PUSSY POWER!

What a weekend! I hope everyone who participated in this historically impactful Women’s March feels as inspired as I do after being among so many beautiful, brilliant, creative and motivated souls. What a perfect remedy to the hate, fear and ignorance painting this surreal political landscape around us like a 3D Hollywood panoramic. The rain that poured down on us felt like an affirmative blessing from Mama, and a reminder to laugh about it all, out loud, lest the clowns and ghouls actually take over. I couldn’t decide whether to participate in my home town of Santa Cruz or in San Francisco, but I was already up in the city and after having dinner with a particularly angry friend Friday night, I decided to stay. She’s an artist, too, and when I showed up at her apartment Saturday to rally together, she had already made me a blank sign with an empty pallet and loads of colorful paint!

Clancy’s sign read “Unfit to Lead” on one side and “Smash the Patriarchy” on the other and we watched Seth Meyers as we prepared. On mine I painted a simplistic image of Mother Earth on side A, which Clancy embellished, and on side B I chose “Fora Trump,” despite being advised against it as most people wouldn’t understand what it meant. For the last few months the repetition of “Fora Temer!” has been echoing throughout Brazil as “Fora!” means “Get out!” and Michel Temer is the man who replaced Dilma as president after she was illegally ousted. Anyway, I added a couple of arrows next to the word “fora” to make it clearer, (along with a couple of bulls eyes in the “R” and the “P” just to keep things playful.) For me, if not everyone understood my sign, the people who did were definitely worth it. One of the highlights of the evening for me was when a Brazilian woman stopped me with a big smile and asked if she could take a photo with my sign :-)

I wore a skirt that I made years ago out of my Grandmother Dorothy’s old curtains, and as she just passed away on January 7th, I dedicated the march to her memory, her strength and all of her suffering under patriarchy. She lost her only son to the Vietnam War when he was practically still a boy, but she harbored no anger or regrets. She thanked God every day for her life, and was at peace when she died. I deeply admire her temperance, AND I embrace the opportunity to STAND UP! Democracy means not only that we are ALLOWED to speak up and communicate what we want, but a functional democracy REQUIRES that our voices be counted.

OK, enough capitalization for one blog post. What this was really about for me, and what the march was really about, PERIOD, was WOMEN! (Oops, I snuck a couple more in there.) The timing couldn’t be better. I pray to God in gratitude every day, but I don’t believe that God gave me a mouth so that I should keep it shut, or hands so that I should sit on them and not act, or legs so that I should stay at home and feel sorry for myself. The bitch is out of the box and there’s no going back. I’m so grateful to all of those who have paved the way. It is spiritual pavement for sure, as history has proven that what can be done can also be undone and vice versa, but consciousness keeps expanding, and for all of our delightful diversity I believe in the overarching Truth and Justice of One Mother Nature who holds us all. Mostly, I value my own experience, and it felt so good to be out there, together, in the rain and wind, dancing and chanting.

I had a dream once that has haunted me for many years. A nightmare, really. I dreamt that I was in a car that was speeding along rather out of control. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on, and when I did I realized that someone else was driving. I was in the back seat and there were no seat belts. Then I leaned forward and saw that the driver’s seat had been occupied by an overconfident, hormone driven, pimply faced teenage boy. It’s time to wake up and drive!