Dating : A Public Diary During the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic ~ Day 89

So close to solstice
we spin and spiral our way
towards a potent portent crossing
of the moon in front of the sun

what is to come?

A ripe, ominous new energy
aligning with this seasonal change
some foretelling foreboding
others not aware of anything
eclipsed by their yearning for summer
simply celebrating a Sunday with family
the Hallmark occasion of Father’s Day

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Day 89 is at this moment, treating me just fine. A cup of tea sits next to me. I can see young Borage outside through the orange petals of Calendula. A Scrub Jay just popped by to say hi, too. This is one of those dark and gray days that can dampen the best of spirits. Yet I sit here in some sort of resolve and calm, surprisingly no longer bogged down by the painful process of learning about managerial accounting. Oh how I look forward to finishing this class. A light sprinkling of rain is coming down, the plants and earth around this house welcome it. There will be many more days of it in the coming weeks though we may very well be in for a dry and hot summer once again. Where the plants will be parched and will require assistance in getting together with that life sustaining preciousness we call water. For now though, it comes in abundance.

Transitions are taking place so rapidly these days that I find it difficult to stay even close to on top of what is going on. That goes for locally and nationally and globally. Here in Portland, in Multnomah County (Multnomah being a tribe that has lived in this area since time immemorial), the plan to enter phase one was set for today I believe however, Kate Brown, a questionable leader and mayor of Oregon, has decided to delay or pause the country from ‘opening’ for at least another week. It is the only county in Oregon that hasn’t entered phase 1 though there has been a noted uptick, spike if you will, in the number of COVID cases and deaths in the past week and so the government is taking a careful approach to getting things going around here once again. It will be very interesting to see how the numbers go in these coming days and weeks, the combination of Memorial Day and folks letting their hair down and hanging out together then and these two weeks of sustained protests are likely going to contribute to a rise in the spread of this plague.

Meanwhile, the pandemic that is institutionalized racism and police brutality persists though with each passing day more and more genuinely encouraging, though often mighty uncomfortable, work is being done on personal and societal levels around this. It warms my heart. Yesterday, my father-in-law participated in a 5-hour zoom call with something like 100 participants from the USC School of Dramatic Arts MFA Acting Program as students of color shared their difficult race related experiences in that program over the past 15 years or so. I believe all the faculty was involved as well and while I’ve only had some brief conversations today and last night about it with him, it sounds like some good processing and lessons will come out of this. I imagine some form of this happening across the nation these days. Organizations taking that humble and honest look at themselves and doing what they can to sort our the white supremacy culture that seeps out of many unseen nooks and crannies of essentially every school, business, group, and organization from sea to shining sea. The folks at 350PDX are doing that work right now, sharing a very well put together article called simply White Supremacy Culture, drafted by Tema Okun of dRworks who is a part of www.dismantlingracism.org. The article is actually found at collectiveliberation.org and is sourced and gives credit to a great number of scholars and activists who have helped put together this pretty simple and straight forward examination of White Supremacy Culture. It is most certainly something I recommend reading.

This all reminds me that I have so much work to do to further dismantle my own connections and internalized racism and biases. It is an ongoing process which also includes looking closely at settler colonialism and how it is all attached to our modern economic systems and specifically, capitalism. This is what systemic oppression is, a basis and foundation of systems that interlink to perpetuate and solidify a cultural and mythologically powerful underlying narrative of how the world works. It becomes, like so many things, deeply embedded and largely goes unnoticed in our conscious day to day lives in many ways. That is not the case for all people of course, I’m speaking primarily of White folks, myself included, and while I’m at it, those that are male presenting as well. I’ve slowly been unpacking this all in earnest these past few years though I do not feel confident that I am close to having a good handle on it. All I can tell is that I have at least a personal responsibility to dedicate a portion of my life to being anti-racist and unlearning so much of this toxic and terrible behaviors and beliefs that help to maintain the status quo of it all. Which makes me think back to that article above which is really a wonderful place to start with understanding how we can take steps to re-examine how we are approaching group work and participation and how we can go about it differently and by doing so, each time we shift things away from the white supremacy culture, we get closer to that space where true and genuine equity and inclusion can take place. It is also there that we uplift and find ourselves in these awesome positions of shared power where the creative potential is brimming over and can be harnessed in profound ways.

This is what we’re in the midst of. All of the things. Good, bad, and in between. This is a collective, global scene change where we enter a new chapter of humanity’s story and we are perched on the precipice of great healing and a shared salvation where we embrace collaboration and unity, celebrating our similarities while appreciating our differences, or, if what for lack of a more elaborate term, the point on the precipice does not turn that way, we will see the already dark forces further send humanity into a spinning vortex to the pits of hell, which we will be living in here on this Earth. Maybe I’m overthinking this all and it won’t be so extreme, or there will be more subtly found in some in between of all this. All I can do is continue to wonder and wander through my thoughts, taking actions that aim to get us to that more welcoming space for all. From there we have such a better chance of not destroying the ecological connections that we’re rapidly unraveling and destroying around us. Divisiveness is not what we need at this point. May we find our common threads after we get through this process of reckoning and forgiving. That is my hope, that is my prayer, that is my wish. May it be so…