The written readings for Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, have now been published. Order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

“There is no better test of character than when you’re tossed into crisis. That’s when we see one’s true colors shine through.”
— Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author and fascinating human

It’s always darkest before the dawn, they say, although I’m not sure who ‘they’ are. Years ago I heard a comedian speculate that ‘they’ might be an old couple in Kansas but I don’t trust old Kansans anymore, so I’m not confident of their collective wisdom. In fact, collective wisdom itself is suspect, here in our brave new world, where the unexpected seems to be writing the script.

Weather emergency Jonas, headed to the East Coast today, hit the Pea Patch earlier in the week. Forced to make the 60 mile round trip to town for meds, I left early, relying on Weather Channel reports. Freezing rain started two hours earlier than projected and by the time I was headed home, the road was an ice rink.

I passed at least a dozen smashed or abandoned vehicles, along with a firetruck, a wrecker and an ambulance stuck on the side of the road. Roadside ruts had been cut even deeper by intense rainfall and flooding earlier in the month.

Rounding a glazed-over corner, I spun into a ditch but was able to back onto dirt and then slip and skid, white-knuckled, for another few minutes to reach the only convenience store within ten miles. There I joined a dozen or more anxious people waiting for the county gravel/salt truck, including two Amish women (one with a newborn) who had tied their horse and buggy to a stack of firewood at the side of the building. When the truck finally arrived, we all followed it as far as we could. It took over two hours to drive the 30 miles home.

I’ll bet some of you had a story like that, or perhaps you will by the time Jonas passes by. That sense of emergency (and deliverance) began a week that seemed to bend all the old platitudes into pretzels. Take ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, for instance. That was not my heart response to watching Sarah Palin hitch her (band)wagon to the Trumpinator in Tulsa.

Her nearly frenetic enthusiasm was not unexpected, as she’s been wagging her tail since his numbers began to climb. Perhaps this is a meeting of minds in the Snake Oil Salesman Union, ‘rock ‘n rollers’ and ‘holy rollers’ aside. Me, I think she wants a place in his cabinet. If she’d vibrated any faster in that performance, I’m confident her head would have exploded.

What was unexpected is that Sarah’s stream-of-consciousness ‘word salad’ style has definitely wilted with the public (watch Colbert emulate the demise of sentence structure here.) One conservative blogger accused her of being drunk, suggesting she go home. Eight years after her ascent into stardom, however brief, paying a bit more attention at home might be excellent advice.

Her daughter, Bristol — sometime Dancing With The Stars contestant and well-paid abstinence-only speaker — continues to stump for conservative religious principles while nursing her second out-of-wedlock child. Bristol is a blogger and committed critic of anything Obama proposes, especially if it includes birth control. While the young woman seems to have failed at abstinence, she’s learned radical rhetoric at Mama’s knee.

Palin speaking in 2013. Photo by Gage Skidmore / CC

Meanwhile, Sarah’s firstborn, Track, was arrested for domestic abuse.

Diagnosed with PTSD, Track was the child pointed to on the stump in 2008, serving in Iraq and providing ‘patriot’ cred for the (as yet unknown) candidate known as the ‘Hillbilly from Wasilla.’ The young man not only beat on his girlfriend this week in a drunken rage, but threatened suicide with an assault rifle, and — by golly — we just know he’s got one, don’t we? You betcha!

Sarah addressed the incident in her speech by blaming Obama for ignoring the needs of veterans, which is another of those Bagger ‘truthiness’ accusations totally lacking credibility. I was pleased with the blogger response on this Mother Jones report which included a number of veterans’ family members calling bullshit on the premise.

White House wives, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, have made tireless efforts to see to it that returning vets get their needs met, despite funding obstruction on the right. While it’s never enough, sadly, they have overhauled support systems available to America’s military, wounded in body and/or in mind.

Still, while my heart didn’t get fonder at Sarah babbling like a tweaker, the same can’t be said for the extremist evangelicals who claim her. According to longtime Fundy leader, Ralph Reed:

Palin’s brand among evangelicals is as gold as the faucets in Trump tower. Endorsements alone don’t guarantee victory, but Palin’s embrace of Trump may turn the fight over the evangelical vote into a war for the soul of the party.

That clearly describes what we’re already seeing on the political right, candidates gone shrill and Baggers at war with establishment types. The evangelicals were not happy with Trump trashing their golden boy, Ted Cruz — who meets almost all of their particulars for a Gawd-inspired politician — but now that Sarah’s taken Trump’s part, they may forgive him his secularism, disturbingly displayed in his grotesquely shallow remarks at Falwell’s Liberty University this week.

It seems Donald is unaware of the platitude that a closed mouth gathers no feet, although that one is new (and something of a Jude-ism,) not old. Or perhaps he knows his audience even better than do I, because not all the snake handlers found Donald’s unfamiliarity with religious principle insulting, especially when he salted his usual me-me-me commentary with insipid statements like “The Bible is the best.” (South Park fans: I can almost hear Mr. Mackey follow that up with “Mkay?”)

Perhaps Donald’s introduction by Liberty’s president — Falwell’s son, Jerry Jr. — softened their expectation, likening Donald to his own dearly departed Dad (of Jerry Falwell vs. Larry Flint fame.) A Salon piece, which referred to Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Donald as hucksters, put it this way:

The comparison between Trump and Falwell Sr. is apt, as both men are vile opportunists preying on credulous idiots (although I imagine this wasn’t what Falwell Jr. had in mind). But likening Trump to Martin Luther King Jr. and Christ is preposterous and an insult to thinking Americans. Trump is a religious illiterate whose adult life in affront to the core message of the Gospel. Falwell’s glowing remarks reveal, to no one’s surprise, where his real interests lie.

I’ll give him an Amen on that one! Trump, Robertson and Falwell behave as unprincipled charlatans in pursuit of a buck, happy to relieve the widow of her last mite and follow up with a letter asking for more. Sadly, that’s what American Christianity has come to and the Donald’s saving grace in this company is that he’s only kissing up to them, not one of them.

I like that the writer has a good opinion of thinking Americans, who we can only hope are watching all this with a critical eye. They’ve been pushed right to the edge these last years and seem, finally, to be aware that they’re standing on the cliff, with no further room for missteps. Truly, if there are enough of them to push back, now, then all this angst will have served us well.

So perhaps the darkness before the dawn is too easy a cliché for this moment. It’s dark only in some minds, only in some opinions, only in some contests, and especially as we’re all beginning to see true colors everywhere we look. It’s dark only if we think we’re victims. It’s dark only if we decide we can’t overcome. It’s dark only if we refuse to look for the light or notice the transformation occurring all around us.

Poised on the meltdowns and breakthroughs Eric spoke of in this week’s piece, we are witness to true colors showing here, there and everywhere. I hope we don’t have to lose additional liberties and protections in order to see them clearly enough to reject what is cynical and heartless. And I trust that those who think the growing movement backing Bernie is just another ‘hopey changey’ exercise in unrealistic politics will rue the day they thought so.

This “ballot box” was discovered in Dallas, Texas. Photo by Post Memes / CC.

Speaking to the dysfunctionality of strident nationalism and constant warfare, Robert Koehler wrote on the concept of Earth Community, a description of where we must go if we are to survive.

At this juncture, there is only one American presidential candidate who would take this information to heart, based on colors thus displayed, and even he would be hard pressed to slow up the military-industrial complex that rules our present era (but of them all, I’ll bet Bernie would be the least afraid to do so.)

Earth Community … organizes by partnership, unleashes the human potential for creative co-operation, and shares resources and surpluses for the good of all. Supporting evidence for the possibilities of Earth Community comes from the findings of quantum physics, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and religious mysticism. It was the human way before Empire; we must make a choice to relearn how to live by its principles.

This is the goal, the vision of evolution. This is what we must embrace if we are to survive. It doesn’t sound easy, but Noam Chomsky thinks it’s as easy as making a decision. “Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism,” says Noam. “Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”

Let’s take responsibility for the truth that the true colors — the character — of those who will assist us to get there can only reflect our own as we awaken to the possibilities. We ourselves are, first and foremost, our most ambitious project! The unexpected is not writing the script, we are! And for many of us, this process of living in crisis has given us opportunity to explore our own character, to grow into better, stronger versions of ourselves.

Although we can expect the logical consequences of what went before, we are tasked, now, to take control of our present by focusing our intention and creating a future in which we are no longer afraid of the dark, unloving or unfair to our selves or our fellows, and one in which our true colors go ahead of us as a benediction. For those with ‘eyes to see’ and ‘ears to hear,’ it can be no other way.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

With an interesting week behind us, including more than half of the current Mercury retrograde, our first re-think project of the year is going swimmingly. That’s not to say it isn’t painful in some measure. Looking backwards to see where we’ve been always stirs the mix in the memory jar. You know, lost loves and missed opportunities, things left undone and hopes unfulfilled come to mind. Or days better than these, now behind us, the thought of which carries its own signature of sorrow. Staying in the present moment is an art.

Time slows a bit in a Merc retro, which is a boon these days when the clock seems so tightly wound that the hours race ahead faster than we can fill them. We get some breathing room with retros, which allows for thoughtful assessment. Had to laugh — ruefully — at a ledeline over at Raw Story this week: “Sean Penn interviews El Chapo and suddenly journalists care about ethics.” That’s how hindsight works when it’s successful. Hypocrisy noted, and hopefully integrated into the larger picture.

​Crisis du jour, the Iranian hostage​ situation lasted about a minute and a half, long enough for the right-wing to lick its lips in anticipation of some ass-kicking — theirs, not ours. “Morning Joe” Scarborough evidently felt the tingle in his nether-regions too, prompting him to announce “Hey, Iran, you have exactly 300 days left to push a U.S. president around, enjoy it while you can. After that, there will be hell to pay.”

Obama evidently didn’t feel too pushed, not even mentioning the event in his State of the Union, so let’s affirm that Joe’s wrong on both counts. Let warmongers everywhere note that diplomacy, and the pending lift of financial sanctions, won the day and the American sailors — who eventually admitted ‘navigational problems’ as opposed to faulty engines that caused inappropriate drift into Iranian waters — were released. As good an excuse as any, I suppose, and although the conservatives swallowed their tongues in apoplexy, the video of apology from one detained American sailor seemed not just justified but appropriate.

Following Obama’s hopeful SOTU — looking back at his tenure​, and forward to an America in league with her better angels — the Republican debate was, as described by one writer this morning, a “schlong contest.” Credit Trump for cheapening the rhetoric. It was Donald versus Ted trading insults this time around, with Jeb attempting to jab from a position so weak, people are wondering why he doesn’t just pull the plug.

From his tone, Jeb appears to have acquiesced to defeat, saying that he misjudged the intensity of anger among Republican voters. Add that he “believes the country in 2016 is ‘dramatically different’ than in past elections,” and there you have the perfect establishment candidate, clueless to the powerful zeitgeist goading the nation. Add Mrs. Clinton to that description, ​feverish to break the mold her decades of political triangulation have earned her ​ without getting too far from the middle.

Rubio stood by as the ‘reasonable’ third place candidate, making points only when he went after Hillary, which they all did at some point. It’s spectacular how much they hate/fear her. No stranger to caustic movies and their historical ramifications, Hillary must quietly stew now that there is a new one, released today, designed to bring as much instability to her platform as fracking has to the Oklahoma countryside.

The Benghazi biopic, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, comes just two weeks before the Iowa caucus. Poorly reviewed, the movie is being sold as non-political, with no names (Clinton, Obama) used, but its purpose — and timing — are obvious. The Guardian called it “Michael Bay playing politico for the Fox News crowd.”

No surprise, then, that Trump has bought out a movie theater in Iowa and is giving away free tickets to those who RSVP. His aides have advertised that the Donald just wants everyone to know the truth about what happened in Benghazi (much like he wants his dear friend Ted Cruz to clear up that pesky little birther issue). I suspect this is not the kind of Merc retro reconsideration Hillary’s people​ appreciate.

The right considers Bernie a joke, so he hasn’t caught much Republican ire (yet). Our Fe quoted Gandhi last week with spot-on analysis of the situation: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Yes, it’s true. ​It’s even possible. Bernie’s numbers are so close to Hil’s that he is now considered not just a contender but a threat.

Speaking of movies, his passionate intent to trust-bust has its companion piece in the Oscar-nominated film The Big Short, which is receiving rave reviews and is right on the money (or the disappearance of it, in this case). The challenges of inequity still turn on Wall Street corruption and elitism, the kind they don’t even attempt to hide.

Feeling the heat, Hillary has gone after Bernie on guns, having aligned herself with Obama’s call for tighter laws. Gabby Giffords endorsed her this week, and Hillary has telegraphed her intent to take on Sanders over his 2005 gun control stance in their final debate before the Iowa caucus.

Much as Trump has pulled his fellow candidates to the right, Bernie has pushed Hillary to the left, their differences looming large only in the eyes of progressives. Much as Mrs. Clinton ‘evolved’ on gay issues during her tenure as Secretary of State, she has evolved on guns this campaign, leaving behind, it seems, Obama’s quip in the 2008 campaign that a proudly armed Hillary was the equivalent of Annie Oakley. Another thing she won’t want anyone to review.

Hard to ​misinterpret, Mrs. Clinton is no longer the shoo-in the nation expected. It was supposed to be Clinton v. Bush not so long ago, not Trump vs. Sanders. We’re watching the ascent of the outliers​, which appears unstoppable. Establishment politics is being pushed to the side as American grievances have finally exploded into a frenzy of discontent, and the remaining establishment candidates are picking up the tab.

Memory of George W.’s spending habits, and flashes of that same half-baked and ill-deserved self-confidence, have soured brother Jeb’s chances, and perhaps it has finally sunk in on the left that every complaint over an Obama pick for some important post came with an asterisk that the person was a holdover from the Clinton administration.

While the establishment continues to endorse Clinton, judging her the ‘electable’ one, the progressive block — including The Nation magazine and MoveOn.org — endorsed Sanders this week. They’ve eschewed issues of personality in favor of policies that lift ​the average citizen. That comes as such a shock to most of the nation that they’re still scratching their heads, wondering what it means.

Now we’re all beginning to think the unthinkable. It might be Bernie, it might be Donald. (And although I agree, I was surprised to hear Bill Maher say it better not be Cruz because he’s “high intelligence in service to evil.” I doubt that I would use the world evil, though, and I’m surprised Bill did. Quite a statement for an infamous atheist).

Our exercise in ‘re-think’ arrived just in time to note that many Americans are entertaining interesting new possibilities, even willing to take a chance because to remain the same seems unthinkable. That seems to me a validation of Obama’s candid remarks on how gerrymander and financial corruption in politics can no longer be tolerated.

If — as Elizabeth Warren asserts — the game is fixed and we can’t find a way through, then we need to go up and over. Or maybe, given the roadblocks, just make a hard turn to the left, with one corresponding on the right. Then, in the manner of real populism, we’ll just let We, the People ​pick its poison.

Truth be told, if Trump takes the lead on the right, it won’t be a right turn — it will be whatever Trump finds most expedient to reflect his religion (money) and politics (money.) The choices are a return to building a movement toward restoration of democratic principles (because a Bernie presidency would get no farther than Obama’s did, given the congressional mix, but he would not — repeat NOT — be so gracious about where blame should fall) or one in which the republic makes no bones about becoming an authentic oligarchy, with the president the CEO of American corporate interests.

Make no mistake: either choice would put ‘truthiness’ out of business, but not without ripping the lid off to let all the worms out. Chris Weigant put the bones ​of such a race on the table for examination in a piece he called “Sanders Versus Trump, Revisited.” We are, indeed, revisiting so much, aren’t we? And it should provide just a tad of relief to note that with the advent of these candidates, the purity tests are out the window.

Bill O’Reilly says that if Bernie wins the election, he’ll move to Ireland (bonus!). I remember how many people were going to move away if Bush got another term, and some of them did. Tonight, Bill Maher returns from hiatus and asks his panel if a Bernie win is possible, what that would look like. It’s a question we’ll all be asking soon, I think, as we leave the absolutes of politics behind and begin to recreate them on the other side of the box. I’ll catch you up on Maher’s take in the comments.

Jupiter and Mercury are slowed, and so are we. Let’s keep reviewing, rethinking, minding hints of repeating pattern that come in waking and dream time. Take a breath now and then because there’s space in your day to do it, even a time-out if you think you need it. Remember, staying present is an art and it requires that we recall the past without losing ourselves, dream the future without flying away.

Confronting what has been considered impossible, unthinkable, and moving beyond it is an exercise in transformation. Unless we’re willing to do that, transformation remains mere potential. One of the reasons Ram Dass told us to ‘be here now’ was because it’s our only point of power, the moment in which we can make our choice — and our every choice defines reality for our own lives​, for that of the nation and the world, and a transformed future, waiting to bloom.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“My life is my message.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

Americans are, for good or ill, finally engaged in the sociopolitical dynamics of their day. For the longest time, those of us who were alarmed at the growing imbalance​ in political perspective​ bemoaned the disinterest of the average citizen, poking along in their lives, trying to get ahead and not make waves.

We were desperate for waves about then — pointing to the speed at which laws and policies were changing, lives and treasure disappearing, foreign misadventure​ eroding national credibility — but shaking the sleepers awake seemed a monumental task.

Now, not so much. As the political poles (polls) shifted, so did the mood of the nation. I remember saying, back in the first ​few years of this century, that when the natives finally woke up they’d be pissy. Yeah, well — they’re pissy now! Everybody has some outrage to point to, some injustice or corruption or fraudulent something that rankles, whether it be national or personal, and they’re quick to share it if we’ll listen.

The problem is — although many don’t seem to realize it — they’re so run by their fear for the future, so trapped in bubbles of philosophy, religion or ideology, that they can’t put enough of the puzzle together to help themselves. They don’t have the pieces that exist outside of their absolutes, and as we’ve seen, even if they had the pieces they wouldn’t know what to do with them.

I saw a clip of Trump supporters at a town hall being informed of things he’d said or done, and one after the next, they absolutely refused to believe it. This wasn’t just a guarded response, defending their candidate. It was a flat dismissal of whatever they’d just heard: No, it couldn’t be true. The Donald was their man, he had all the answers and the chutzpah to pull America out of the mire of ​21st century devolution. The things being said about him were all propaganda, lies told by lefties and those jealous of his growing popularity.

How did this happen? A Mother Jones read this week examines the accusation that the left is responsible for Donald, and it’s interesting for the pieces of puzzle it contains. Yes, the current strident political correctness that forbids any but the most tolerant language without censure has frustrated those whose cultural issues are trapped in unyielding conservative principles, and yet, although I’ve stumbled over that liberal absolute myself, I’m going to cry bullshit on this one.

Blaming the left’s political correctness for Trump’s rise is like blaming the Black Lives Matter movement on Abraham Lincoln. Trump is the darling of those who resent belittlement for brutish, unevolved opinions like racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia. If Trump can stand up to it, perhaps even beat it by becoming the candidate on the right​,  then so can they! The notion that Donald seems to have very little to bring to the presidency doesn’t bother them, since they apparently have no idea what the presidency involves.

Having said that puts me in the ‘liberal elitist’ category, by the way, which is how one can get a foot stuck in this tar pit. The Trumpettes are very much “you’re not the boss of me” folk, which puts them at odds with the 21st century imperative of worldwide collaboration and joint effort. Sorry, kids. With 7.4 billion people on the planet, you can’t stand alone — evolution is required.

Amazing, yes? But this kind of isolated, self-serving and selective — some would say deluded — sight has become epidemic, slowly inching up on us for years. Somebody turned on the bubble machine right around the turn of the century. Few of us were prepared for the division that suddenly appeared in our social contract — a crack in the Constitution — when SCOTUS declared George Bush the winner of the presidential race in 2000.

Because Americans are just beginning to grow out of their adolescent preoccupation with competitive “win/lose,” “black/white” thinking, those on the right of the political spectrum saw the maneuver as a glorious confirmation of their war on all things liberal, a war begun in earnest in the ’90s with the help of the religious base and Newt Gingrich.

Those on the left of the spectrum, while shocked and confused, were clueless about just how far that schism would widen or how much damage would be done before anyone noticed how badly the republic had fractured. The walls of the conservative bubble, stretching to accommodate reckless Wall Str​eet gamblers, fraudulent corporate lenders, militaristic overreach, and nationalistic drum-beaters, had no choice but to burst, and it was telling how quickly the Bush administration beat it out of town after handing over the mess to the new guy.

Once again, a Democrat had to use much of his measure of political clout to stabilize the chaos left behind, and the glaring hypocr​isy — which average citizens trapped in a radicalized conservative bubble seem not to recognize — of Republican talking points hammering Obama for being “the worst president in American history” is belied by the stunning progress he’s made during his tenure​, and to hear him tell it, he ain’t done yet. I want to believe! With the exception of TPP, I look forward to Obama pushing progressive solutions.

Nobody works around the bubbles as well as this president. He’s managed to stick out his tongue at the birther bubble, a delusion based on wishful thinking. The birthers are back at it, by the way, thanks to Trump “helping” his Canadian-born friend, Ted Cruz, by urging him to clear up his citizenship issues legally. Yeah. Right. Ted’s mother was American, which should be enough, but in this particular bubble, it’s not. The same folks after Obama are now after Ted, and remember: the Donald is one of them.

Then there’s what has been called Vanilla ISIS (to my delight.) Ammon Bundy, having tearfully announced he’d received a green light from Gawd ​ Almight​y, is occupying a rural federal building in Oregon with his armed buddies until the Constitution is served [sic] by the court freeing two ranchers who burned over a hundred acres of public land. That is as likely to happen as their success in holding out for long, because despite declaring they could inhabit the area for as much as a year, it appears they forgot the snacks, or​ even enough food to last the week.​

Bundy’s bubble is shared with those who live on the edge of the herd — survivalists, libertarians, a collection of tough guys with military, policing and biker experience and (literally, at the edge) cattle ranchers who disdain government. The majority are well armed and consider themselves ‘militia,’ sworn to protect the version of the Constitution they approve.

You will remember the name Bundy from 2014 when Ammon’s father, Nevada rancher Cliven (whom Rolling Stone calls an “infamous deadbeat”) went up against the federal government for confiscating his free-ranging cattle for overdue grazing fees on public land. He called on the Peacekeeper movement to defend his stand. Enough people showed up, guns trained on Bureau of Land Management personnel, to create a pocket of federal inertia. Hard to blame the Fed — it  didn’t want another Waco or Ruby Ridge on its hands.

In part, that tamped down the federal response in Oregon, and although they have proclaimed their determination to handle ​Cliven’s issues legally, their slow-mo actions have added credence to the posse ​comitatus theme (lo​​cal government vs. federal) ​long believed in this ​paranoid bubble. Additionally, as Ammon’s daddy still hasn’t paid his million bucks in fees and hasn’t been aggressively pursued, the son seems to think that will be his eventual fate as well. I have my doubts.

Interesting, isn’t it, that these folks call out the federal government in a “life and death struggle against tyranny,” pointing rifles at the law, and yet assume they will not have to be accountable for such behavior? If that had happened in Ferguson, we all know the result would have been bodies stacked like cord wood. Still, inequality on this issue is beginning to fade, with white Christian domestic terrorism becoming more transparent and recognizable. The large group of supporters Ammon was expecting failed to appear, and the public has not supported his effort. FOX’s Megyn Kelly was short with the younger Bundy, and even Hannity has disapproved the seizing of the Wildlife Refuge.

The wall of this particular bubble is thinning, but it’s taken almost four decades to create public distrust of government (thank you, St. Ronnie), and it will take a good deal longer to make government effective again, thanks to the Peter Principal, the corruption of money and the constant grind of Republican obstruction. There’s little public trust left. Don’t forget that more than half of Texans, including their political structure up to and including the governor, hid under their beds this summer during a Special Forces training exercise. Militia ‘Patriots’ showed up there, too, lest the entire state get sucked into the black hole of Federal tyranny..

There are an enormous amount of bubbles floating around out there, self-contained,  self-protective and defensive to instruction. ISIS represents one, and of course our own military is, by definition, a big, expensive one. Giving peace a chance would put both of them out of business. Corporations comprise the thickest-walled bubbles, pred​atory by design and now by law, but all of the​se are subject to changes of circumstance and information.

I read lately that the Kochs can’t figure out why they aren’t more influential, given their money bombs. There was a big pop this week — did you hear it? — when FOX’s O’Reilly chided the NRA for being opposed to background checks. He didn’t go so far as to support Obama’s proposals, of course, but with almost 90 percent of the citizenry in favor of checks, Bill stepped outside the bubble to go with the reality flow.

The answer to all this floating nonsense is education, although it’s not welcomed by those who are closeted in one mindset or another. I recall the snit Glenn Beck had when he discovered that his daughter had accepted a scholarship to a secular college, exposing herself to non-Christian concepts. There is absolutely no doubt that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, which in this instance, means that the more one is exposed to truth, the more it must begin to sink in. The reality concepts that are important to us need a megaphone, and we are it.

Ex-third-party candidate (and occasional spoiler) Ralph Nader wants to know why it’s only the Republicans making waves with “road rage” when there are so many altruistic needs out there for us to rail against? He’s got a very valid point, one Bernie Sanders is trying to remediate. Ralph illustrates:

“Gilead Sciences, Inc. bought a company that had a drug to cure Hepatitis C with a 12 week regime. It started selling it for $1,000 a pill a day in 2013 or $84,000 for the full treatment. In one year, Gilead took in more than $10 billion from the drug, Sovaldi.

“But in Egypt, where there are nine million people suffering from Hepatitis C, Gilead agreed with the government of that poor country to sell it for $10 a pill which is then dispensed free by the Health Ministry to ailing Egyptians.

“Do you Americans love Egyptians more than yourselves?” asked Hany Tawfil, one of the first Egyptians to take Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), according to the New York Times, adding, “Why aren’t you putting pressure on Gilead to sell to you at a reasonable price, too?”

Nader asks why we aren’t furious that we’re being taken advantage of so mercilessly. He wants to know why we aren’t expressing our displeasure loudly enough for all to hear. He cites movements like MADD and other groups who agitated for consciousness-raising and succeeded grandly.

Those who will not be moved will remain in their bubble until the end, of course — in 2005, a couple of Japanese soldiers, both pushing 90, walked out of the jungle in the Philippines, unaware that the war had been over for 60 years — but that should be the rarity, not the rule when common sense prevails.

There are some bubbles made to last, one hopes, like the altruistic philosophy this nation was founded upon. The proposition that all are equal, that their votes matter and their voices will be heard, must not be allowed to dissipate like so many other proposals. If there is flaw in the administering of this government, if there is lack of political and cultural evolution that must be addressed and restructured, then it’s up to us to fix it. That is part of our heritage and the cost of our citizenship.

When Gandhi said his life was his message, he was speaking for all of us. His life may have been dramatic, simplistic and heroic, while ours do not seem so, but our sharing in his experience of self-empowerment has marked our own, and added light to the world in ways we can’t begin to fathom.

Now we’re ready for even more light. I’ll let Nader take point on this, since I bet that when you look over your To Do List, ‘rumbling’ isn’t on it:

“Short of organizing into a demanding group, why can’t more people just shout out via telephone, letter, email, text message, to anyone who could do something or at least spread the word. Just a growing rumble from the people has gotten elected officials moving, including President Richard Nixon who signed wonderful bills into law that he never wanted. But he feared the rising RUMBLE FROM THE PEOPLE. Who can stop you from rumbling?”

What we stand for and support defines us. Do just one political action every day and you will have dissolved some of the tiny bubbles of illogic cluttering up the conversation. Eckhart Tolle tells us that when we speak in consciousness to unconscious individuals, we are shining light. We can succeed daily by influencing the collective toward an enlightened outcome, which is why we don’t have to be Gandhi to change the world.  We just need to be authentic, aware of our ​power and purpose, and ready to rumble.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Pre-order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

The new year is here and I’m jazzed about it. I can’t shake the feeling that this is the year that things will start to come together. There are signs. The public is aware of the influences attempting to sway it as it hasn’t been in decades, the young folks are engaged because there are growing movements they can relate to, and disclosure continues to inform us even as those desperate to keep secrets work to cover them over.

Even more than these growing signs of progress, we’ve largely given up trying to make sense of the system and begun to think outside of the box. I’ve seen shifts in people’s behavior, their approach to their lives, and their livelihoods. I’ve witnessed attempts to change patterns, remediate attitudes, and moderate habits. I’ve watched as light bulbs went on over heads — and rejoiced. Perhaps we’ve finally accepted that we can’t solve our problems using the same mindset that made them. That’s a learning curve, of course, but it will change everything.

I don’t expect any of this to come effortlessly, of course, but I do expect more creative solutions and collaborative activism, more sociopolitical investment from the average Joe and Jill. At least from those who have broken out of their slumber to discover that their societal norms can’t be shoved back into outdated molds, and who can’t help but notice that a good many of the corporate entities they didn’t think too hard about — media, for instance — are showing their true colors. Like the Washington Post.

Despite its fame in green-lighting a young team of reporters to investigate the Watergate break-in and then backing them to go up against “All The President’s Men,” the Post has lost any remaining credibility with those looking for an untainted spectrum of information. It dutifully reports establishment politics now, moderately conservative and watchful for those who shake the tree too hard. I seldom read WaPo, although I miss regularly visiting Ann Telnaes and Tom Toles’ ‘toons (available elsewhere by scouting around.)

Back in 2005, for instance, WaPo writer and outspoken critic of the status quo, Dan Froomkin, began to take heat from those he’d offended and was eventually bounced off the payroll. Now the Post has axed revered lefty and #2 most famous Democratic Socialist, Harold Meyerson, due to ‘disinterest’ among the readership. According to Wiki, he was named one of “the most influential commentators in the nation” by  Atlantic Monthly in 2009.

Digby announced ​his dismissal with this lede: “The Washington Post just dissed the single largest faction in the Democratic Party.” Bernie Sanders didn’t think there was disinterest in the things Meyerson writes, now exclusively as editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Bernie tweeted his dismay: “There are few progressive voices in corporate media. @HaroldMeyerson is one of the best. His insights will be sorely missed by Post readers.”

You get the sense that Fred Hiat, the Post editorial editor who puts popularity before duty to inform the public, would be thrilled to have Trump weigh in as a weekly contributor, bumping the readership and selling more papers, even if it means encouraging NeoNazism, xenophobia and hate speech. Hiat is, judging by standards set by his betters, no journalist. As Digby comments:

So, here we are in a primary campaign just a month ahead of the first votes. Polls show that AT LEAST 30% of the Democratic Party are receptive to Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialist message. Progressives are the single largest faction of the Democratic Party, roughly mirroring the Republican party’s evangelical support. And yet, the Washington Post is firing the one columnist on their staff who writes about the issues that are energizing these millions of mainstream Americans.

The progressive movement is under attack. The blackout on Sanders is a worrisome thing, considering how much populist support he’s getting from the average discouraged liberal. The kids love him, as do elders on the left. If he could get a foothold with the minorities, if his agenda got decent news coverage across media, he’d be a real contender. As yet, that remains to be seen — but ​never fear. This year, thinking outside of the box, I expect to see surprises.

This coming year will be one in which ​No Drama Obama acts independently as often as possible, while keeping his head below the flack shooting back and forth between candidates in the right-wing reality show. Cruz is breathing down Donald’s neck at the moment, and that should prove most interesting. If Hillary’s money and establishment connections give her the lead and it turns out she is up against Cruz, that will be two of the most despised candidates of all time running against one another.

If you read right-wing blog responses on the Clintons, the level of hatred will take your breath away (not to mention that they feel the same way about me, and maybe you) but they love Cruz and his family values. Meanwhile, establishment politicians and progressives and even many within his own Bagger schism consider him an ass. With eleven months of this nonsense to go, it would be easy enough to allow it to become background noise, but let’s try not to. This is for the presidency, and while Obama has shown us its limits, there’s no denying the ​power of the pulpit and the impact on direction this leg of democracy wields.

For those of you who like year-end lists, here are a few: this is some of what the Supreme Court accomplished in 2015, and what they’re thinking about. SCOTUS, by the way, is THE big deal for 2016 because the new president will have as many as THREE nominees to deal with.

As for unfinished business — and there’s always plenty — here are the most under reported stories in both the U.S. according to Bill Moyers, and in the Middle East according to Juan Cole, both opinions as trust worthy as it gets.

2015 was a difficult, bloody and daunting year, but it is behind us, and 2016 asks us to commit to using our imagination, our common values of decency, self-respect and belief in democratic principles to make this new one a game-changer for us all.

Yes, we’re going somewhere this year, my dears. I can feel it ​vibrating, shimmering just out of sight, even if we’re tasked with digging through the craziness to get to it. I’m encouraged to refine my vision for what I want the year to bring us all, to share that whenever possible, to keep my patience and my balance.

The Pope made a few comments at his final prayer service of the year, mentioning how it was impossible to forget “so many days marked by violence, by death, by the unspeakable suffering of so many innocents.” Still, he pointed to the “great gestures of goodness, love and solidarity” that don’t make headlines as “… signs of love [that] can’t and mustn’t be obscured by the tyranny of evil.” He added that good always triumphs.

Gandhi would approve. He told us, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.”

That’s the vision for 2016. Stay in your heart, step beyond your fears, and let’s see what we can make of a year of truth and love!

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Pre-order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It’s the holiday season, which — in case you missed the obvious — has become something of a corporate wet dream, a marketing franchise beginning mid-September and ending mid-March, when the presidential white sales have petered out. ​It’s an emotional roller coaster of frenetic frivolity and family anxiety, of pressure to pick just the right gift for the beloved(s), which you may well have purchased on-line in the consumption glut of Black Friday and the cyber-hype that followed. It’s the season when government comes to a halt so that politicians can go home and have cozy photo ops with family, glad-hand a few constituents and count up the booty of lobbying perks with an eye to tax returns.

As something of an addendum, it’s also the season when two out of the three Abrahamic religions — Christian and Jewish  — celebrate essential traditions. The third, Islam, did NOT arbitrarily decide to celebrate the Prophet’s birth on Christmas Eve just to goad the infidels, by the way. It won’t matter that Snopes explains this “other culture” incident rationally. It’s another of those silly stories trumped up (pun, no pun) by haters to sell the War on Christmas meme, perpetrated not just by the secular gawdless liberals, but — now that just about every outing has become a security risk — by the demonic jihadists as well.

Those with some skills at nuanced thought might note that the Prophet’s birthday celebration takes place on the 12th or 17th day of the Islamic month of Rabi’ al-awwal each year, the timing of which has nothing to do with the Gregorian calendar. I am reminded, once again, that those who go looking for trouble always find it, especially when they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

But despite all the nonsense spewed by those who clutch the legend of the Christ child in an inflexible fist while ignoring the spiritual teaching that came after (much as they raise Cain to protect an unborn zygote while refusing to fund the feeding or education of those born), I’m taking the season lightly this year. Whatever is fun or amusing has my attention.

Laughter is the language of the angels, and I’m confident that we need to speak more of it. Like most everything else, taking things lightly is a choice, a muscle that needs exercise. We can make that happen if we will. In that vein, there’s a smile or two, perhaps a snort or hoot, to follow.

Here’s a YouTube called “Let’s All Get Elfed,” by the Holderness family, who have been having this kind of Christmas fun since 2013. If you appreciate their unabashed joy and want more, watch their Thanksgiving offering. All highly festive and toe-tapping, and if children’s giggles don’t lighten you up, you’re too far gone to continue reading.

Singer and songwriter Macy Gray released a holiday song this year, a catchy little anti-Trump offering titled “All I Want For Christmas.” I give her lyrics a hearty thumbs up,

Here’s a really cute clip that’s both a holiday advertisement for Britain’s Sainsburys retailers and an announcement of a children’s book featuring a resurrected and beloved kitty named Mog, the proceeds of which will go to the charity Save the Children. That’s the kind of collaboration between capitalism and private concerns we can all approve. Note that it’s a win/win, which is the model that will prove most effective in taming the beast of rampant capitalism.

Like Macy’s and Gimble’s putting aside their competition in “Miracle on 34th Street,” good will has a powerful signature. Here’s a clip — the lesson apparent and the cynicism biting — from a 1955 made-for-tv remake, and to indulge in a celebration of Maureen O’Hara who transitioned this year, along with the sweet face of an iconic Natalie Wood, a bit of the 1947 movie to warm your cockles.

This brings up my other aim this season, which is to give my attention to whatever’s moving and heartfelt.

Last year I posted a YouTube from Pentatonix, who rode the “Glee” zeitgeist into fame. They’ve been on a number of musical programs this year, and sang for the tree-lighting in Rockefeller Center. My favorite song of theirs — and surely favorite lyrics — is the same as last year, so here it is again: “Mary, Did You Know?”

And here’s another group that hits all the right Christmas chords, a group called Home Free, just making a name for themselves. This video of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” is poignant and moving — prepare to smile or even laugh, swallow the lump in your throat or tear up. Either or both is a perfect response.

The Earth religions have a stake in this season, of course. Winter solstice is upon us, and it couldn’t come too soon, in my opinion. I’m already anxious for the return of light, the days gradually growing longer and the countdown for spring’s return begun. Global warming (yes, it’s a thing, PC or not) and the gathering energy of an unprecedented El Niño have already provided us challenges, worsened by the conservatives’ insistence that since it’s cold in some spots, climate change is a hoax. If anything proves the conservative lack of ability to contextualize nuance, there’s the whole enchilada. I’m determined to be more patient with the process than the politics, though. There’s a fledgling snow-pack in California, and that’s very good news in the drought-stricken state of my birth.

And solstice has its own magic, doesn’t it? It’s said that Jesus — presuming him a historical figure and not just a compilation of itinerant rabbinical activists during the Roman colonization of the Mideast — wasn’t actually born on December 25th. In fact, charting the astrology of the times, it appears that the Star of Bethlehem may well have been an alignment of Saturn and Jupiter in 7 BC. The first conjunction of those big Titans occurred in April, the next in October and the last in December, producing impressive light shows. Perhaps one of them blazed the light that the Magi charted into Bethlehem. Who knows? The details of those events are lost to antiquity, but the cookie crumbs of intuition are there to follow.

The return of natural light might have been conveniently associated with the awareness of Light, as revealed in the advent of Christedness. We had need of the realization of the sacred in every day life in counterpoint to all that was profane in the 3rd dimension — we still do. The birth of a Messiah can be interpreted as a political statement, as was supposed of Judas who favored rebellion against Rome, or something even more alchemical in nature. Something like Light, that dawns on us, that illuminates our own divinity, that lightens our burden of Illusion, that banishes the darkness of our unevolvement. Light that transcends the Illusion.

Yes, the church fathers, perhaps selecting a date that aligned with the temperament and traditions of the people, couldn’t have picked a better date than December 25th to bring forth an Avatar, just as the effects of Solstice are making themselves felt and the Pagan celebrations of Yule are completing. Timing is everything, they say. And the remembrance of our own innate Christed energy, a glimmer in the darkness of our sleeping consciousness, would certainly feel at home at a time of celebration so ancient that it’s built into the DNA of every living thing.

A question, my dears. With those long centuries behind us, are we ready now to shine?

There are days ahead to contemplate what Christmas will bring us this year. There will surely be shopping days and working days and festive days and more, but the spark that shone in the night, once upon a time, is still shining for us to notice. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote (quoted by our Amanda Painter), “The light of the soul throws sparks. …” The brightest, most joyful Christmas memory in our consciousness was shining with that Light when it imprinted itself; not yesterday’s business, but today’s.

The reason for the season, as they say, is not the worship of transcendence — wherever we think to find it outside of ourselves — but the realization of it within our capacity to love and forgive and offer at-one-ment to one another. We are star-shine, pretending at less. We are Light-filled, still afraid of our power, yet as Marianne Williamson has said, this is no time to play small. So shine through the darkness this season, and shine through the silly stuff and shine for those who are eager for the Light. It’s what we’re made of, it’s what we brought here with us and it’s what we came to do. Listen! Can you hear the laughter?

Blessed, fun-loving, heart-felt and Light-filled holiday to us all!

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”–John Lennon

If you’re desperately trying to make sense out of all you see around you, dear reader, you’re not alone. We’re witnessing a world population struggling with decisions about what is necessary, ethical and forward-thinking as opposed to a knee-jerk legitimizing of bias, hatred, repression and alarm. Some have said this current chaos ushers in the twilight of humanity’s dominance on the earth: our species’ final nihilistic period, the waning of culture and the dying gasp of the consciousness that set all this mayhem in motion.

Well, maybe that last one. Perhaps the consciousness that has provoked all this — presently embodied on these shores in the personage of one Donald J. Trump, egoist and brandmeister — has finally condensed itself into an energy that we can recognize as both vitriolic and suicidal. Yet, even though we recognized the sadly familiar spirit of churlishness and fear-mongering coming on like a slow-moving train, we couldn’t stop the national pandemonium inspired by the murders in San Bernadino.

We’re wading through a re-do of paranoia and Chicken Little projection of dire threat from the ‘enemy’ that’s familiar to all of us, now that we’ve begun to label our security in a faintly Germanic-sounding “homeland” package. No, nobody is asking why you aren’t wearing your flag pin, but don’t be surprised if you’re asked for your green card or quizzed on your religious preferences.

No doubt about it, we’re experiencing 9/11, version 2.0. We’re suffering through a re-do of, as FDR named it, “fear of fear itself,” although, to our credit, some of us have the presence of mind to wonder just who the enemy actually is. To those of us who have clung to rationality like a life-raft, things that come out of the current political frontrunner’s mouth seem so extreme and dangerous as to make even the most peaceful citizen want to punch his nose.

If fascism is, indeed, the confluence of political and corporate power, then the Donald is our homegrown Il Duce, appealing to our darkest emotions and pandering to our most deeply held apprehensions. Who can argue the point when even Uncle Dick Cheney tells us Trump’s proposals are unAmerican? (Particularly poignant, since I often refer to Dick as “he who cannot be named,” and now JK Rowling has determined that the Donald is WORSE than Voldemort.)

Although I sometimes think of Donald as an unloved child, a black hole of bratty dysfunctionality unable to be sated by vast amounts of validation and attention, he is also that cynical elitist who will use any device against his competition in order to win. Trust Donald when he says he’s a winner. That defines how he sees himself and his purpose, and he will let nothing get in his way, let alone the good of everyone else on the planet.

It’s all so extreme, isn’t it? A virtual workshop in noticing and responding to extremism. We are faced with extreme weather, extreme politics, extreme violence, extreme inequality. Worse, we’ve accepted that as the ‘new normal,’ just one more condition to have to stuff down into the garbage chute of worrisome prospects. At the base of all this there IS an enemy, humankind’s oldest and most ruthless enemy of all: fear.

Fear is like a wall of darkness that rises within our reptilian brain to block out all reasonable and reassuring human emotion, like compassion, pity and empathy. It raises specters of ancient wounds and amplifies emotions long buried. Fear nags at us, even when we know it isn’t rational, holding us prisoner to all that is unhealed within us.

There’s a reason they’re called “night terrors,” sneaking out to goad us when our conscious mind is no longer guarding the door. And there, where the little man behind the curtain can project the most worrisome images on our imagination, we must learn to combat them with the words of Lao Tsu: “There is no illusion greater than fear.” That concept must become so real to us that we can bring its power to our lucid dreaming experience, banishing the shadows and healing our souls. We can only accomplish that with practice at facing our fears, and the universe — in concert with this shifting planetary era — has given us the opportunity to do so.

Here’s a very bright spot on our horizon: many of us have done our homework, it seems. Here in the real world, as Elaine Goodman’s excellent piece earlier this week points out, we are seeing formidable backlash against Trump and the fear-inspired energy he represents, what I think of as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” As proof, mid-week, friend and reader Geoff Marsh sent a link to news of the British outpouring of disfavor in petitioning that Trump be denied a visa to visit Britain. By Wednesday they had collected over 370,000 signatures, which means that the petition must be considered for debate by Parliament.

Scotland’s First Minister has stripped Trump of his status as a business ambassador for Scotland, and Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University has revoked his honorary degree in recognition of his achievements as an entrepreneur and businessman. Kudos to our cousins across the pond for smacking Trump on the snout with a rolled up copy of the Guardian!

They’re not the only ones, now that Donald has tarnished his brand. A billboard with the likeness of Donald and his daughter was removed from the construction site of a Dubai golf course, and Lifestyle, one of the Middle East’s largest retail chains, has removed his products from their shelves.

Trump’s one-size-fits-all understanding of the Muslim religion is finally being confronted by that population, which until now was quiet on the subject (so as not to incite riots, I suppose). Polls tell us that Muslims are the LEAST violent religion in this country, and certainly the least loud in their own defense, but that’s changing. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a scathing op-ed for the Times saying, in part, that Trump’s “cruel and dim-witted” line of thinking “is not the stuff presidents are made of.”

Muhammad Ali called on politicians to educate their constituents on Islam, adding, “I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.”

Fareed Zakaria came out as a Muslim in a fiery opinion piece, saying that he felt compelled to do so as an American because he was appalled by Trump’s bigotry. In an interview on CNN, he said that he’d seen this kind of rhetorical attack on a people in the Balkans and Iraq, turning neighbor against neighbor and creating ghettos of exclusion that invariably become hotbeds of defensive radicalism. The American model of inclusion for Muslims has been the gold standard in peaceful cultural assimilation, he continued, something Europe has been unable to replicate. This current wave of xenophobia, combined with election politics, threatens that successful model and gives America a black eye.

This is, gratefully, a robust response to Trump’s low-level proposals, and so today we can pull that curtain back just a bit and remember that there are fewer Pubs than Dems, and those Dems — accused of being politically lethargic in all but election years — very often belong to a DNA mix the Donald would not approve. If our citizens need motivation to get out the vote, the Donald is a first-class motivator!

Although the religous/Bagger base will pick among the most extreme of the candidates — yes, perhaps our self-serving reality show host — only about 10 percent of the party supports him, and that’s fading fast. All of us are getting our reflection in the mirror, it appears, and I’m going to give Lindsey Graham — a man who knows a bit about fear-mongering himself — virtual head pats for saying, “I’d rather lose this election without him than win it with him. There’s no shame in losing an election. The shame comes when you lose your honor.”

Jon Stewart’s replacement, Trevor Noah, put the mirror up tall and wide by doing a brilliant piece on Donald as “the white ISIS.” Like it or not, the mirror is everywhere we look now.

“The enemy is fear,” said Gandhi. “We think it is hate, but it is fear.” So here we are, subject to the fear-inspired hatefulness around us, our own fear-consciousness nibbling at our conscience and asking for an action plan. Of course, the only plan to defeat the worst of humankind’s oldest enemy is the one we speak of so often here, the choice of love over fear, inspiration over defeatism, life over death.

Our Len Wallick writes, of yesterday’s New Moon, “While we do not in fact know whether or not today’s New Moon in Sagittarius will at long last herald an awakening to a new order worthy of its name, we have reason to be skeptical. Yet, because we can see it in the sky (and more importantly, in ourselves) we also have reason to believe it possible.”

We see it in ourselves. That is where we should have been looking all along, fearlessly examining what we have brought into manifestation. It is always what we collectively bring to the table that counts, and it appears that more of us are taking responsibility for ourselves now, and for a more compassionate way forward, than we are being lead to believe.

Here is the act that pulls back the curtain to expose the little man pulling the levers on our fears: each fear we face gives us an opportunity to strengthen our character, swing wide the bars of our prison of doubt and self-sabotage, and choose love as an antidote to all that ails us. We have forgotten that fear is a choice. We’ve forgotten that we can choose again.

Do you want to become an activist this season, but don’t know how? Choose love. Pass along a smile, pay it forward, lend a hand. Get involved, offer kindness, model a belief that you can make a difference. Stay open to the highest and most life-affirming possibilities, and share your hopes for tomorrow with those who will listen. So my dears, in a season made holy by humankind’s most heart-felt affirmations for the birth of unconditional love, let your Light shine as a beacon to fearless belief in a brighter tomorrow.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“The biggest challenge we face is shifting human consciousness, not saving the planet. The planet doesn’t need saving, we do.”

—Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez, 15-year-old environmental activist

Welcome to the first week of the last month of 2015. A space alien, newly landed, might look around to find the earth in violent upheaval, the news of the day alarming anxious natives, the airwaves atwitter with speculation and fear. I’d think any vacationing ET would chart a course elsewhere, waiting for the emotional storm to pass. Of course, given the shelf-life of our lower human nature, that might take awhile.

The dullest, easiest, and most dim-witted thing most of us could do would be to pull the covers over our heads after unplugging the television and throwing our devices in the trash, because avoidance carries a high cost. I know people who seem happily oblivious to all that’s going on around them, the equivalent of whistling through the graveyard. It’s understandable, if not recommended, especially as the challenges — counting environmental degradation and climate change — seem as extreme as the polarized politics that address them, with no easy answers.

But alas, thinking happier thoughts won’t make the challenges disappear. Hysteria will not mend them, neither will ignoring or denying them, which have only made things worse. No, it would be in our best interests to take a deep breath and realize that this mess we’ve made is designed to summon our better angels.

If we look around us, we’ll see that it takes little effort to stay stuck in our lowest-common-denominator consciousness. The Donald, for instance, is over 20 points ahead of his closest competitor, with just 12 weeks until the Iowa caucus vote. Although establishment Pubs are surprisingly candid about why they oppose his candidacy, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has encouraged the other candidates to clone his questionable behavior and tweeting tactics to grab voter attention. If you can’t beat him, join him.

If something doesn’t change soon, U.S. citizens may get a very close look at egoism, racism, xenophobia and corporate elitism strutting to the podium under the watchful eye of the Secret Service. Trump has become the mouthpiece for all the mean, sick nonsense that the disgruntled yell at their television screens while cleaning their guns, and — even better — he won’t back down from scathing (and deserved) criticism. He’s anger and arrogance with hair plugs. He’s bully-boy Chris Christie without the tarnished public record, and he’s got the white anti-government ‘hater’ vote prepared to go the distance for him.

I’m pretty sure the majority of Americans have stopped being amused by this man. Some of us are still aware enough of our diminished reputation for statesmanship to be internationally embarrassed by the whole roster of Republican candidates, Trump looming large among them. Still, despite the unwavering spotlight on political rhetoric that is both limited and limiting, polls show both leading Dem candidates beating any of them.

Those same polls reveal that over 60 percent find Bernie Sanders both ethical and trustworthy — and Clinton, not so much. She has taken a beating on that score, both deservedly and un-, for decades. Nevertheless, she’d beat all of the Pubs running, coming as she does from the reality base, if not the progressive.

The gun sales record was broken on Black Friday, people arming against all things that go bump in the night, and — SURPRISE!! — less than a week later, San Bernardino exploded with violence that appears to have occurred with legally purchased weapons.

Questions about the political radicalization of the accused shooters aside, homemade pipe bombs and over 4,500 rounds of ammo were found in their possession so now it’s a done deal. Easy enough to draw conclusions based on what seems a senseless tragedy visited on undeserving innocents, especially when it perpetuates the news cycle and incites xenophobia and racism.

Lawyers for the shooter’s family were interviewed this morning and had many questions about the veracity of the case being built against them, which seems to defy the description of a quiet young couple, well employed and seemingly happy, with a six-month old baby. Although Syed’s own sister says she’s unsure that she can forgive what was done, anti-Muslim rhetoric is at a higher pitch today than yesterday, and higher this afternoon than this morning.

If, in fact, this couple were acolytes of the would-be ISIS Caliphate, they couldn’t have done better for the cause. Juan Cole, in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre, said this about knee-jerk response to Muslims, which applies to all instances of snap judgment and blanket demonization of people by race or religion:

“The problem for a terrorist group like Al Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam.” In Cole’s formulation, if violent Islamic fundamentalists’ can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.”

ISIS is a group only religious in the most generalized sense, loosely mimicking Wahhabism and proselytizing would-be warriors from those unschooled in the teachings of the Koran. It’s fair to suppose that the brutal sect is built on an extreme rejection of powerlessness, and also fair to say that it’s only the trappings that separate its near-sighted philosophy of purity from our own white supremacist groups.

If the Middle East had invaded us, instead of the other way around, bombing our cities and crashing our economy, blurring our loyalties and compromising our leaders, it’s easy enough to imagine the skinheads capturing territory and prisoners under the burning cross of Christianity. Drawing conclusions about Muslims based on accusations of jihadist terrorism only feeds the fire of ancient dysfunction infecting the human tribes.

In Paris — binding its wounds from those same fires — the UN climate summit has drawn international attention, especially as the French government cracks down on protests, and nations pledge to limit carbon even as the corporatocracy keeps a thumb on the scale.

Elsewhere, Koch Industries’ infamous legislative arm, ALEC, met to discuss their sabotage of Obama’s projected carbon regulation, the Clean Power Plan. They’ve gone after the EPA policy in a coordinated state effort, with some 24 attorneys-general having sued to stop it cold. Their hope, writes Mary Bottari of PR Watch, is to ” … cast doubt on Obama’s ability to deliver on U.S. commitments and scuttle the Paris talks and future negotiations. The goal is also to delay, delay, delay in hopes that a new president will pursue a more polluter-friendly agenda.”

Yet, according to her article, ” … 72 percent of conservative Republicans want to accelerate the development of clean energy to reduce pollution and create jobs; a solid majority 54 percent believe the world’s climate is changing and that mankind plays a role in the change.”

Our better angels seem to be whispering common sense into the ears of those who have been fed a steady diet of climate denial for years now, but now hesitate to fill the coffers of coal industry CEOs and petroleum behemoths like Exxon and BP. Even the children — who might rightly be considered the most vulnerable among us — have found their voice against the killing fields of tar sands and the like.

The quote at the top of this page came from a young man who must surely hear the voice of his angels, bringing to the planet a clear purpose to rescue it. He is the leader of a group of 21 children, ages 8 through 19, suing the federal government for endangering their future by refusing to eliminate fossil fuels. “X,” as he is called, is well-spoken, determined and has received accolades world-wide. He has developed his own environmental movement called Earth Guardians. Says this youngster from Colorado:

“The Earth Guardians movement is a gateway and a portal to act for people of any age, no matter who they are or where they are in the world. It doesn’t matter what your status is in society – none of this matters, we can all be Earth Guardians.”

Want to save the world? Pass this link to every kid you know.

Seriously.

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit,” said Nelson Henderson, and if we are to continue to embody such activity as our legacy to unborn generations, we are going to have to give more than lip-service to our environmental activism. We might even have to sacrifice for the generations ahead.

There is growing evidence that it is going to take not just the end of fossil fuels powering human livelihood, but direct air capture to preserve the planet for human life, and that is a prospect that has yet to take up residence in our consciousness. At this writing we can’t even agree that the effects of filthy coal or toxic nuclear waste are too dangerous to continue, but the clock is ticking with no time to waste.

Humankind too often forgets that it is mammalian, and it can sneer at the loss of endangered species if it wishes but reveals its inferior reptilian brain when it does. John Muir, who WAS one of our Higher Angels, told us the truth when he said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” That would be THE world he’s talking about, the only one we have — the one we share with one another.

With Venus arriving in Scorpio, we’re being asked to delve into our deep places, our heart of hearts — perhaps even the shadows that exist just beyond our ken. Steeped in Scorpio’s watery depth, we might even discover that our fearsome concept of death is not so much a matter of diminishment as an expansion into a new concept of self. Don’t be afraid to step into those darkers pools of emotion and determine what you’ve hidden there, to find later. “Later” is now.

There, we might remember that we came for a purpose as passionate as this one. We might find that loving life requires surrender to the sacrifice we must make to throw our arms around it. We might get a glimpse of how precious are this place, this life, this moment. We might even determine that we came here now to offer ourselves in service to one another and Gaia, as we listen to the whisper of our better angels.