Said a different way:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ― James Baldwin

Capricorn from New England

When I state that I am a Capricorn from New England, to me, that is shorthand for characteristics I believe I exhibit because I am a Capricorn and because I am from New England. It’s a fun way to think about myself. I know lots of people from lots of places around the world exhibit the same characteristics that I have and are born in different months and maybe don’t even believe in astrology. I’m not even sure if I believe in astrology, but I do know humans are supposed to know and see the stars every night of our lives. I believe we’re supposed to. Not believing, it’s all fair, but is it fun? Believing, it’s fun. Let’s have some fun.

I am a lot of things, but in the capsule of being a Capricorn from New England, what that means to me is, I am a very ambitious person. I set goal after goal with the expectation that I will achieve them. I have high expectations of people, but none higher than for myself. I value being intelligent. In Mud → Lotus, I reflected on how I came to be a deeply patient person who eyes a future distance, many, many years away, and is prepared for the long, long journey toward that future distance. There are many positives associated with this Capricorn New England combo, and there are of course, some disadvantages. I’m just going to stick with the positives for now. Later, in another offering, I will describe a disadvantage that emerged for me from all of these characteristics I was unknowingly carrying and had to let go of—unceremoniously, of course because Capricorns do not eff around.

Urgency with Serenity

I have urgency to end poverty in the United States by the means necessary that I have gathered, learned and crafted, borrowed and honed both individually and importantly, collectively. I was working poor for such a long time, I know the havoc poverty wreaks on a person’s mind and body. I cannot, in good conscience allow for the perpetuation of such an unnecessary station. And, as ambitious and talented as I believe myself to be, I know I cannot help everyone. It’s a reality that I have had to come to terms with over time, as I know many before me have also had to do. To be more effective in my purpose, I had to come to terms with this realization.

How do I move onward knowing that there are people who still need and need tremendously? There are adults who struggle because of illiteracy, children in foster situations that are anything but care, dogs, cats, sealife, and other animals suffering because of humans, humans who do not have enough food to eat? How do I not become immobilized by sadness? For me, to “keep it moving,” is a practice in calm, in resiliency, in accepting my lived reality for what it is, while I pursue methods to make it what I think it could be.

As part of my practice, I remind myself that as I am working in my career and my personal pursuits to end hunger and poverty, to help ease our burden on Mother Earth, others still are also helping through their legal practices, their art, by being teachers and health practitioners, by being scientists and journalists, and librarians, by starting tool shares and community gardens, by car pooling kids and being mentors. I am surrounded by people who’ve similarly dedicated themselves to helping. That gives me calm…most of the time.

Serenity with ancestors

But, when I’m being honest, understanding that others are helping too, sometimes doesn’t make me feel better about the suffering I see around me. When I am not calmed by knowing so many incredibly talented people are using their gifts to help people and communities out of poverty because I see the numbers, I see the numbers of people and their families being lowered into poverty, or their lives being forever negatively altered because of medical debt, I look elsewhere for solace and calm. Because when I can work with my very old and very loving amygdala to say I am physically okay, I’m just very sad and emotionally scared, I can be calmed, steadied and therefore most consistently effective.

When I see the numbers of unhoused people getting larger, electricity bills and the cost of eggs getting higher and higher because of corporate greed, or people making difficult decisions in their budgets to make ends meet in the most creative of ways, when I see that racism, transphobia, antisemitism, misogyny and their cousins phobia and isms out in these streets without a mask on, I am afraid. I am sad. I am angry that I can’t do more than I am, it is in those times I think of my ancestors. I think of all of our ancestors when they were in deeply difficult circumstances with no end to their suffering near. My ancestors made art. They taught the youngers traditional dance. They sang. They intermarried and welcomed new, welcomed heterogeneity. They made jokes and cracked smiles. They took care of their elderly and their babies. Suffering is not inevitable, but neither is thriving. None of it is inevitable, and I have chosen to take a position to help. And like so many before us who were born into and lived through very difficult times that maybe didn’t lighten even through the day they died, I know many people laughed, and shared their food, and protected puppies and transferred knowledge.

More Weight

My thinking in this way was solidified by Rodney King. Many years ago, I heard part of an interview with Rodney King where he was reflecting on the moments when he was savagely beaten by Los Angeles police officers Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno, Rolando Solano and Timothy Wind on March 3, 1991. He said, the whole time he was being beaten, what gave him the strength and the will to survive was knowing that his ancestors had endured far worse than what was happening to him, and many of them survived the brutality brought down upon them. That surviving is active, it’s not passive, it’s willful to live and go on. If they could survive, so could he. That is an old, ancestral strength that he can draw from. And from that time onward having heard him impart that understanding, I knew I, too, inherited that strength. And that perhaps, those who are living in suffering right now, who may not be reached by me today, or the others who are working so hard to end the suffering we have manufactured, they too, are active, they are not passive. We are reaching toward one another.