Everything looks darkest just before...

Temperature's up; stock market's down; DHS/Border Patrol are violently attacking Line 3 protesters by using helicopter prop wash to "clear out activists." Meanwhile, the Minnesota Legislature is reported to be failing to make adequate progress toward resolving policy and appropriations required to enact a budget by July 1; the Democrats in Congress are debating what to do about their failure to make progress on critical issues such  as voting rights and the filibuster; and President Biden and Governor Walz are failing to act consistent with  their promises to address climate breakdown and protect indigenous rights. Much of this is using (y)our tax dollars while failing to respond to (y)our priorities and the Republicans are doing their damndest to suppress voting in a multitude of gerrymandered Red states. (Do you suppose it's a coincidence that the Russian flag and the Republican party colors are each red?)

will skies darken, bring relief, both?

Photo by J. Harrington

Last millennium, when I was a teenager, I learned the saying "everything looks darkest just before it goes totally black!" Since then I've discovered sometimes that saying is accurate, but not always. It's still possible, scientists tell us, to avoid the worst of the effects of climate breakdown. Someone who knows about such things has suggested that Congress should reenact the Voting Rights Act that SCOTUS found "no longer necessary." If that surmise is correct, are Pelosi, Schumer and Biden smart enough to give such an approach the full court press?

As a recovering planner, I still remember the dictum "More of the same never solved a problem." Yet, we remain dominated by a two-party system that seems entirely focused on getting incumbents reelected more so than on solving the nation's problems. Why do we voters persist in such self-destructive behavior. I don't really want  to spend much time thinking about, or doing more than voting about, our democracy, or what's left of it. But we have allowed politicians and corporations to create a world in which  everything IS political and marketing triumphs over truth. This is not the world I want for my children and their children's children. Once again Native American wisdom provides US guidance in the form of the Great Law of the Iroquois:

“In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion… Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the past and present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.”

I pray we can change the system so that we may vote for those willing and able to follow that Great Law.

 

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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