a good time to remember what courts – all courts but especially the Supreme One – are supposed to do. Because we remember that we are not a pure democracy, but a constitutional one. Courts are supposed to check the majority with their rulings based on the rights of all of us. They are not supposed to make policy or law. They are to interpret the law in light of that constitutional framework.

Now, there are philosophies of jurisprudence that all law students study, especially at fancy but great law schools. Where I attended. Where my best law school friend attended. Now, she also clerked for Clarence Thomas, who also went to one of those schools. We all learned the schools of constitutional interpretation, based on things like original intent, or a living, breathing constitution, with concepts of natural law or positivism, critical theory, or law and economics.

You do not need to know all of these concepts. However, it is good to know that, until recently, most judges, and especially Justices, held to some of these philosophies, some preferred way of interpreting the law, and they were somewhat consistent about it. This was especially so with SCOTUS and the Constitution.

Conservatives (defined another day!) often cited original intent and plain language, and that is how they approached the legal issues before them.

Do you see the problem?

We have six Justices on SCOTUS who claim to be conservative. There is no jurisprudence, no philosophy of law, among them. Most ignore the plain language of the Constitution, bypass the original intent of a Constitutional amendment; they do not just dabble, but immerse themselves in politics and policy. They do Trump’s fascist bidding by taking his preferred conclusion and “reasoning” to it.

This is very, very bad, and very American needs to understand it. The problem is bigger than any specific ruling, even the very important ones. It goes to the heart of our (not left and not right) Constitutional democracy.

[BONUS: You see the connections. If the Court succeeded in undoing the birthright citizenship of the 14^th Amendment, it would further erode the Constitutional premise that ALL people, not just citizens, have rights; its ruling would reduce the number of citizens; its deliberate error would further the fascist notion of citizen purity; and it would get us closer to the tyranny point of that political spectrum diamond….]

…

I am stopping here with the first 4 of my 8. I am too damn longwinded. But, how did you do? I am fine with expanding the “need to know” list, so tell me what I do not know. Again, knowledge is power and, this July 4^th, let’s gather ours. (As long as we end up with a number I like as much as 8!)

Best to end with a reminder that lists are not to depress or procrastinate. They are a step towards action. That said, allow me to end with a July 4^th, an Independence Day, a 250^th birthday call to action. We are not on Chilean TV; we are in the thick of vastly pivotal times.

Fight for both democracy and the Constitution; oppose the criminalization of that fight; do not be afraid to understand the law; reject the false duality of fascism/socialism or right/left; know your rights and exercise them.

You can do it. Just make your list first.

Next time, four more. About animals and the planet.

From the Belly of the Beast, Linda

 [Wish me luck. Going to evangelize the neighbors for the insects! Most people would give up their religion before their lawn🤣🤞🦋🙏]

P.S. Please subscribe, paid or not. If you pay, the money is now going to print brochures extolling the need for pollinators and such. Going to make a round of the neighbors and see if any will plant native. Wish me luck.

One.

A recent interaction at the dollar store, where poster boards are $1 each instead of the drugstore’s $11:

Me: No bag, please.

I stick my markers in my purse, Tom grabs the two poster boards, I take the potato chips (they are already in a bag, of course). So, no bag necessary. If I did need a bag, there is a reusable bag from Phoenix Art Museum in my purse.

But our bags are such a pretty color, the checkout fellow says, a bit sarcastically.

Me: But the ocean does not need any more plastic.

He: Well, we are a long way from the ocean.

Me: They end up there…and, besides, nowhere is more plastic needed.

He: Do you want your receipt. Probably not. The PLANET. (Says with heavy sarcasm.)

Wowzer.

[The native climbing prairie rose]

Two.

A lovely young lady from the state’s Department of Agriculture tours our prairie. She is full of excitement and praise. We spot the first monarch of the season, along with painted ladies and swallowtails. We find a very large snakeskin. Compass plant has made an appearance, bringing us to 17 of the 20 native species planted in the former cornfield. We spot a raccoon carcass (RIP) and a bone – reminders that the healthy ecosystem witnesses both life and death.

And the lovely native roses are triumphant in their splendor.

I am inspired and decide to like (some) people this day. We sit on the front porch and discuss my theory. One third of people think and care; they need to be encouraged. One third of people are apathetic and not informed; they need to be educated. One third of people are purposefully ignorant and selfish; they need to be ignored. Don’t let the despicables get you down. Work on that encouragement and education.

For the planet and animals as well as democracy and the rule of law.

I think she agrees but has to be a little careful.

[Calls to action!]

Three.

We stand on the street corner again. The despicable third has reduced their ammo to two things: Go Trump! And fuck you. The middle third reads our signs and thinks. A bit more of these give a tentative honk or thumbs up. The top third honks enthusiastically. They stop to see if we need any water or anything; wander over to thank us; one Knights of Columbus fundraising guy not only thanks us, but gives us a tootsie roll. Turns out he goes to our new church and not all Knights are Trumpsters. Says he sees our bumper stickers at church and likes them. One never knows.

[Snakeskin excitement!]

Four - in past tense.

The other day, I stared at the toothpaste tube. It is almost empty and time to start on a new one. I think, maybe, because I go back and forth between a regular one and a gum health brand, my mom was probably alive when I started this nearly empty one. For a moment, throwing it away feels like throwing away my mother. Or, at least, like she is further away. More of the long goodbye.

Then, I ponder how much life passes in the time of one toothpaste. What else has happened since that tube was fresh and new? I have started the process of joining the Catholic church. Criminal charges were brought against me after I filed a civil rights lawsuit against a local town and their uncivil cop. We have saved more insects and perhaps a rhino. Dozens of protests and calls and writings and T-shirt wearing and angst. Many sessions with my therapist; jokes that if a shrink, a priest, and two lawyers cannot save me….

And how many people have died at the hand of Trump? In boats, at detention camps, a school for girls. How many children have cried for their mothers after being separated by us, with our tax dollars and in our name? (Hint on that last one: over 100,000!) Corruption, attacks on rule of law and democracy – oh, you know it all!

All in the time of one toothpaste.

Five.

I squeeze out the paste from the new tube. What will happen in the time, by the time, I work my way to the end?

That is up to me. To us. Okay, maybe there is a theme. Goodbye, mom. Hello, the possibilities of another toothpaste.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Linda

P.S. I would be very happy for you to subscribe to this occasional missive.

Women were trouble. Now, they are in trouble. Go along with me for a bit.

1. Migraines. Mary had horrible migraines. I have had migraines in one form or another since the age of 13. Migraines are a disability today, and they are fascinating as well as awful. Oliver Sacks came the closest to understanding them, and we have recently regressed by focusing too much on diet and such. Stress is a big player. Often, the headaches that almost make you wish for death are delivered by a combination of triggers.

Mine pivot on those times when I am silenced, when I cannot speak my truth. I suspect Mary’s did, as well, because she was considered too interested in learning, politics, metaphysics…for a woman. So, Mary and I are soul sisters on this insanity factor. What else?

1. Grief. Mary lost her mother when she was young, then, over time, watched 3 of her 4 children die. Of course, she sat next to her husband at the theatre as he had his head blown off. This, after she helped build said husband’s career and then had the dubious honor of being First Lady throughout the Civil War. The lady was also estranged from her step siblings and then her full siblings, mostly due to many of them siding with the Confederacy. Talk about grief! She was constantly criticized for grieving too much.

My grief, for now, is more for the dying planet and diminishing democracy, but it is deep. When we watch the news each day, try to combat the climate crisis and fascism with native plants and protests…well, how can one grieve too deeply? Poor Mary. The War and her personal losses could not deserve less than an abyss of sorrow…in my humble opinion. I feel ya, my sista.

1. Spiritualism. Mary turned to woo woo stuff to help her grieve. Seances, attempts to communicate with the dead, that sort of thing. And why not? That is where her loves were, in that reality and not this one. This activity was often considered a mark of insanity even in the midst of the spiritualist movement.

I have practiced shamanism, studied all forms of mysticism in my Rosicrucian practice, and am approaching Catholicism for its focus on Mystery and ritual. Seeking, seeking, always seeking. I talk to the dead – don’t you? Even a former dog or cat friend? Mary, I think I may start talking with you.

1. Shopping. Mary shopped too much. She had an addiction, especially in times of stress. She bought a thousand dollar shawl in the midst of the War. Oh, my. She probably needed a little therapy for this issue, but not an insane asylum.

My shopping addiction is mostly to books. If we used this to mark women for commitment (or rural men and their five bay garage capacities?), we need quite a few additional mental hospitals. I hope mine has a library.

1. Opinions. Mary had opinions. Women were not supposed to have these.

I have opinions. In the Trumpian/MAGA utopia, women do not have opinions.

 [me, with an opinion]

Leaving the insanity of Mary, and me, consider that that horrible person known as Hegseth recently stopped all promotions for black people and women. This did not get much play because there are so, so many things for even real media to tell us. Let me repeat: Our Department of Defense is not promoting black people or women. And we know that women are dying because they cannot get reproductive health care. That Trump has fired almost every woman cabinet member – not that the men are good but they get more passes when they have opinions that embarrass him. That the “trad wife” piece of Christian Nationalism is growing. And so on.

We also know Trump won in 2016 because Americans would not vote for a woman. Trump won again, in 2024, because Americans would not vote for a woman. (Oh, and a black one, but that is a lament for another day.) We largely have a fascist, rapist, corrupt, crazy, crook, (etc.) president because so many Americans thought – and think! – this nightmare is better than having a woman as our leader. Especially, an opinionated one. (I wonder if HRC or Kamala get migraines?)

If Mary Todd Lincoln, with her migraines and shopping, spiritual quest and opinions, and her grief, was insane, then I am, too. Are you? If not, if you feel sane, if you don’t look at the tube of toothpaste and wonder what the country and world will be like by the time you get to its end, if you do not wonder if we will all even be here, then…maybe there is something wrong.

 [Mary Todd, my insanity sista]

And if you do not have a special worry about women, there is no maybe to it.

Do you have time for two quick stories?

First, I was at the eye doctor the other day, of course wearing my shirt that says “immigrants are not criminals but the president is”. I had a good conversation with a couple who initiated it by telling me they liked my shirt. Another woman (in camo pants with American flags interwoven throughout the greenery) was whispering with her mate in a wife beater shirt (his said “too sober for this”), and I erroneously got set for some Trumpian crap. But, they, too, liked my shirt (have to watch out for those stereotypes). Then, I engaged with a stylish young woman with a lazy eye.

We did fine, at first. She did not like Trump. But, she said, all politicians are the same. I said that I respectfully but deeply disagreed with that sentiment. I had much to say on that particularly false moral equivalency, so I settled on stating that, for instance, Trump is the first rapist president. She said, well, Clinton messed around in the White House.

I asked her if she did not see a huge difference between consensual, albeit adulterous, sex and, ah, rape. She did not.

Second story. My husband and I were protesting on the street corner in our little Indiana town. A couple stopped and began a discussion. Not a real discussion, but a Trumpian one, where they talk AT you and expect you to agree from being yelled AT. I did what I often do when at a loss  for how to react and what to say that is not just yelling back…and engaged with the female: But he raped someone. As a woman, doesn’t that bother you?

Her: Everyone does it.

Me: Everyone rapes someone?

Our husbands arguing in the background.

Her: Everyone messes around.

Me, skipping over the point that everyone does not mess around: You don’t see the difference between messing around and rape?

She did not.

We cannot blame all that is wrong with women - our diminishing status, the threats to our 50 years of progress towards real freedom and near equality - on men. No, we cannot.

Where does that leave us? I have male (and I hope gender fluid) readers (thank you!) and yet here I am talking primarily with my straight-up female friends. PLEASE, STAY CRAZY. And try to “crazy up” any of our sisters who cannot see the difference between being forced to have sex – and everything else.

Women are in trouble. We all are in trouble. Make some good trouble of your own.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Linda

P.S. I have been gone awhile. I apologize but I simply had to take a break. Please forgive me.

 [A lovely old lady passed out worry worms and hedgehogs at our activist meeting. One way to say “I see you. Do you see me?”]

My friend calls it our superpower. I am not yet convinced. Sometimes, it just makes me mad.

In the last years, I learned that the United States cares little for its older population. First, Covid killed many more old people than young – all tragic - and so our society preferred its “freedom to kill” more than minimizing those deaths. (“You mean you want me to wear a mask so I don’t make grandma suffer and die alone? How dare you attack my liberty, man?”) Today, we hardly mention the million or more humans who died of Covid – when was the last time you saw anything on the news or heard anyone mention the pandemic numbers? In a society where most stay glued to stories of death like moths to lights, probably driven to do so by our mass denial of our own collective and individual mortality, how can so many deaths be basically ignored, and for so long? Because most were old and they remain invisible, invisible ghosts that might even be a little embarrassing to see. Ignore them. See through them.

I also saw how few visited their parents in my mom’s assisted living home in the last years before her death. And how seldom anyone younger came. These lovely old ladies were living ghosts playing bingo…or they missed their beloved bingo for a chance to sit in their rooms and wait for calls from relatives that rarely came.

Ageism is the last acceptable “ism”, unless you are in MAGA where all prejudices and pejoratives are resurrected. Even progressives do not hesitate to insult Boomers.

Look, I detest Donald Trump. But I squirm when we make fun of the swollen ankles my mother often had, or the bruised hand I sometimes see on my sister. Because she inherited that trait from my dad.  Sure, after what MAGA did to Biden, he deserves it. But I would rather fault him for his sociopathy than his dementia, his cruelties rather than his snoozes. I hope he dies soon, from old age, but not because he is old but because he is evil.

If he were not President, he would be invisible, too.

Let’s skip any discussion, for now, on obesity. Or how we as a culture refuse to believe that former “fill-in-the-blanks” might have knowledge or wisdom or experience that is not captured by AI or already leaned by the generations of names that are letters.

Let’s turn to the issue of women. So overdone, you say? It has all been said and we know it all already. But has anyone said it quite like this: I never knew how bad misogyny was when I was young because my sexuality-based power over men obscured it. Now that my sexuality-based power is gone, I see misogyny clearly. I am invisible to many if not most men…and many women. I am neither mating material nor competition, and so I am not there. Isn’t that it in a nutshell?

Okay, most likely it has indeed been said many times. I am saying it again since it is getting much worse. And, yes, it is both age and sex/gender based. But old men are still desirable to many women – we find smarts and humor and wisdom and so much else sexy, don’t we? – and old dudes remain occasionally useful to many men and women in other ways….and so that is why being female gets double points towards obscurity. Even young women may disappear once they have provided their sexual essence or other value to a man. But old and female – poof! Might as well wear Harry Potter’s cape.

I sound so whiny. Whiny like a fox, perhaps.

 [The Fox shows up often in shamanic circles.]

I am thinking about my friend saying it is a superpower to be invisible. I am also thinking about the fox. Not the sexy one, as in ain’t she foxy, but the nonhuman animal. The fox as a totem, a symbol, a power animal. In some shamanic traditions and such circles, the fox is a force of quiet power, of stealthy cleverness. She is adaptable, intuitive, a divine trickster. I could go on; the fox has many powers; she is super cool. And she is often invisible. In fact, indivisibility is the source of her Power. She may be male but she is always Feminine. Rarely seen, that rascal.

I often write these little missives for two reasons. One, I hope something I say might help you. Two, I am trying to think things out for myself and help that self. Often, like here, it is both.

I am going to start seeing my invisibility as a superpower; I am going to call on Fox to help me transform being ignored into being powerful. I will laugh like a trickster and use my intuition to find the right path through these strange and treacherous woods we live in. I will laugh – have you heard the wild and almost maniacal sound of the fox? Google it; try it out, because I want to help you, too, remember? Bark, yap, purr. It is often said that a fox sounds like a woman screaming, wailing in distress. Scream, then, scream. Wail, then, wail. Especially if you are female or old or any of those things that our culture does not value. If you are invisible and in distress. MAKE YOURSELF HEARD IF YOU ARE NOT ALWAYS SEEN.

Superpower, then? Maybe, I should tell my old lady friend that I am convinced.

 From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Linda

P.S. Please like, share, subscribe, restack. All paid subscriptions help the environment is which the fox lives. Pass this on, especially, to any old ladies your know. YIP, YIP, WHINE, YOWL, WAIL!

 [This is the best cartoon, perhaps ever. How can anyone, especially a Catholic, “choose” Trump?]

We three stand on the street corner in my town, my husband and friend and I, anti-war signs in our hands. We get the best response yet, with far more honks and thumbs-up than fingers and angry yells. Are the MAGAs diminishing or simply becoming quieter? Is reality as hopeful as it feels? My friend thinks this is more effective than being in a bigger crowd in a bigger town. I agree. We will keep doing this, for what else can we do? And the war remains, while the corrupt, crazy man declares victory for making the situation less bad than it has been, but worse than it was before he started the damn thing.

I take my “Know Your Rights” materials into the Mexican restaurant. My husband and I order food from the Hispanic owned place, a place where most workers are Hispanic. This is my first attempt at passing out signs and cards and such. I am not shy but a bit hesitant in how to proceed. I see three apparently Hispanic male customers eating at another table. One looks scared to me. I take cards over. One side says things to them in Spanish; the other English – things for them to say to ICE, rights they may insist on, even if to no avail. They thank me. I then give the manager some signs to post – PRIVATE SPACE, NO ICE ALLOWED - offer training, give another card to the server nearby…who snaps at me that he is a citizen, he carries his papers. I say that may or may not matter and that I am just trying to help. He softens. I go back to my table. The customers leave. They pass our table. One nods at me, so slightly. He has tears in his eyes. I cry inside.

My sister and I get Bruce Springsteen tickets. Wow, that will be a costly night but how can we miss such an historic Chicago event? And to continue voting with my pocketbook, with every act or choice or purchase, who deserves my outlay more than a cultural icon who is stepping up?

We meet with someone from a local government agency about conservation, plants, projects on our restored land, hope. He has become our friend, this nice and smart young man from the Midwest. He left for school, Oregon and then Harvard, I think, and then came back with an ecology degree to help Indiana evade an environmental and agribusiness disaster: soil is being depleted, water becoming scarcer, chemicals building up. I care because it is hurting Mother Earth and nonhuman animals. But it is also threatening the rural human way of life. Hope is dashed. The young man tells us, while we have been a joy with whom to partner, he is leaving for the Northwest. The negativity, the lack of understanding, the culture that decries saving the planet (and their livelihoods) as woke – they have defeated him. Another one bites the dust. How long can we hang on here? I do not know but will try to the day I die or leave. Whichever is first. I hear the turkeys, see a new butterfly, buy more plants, take the garbage out of the ditch.

[Please indulge my “commercial” to buy/plant native this spring. Every state has a site like this. A small thing that makes a big difference for insects, birds, the planet! And skip those pesticides, my friends!]

I walk down the street by the neighboring county’s courthouse, bound for the café, “Impeach Trump” on my T-shirt. A man almost runs into me, apologizes, sees my shirt, takes back his apology with his body language. “So, you like him?” I ask. “He is better than that idiot, Biden,” he responds. “That is so sad. I am sorry for you,” I say. I am tired of anger and mean what I say. But, do I sound like those certain Christians who mutter “I will pray for you” when they really mean “you are wrong and not as righteous as I am”? Oh, well, I guess that is okay. I mean, I really am deeply sad when I meet anyone, any human being, who can still be a fan of the insane sociopath who thinks he is Jesus.

I stop to get my glasses adjusted. I think my face is crooked now, since that cop beat the crap out of me by throwing me on my face. Seriously, he broke my glasses, I got new ones, people keep telling me they are cute but crooked, and I keep going to the eyeglass place to try and straighten them. Your face is crooked, they say again. Look, even your reading glasses look that way. Sigh. This never was, before. Now I have a crooked face. Oh, well. I will practice acceptance. I mean, I am old and fat, and those two things do not bother me unduly, so I think I can live with a crooked face. What really bothers me is something else. There is a cute and delightful young lady there who dresses with panache, who changed her hair color from blonde to black with large grey chunks. She is the one who tries to fix my glasses – because she cannot fix my face. At some point, we engage in the Indiana requirement of discussing the weather. It is about 20 degrees above normal. She, as so many here, loves it. I say I am worried about the climate crisis and how hot it will be in July. I remind her that I moved from Arizona because of the deadly heat, how it is increasing so much that they now warn people that a purchased house will not be habitable by the time one pays off a mortgage. But, says the cute gal, it is getting hot enough to warm the swimming pool! I take my crooked face with the slightly less crooked glasses and head for home.

And write this. How are you?

Please subscribe, paid or free. I am buying more native plants now, so paid is nice. Or comment, like, share. As Chris Hayes says in his fantastic new book, The Sirens’ Call, all humans crave social attention, and while I may be a weird human, I am one this time around. Although, in the next life, I hope to be something else, maybe a turkey. A turkey with an old wobbly neck and a crooked face. Look for me.

In this lifetime, I carry on. Going to meet with the Father tomorrow, to continue our chat about me maybe being Catholic. (How about that Pope? Great, right? A Christian who gets the gospel!). Another protest. Then, maybe I will try Mass. Onward from there….

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast,

Linda

480.540.6816

[Not a big crowd but 30 of us in the rain a week after No Kings “ain’t” bad….] 

I planned to write to you today in defense of the United States Constitution. I still love it, passionately. When someone on Substack recently wrote “this is what you get when a bunch of slave-owning pedophiles write a document”, I said “it remains the best governing document ever written.” Imperfect and written by imperfect men? Yes. Yet still the best. And not drafted by men who were of the evil sort, at least, not entirely.

Good men from difficult times trying to be better – and trying to give us, future persons, something better. That missive from the imperfect past, that last bulwark against the evil present, is a relatively simple declaration that we all have rights, and that government’s main (only?) purpose is to protect those rights. And it was hundreds of years in the making. 

Remember the Magna Carta? In 1215, the English told King John that he was not above the law. Pause. EVEN KINGS are not above the law. The MC limited the King’s power, protected other institutions, upheld due process, and formed the basis of limited government and constitutional law that developed in the Mother Country and evolved to us, here and now. Our contract, for it was a contract, was still evolving, before Trump and MAGA decided that tyranny was freedom, power should be unchecked, and rights only belong to white, “Christian” men.

This notion of individual rights remains rare in both principle and execution throughout the world. Shoot, it remains unfulfilled here, often honored in the breach. But that is not the fault of the Constitution. It is ours. We got lazy and fearful, lapsed into ignorance and selfishness. The left denied economic liberties (like property) and the right dismissed personal ones (like sexual/gender), while both claimed to stand for freedom. Words and ideas lost their meaning. We buried ourselves in sports and screens, postmodern nihilism and pablum nationalism, thinking America would always be okay because, hey, we are special.

There I go, defending the Constitution and starting on the path of the why, why it and its constitutional democracy are gasping for air.

[Great book. Highly recommend. What has your attention? Screens and sports? Madness?]

I do not have the words, really. 

Someone asked me today if I was okay.

I responded that I could handle, maybe, the planet dying OR the mass extinctions OR the fact that America has gone crazy along with its president OR my personal situation (later to be discussed) BUT…I am not sure how much longer I can handle all of these happenings, together, all the damn time. Of course, they are all related. It is really one thing. Humans. People. Them. Us. You. Me. 

War crimes are on the agenda for this evening.  Trump brags about blowing up civilians, their water and such, while standing next to an Easter Bunny. Am I in a nightmare?

How does the Constitution handle a threat to annihilate an entire civilization by a mad, demented president while we go on with our sports and screens? I know, I know – I hear you saying: But what can we do? I see some of you trying. I sense more of you turning. I have a glint of hope – will it be enough of us, fast enough? – and I am also doing my screens (no sports!) and offering no more than most of you. This is not only a judgement but a lament, and a confession.

But this cannot be right. I am going to watch Brokenwood Mysteries while Trump destroys the ancient culture of Persia, the lands of Cyrus the Great, the Parthian and Sasanian dynasties, rich with art and architecture, literature older than the Magna Carta? 

I call my senators and congressman, telling the machines and one young lady that they are all complicit. Do not do this in my name. I make another sign; should I go out tomorrow, alone, or wait for the Saturday protest? I pray to my gods. I email the local priest and say I need another chat, I might be ready to join with the Pope, he is one of few who say truth and I want to join my prayers with his, embrace his God in case he is stronger than mine and can stop this madness.

But, Father, did you have a good Easter?

Whew. I am okay. The planet may be dying but the prairie is about to burst forth in insect and plant. Animals are vanishing, individuals and species, but the crows here go about their business, living each day the best they can muster. America has gone from an imperfect-but-bright light in the world to an embarrassing and threatening pariah state…but many millions of us watch and wait for a chance to correct, a moment when (please god, of any kind) he drifts off to sleep and does not awake. Or Republicans have a moment on the road to Damascus. Or we make it to the midterms and ICE does not block our way to the polls.

Personally? I may or may not move to Belize. Once I get out of this mess I am in and cannot discuss. In the meantime, I am blessed. Husband and sister and chihuahua and a few friends. Books and writing and the sun shining on amber waves of native grass. No kidding. It is like a song.

Sing with me.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Linda

Lrawles@myyahoo.com

480.540.6816

P.S. Please, subscribe. If you pay, money goes to native seed and plants, or to help rhinos go about another day. Pay or not, thanks for reading. We are not alone. 

Almost everyone who knows me thinks me very brave. I hear that often. “You are the bravest person I know! I could never [go to that protest; talk to that person; start a wine bar from scratch; work my way through college and law school as a single mother; fill in the blank with whatever they are afraid of and see me do].” People on the street say “I could never wear that shirt, that hat with an FDT button! Aren’t you afraid? You are so brave!”

[Protests aren’t scary. Try one!]

These things do not make me brave. First of all, we are not afraid of the same things. Second, I am not afraid of many things that most people fear. Protest? Your odds of dying in a car crash on the way to the protest are worse than getting killed while standing on the corner with 100 others, holding a sign and singing anti-war songs. Nor do I fear wearing my First Amendment “on my sleeve”. I have sported a shirt, hat, button, or bumper sticker every day since the election and the positive responses far outweigh any negative ones. Not once have I feared for my life, even here, in ruby red MAGA country.

But I was afraid when the cop beat me up on a lonely Indiana back road, when I could not breathe when he sat on my back, in the face of things that have happened because of that encounter, things I cannot discuss here and now. Afraid of the injustice of it, and how it is a harbinger of where we are as a people and where we may go as a country.

Most folks would fear those latter things, too, I imagine. And I have some company with other fears. I am afraid of riding in a car I do not control. I am afraid of driving in snow, or at night with rain. I am afraid of heights; I make my husband go first when going down steps or an escalator! Some of these are stand-ins for bigger things. I also fear the outcome whenever I am in a situation of injustice or badness, when I cannot rectify or counter it.

I fear climate change. The effects of the planet’s dying on entire species of my fellow creatures? A lot of fear. A deep, forbidding, sorrowful lot. The severe heat that drove me from my beloved Arizona home? Yes, but mostly for the animals who have no water. The tornado that recently killed an elderly couple in the next town…and then skipped this elderly couple for reasons that are unknown and mysterious? Some. I fear Trump, Christian Nationalists, war, nukes, the death of democracy and rule of law, selfishness and ignorance, more people in detention camps, kids in bare cells with no food or mother.

[My son walks in the Belizean forest. I fear for his freedom and the life of the planet. What do you fear?]

[Never been afraid to put myself out there but scared of when we will not be allowed to do so!]

I do not much fear death. I try new things like law school, teaching, wine bars, animal chaplaincy, moving away and moving back and maybe moving out of the country, all with a bit less trepidation than most. The disapproving glances at my sweatshirt do not bother me. Yet, I do fear nothingness. Meaninglessness. The extinction of rhinos and joy. I fear being frozen when one cannot flee or fight, individually or collectively.

You see, it is a mix. Like yours. Same but different. Different but same.

Trump said yesterday that he is not afraid of anything. For this alone, he is either a liar, a sociopath, or both. He is also ignorant, of many things, but specifically this: If he is not afraid, then he can never have courage. Because courage is doing something in spite of being afraid. To do anything when not being afraid may be good or bad, but it is not courageous. One is not brave, there is no heroic act or growth of spirit when fear is absent.

I know this in my mind and heart. And I know there is no shame in fear. To feel shame is to believe that one is somehow flawed or unworthy. Yet sometimes when I fear I do feel shame, anyway, despite the knowing. This is why I fear the fear. I fear the shame that fear brings. Even though I know that is false. Even though I know that it is the lack of courage that might justify shame, and not the fear itself.

And I do have courage. There is a vast abyss of difference in being unafraid - lest one approach the state of a Trumpian sociopath, when one fears nothing - and being of courage! Of doing what must be done in the face of that dark mirror of shadows, breaking the infinite cycle of fear of fear of fear of fear…which just might be the purpose, a purpose, of life. The antidote to fear of fear might simply be courage.

Think of those things we fear, you fear. There are so many things from which to skitter, so much darkness (the bad kind) in our world today. It does not matter if our lists correlate, if your fears and my fears are the same or different or overlap. But what sane, kind person would not be afraid of something, many things, today?

Now think of true heroes. Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Navalny. The student protesters in Iran. Even my ancestors, your ancestors, the ones who tried to be and do right, who immigrated. Who started new lives in strange lands, whether voluntarily or not. Some, here or in the old country, walked to the scaffold defending their beliefs, religious or political, right or wrong. They believed in something with enough courage to die for it, to reject a pardon based on a false recantation, perhaps even forgave the person ready to draw and quarter or the person who lit the fire. Well, they brought us here, such as we are, and left us an inheritance…mixed, yes, but an inheritance laced with some hardwon rights, decent institutions, good examples.

[Proud of my ancestors with courage. This fellow was beheaded for defending liberty and rights. Sir Henry Vane, the Younger. Grateful.]

And were they not all afraid? For a long while or a brief moment, they had fear… And then they mixed that fear with courage. They endured. They stood. They acted. They lived or died. Heroes, then.

My fears come and go. The fear of fear sometimes shames me, especially in the hour of God. You know, that time when you wake up and walk around the house, maybe out the door into the darkness of the night. It is also called the hour of the Wolf. That time when the thoughts race and the heart hurts. You might feel lost, then. Afraid. At those times, I try to mix in some courage.

And when the next day comes, I try to be brave and act courageously, to stare down the infinite fears in the dark funhouse mirror. When I succeed, I do not wish to be dead, although I do not fear it. Joy comes back and I get back to saving the rhinos. The insects. Democracy. Each other.

If you relate to any of this, please comment. Or reach out privately at lrawles@myyahoo.com. Please like, share, or subscribe. I appreciate it. You are not alone.

From the belly of the Trumpian beast, Linda

If insects come out too soon, if birds follow with early migration, many of both will die when the false spring gives way to the snow and cold and gloom. Doom. Sigh. Here I am sounding like a doomsayer again. What a word, that doom.  

But we have lost about half - 50%! - of our global insect population in the last 50 years (measured by biomass). Are you old enough to remember when insects coated your parents’ car as you returned from a spring drive to visit the relatives on a magical summer evening? There were mass casualties for the little critters, but it hardly seemed to matter, did it? There were so many! Do you recall the fireflies dancing their seemingly eternal dance, or even your mom slathering you with calamine lotion when you came in with so many mosquito bites you looked like you had the measles?

[Walk - or fly - in Beauty, my friends!]

Well, measles are coming back, but insects are not. Our avian friends are following them into the mass extinction vortex taking place around us: The loss of both great numbers of individual creatures and entire species, with current rates of the latter being 100 to 10,000 times higher than natural or normal due to human activities. Not “just” insects and birds, but amphibians and mammals. Us, too, the arrogant mammal?

We have no energy to face this as we struggle to save democracy and avoid nuclear war. If you have read this far, I thank and commend you. How can we care about mosquitoes - or bluebirds or frogs or rhinos - when sleeper cells are royally and perhaps rightfully pissed, and brown humans are treated like mosquitoes with thoughts and cries to eliminate them!

[Last year’s wildflowers; what will come soon?]

I have often mentioned our little prairie project here in the heartland. We have planted 25 acres of our land with 20 species of native grasses and wildflowers; chosen over 70 native bushes for our front yard; deliberately flooded a patch of former wetland, adding hundreds of plugs and plants to the soggy ground. Most of this is centered on providing food and home to pollinators. Last year, we had so many butterflies (including monarchs!), native bees (honeybees are invasive non-native fellows), grasshoppers (they ate our screens!)…it made me cry with joy and hope. Ah, nothing like sitting on the front porch with hundreds of frogs croaking, the swallows swooping, life happening.We cannot wait to see what happens this year. If the whiplash weather does not dampen their spirits, doom their lives, it should be even better. Should be. We will see.

One neighbor told us our yard was ugly. We have no lawn; I think that is what offends him most. I wonder if he knows that we cannot live without insects, but they can do just fine without us. That his farmer neighbors need the insects we “produce” to grow their soybeans. That so much of what he eats depends on pollinator insects somewhere along the food chain line. That insects face not only the more erratic and severe weather of the climate crisis, but also these challenges: chemicals from lawn/garden use and industrial farming; habitat loss from that human need to mow and trim and burn and spray and “beautify”, and to eat so much meat that nearly 80% of all agricultural land is used to provide that it; and invasive species of plants and animals that push out diversity and specialists and the necessary.

Whew, that is a lot. And, no, my angry, offended neighbor does not know any of this. And I could not tell him any of this alarming scenario. Nor could I emphasize the positive, avoid the doom, and wax poetic about the miracle of insects, their good works and their beauty. Mostly, I missed the chance to simply say how we need insects, and they need us. They need us to stop killing them off in this crazy, dark murder-suicide.

No, I could not tell him because he was too busy yelling at me about my anti-Trump sign, about how immigrants were taking our benefits, and then added, as he got in his truck: “Oh, yeah, your yard is ugly!“

[There is always life - and sex! - on the prairie!]

I do plan to start a low growing, pollinator friendly type of lawn in this spring. I planted violets around the front porch last fall; they may come up. We mow a fire perimeter around the house, clearing part of the little hill on which our prairie-style house sits. We might mow a broader band to keep those screen-eating grasshoppers at a bit more of a distance. We always have a mowed perimeter around the prairie to ward off non-natives and invasives, to keep the prairie, a prairie. (This last causes me some heartache, beating back those little brave oak trees as they try to leave their parents in the 5 acre of woods we save for, hopefully, another restoration project on another day.)

The neighbor sees none of this, knows nothing of how most of our retirement is embodied here,  the culmination of our money, our efforts, our hearts and our hopes. He sees none of this, for one thing, because the rest of the property is not tamed, is there only for the insects. Sure, the struggling birds, too, many who take their share of the insects. And the precious rodents that live their lives close to the Earth, hoping this is not their day to feed an owl or a harrier hawk. The fox and deer, and the vultures who hope some being lives its last day so that they can live another. It is for them and not obviously for us, for them and not directly for humans. For all of creation and not for the neighbor’s sense of order or viewing pleasure.

[Love the “other”, even those you fear!]

We have have been trained to love a green lawn and not the blue stem grass. To fear the mouse and not a world without wildlife, pollinators, bees. To lament a screen and not a vanished grasshopper. We have been taught these things and also this: to dehumanize people of another color or religion or nation, to control or kill the “other” even as our nonhuman friends and the very planet dies. Dies as we deny. Seeing the ugly for the beautiful and the beautiful for the ugly.

How can we see the value of a cricket when we see no worth in an immigrant or an Iranian school child? Where lies the Ugly, in my yard or in my neighbor’s heart?

[This beats a sterile, perfect lawn any day!]

From the belly of the Trumpian beast, Linda

P. S. Please, Walk in Beauty, consider planting a native plant this spring, and see you on No Kings Day!

I will summarize my last week or so for you, and you can see if you relate. If you are not alone.

[Too wordy, says husband. I need a very big sign!]

We had a meeting of our non-mad (as in crazy) neighbors. They were mad (as in angry), and one was nearly crazy mad from the angry mad. He said he was so angry that it started in his toes and was about to blow out of the top of his head. He saw no humor in any of it. He shook and bemoaned, and I had both empathy with him and sympathy for him. But he will not protest and he would not take a yard sign; he does nothing. He has deranged Trump syndrome. No, I do not mean Trump derangement syndrome. My concern for him grows, but my empathy and sympathy subside. You see,  I grow almost as impatient with those who know truth and refuse to act, as I do the MAGA crowd who refuse to see truth but act on falsehoods.

Is it worse to believe in something evil and act on it, or to believe in something good and refuse to act? Is it worse to believe in evil or to enable evil by not confronting it?

I was discouraged.

We went to a local farmers’ meeting, focused on preserving soil and water. Even though it centered on conservation, including the effects of invasive species in conservation, it was a pretty fair cross-section of our neighbors. For instance, in the past, folks have shown up with their MAGA hats and glared at my resistance apparel. This time, no MAGA emblems in sight. I was not at all ill-treated, and received numerous compliments on my “No Tyranny” shirt and the buttons on my hat. I feel the tide turning in rural Indiana, but it is slow and does not lift all boats.

Will it be enough, soon enough? Will some stay home if they have taken off their hats, and not vote in the midterms? Will others vote to stop the madness, perhaps some farmers whose loyalty has been punished by tariffs, maybe some voting Democrat for the first time in their lives to stop the madness?

I was encouraged.

I had book club with my friend at the local Mexican diner, ending our discussion on the Christian Nationalists, praising the book that says the Christian right neither understands nor owns Jesus. Nearly everyone in my little town is Christian; there was a little Jesus figure on the register. Our waiter was interested in our chat and the book, and accepted my gift of the book with delight: “This is the best tip I ever got.” (We did tip, too).

I was hopeful.

I went to my first group therapy. I cannot discuss that experience because of a pledge of confidentiality.

I was depressed.

Our 4 x 8 sign, “Trump is destroying America!” fell over in the wind. A neighbor stopped to see if we were okay: “Did someone attack you!” “No. It was only the wind.”

I was grateful.

We fixed the sign. Later, my husband and I got out of the car in the garage after an outing. We heard undecipherable screams of pure rage coming from inside a vehicle going by. MAGA is getting angrier. Defensive, I think, from knowing of that aforementioned, turning tide. It might drown their hatred and misogyny, their bullying anger that comes from ignorant fear. They will rage while they drown and attempt to pull us under with them.

I am concerned and elated.

War. We woke up to war. My husband, sister, friend, and I joined the weekly protest in a nearby small city. Mostly, new signs needed made. Many, many issues, yes…yet WAR trumped them all that morning. We had more positive reactions than ever before. MAGA was angrier still. We had the usual MAGA guy across the street - he always holds a giant cross that reads “deport liberal white women” on one side and “ice, ice baby” on the other.

This time, a man in a total face mask joined him, carrying a Kirk flag (“true patriot”) and gyrating like Elvis. This one did not keep his distance. He worked our crowd, standing in front of our signs, hitting me in the face with his flag, calling us expletives, trying to instigate a physical fight with the men by singling out women as ugly, fat, stupid, or bitches. We tolerated him as long as we could until one of our ranks called the police. The officer persuaded him to go across the street; that being no fun, he left. (Yes, he has First Amendment rights. No, he cannot assault us or interfere with our rights. The city does not always understand this and the cops seem partial to the cross bearers and the masked gyrators.)

If most of the passersby cheer us on in red Indiana, if the remaining are very subdued or defensive or Elvis-gyrating crazy, isn’t that a good sign? But, war! Now we have war in the mix! Regime change in the Middle East has not worked for us. Trump cares not for the rights of Iranian protesters, and no doubt simply prefers killing as a distraction to the Epstein files. Will this illegal and ill-fated bloodbath vastly increase terrorism, even as it pleases the Christian right who crave a modern Crusade? Will this act by the crazy and corrupt madman end us all, even as the tide is turning, the positive passersby are growing, MAGA is slowly but surely on the retreat?

I am uplifted by the protest. I am in deep despair over the war.

[Sign and I still holding upright! Note my resistance hat made by my good and brave friend in Minneapolis…but it does not make me look Norwegian! Ha! Must laugh!]

I am discouraged, encouraged, hopeful, depressed, grateful, concerned, elated, uplifted… and in deep despair.

What is the through line in this madness? How was your week?

Please, offer me encouragement, and like, share, or subscribe to this occasional missive. I hope it offers you some feeling that all good and kind people are in this together. You are not alone. You are not crazy mad but angry mad - and you should be. Any paid subscription dollars go to our native plant and pollinator project here at Rosemotte Prairie, or to our nonprofit anti-poaching organization, Operation Pachamama. But free is fine, too.

From the belly of the Trumpian beast, Linda

[My new ICE whistle! And now bloodshed from Minneapolis to Iran…what next? Make good noise! and trouble!]

[Got a new hat on my trip; lots of buttons on the sides; wore it everywhere; lots of chats!]

I have been thinking about what made the trip and the week good, good even though the Western desert is truly dying while the building and denial continue, even though, of course, I am still despairing for our planet and our country. Thinking that if I can condense those things, those ingredients for not being “only sad”, into a shareable recipe for dealing with our collective sadness, the sadness of the good and thinking people I care about…well, that would be worthy of your time and attention.

Those who know me well, know that I love the number four, that there is something spiritual about that concept for me. Perhaps, I am simply compulsive but, hey, it works. These days, I am for whatever works. So, I am going to give you a simple recipe of four, four things that, yes, I absolutely promise you, will make you feel better this next week if you do them. Let me know if I am wrong. I do not think I will be. Here goes…

1. Get your butt out into nature and/or around non-human animals.

This one is a bit of a cheat because I am going to talk about today and not my week away. As they say, cover the cheat with poetic or literary license; in other words, give me some slack and roll with it.

I walked a mile or so around my restored prairie. I went with my husband, and we took many pauses to identify a plant or a bird, to comment on a tree or a track or even poop left behind, to wonder at a femur bone, to feel the wind. That wind felt divine and I do not mean that as a metaphor. Divinity was in said wind as it caressed me on my old person skin and sunk into my good and thinking person soul. It said words too sacred to say now, even to you.

It is not just the wind who speaks. Listen carefully, and you can hear the land. What has come before is in its words. What will come to be is in its counsel. What is true now is borne up by the lyrics of its song.

I used “who” and not “that” above, for the wind. Deliberately. I also do not like to use “its” - even though I did, for wind and land - because they are live beings to me. Should we say: Her? His? They? We do not have the words that denote the fluidity of beings no more than we have right words for gender.

Suggestion: Go out and listen to a nonhuman being. The wind or a woodpecker. The land or your dog. You may or may not be open to meeting the divine. But you will hear words of comfort for your troubled soul, if you listen.

2. Support culture or buy and read a book.

I hit the jackpot in Arizona on this one. I went to a flamenco concert and a gospel show; discovered treasures in an independent bookstore next to the hotel; wondered at the clay sculptures in the little art museum Phoenix stubbornly grows; ate every vegan or vegetarian dish presented to me at local venues.

Yes, eating veggie balls defines culture, and all of these things mark a life over mere existence. And when roughly 1 out of 4 Americans is functionally illiterate, and over 50% read at a 6th grade level, reading is an act of resistance. Of survival.

Suggestion: Buy a book from anywhere other than Amazon and seek out your local Hispanic-owned restaurant. Maybe you can turn off your phone and read at the table. Or meet your friends there for book club, and like my little group, refuse to lower your voices when the talk becomes political. Or some such thing.

[Art and books are resistance! Highly recommend The Suicide Museum!]

3. Swear to something.

Okay, that sounds weird, I know. Allow me to explain with an example.

Rule of Law Day happened to occur when I was in Arizona, and the State Bar held a ceremony whereby we attorneys could retake our oaths. So I went and I did.

Admittedly, I stuck out a bit, like the proverbial sore thumb. Being retired, I no longer have the dark suits. (Okay, I never wore the dark suits for long in my career, but I used to wear something close…and I never really fit in, but I managed to hang in the profession for well over 30 years.) That day, I wore a flowing top with cranes on the back. (Cranes are symbols of loyalty, after all.) I sat in the back row, and I cried. I don’t think anyone else cried, but they were serious, and when we swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, I guarantee you there were tears in those tough lawyers’ hearts.

The words on the building nearby read: When law ends, tyranny begins.

To what can you take an oath? To what can you swear? Have you? I counted mine: they are to my husband as a life partner, to the Constitution and rule of law as a lawyer; to help all animals and the humans who love them as an animal chaplain, to mystical principles as a Rosicrucian and shamanic practitioner. I take none of them lightly. They anchor me. They give me strength when I am weak, and hope when I am in despair.

Suggestion: Try one. Make up your own. Have a ceremony. Resurrect one from before in your life. Say it in your heart or out loud. Wear a crane or a crown. Cry or shout. Swear to something bigger than yourself; that is courage, meaning, and hope.

4. Go retro.

This will be a short one: It might be helpful to try something old-fashioned as an escape from the constant technological bombardment of our times.

No, I am not a Luddite. I like some technology, even see a glimmer of usefulness in the scariness of AI. But, this week, when I had an abnormally large amount of technological difficulties and failures, I decided to slowly but surely eliminate some such things from my life. One small example: two of my email accounts will transform into one new yahoo email (no google gmail for me; I can boycott as I simplify!). And I am finding it amazingly liberating. I feel like a snake shedding her skin. I am going to do it with more things and more often.

Suggestion: Is there some way for you to liberate, shed your skin, loosen those ties the fascist tech bros have on your time and your precious attention?

Hey, maybe you can take that time and go talk to the land, go to a museum, write that oath to the Constitution or Something Else - and then have enough energy, and less heavy sadness, to act on that commitment.

Will it work? There is so much shit. There is too much pain. Everything we live is dying. I get it. But I am promising you this will help. Please, give the magic 4 a try and let me know how it goes, you good and thinking people. I do not want you to be too, too sad.

From the belly and not too sad, at this moment, Linda

Linda Rawles

lrawles@myyahoo.com

480.540.6816

Mystic & Resister

Prairie restorer; Operation Pachamama

Retired lawyer but still takes the oath

 [How can every day not be about immigrants?]

In walked the police. Two uniformed county sheriff deputies and an unidentified fellow sat down at the table right next to us. I did two things. One, I started shaking and losing my breath (panic attack!) like I am wont to do since being beaten up by a cop last August; and two, I waved at the one I recognized. He had come to my house a few weeks back when my “Trump is Destroying America” sign was vandalized. The latter event helped the former panic a bit.

We continued discussing immigration. It was especially poignant because we were in a restaurant that is Hispanic owned, Hispanic run, with almost all Hispanic employees. I have given them some “ICE advice” from what I learned in immigration-led ICE training. I wondered what these fellows would do if the masked, armed thugs walked in then, at that moment. I thought of PTSD immersion advice: walk through and not around your trauma. Face your fears. I bled sorrow in my heart for those who had cooked the food for those cops, waited on them, paid their taxes, lived in dread.

So, of course, I went over. “Gentlemen, can I ask you a question” I queried the two in uniform.

“Sure.” (They did not look so sure.)

“My friends and I are having a Bible study/book club and we are on the chapter on immigrants. You know, Jesus’ command to help them. We were wondering: What would you do if ICE came in here, especially without a warrant, and started taking out those good folks who just cooked our food?”

Okay, a note. It is fine that I brought Jesus into it. My town, it is said, has more churches per capita than any other town in Indiana; Indiana has more houses of worship per capita than any other state. I do not know if this is true but I do know that it says “God bless” on the sheriff’s web page. So, Jesus might as well join the conversation. I am the first one to defend the separation of church and state in a chat for another day.

The uniformed men looked panicked (which is better than me having a panic attack). One stammered “I think that is something you will have to ask the sheriff.” No, not the third guy, apparently, but a far-off, not-askable presence.

Me: “But he is not here. What if ICE came in, right now? Don’t you have to know what you’re going to do ahead of time?”

Third, non-uniformed guy: “Now, they can’t answer that. It is a political question. I can probably answer that better than they can. They don’t need a warrant.”

Yes, I should have asked the guy who he was (I think, now, that he was the recently appointed chief deputy or some such), but I fixated on the other parts of this development. Me: “No, this is not political; it is about law enforcement protecting people. And they do need a warrant signed by a judge and naming a specific person.”

Yes, I know there can be an arrest without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, and I know that Noem and her gang are claiming that judicial warrants are unnecessary. I know that ICE is, basically, lawless. But the Constitution and court rulings still stand with the standards of reasonable suspicion for detaining; probable cause for arrests; judicial warrants, especially for entry into private spaces; etc.

One always thinks of what one should have said. Maybe, I should have said all of that. However, I did not really want to discuss these nuances with the anonymous person. I wanted to know what the cops would do, the people I pay to carry a badge and a gun. If the gestapo came in RIGHT NOW, what would they do?

Me: “Look, I used to teach constitutional law (true); they need a warrant. But the point is that these people taking care of us, here right now, are our friends, our neighbors, people you are supposed to protect. If they called 911 and asked for help, would you give it to them?” I looked at the uniformed men when I said this; not Mr. No Warrant. No answer.

 [This book deserves another picture appearance.]

I walked back to my seat, my quesadilla, my books, my friends. The three fellas left in a hurry. We laughed at how I scared them away. Mr. No Warrant left in such a rush he did not push his chair in (an Indiana faux pas) – and he forgot his glasses! I think all three men would have then agreed with Christian Nationalists that women should be seen and not heard. Perhaps, not even seen if we are over 40 and/or mouthy.

We returned to our book but had lost our steam. How dare they eat that food cooked by brown hands and think that protecting brown rights is a political question? I just hope my PTSD went down a notch; yet, yikes, how could it?

That was today. This week, I have had at least three people tell me that they know what is happening…and do not plan to do anything about it. This comes in a variety of ways, from dismissing bad cops as “there are rotten apples in every barrel” and refusing to see that the rot of ICE is permeating others in uniform; to claiming that “it is too depressing, so I don’t watch the news except to see how my investments are doing” and ignoring that a narcissistic sociopath with dementia just might crash the market along with the Constitution; from “there is nothing I can do about it, so why talk about it” and not recognizing that action is as good for their soul as it is for democracy and decency.

I have long said that we will win or lose this fight based on what these people choose to do, the ones who know what is going on and do not act. MAGA is shrinking, and its significant remnant is lost and defensively dangerous. We cannot save them. The Resisters are growing, but grow (dare I say?) weary and in need of reinforcements. The muddled middle, these humans of denial and hiding…they will determine whether or not we live in freedom. As I said to Mr. Investments: “Do you care if your children live under tyranny?”

Might you try talking to one of these people this week, even if that person is yourself?

 [A leopard from one of our trips to Africa. Our sign on the corner of our Midwest prairie.]

One last thing. I appreciate all of you, subscribers and readers, and am thrilled that my numbers of both are growing. I often remind my paid subscribers that their generous payment goes to one of my two causes, prairie restoration here in Indiana or anti-poaching in Africa. To insects and rhinos, I quip. Allow me just a few words on each to see if I can gain just a few more paid subscribers (but please stay if you cannot pay! There are so many demands on our generosity!).

Prairie: When we moved to Indiana, we bought 30 acres, 5 in forest (as Hoosiers say, “in woods”) and 25 in cornfield. We have taken out the field corn and planted the 25 acres in about 20 species of native grasses and flowers. We have put in over 70 native bushes in the front yard; created a mini-wetland with additional native, water-loving plants; maintain a perimeter of over a mile to discourage non-native, non-native encroachment; and welcome the resulting critters, especially the insects. Do know that insects can live without us but we cannot live without insects? That 50 percent of insects have vanished in the last 50 years? We are doing our little bit to save them, especially the pollinators. It is not a non-profit and we do it mostly out of our little pockets. So, thanks for your help!

Anti-poaching: We founded and run a non-profit called Operation Pachamama. With the help of generous donors over the years, we have supported, primarily, the training and internship-toward-employment of some of the best anti-poaching rangers in southern Africa. We work with our trusted South African partners who merge traditional bushcraft with modern military training to save iconic animals facing extinction – especially the rhinos. And this all helps poor, rural youths save their heritage and “their” animals, and not turn to poaching for sustenance. Our website needs updating, but you can check it out at opmama.org. (Yes, updating it is on my list!)

I am always happy to discuss either or both of these efforts. I feel strongly that we must try to save animals and the planet while fighting for democracy and human rights.

That’s it, until next time, friends. Hang in there with me, please. Talk to your local police, plant a native plant. It is all part of the journey, and the true magic of insisting on the meaning and the joy – along with all of this damn sorrow.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beat, Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

First, the doctor. I did not see this new doctor for any emergency. I simply could not continue with my former primary care physician because both he and his nurse are Trumpsters. So, I scanned the available doctors in my new network to see who took my new insurance: two lovely, youngish ladies and one older Asian gentleman. He looked wise and kind.

He was. But his nurse dismissed my explanation for why I cannot have my blood pressure taken with that awful torture device on wheels.

Me: I have white coat syndrome. Plus, I have PTSD from being beaten up by a cop and I have panic attacks when I am restrained, when I have no control.

Nurse: It will be fine. I unwisely yielded. I managed not to rip the arm cuff off but my BP was over 160. She looked like she was going to call an ambulance or something.

Me: No, I told you that would happen. And it was not until the kind, wise doctor cradled my arm in his and read 120 something that they agreed to let me stay.

However, the doctor did brush me off, waving his hand in dismissal, when I tried to explain what happened with the cop. “There are bad cops just like with everyone else.” He wasn’t the best at realizing the mind-body connection, treat the whole person, etc. Oh, well. I still liked him.

As I left and he took my hand, I held his in both of mine, looked him in the eyes, and said: “Please, be careful and realize what is happening. The white supremacists do not like anyone who does not look like them.” He told my husband shortly thereafter, when Tom had his appointment, that I was a nice lady. So that’s alright, then. I think I will keep him.

Interlude:

As I write this, I just heard of another fatal shooting in Minneapolis. My gods. Time to quote Abe Lincoln: To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of us all. And who said this? Courage is a habit and not a feeling. And a vital subset of courage is resilience. Maybe that was me. And it was me who responded to the teenage boy who called my Renee Good sign “old news”: No. No, I don’t think so.

The lawyer. Actually, I cannot say much here. Have to protect the ole attorney-client privilege. Let us leave this part of my trifecta week (sans therapist to make it a trifecta) with 1) I had to, and have to, relive the beating; 2) we must fight injustice, everywhere. It is all related; and 3) I get to practice my courage as a habit, courage as resilience…and Lincoln’s precept of, basically, avoiding the sin of silence. Wish me luck and good lawyers.

Now, we come to the priest. Some of you know that I have been thinking of becoming Catholic. I crave God and moral leadership, and I like the new Pope. There is mysticism in Catholicism. There is comfort in old, high liturgy that does not usually clog the pulpit with Christian Nationalism. There is hope in heavy theology that crowds out the absent theology of a militant, white supremacist Jesus. This, and more, led me to have an interesting meeting with the local Father.

What ensued was one of the best nearly two hours I have had in some time. I do love a bright discussion of religion and politics. He seemed to enjoy it, too: “Whatever you decide, we can just keep meeting and talking.” The world would be better if we all kept meeting and talking. At the salon and grocery store. With neighbors and relatives. With our representatives and church leaders. Talk. Listen. Question. Think. Repeat.

I am reading this big, fat book on Catholic doctrine. When I got to the part that makes masturbation a pretty bad sin, I almost stopped the entire endeavor. No more book. No more priest. Not that, at 67 and married, masturbation is a major deal breaker for me. But now I must ask my new friend, the priest: Why is masturbation a sin but voting for a rapist is not? Why is there such an emphasis on the sins of commission – especially the sexual! - and not the sins of omission…like not fighting for little Liam when he was kidnapped and used as bait? Was/is Jesus more concerned with where you put your hand on your own body, or where you put your heart out in the world? I always thought the Mother Church was big on works and not just faith. Where are the works, the works that emulate the Christ, Catholic Trumpsters? Hmmm.

 [Because we cannot see this too much!]

Stay tuned. Not trying to bait the Father. I always sound flippant but these are serious questions. (And I do not think I can get excommunicated before I am confirmed….).

Interlude:

Father X likes Latin, as do I. Maybe, our next chat can have the theme of esse quam videri: to be and not to seem? And we can discuss Gordon Livingston’s wise words:

Consider the things we do that enhance or detract from our moral sense of ourselves. Every action we take [or do not take!] has consequences that illuminate how closely our professed beliefs comport with our behavior. So, it is with the societies we create. If we allow the enemy…to frighten us into actions that violate our core values, we have lost some essential faith in ourselves as a good and generous people.

A doctor, a lawyer, and a priest. Who made up your life this last week or so? What moments, since life is nothing more than a series of moments? Did you discuss anything important? Perhaps, Liam or the latest shooting. The gestapo or the destruction of NATO. The fact that we now have a president who is senile as well as mad. A narcissistic sociopath with dementia (I cannot tell you my therapist diagnosed him as such).

I will end with my favorite Rumi quotation, since I seem to be into quotations, and conversations, today? Here it is: “Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”

 [Be resilient, my friends. Spring will come. We will save democracy and the planet.]

Interlude:

I started writing this before I heard of the death in Minneapolis. I am still crying and shaking. Editing is hard. Please, take me, and this, as is. Like I dais, these are tough times.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Trying to be resilient, Hopefully notorious, Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

 [I hold these signs for Jesus, who makes my quesadillas vegetarian.]

This was Jesus, the local Hispanic business manager of whom I recently wrote, only now he was almost pleading with me after breakfast this morning:

“But they pick you up even if you have papers. They take the papers and then they just take you. No one know where. They just take you. Or they will just shoot you.”

“I know. I am sorry. It is just awful. I am doing what I can. Some of your neighbors are meeting. We are going to the commissioners and asking them to stop contracting with ICE. You know, if I am here when they come, I will try to protect you.”

What else could I say? But it sounded so feeble. So impotent. So nothing.

I do not even know what to say to myself. I have made some progress with my therapist after the cop beat me up back in August. After Rennee Good was murdered – because she did not do what the authority wanted her to do – and fast enough – it has all come undone.

I am not Renee. I am alive and she is dead. But I do know what it is like to meet the brutal force of the state when it is angry, untrained and unhinged, limitless and brutal. It is so easy to get hurt or perish…or, as my friend Jesus fears, to lose the rights you thought you had and simply vanish.

And yet the folks around us at breakfast kept chatting about the weather, discussing IU or the Bears, a mutual friend they knew in high school. The normal, the banal, sometimes make me want to scream. My husband says that I am being unfair and that we often seem normal or banal to others as we make our grocery list over the restaurant table. Life goes on, as is said.

But I want to scream at myself, too, for going on as if we still live in a constitutional republic, as if I have no memory of being thrown on my face with all the policeman’s force, and sat upon like a sack of potatoes until I cannot breathe. As if Renee were not carried from her car like a sack of potatoes, dead as a goddamned doornail, because ICE would not move their vehicles so she could at least be covered and properly carried. Her dog and wife looking on: the wife bloody; the dog probably wagging its hopeful tail. As if moving vehicles – one moves and it should not, others do not move and should - are stand-ins for actions and lack thereof, and our resulting descent into inhumanity and tyranny. As if Jesus can first make my quesadilla (vegetarian, especially for me!) and one day be no more in my world, his world, the world of constitutional rights and humanity.

Jesus. Renee. Me. You. We are all collected together in this bad tragic melodrama, as others, as we, we who are still alive and can talk, discuss sports and weather and what type of cookies I want from Strack’s (fruit in them, please!).

No, do not give up hope, all ye who enter here. I still have it. I hold onto it like a crocodile holds its prey, where the prey can only get out of the mouth if it first goes in deeper. I actually know someone to whom that happened. A crocodile was pulling him into the river by his leg. He had to push his leg in deeper, down the croc’s mighty throat, in order to make it gag and for him to escape. Hope is my prey. I will not let it gag me and escape. I am clenching all of my little pointy teeth. Bad metaphor? Does it make sense to you?

Meanwhile, I sense a large shift: I smell the anger of my fellow and true patriots, I hear the discomfort of the muddled middle, I feel the defensiveness in the angry words of the MAGA loyalists as they pass by me holding my sign. But this is horrible and hard.

Bear with me while I do a small shift and then try to circle back. (I am really into the cyclical and not the linear.) I have mentioned my winter project, what I do when I need to escape from this horrible and hard reality. Stephen King is diverting me into his horrors and hopes, his other worlds than these. As I reread each of his many tomes, I then gift them to a few cousins, thus downsizing a bit of my material possessions. In addition – okay, I know this is perhaps weird – I am rereading our resident children’s book collection. Some date back to my son’s childhood; some are recent purchases. One is called “The Story of the Declaration of Independence.”

 [Can the Story still be true? Can we hold on to the goal of Life and Liberty, equal rights for ALL?]

The Story has its faults but it gets things mostly right (somewhat paraphrasing):

“The King put a tax on things and forbade them to buy from other countries. The King sent warships. The King sent soldiers into homes. This made the people angry. Things went from bad to worse. One day there was a skirmish.  But the people became angry instead of afraid. They began to unite. People were killed. Now patriots were really furious. Some of the King’s men began to see that they were fighting people who believed strongly about their rights, about freedom. The people declared.

They declared that people [okay, first it was men, white men, but it was a start] have certain rights that cannot be taken away from them. Life, Liberty, the chance to be happy. That government exists to preserve these rights; that government is the servant of the people and gets its powers with the permission of the people; that if government forgets this, the people change it, change those in power.

Visitors today come from all over the world to see the Declaration. The ideas in it, the rights it explains, have appealed to people all over the world. They look to these rights with hope.”

Yes, I still look to these rights with hope. We are an embarrassment and a threat to that world; no longer a beacon. It will probably get worse before it gets better. But I hang on to that hope like a crocodile. I look in the eyes of my friend and my heart breaks. But I will not let go. I think of Renee, and her wife and her dog, and my soul weeps. But I will not let go, I will not let go. No matter how much they kick down my throat. I will not let go, I will not let go, I will not let go. I am hanging onto that hope and pulling it into the river, that river of life, liberty, and the chance to be happy again.

 [Curl up like Roxie but then get up and hang on with pointy teeth!]

Welcome, new subscribers. Thank you for staying with me, old subscribers. And a reminder: If you opt for paying, the “five bucks a month” goes to our prairie restoration or our anti-poaching NFP. We are grateful. Comments, shares, restacks, likes…all are also welcome and for them I am grateful.

Hanging on in the belly of the Trumpian beast, Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

To summarize: While much of the mainstream media took a holiday, Trump buried his loss on the use of National Guard troops, Jack Smith’s truth telling, and more Epstein files grossness. Then he started an illegal war to distract us, give oil to his buddies, and soothe his psychopathic and childish ego. 

But I know you are paying attention. And acting. Speaking. Fuming. Burying your head in the pillow to stifle a primal scream of desperation and despair? Jumping around the house because you feel a small but seismic shift in America that gives you hope? All of the above? Here are some snippets of my life in the last while. I hope it is helpful to each of you in some small way.

[First, we took our sign to the protest.] 

1. We put up a sign here in the rural hinterlands of Indiana. It is pretty big, 4 x 8. Says: Trump is Destroying America. While we were installing it with our new friend who made it for us, we received one finger, one “We love Trump!”, one thumbs up, and one lady who stopped, elated, and asked if she could take our picture. Of course, we said yes, and as she left, we wished her a Happy New Year. Her response: It is NOW, now that I have seen that sign, and here!

 [Then, it followed us home to our yard.]

I believe this is a big deal. Trump signs have been coming down out my way, but that is not enough. Anti-Trump signs have to go up, especially in the heartland. Will keep you posted on how long she stays pristine, sans bullet holes or such. We did angle it so the bullets would hit the guest room and not the master. If you come stay, perhaps we will adjust.

Bumper stickers, buttons, shirts – all of it works, I promise you. It gives others contagious courage and lets them know they are not at all alone.

2. We continue to protest, mostly on Saturdays in Valparaiso, the county seat to our north and a small city of about 35,000 purplish folks. We generally get more positive reactions than negative, but I have noticed something increasing that I do not like at all. Cult kids. Last week, a group of boys on the cusp of teenage years passed on the opposite sidewalk and shouted at us: You dumbasses! They laughed as if they had accomplished a great deal. This week, a lady had her Jeep windows down, a dog on her lap, and presumably a pro-Trump rap song on the radio – as the very small child shivered and she circled us over and over and over without apparent purpose. We were also treated to another woman rolling down her window so her pre-school child could give us the finger…while she laughed.

I am not sure what to make of this. I hope they all rebel and learn to think for themselves. At 13, I read the whole Bible, became a Christian, joined the John Birch Society, and became a vegetarian. Later, after the personal insurrection, I sorted it all out (dropped the JBS, returned to vegetarianism, morphed into a mystic Christian). But I had good parents who loved me, supported my reading and thinking, and just stood back – where did THIS creature come from? Okay, well, she’s ours! What type of parents do these children have? What will their rebellions look like? Will they be the 1-in-4 functional illiterates in America? Uni-bombers? I fear them and for them.

3. We like Mexican food and have been increasing our visits to Mexican restaurants. Every time we go to a new one, we ask the server if they have a plan for when ICE shows up. They do not. I ask to speak to the manager. I give them a few suggestions; basically, I tell them their rights. They do not have to open a locked door to ICE without a warrant. The warrant is only legal if signed by a federal judge and it contains a specific name of a person they have probable cause to believe is illegal. Etc. They are always grateful for two reasons. One, they do not know these things. Two, they are teary-eyed that gringos give a shit. That anyone gives a shit.

4. I did the anti-Trump ceremony suggested by the Maya medicine woman I met in Belize. Here is a simple one if you wish to add your energy. And it is good energy. I was trained to never use shamanic practice to hurt anyone. However, one can ask the Universe (God, gods, helping spirits, ancestors, whatever is your connection to the Greater Reality) to encapsulate an evil or wrongdoing person, energy, being. Ask the spirits to rebound the bad juju they are putting out back on themselves. They diminish from their own toxicity. They crumble due to their own hate and lust for power. They choke on their fumes of violence.

So, grab some of these: candle, incense, rattle or other noisemaker, something to burn (like a picture of Trump). Light the candle, burn the incense. Say words that honor the directions, or your gods, or something Good. Sing, chant, make some noise. Burn the picture or thing. Ask your gods or spirits to encircle Trump and his minions so they do no harm to us, the planet, the animals, the world, those of color, women, our rights, the Constitution, other countries, all of it. Be grateful. Cry. Sing. Ask for Power. Honor the Good again and close.

You might be surprised. You will feel better. What harm? And I think it works. Adapt it to your beliefs; Even Catholics burn incense and chant, for goodness sakes. This is not so weird.

 [Going to start this one soon. What are you reading to stay sane and informed? What do the ¼ of Americans who are illiterate do???]

Next steps. We are going to an Anti-war rally tomorrow, with some friends. I have to go now and make my signs. I am thinking of: Please, someone come and arrest our criminal president. Too long? No Illegal War 4 Oil & Ego? Trying to Distract With Another Iraq? Nice rhyme, sort of, with that last one. This coming weekend we are hoping people show up to our little resistance group.

We have some ideas for that group to act on, if enough people show up. I want to attend the county commissioner meetings and lobby against our county’s contract with ICE. My hubby wants to start planning for a booth at the local festival, call it Hoosiers For Truth, and discuss politics with one and all. Not a bad idea since the local Democrats always have a booth with no name or identifying signs on it. Seriously. They are too afraid to say who sells the sno-cones or whatever. They make $100 bucks and call it good. They also won’t have a table at the fair anymore because people yell at them. Or a float in the parade. This is the mentality we have to snap out of…so maybe we can get the group to do both, or other, or more. It only matters that we do something.

That is the same sentiment for all of us. It only matters that we do something. Something. Anything. Please, do not wait too long. There is hope but time is short. Give a shit.

I end with a really big favor to ask of you. Can you share this with at least one person who might be interested? I would be very grateful for that. I hear on the side from my readers from time to time and I sure appreciate that encouragement. I will keep writing.

In the Belly, Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

Instead of waxing poetical about the Holidays (love emoji or scream face here?), I am going to share a few snippets from my recent trip to Belize. Tom and I went there to see about buying a house and getting out of the country. More on that another time. Let’s return to my de-escalation in the line for the Houston-to-Belize flight, Snippet #1 of 4. (Oh, and I have missed you all, my loyal and little circle of readers; thanks for being here once I returned from my adventure.)

1. We line up by number for Southwest. A nice looking young couple stands next to us, and they do the usual: First time to Belize? Why are you going? Us: No, it’s our fourth. This time, we are gathering information for a possible move. How about you? Them: We are missionaries, going to bring others to Christ. Me: Hmmm.

Now, it might help to know that I was currently reading about Belize, Maya beliefs, and copal on my Birthday Nook. Copal is a sacred incense that I use, made of sap from the copal tree in central America. To the Mayas, copal is “itz”, or a sacred substance that stands for the life essence. It is used to reach spirits and ancestors, send prayers, smudge houses, and essentially substitutes for the human blood sacrifices of old.

In this little book on copal, the author explained that a lot of the Maya religion has survived colonialization because Maya beliefs and practices syncretized relatively easily with first Catholicism and then Episcopalian/Anglican faiths. It is a fascinating subject – and Maya shamanism is one of my personal interests – but suffice it to say that the connection here is this: The Catholic church in Belize uses copal in its mass, and such details allowed at least one indigenous worldview to adjust and survive. (After all, Jesus was a blood sacrifice, and multiple gods can transform into saints.)

Until the evangelicals came. And come. As they convert, they wipe out the Maya shamanic cosmos. I find that tragic and had been reading about the tragedy. To continue the dialog.

Me: But aren’t most Belizeans already Christian? Them: Yes, but there is “faith” and there is FAITH [placing their hands on their hearts for the latter].” Me: If you say so. [Husband gives look.] Me: You know, Belize is one of the few places where indigenous shamanism has hung on, partly because it blends with Catholicism. It is one of my interests. I was just reading about it.” [Look from them and husband.] I think they saw horns on me. They stepped back a bit. We all went silent. I regret that.

I think about how religion, Christianity, the shallow theology of many evangelical churches - even deeply felt beliefs - aren’t the problem. The problem is thinking that I must share yours. That you can create a “real” Christian Belizean. Or a Christian America. Culture, cult (hey, culture starts with cult?!), tribalism, a mission, missionaries…not God. The desires of humans and not any Divine.

And today I also wondered: Why not just work on the Catholics in Texas? (22% of Texans are Catholic; I looked it up.) Maybe, they meant well; maybe, they wanted a free trip to Belize. Surely, it disgusted me and next time I am going to say so. More about that in #4.

[Nothing like Beauty to make one think of Meaning and Happiness. Color in the grey.]

2. Fast forward to the middle of the trip. In asking questions of my very nice realtor, I discovered that half of American expats in the former British Honduras are Trumpy and half are not. However, he can’t be sure because the unwritten code is that no one talks politics. Great (said with irony). My latest conclusion is that this stance is the major driver of the current trend towards tyranny, in America, and, apparently, the world.

You see, I miss the extended family gatherings now because half of that family is MAGA. However, it is more than that. It is the talking ban. One cousin keeps saying: “But, I don’t understand. Why don’t you come? We don’t allow anyone to talk politics.” I do not go BECAUSE we are not allowed to talk politics. Because the pretending is enabling and the silence is complicity.

Please, talk. Even if someone gives you that “don’t start trouble” look. It is our only hope. Again, see #4.

[You can speak with a hat button.]

3. Jumping to the end of the trip. Skipping over the deliciousness of stuffed fry jacks (look it up), the beauty of toucans, and the awe of land where water rules the reality…to the driver who ferried us from Midway to DeMotte, Indiana. He was very curious about Belize and why would we want to leave and live there. The conversation went on for about an hour but I am going to relate the most relevant part.

Him: Why move there? Me [note, I am actually talking about the delicate stuff, and not engaging in the complicity of silence]: We want to get away from Trump and fear the direction we are heading as a country. Him: Yeah, and they probably don’t have any Muslims there, so that’s a plus. Me [in my head]: Did he hear the part about Trump?! Me [out loud]: I do not care if there are Muslims. I do not care what anyone is, religion, color, belief…as long as they do not hurt another person, they can be whatever they want. Him: Silence. Husband: No look this time. He was pissed, too.

[Wherever you go, there you are. Perhaps with snowmen…and thoughts.]

4. My husband, son, and DIL are very smart. Plus, our family might be a little weird, but good weird. We spend a substantial part of our vacation time discussing things like this: Can life be happy and meaningful, or must we choose to be happy through a meaningful existence, or find meaning through being happy? If life is not black and white, how do we take a stand amongst the shades of grey, and does that drive meaning or happiness? (And how do we reject false moral equivalencies without being those missionaries? Mustn’t we try?) I think this was it, more or less, one night in Belize. I might be conflating a few separate moments, but that probably doesn’t matter. We also had a beautiful view and probably some of those fry jacks, maybe a rum drink or two.

I do not have any real answers to these questions for you. I can only tell you what I am feeling and thinking right now. About the whole fucking mess we are in and how to fight it and how to still love life and how to connect with you in these words so we can do it together.

Here that is. Christmas is nearly over as I write. I look out the window at “my” restored prairie, the nearly infinite shades of brown in the winter light, harboring the very many insects that may save the planet, and think of Belize. I think of – and feel so very deeply for - my family, my country, my gods, my fears and hopes. Of yours. Of meaning, happiness, taking stands that are not black and white but true nonetheless. The New Year approaches and I usually make a resolution or two, one practical and one a bit more idealistic. So, can I resolve in a way that recognizes the shades of grey, with something more meaningful than converting Catholics to Christianity? That could possibly lead to a bit of happiness? That finds meaning in happiness and happiness in meaning?

My husband just stuck his head in the door of the room where I am writing. He knows I planned on telling you about the missionaries. Him: Better reread what you write carefully; you might make people mad on that topic. Me: Not my little group of readers; and why would I care whom I make mad?

I am resolving to speak up more. With the most kindness I can muster, but also with clarity. If I do not speak, let it be because I do not see a distinct shade of grey, and not because it is awkward or might make someone mad. Dear God, help me speak. For the Maya and the Muslims. For the brown neighbor and human dignity. Due process and democracy. The Constitution and a free press. For animals and the planet. Those seem clear enough. Just, dear gods, help me speak.

Oh, and I am going to go do a copal ceremony against “the evils of Donald Trump”. I met a Maya healer, a female shaman, near the jaguar sanctuary, the beautiful jungle, and those are her words. And she told me how to do it.

[Just the jungle.]

Please, if you find any of my words worthwhile, share, like, comment. If you pay to subscribe, all monies go to the prairie or our anti-poaching work in Africa. Namaste and thank you.

From the Belly of the Trumpian Beast, Linda

RESIST tyranny - support democracy, human rights, the Constitution, and rule of law!

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

Yesterday, I attended a community meeting about resisting ICE and its unconstitutional, gestapo-like tactics. Many of us were regular protesters in a city near my rural town. Many were Latinos and part of a local Hispanic organization. We came together to educate ourselves and begin planning resistance. A little late but, as they say, better late than never. It was heart-breaking.

[My back yard, just so we can know each other better. RavenMan once graced our wine bar in the high desert.]

First, a couple – apparently a Latino and gringa couple – brought us to tears with Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee” (google that one if you don’t know it). The main speaker was an immigration lawyer, who basically concluded this: If you are brown, try not to leave your house. The rest of the meeting consisted of knowing rights (in case they sometimes matter), and what we white people can do to help our brown neighbors (drive kids to school; bring groceries; etc.). Of course, this was good stuff, necessary stuff…but, oh, how depressing and infuriating.

My sister and I drove home in the cold, snowy Midwest evening. We passed an ice skating rink. People of all ages were falling and laughing, spinning and smiling…but they were all as white as the ice upon which they skimmed. On ice but not afraid of ICE. No staying home for them.

What country have we become where white kids get to enjoy the Holidays and the Season while brown kids hide in their homes? While white parents fill the storefront streets with gift-laden arms while brown parents ask themselves: Do I stay in the relative safety of my home or go to work to buy my children food and possibly a Christmas present? What is America when Christian Nationalists applaud this cruelty - concentration camps, separation of families, brutal kidnappings, lives lived in fear and despair - when “their” Jesus was a brown Jewish immigrant who took refuge in a barn? It is not just “what would Jesus do”, but also “who would Jesus be”? Who is Jesus now, in America? Is He in their church, their jokes, their insults, their applause…or huddled in a house, afraid to work or shop, to never again dream of skating? Perhaps, in the van already? Maybe, taking the chance, working, cooking our holiday lunch with friends at the local diner?

Yes, today I met a few friends and my sister for lunch at one of those diners. One lamented some of her fellow Catholic churchgoers; they insult brown people in their talk at their church, in the face of their US bishops’ warning, and despite their Pope’s admonition to help immigrants. Another told of leaving a Pentecostal-type Bible study group because she refused to pray for Trump (in an “isn’t he great” kind of way); she was actually called a demon for not participating. My sister shared that she had left her Lutheran church long ago, when they refused to wear masks and went all Trumpy. Horror stories of hypocrisy and illogic, in the name of Jesus. We vented and recommitted to action.

And that brings me back to the restaurant manager. I told our server about the meeting and asked if the restaurant had a plan in case ICE came. This place is Hispanic owned and, like most rural Indiana restaurants, hell, most restaurants, has a kitchen run and worked by brown people. We talked. I gave her some ideas from the meeting: have a plan, lock the door if you see ICE, make them show a warrant from a federal court and signed by a judge, make sure that warrant names specific names with those names spelled correctly, have a space marked PRIVATE for employees to go to and refuse ICE admission, have papers with you, don’t fight and let’s hope these particular agents care about the law, have an immigration lawyer’s name and number if they don’t. A bit more.

She came back later and asked if I would speak with the manager. Absolutely. I told him the same thing. He is legal and on the path to citizenship. I had to tell him that immigration lawyers are advising not to pursue that – you get on their radar, they pick you up. No citizenship and no freedom. He looked very sad. We lamented what America has become. (I use that word a lot lately; there is much lamentation.) I told him I was sorry and embarrassed to be an American. We shook hands. I asked his name.

Jesus, he said, pronouncing it the correct way in Spanish. That’s probably while it did not dawn on this gringa until later. Jesus. No kidding.

[My dog visiting my sister, because I promised you her picture and we all especially love our rescues]

I tried to help Jesus. I will keep trying. Jesus is all of us, each of us, whether we are Christian or not. The Bible did get that part right, as do most religions, when their theology is followed. As in Namaste, the divine in me honors the divine in you. So, my question for, especially, American Christians is simple. What have you done for Jesus today? And if we can muster the courage and the stamina, maybe we will question our friends and family, our fellow churchgoers, this Season. When they proclaim a (sometimes militant) Merry Christmas, politely inquire: What have you done for Jesus? What should we do for Him? Come, I will do it with you. At least, can we do Him no harm.

That’s it. A simple message this time before I leave for Belize. I am wondering what it will feel like to be white in a brown country while this country behaves so badly. To be out of America and ponder America. I will report back. Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, as we say in Indiana.

Meanwhile, please share this with someone if you think it is worth sharing. Subscribe, like, comment…that is all good!  I am especially grateful to my paid subscribers; five bucks a month helps with the prairie restoration and our anti-poaching NFP activities in Africa (and happy to answer questions or give more information on either or both).

Helping Jesus and resisting MAGA from the Belly of the Trumpian Beast,

Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Belly of the Beast – Substack newsletter from the Trumpian heartland

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

No, I do not mean to rehash whether or not it was best to go to the family Thanksgiving dinner, although that issue will be hashed again for the remaining holidays. My sister and I ceased attending the extended family gatherings long ago, and I get snippets of the resultant and critical scuttlebutt. “But we don’t discuss politics or religion, so why don’t you come? Isn’t family more important?” To the first, I respond, what is more worth discussing? Isn’t it woefully inauthentic to avoid the topics of creeping fascism; a madman president who is also a thief and a creep; the resurrection of Jesus as a nationalist, misogynist, racist weapon…especially around “His” Holy day? To the second questioning rationale: No. Family is not more important than every value I hold dear, and family who would support this cruelty is not family of spirit as well as blood. We pass. I will not enable (and validate) the enablers through my accepting presence.

But, still, I do not mean that as the question of: To go or not to go. It is, rather, to go or not go out of the country. It is getting increasingly difficult to obtain residency elsewhere, as an American of moderate means and within the parameters each of us possesses. It might become impossible if Trump closes the borders, entrapping us all as the Cubans and North Koreans are trapped, behind the walls of a tyrant. Impossible, you say? Did you see all of THIS coming? His threats are not rhetorical and he has spoken of this very thing. He has threatened to keep us in as he continues to evict and deny others entry. This is not a conservatism of freedom, we must stop allowing those words, but a non-ideological will to power on the order of a Stalin, a Mao, a Hitler, or of a dystopian and non-empathetic New Man.

 [My latest shirt]

At what point does one stop fighting and flee? Never? Now? I tell myself I can fight from anywhere. I tell myself I must create a place for my children to find refuge. I sometimes feel like a quitter or a coward. I have deep, deep opposing and strong pulls. Family and prairie here; family and causes there. Pluses here; minuses there. Not America; a tyrannical America.

My current position is to create a Plan B and watch closely. I leave for Belize in a few weeks as part of that plan, to scout and think and prepare.

Don’t misunderstand. I see signs of hope. But we are not out of the fascist woods, and the rustlings are getting louder and more desperate as our singing gets louder and more confident. Best to carry a big branch and keep an eye towards an alternative path of retreat. No? Stand one’s ground and fight to the end? Is there a third way: Keep fighting unless and until all seems lost and then take the path to regroup and fight again? What do you think?

 [Hmm…]

On the day we started a new resistance group here in Indiana, my heart said stay. It is a small but passionate, bipartisan group. Two of the most passionate are Vietnam veterans; one said I was brave to stand in town with my husband and our signs. I told him that if he crawled through a jungle while being hunted, I could stand with a sign while being insulted. He heard me; I cried. But even brave soldiers sometimes retreat to higher ground, change hills from which to fight, live to fight another day. I will die quickly under full fascism because I cannot stay quiet. Hollering “come get me” in that jungle does not seem wise. I am confused.

On that same day, we joined the potluck hosted by another resistance group in a town about 45 minutes away. We protest with them most Saturdays in that more purple county seat. They brought their homemade dishes (this is Indiana), passed out “know your rights” cards to give to Hispanic friends, visited in that truly Midwestern fashion, sang “This Land is Our Land”. Beautiful. I cannot leave. I have to leave. I am torn and sorrowful…and pissed.

This is all pretty obvious. But maybe not all of it. Remember that shadow work I promised to discuss? Perhaps, this is also part of that. Shadow work is simply bringing what one has suppressed (or repressed; I get those two confused) in the subconscious to the conscious. Calling forth what one may not want to think about, and thinking about it. Some of the simpler texts recommend embracing and integrating all of the Shadow self. I call that particular view of those simpler texts, bunk.

This is why. The Shadow has good and bad, things from the darkest part of one/you/me that we may wish to acknowledge and accept, and things that we should work on expelling from our Self. But we do not know which to pull in and which to push out if we do not get a good look at those hiding little buggers first. This is the shadow work I am doing this winter.

It is looking pretty likely that the “to go or not to go” decision ought to involve my whole Self and not just the ego self, and bringing the light into the shadows, or the shadows into the light, could help with an answer. I will work on that. You work on you. Hopefully, such work will be good for us, and the country and the planet and the collective consciousness. Amen to Jung, who thought this all up. And the God of My Heart, and yours if you have one.

Try discussing all this at your next holiday dinner. A little Jungian family analysis with the tofurkey? A bit of collective, family shadow work? Hey, if they won’t let you talk politics or religion, see how Uncle Trumpian likes discussing what lies in the depth of his being, unacknowledged and denied. Or tackle the American collective consciousness, the dark things that allow detention camps, calling women piggy, and illegally killing people on boats. Sounds fun to me!

Let me know how that goes.

In the meantime, we are expecting almost a foot of snow and I have some work to do on behalf of elephants in zoos (an awful place for an elephant, by the way). The snow may prevent the next protest but I will keep doing my calls (especially against Indiana redistricting), and there is an upcoming meeting on dealing with ICE as they get ever so close to our neighborhoods here. Having the gestapo in the heartland will be both interesting and horrifyingly terrible. Then, there is Belize.

[Because folks like to see the dog family, my grand-dog and the ChiQueen…]

Keep fighting, resisting, talking, hoping, crying, doing the best you can. Sending you some Hoosier snow to glitter in your light and remind you not to be afraid of the dark, that retainer of many mysteries. Can’t have one without the other. Who is it that said, in the midst of darkness, light persists? Gandhi? And Goethe reminded us that there is much light where there is strong shadow. I will let Jung have (most of) the last words:

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

And me, neither so wise nor eloquent: Not all light is good; not all darkness evil. Your heart knows the difference and your soul benefits from choosing.

Please like, subscribe, restack, comment. If you kindly pay the five bucks a month, know that it is appreciated and goes to either restore the prairie or save the rhinos and other African animals.

From the cold, snowy belly , Linda

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner

I have been cleaving open some heavy stories in this belly of the beast newsletter, showing the guts and blood of rural America and me. This time, I am offering what I call tidbits. Things to think about. Not everyone likes to think. Who was it that said most people would rather die than think and most do? Readers here, of this, they are thinkers. Doers, too, but also deep thinkers. Toss thinking in with feelings and longings and doings, head and heart and soul and body…and pretty soon one has a Meaningful Life. Thanks for sharing a few minutes of yours with mine.

 1. Universal Consciousness

I have been thinking outward, about universal consciousness and thinking inward, about the shadows of the subconscious. These are woowoo, Jungian concepts that are being increasingly explored and validated by more mainstream, scientific experiments and dialog. These are things of meaning, fascination, and practical use, as well. Really.

Start with this: Universal consciousness, at its core, is simply the idea that our minds (souls?) are all part of one Mind (Soul? Divine? Other?). There is a related, “brain as a filter” theory: Rather than create consciousness, the brain filters universal consciousness so that you and I can have individual minds, distinct personalities, and discreet experiences. The separateness gives us the gift of a possibly Meaningful Life in THIS reality. It may be a grab bag, mixed bag, white elephant, beautiful, sorrowful, lonely, marvelous gift of a life. But it is our own life.

When taking certain drugs, meditating, dreaming, exploring shamanic or other mystical rituals, the filter pulls back, if you will, and allows us to join the ALL, the conscious mind of the universal. It merges the individual self with the greater self…and many think this happens without loss of your Self. You simply go Home.

This is what I try to experience in my shamanic practice, in part. But you can experience it anywhere and anytime. For example, several nights ago, my husband and I were having a good meal at our favorite, Italian restaurant. All at once, I had an overwhelming feeling of seeing (being?) everything I had ever experienced in my life thus far. Then, I saw (was?) everything beyond my life – I was everything, everyone, all at once. It was beautiful but oh so brief.

You might say it was the excellent glass of South African chenin blanc. Could be so, but hey, it was not a bottle but one glass. Thus, methinks otherwise.

Have you ever experienced anything similar? Maybe it happened because I am also doing shadow work. What is that, you ask? Are you going to get more woowoo, Linda? Yes, I am. But looks like I will save that piece for a future writing. Here, there are a few more tidbits to mention and I cannot go on too long.

[Shadow work awaits!]

2. Good people & owls

Again, many of these missives have covered the underbelly of life, my life here in so-called Trump country, in America’s heartland. You have stuck with me through stories (all true!) of racist tinged miscarriages and hate filled beatings by cop. Now, I want to tell you briefly about yesterday.

Tom and I protested with one small contingency in Valparaiso, one of many groups of different days and places and modalities growing here. We met more wonderful people. Many are older folk, some in their eighties, who show up every Saturday, rain or shine, and fight for our country and the good: For democracy, immigrants, the Constitution and rights, accountability, kindness. One of the younger ones keeps a tally: the positive reactions are increasingly in the ascendence. The camaraderie and even fun of the resistance is growing.

We also went to an owl festival. Isn’t that a lovely idea, to celebrate owls? Children and adults competed in a hooting contest. Tables held advocacy – and advocates, fighters, educators – for native plants, rescue dogs and cats, the saving of injured wildlife. People cared. People care. I would love to see more of this, festivals for any and all species, festivals for caring rather than harming, festivals of hope and not despair.

There are good people in so-called Trump country, and I refuse to call it that anymore because it is not his. It is ours. It belongs to the good people. Not to the racists or the violent cops. Not to the guy selling Trump cutouts on the corner, held and waved to potential customers by his little girls (yes, his little girls!). Not to my neighbor who placed one of the cutouts, the dancing Donald, facing us, where his 30 acres meets ours. Nope. I hereby grant it to the owl hooters and the protesters, the land savers and the dog rescuers, and maybe even a little bit to the other neighbor who took down their Trump flag. And since I sit within the purview of many mega-churches, might I end this tidbit with a sincere Amen?

3. Hoosiers say no

Indiana Republicans rejected Trumps’ redistricting plan – the plan that was really a piece of Trump’s cheat-in-the-midterm plan. This, despite Trump’s calls and Vance’s visit to strongarm the state GOP. If that doesn’t give you hope, nothing will. Go, Hoosiers. If not all good people, there is some good in all (almost?) all people, here and everywhere. Perhaps, there are more, an increasing number, of individual minds tapping into a Universal Consciousness and that Meaningful Life? Hmmm…

4. Maximalism & the Meaningful Life

Finally, I want to simplify and shed some material possessions. I rehomed half of my books, furniture, clothes, and art during my last move from Arizona to Indiana. Now, I am rereading my entire Stephen King collection, nearly everything he has ever written and published, with the plan of passing each gem along once I have twice received the pleasure. Should be quite the Midwest winter project – boo! I am learning, at the ripe old age of 66, to let things go. Even the precious ones, like Mom and King novels.

That said and done, I will always be a maximalist – maximizing love and accompanying loss; seizing on ideas and exquisite beauty with some strangeness (see picture); befriending a statue or a novel; communing with the place, “things”, and fellow creatures with whom I share this particular, physical and metaphysical reality. It is a maximalist life, a Meaningful Life, in this, my individual consciousness…before I rejoin the Universal.

[Beauty & strangeness are connected?]

I leave you with some quick snapshots of my home and possessions. Art and books surround us here. What surrounds you, the things you love, giving your life more meaning? I would love to see pictures, to know you by knowing them. Please share in the comments.

[Companions in my Meaningful Life]

And please like, restack, share, or subscribe to Belly of the Beast. If you become a paid subscriber, the money goes to our prairie restoration project and/or to Operation Pachamama, the NFP we founded and run to help save the rhinos and other marvelous creatures in southern Africa. I am grateful.

With Hope from the Belly, Linda

Linda Rawles

Linda@rawleslaw.com

480.540.6816

Animal Chaplain – spiritual & emotional support for people who love animals & planet

Operation Pachamama – anti-poaching NFP working in Africa (save rhinos!)

RoseMotte Prairie–  rewilding for biodiversity in Indiana (save insects!)

Retired attorney & university professor; Rosicrucian & shamanic practitioner