on commitments

When my mind spirals and threatens to unravel from within me, I reaffirm my personal commitments as a way of walking back to myself. I remind myself why I stay and why I do this work.

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I am still committed to radical honesty even though my chest tightens and my heart races when I turn my attention to the news.

I am still committed to radical self love so I close the apps and place my hand on my heart and breathe and breathe and breathe.

I am so committed to radical self love that I do things that feel terrifying. That tighten my chest and quicken my pulse and scare the ever living daylights out of me.

I continue to leave the house even when my mind tries to trick me into never leaving the perceived safety of my bed.

I attend safety trainings so I am prepared when the very real dangers reach my town and they come to steal and beat and arrest or worse my neighbors.

I am still committed to doing incrementally small things to build my capacity to do more and more. I will step beyond only making phone calls

I am still committed to humanity so I practice my reiki under the pressure. I send love and protection to places already at war in my own country. I feed protections in my own town. I nourish myself so I can nourish others. I share that energy with the Earth.

I am committed to my practice and so I breathe into the reiki principles. I charge my water and food with the energy I cannot create myself. I invite universal love to guide me and hold me so I may be a conduit of that love for others.

I am committed to doing it scared so I eat my vegetables and drink my water so I have the energy to get up and leave and learn and witness.

I am still breathing and I am still learning and I am sad. I am angry. I am heartbroken. Furious. Terrified. Raw. Anxious.

But I am no longer shocked.

To be shocked would be to ignore that honesty I believe in so much. I haven't been surprised by any of this in a long time.

I am committed to radical honesty so I grieve the world I was told existed. The future I was promised. The past that was only available to those that looked like me and only if they followed the rules. The life that was stolen from me and my ancestors for wanting to stay safe.

I am committed to humanity so every day I break another rule even though my ridigity fights against it, even though my mind makes its own throat raw trying to tell me I'm giving up my safety. But I was never safe because I care about my neighbors.

I am committed to radical honesty and so I reaffirm my disregard, disgust, and distain for the systems I was taught to believe in that inevitably led us here.

I am still committed to my practice of silly little guy time so I can do all the scary things. I talk to the spiders in my bathroom and the birds outside my window. I water my plants and watch the clouds and greet the sun like a devoted partner every morning.

I am committed to listening for Baba Yaga. To becoming a baba. To questioning the rules. I have learned from the forest witch for long enough to know her power in my veins. I listen for her voice in my tears and my rage.

I am committed to Baba Yaga even though grief is heavy, truth can be so ugly, and her underworld shifts and transforms around me. I move these feelings through and out. My commitment to her is a commitment to loving myself and my world and I cannot move if I root myself in fear.

They destroy the earth and our water and our air and now they attempt to destroy our humanity. And this time, in the midst of it all, I can see how many others are committed to their humanity. I have hope amidst it all.