Category: Society & culture

A handful of sunflower seeds

Photo by Peter de Vink on Pexels.com

As I sit listening to the rain on my corrugated iron roof, I have one eye on my Washington Post subscription feeding through my email. On the one hand the rain…the wind howling a little at the corner of our home and the late afternoon sun on green grass, are worlds away from the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. I am waiting for what my intuitive senses tell me is coming; an acceleration of the violence and bloodshed and the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza right now.

As I write this…from the safety of my Australian home and the gentle sound of that rain on my roof…I cannot comprehend the suffering that is occurring right now.

So much of the world is like a tinder box. Do I need to say one spark and the fire will ignite and grow? I don’t think so. We all know what’s at stake. We feel it and sense it.

In February 2022 we watched helplessly while Russian soldiers and tanks crossed the border into sovereign Ukraine, intent on a blitzkrieg and toppling its young democratically elected leader. The Russian Emperor proxy Vladimir Putin had longed dreamed of reuniting the former Soviet Union borders under his authoritarian reign. We then witnessed the courage and sacrifice of the Ukrainians, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, Ukrainian and Russian, on the fields where once sunflowers and blades of wheat grew.

I still have the t-shirt sold in a Ukrainian fundraiser, of an old woman standing in front of the Russian tank in defiance, hand outstretched and giving the enemy soldier a handful of sunflower seeds. “Put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here.”

A simple scene highlighting the pointlessness of war, death and destruction.

Unfolding now is yet another tragedy which the world of humanity could not stop. A terrorist organisation trained by the Russian Wagner mercenaries (most likely somewhere in Africa) and financed by Iran, with weapons from Russia, stormed into Israel and viciously killed hundreds of Israeli’s, taking some of them hostage in Gaza, holding both the innocent Palestinian families and the Israeli’s hostage in what some describe as an ‘open air prison’…the Gaza Strip.

Bombs are dropped indiscriminately now on both sides, no hope for a peaceful settlement, and nearby Arab countries like Egypt, Iran and Lebanon one step away from joining the fray. US warships are anchored at the ready, as a deterrent against escalation.

In the US, the opposition party is actively discrediting the current President of their country, spouting Russian talking points on Ukraine, and its leader, the former US president Donald Trump talking up the terrorists. One chamber of its Congress is paralysed, held hostage by the extreme wing of the GOP, unable to function. The US at a time when the world is on the edge of the precipice, is legislatively neutered and leaderless.

What hope have we got when the world has gone so terribly wrong?

In times like this, when the darkness obscures almost all of the light, I focus on hope. I focus on what I know…that the world is changing and that old myths, tokenisms and narratives that suit the very people that led us into the darkness, are being exposed.

I focus on the light of truth and I know that truth-telling leads to justice, and justice leads us to balance. Perhaps this balance is the gift from God, to peel away the layers of detritus to reveal the truth because when we have truth, we have clarity, decision-making and a way forward.

I made this video a few months ago, using the Angel Tarot. It is relevant to this blog and for this time. I hope it provides some comfort.

I choose for me

Photo by Lukas on Pexels.com

Across Republican held states in the US and in other ultra conservative governments we see a common theme emerging…moves to restrict personal choice and erode democratic freedoms. It is a movement doomed to failure, not just because it is foolhardy for democratically elected governments and courts to remove historic rights, nor that it is a time when ‘people power’ is fated in the stars…it is simply because I choose for myself. I have always chosen for myself and I always will, one way or another.

Whether it is pro-choice v right to life, the ‘Voice’ referendum in Australia, trying to ban TikTok or expelling young black lawmakers in Tennessee, bipartisan leaders will reap rewards while extremist policy makers will ultimately taste defeat. You cannot hold back the future.

Many are afraid of these authoritarian moves but the evidence is there that the critical mass…the voters, will not stand for any erosion of rights. So why do they do it, or try to, choose for us? They do it because they think they can, until they find out they can’t.

I am convinced that electoral defeat will dog the US Republican Party until it begins to reform. Many already know that governments disconnected from the people lose elections. The Conservative Party in Australia is on its knees with the Australian Labor Party in power federally and in every state of Australia other than Tasmania. They saw the signs of defeat, yet in their arrogance they persisted in courting extremism for fear of losing their base. It cost them federal and repeated state elections.

The Republican Party in the US has arrived at the same destination…repeatedly defeated until they connect again with the will of the people and until they protect freedoms, not subvert them.

In this week’s podcast, I talk about freedom of choice, and governments accountable to the people, as well as a channeled reading on the beginnings of a new civil rights movement in America, which took its first steps into reality with the expulsion of two young, black lawmakers in Tennessee.

https://revealinglighttarot.podbean.com/e/choice-our-voices-the-tennessee-three/

In hindsight…

Just how much damage has ‘populism’ done to democracies across the world. It has played to an adoring crowd of conspiracy theorists, divided nations and, worse, given rise to a type of fascist thinking we haven’t seen since before the Second World War. Yet here we are again almost a century later, flirting with the adrenaline rush of emotive and reactionary politics at the expense of unity, stability and common sense.

In the US former President trump is under multiple investigations and potential indictments, while in the UK former populist leader Boris Johnson is before a Parliamentary Committee for apparently lying and misleading Parliament. In Australia, just after its recent election, it was discovered that trump ally Scott Morrison, had secretly been sworn in to multiple ministeries (along with his Prime Minister’s responsibilities) without his own Ministers knowing about it.

These leaders had many things in common…all have been accused of lying…the Australian Prime Minister falling foul of French President Macron who famously replied when asked if he thought the Australian Prime Minister was a liar…”I don’t think; I know”. The other commonality was they all came from conservative parties.

In the US, they stopped counting former President trump’s lies. They are many and well documented…too many to list here. The former reality television star and self confessed ‘billionaire’ and ‘populist’ leader, left the US shaken, exhausted and unstable. Yet all of these leaders have been removed from power, whether by election loss or by their own parties. We are now only starting to pick up the pieces of their disastrous tenures.

Never again we say…flirting with unqualified and self absorbed leaders who stretch and strain our democracies…that’s in the past. Or is it? My latest podcast, Random Sage with Maryann from Revealing Light, tackles this question.

https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-sd7y3-13c55f4