After The Solstice

photos of my time, praying for a new world & this New Moon in Cancer

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The image of two ladies fishing whitebait; revolutionary protest posters at p21, a gallery in London

In the last twenty months I haven’t felt human.

Since leaving the U.S, I feel more alive than I have felt in all the months before it. So, through my depression, I’ve been trying to grasp onto some sense of life again. The last few months, I’ve felt a lot of shame about my situation, which makes sense. Money wounds, immigration wounds. All of this has made me shut down. I have become a bad organizer, a friend who struggles with communication. Despite punishing myself in small and big ways, for not having it all figured out, for not having a savings account despite working since I was 14 years old, I’ve had to move gently towards myself because negative self-talk is a dangerous slippery slope.

After the last full moon, I was able to step back and see myself more objectively. I realized leaving the U.S was also an invitation to lean towards life again. I knew I was craving to restore myself so that I could hold on tighter, work harder, be more present again… but it wasn’t happening as fast as I’d like it to, so I was growing resentful of my circumstances. Over the last few months, with a spiritual diligence of being grateful for what I have, I have slowly transformed into someone less bitter, more flexible. I have given myself space to grieve and recuperate my heart and soul. This has been miraculous.

In the last twenty months, there were times when I felt my grip loosening against life. Watching a genocide unfold while people you once admired become genocide apologists, as children are blown apart, buildings shatter, and multiple worlds collapse. My heart has been hurting for Lebanon, Palestine… Iran. It’s been astonishing, to say the least, to see this rapid manufacturing of consent. Of people being murdered while they are waiting for aid. Absolute hell.

The way we maneuver truth, the way we like to pretend there aren’t facts that we are contending with, has broken my heart. It’s made me feel hopeless. I haven’t known what to do. What do you do with frustration and feelings of betrayal from the world? How do we process all this grief?

In Regarding The Pain of Others, Susan Sontag writes, “For a long time some people believed that if the horror could be made vivid enough, most people would finally take in the outrageousness, the insanity of war.” Of course, this isn’t true, but I wonder every day, what is the breaking point?