Finding my voice
when the big feelings, messiness and speaking up is vital
Hi friends,
I’ve had a fairly rage filled week, how about you?
It’s mostly been internalised and processed on my own and in conversation with the local trees and creek.
I’ve realised I really need to get better at expressing my feelings about the world to people In Real Life and not just on the internet - even though I’m so much more articulate when I write than when I speak my voice out loud. This is what I’m writing about today.
I have also realised I need to use my voice a whole lot fucking more. Because I have one, and I also have the privilege to be able to be use it in relative (actually, in luxurious) amounts of safety. To see videos of protesters get handcuffed and shuffled roughly into cars and prison cells in so-called america fills me with fear for what the future might hold here in so-called australia. This feels especially relevant right now with an upcoming election and the very real possibility that the Trump/Israel-supporting potato that is Peter Dutton might become our next Prime Minister.
The combination of…
The deadly and devastating break in ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank
The nationwide forest protests organised by Bob Brown Foundation and the Wilderness Society last weekend
Attending my first rally for Palestine in over a month (bless, the people on the streets)
The extraordinary beauty of the avenue of eucalypts on the trail up the road from my house
Feeling the pre-menstrual and luteal fire
Maybe eclipse season?
The Labour/Liberal vote in parliament this week to roll back environmental protection for the endangered Maugean Skate in favour of corporate greed and the filthy salmon industry
Starting to dive into the preliminary videos for my new studies in grief ritual with Francis Weller and Holly Truhlar
… has really hit me in the heart strings this week.
And I’m sure that if you’re here reading this you are feeling it too.
It’s a messy time to be alive and I think part of my hesitation to speak up with Real Life people in conversation about how I’m feeling and what we are facing as the collective stems from the messiness of it all.
It’s not that it’s complicated - it’s actually all quite simple. We are hurtling towards ecological collapse and the colonial-capitalist empire is dying. A lot of the horrors we are witnessing the empire’s last gasping breaths from it’s blood-filled death bed.
What is messy, though, is struggling to find the words to describe the intersection of grief I feel with the hope, the beauty and the power that I see emerging from the worldwide protests, and the joy filled videos from creators in Gaza (how do they do it??) and the weird-dark-comedy flavour of hope I feel seeing the US being so blatantly idiotic and shameless in their diplomatic strategy right now that it’s turning more and more people against them.
I was laying in bed this morning reading Sarah Wilson’s latest piece about protesting and how it only takes 3.5% of the population to actively participate in non-violent protest to start creating change. She mentioned the tour that Bernie Sanders and AOC are doing right now in the US, called “Fighting the Oligarchy” (!!!) with tens of thousands of people attending, who were disillusioned and are now finding political empowerment together. There have also been huuuuge protests around the world this week against corrupt governments and relationships with Trump, in Serbia, Greece, France, Indonesia and Turkey and more. Power to the people.
Sarah also shared a German word, sehnsucht: an unquenchable but rapturous yearning. I love this. She said she feels it when she attends protests - the whole aliveness of being surrounded by the communal rage and hope, action and desire.
It’s a rapturous yearning that fills my body when I attend big protests like the forest rally in Nipaluna last Sunday.
It’s a rapturous yearning that fills my body when I walk amongst the trees and really, truly slow down enough to be in communication with the local environment, all the plants and beings.
It’s a rapturous yearning that fills my body when I sign up for a grief ritual training, and a non-violent direct action training, knowing that these are the skills I want in order to create a better world.
It’s a rapturous yearning that fills my body when I walk through down Liverpool St on my way to work while listening to depth psychotherapist and “grief-guy” (as I call him) Francis Weller speak about how important it is to grieve in community and not as individuals, especially when faced with the sorrows of the world which are so overwhelmingly vast.
It is with rapturous yearning that I find myself writing here, to you. To share these words here feels cleansing to me, to be able to express myself to my community of readers and know that I am calling in more who think and feel this way as well. (thank you, thank you, thank you)
In my women’s circle last Sunday, I expressed my desire to use my voice more. I wrote in my journal:
“Lately I have feeling like I’m scared to use my voice and be seen for the things that I believe in. I think ‘who am I to speak about this? Who am I to have a voice?’ and what a privilege it is to even have concerns like this. So, I’m letting go of hiding my own voice and of doubting myself. I’m letting go of insecurities about being annoying, being too much and of needing to connect with people in a certain way.”
I feel like the next area of growth for me is to connect with and call in my ancestral support. I can feel the calling that this is what I need to do now, more than ever, to embody a relationship to my familial ancestors as well as those in the land and skies. This will be important is because my connection to ancestors provides a foundation on which I can stand and speak. Often, in an insolating and disconnected culture it feels like we are speaking alone. Like we are the Only Ones. One girl with a megaphone in an empty room. Speaking up feels lonely - like, where’s my support and why do I have to do this alone? (Of course we are not alone, but sometimes it feels this way!)
Note that I don’t say it I *am* doing it alone - when I look out across the world (thanks to social media) I’m most certainly not - but that it can feel that way.
In calling upon the ancestors I feel like my voice is one of many - across geography and time. The backing track to my voice is the harmony and chorus of the ancestors. They know what’s up, I’ve got to learn how to listen with my body.
(By the way, I’m not sure what this next inner journey of ancestral connection will look like - I’m just feeling the nudges)
I want to let go of holding back my voice when it’s so needed at this time. I can join the chorus and my unique expression of joy and sorrow is needed.
I’m hoping to become “that annoying person” as I practice flexing my vocal muscles, because we really need to be weaving collapse conversations into everyday life. Even with the generous buffer of an intersection of privileges, this is humanity’s reality and I’m committed to stumbling through the awkwardness of integrating the shared excitement about your latest bushwalk with the grief of 15000 children being murdered in 500 days by Israel.
I’m bound to be an inarticulate muffin, but please talk to me about it all.
I’ll try to do the same with you. I’ll probably act shy and laugh awkwardly and say “oh yeah, I wrote about that didn’t I?”
These ARE tough conversations, and sharing our sorrows with each other takes us into deeply vulnerable relational space. But maybe we need to start creating a little more depth in our day to day connections in order to remember that we are not alone, and we are certainly not the crazy ones.
When we start to enquire with genuine care about the state of another’s heart, it means we have to be willing to see them in their grief, rage and sorrow, and holy fuck that’s hard. It’s so hard because there is no resolution, no way to kiss it better. It’s hard to hold this space for myself, let alone for another. But maybe it’s enough just to witness each other, and seeing each other’s heart in these times is part of the medicine our souls need, and certainly also the collective soul of the world.
You’re not insane. The world is really insane right now and we are witnessing something horrific. I can’t find the exact quote, but Francis Weller says in his book the ‘Wild Edge of Sorrow’ that our grief takes the shape of our love, so if you are raging, grieving, crying and despairing right now that means you love the world a whole fucking lot. I’m with you in it, and thank you for being here.
“My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart. Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which someone has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.”
~ Francis Weller
xx Lauren
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