My inner mythologist reminds me that the ancient Egyptians held that the heart, not the brain, was understood as the dwelling place of intelligence and conscience. The heart held life’s memories. After death the heart would be weighed against a feather and if it was heavy with ill intent or wrongdoing, it would disintegrate. The feather was symbolic of balance and truth. A light heart entered the afterlife.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that no one in the current administration would pass the feather test. Truth has been under assault for over a decade by these white nationalists while their strategy of chaos has made balance neigh-on impossible. Is it any wonder that an exhausted populace voted (finally) to scrub this corruption from the communal body?
The tension that continually tears us apart is a persistent split-intention. We can either be a nation in pursuit of equality for all or we can be a nation that protects the privilege of the few. As we have learned, we cannot fulfill a singular vision of democracy with two oppositional ideals. As has become clear in this election cycle, our division is not between black and white, red and blue – our division is between the top and bottom. 93% of the nation’s wealth is held and controlled by the 1%. 40 years of deregulation and trickle-down nonsense has left the people surviving on crumbs while the privileged few has us at each others throats.
It is easy to enrage a brain. Feed it a steady diet of “you-are-a-victim”, whip up an imaginary enemy, stoke the fire of “us versus them”, and the brain will see red regardless of evidence to the contrary or verifiable truth. This administration and its fox have been genius at making maga-brains see nothing but red.
Amidst our split-intention, the people just chose to return to the heart path, the brother’s/sister’s keeper path – the path of truth and balance. The every-man-for-himself path, an ugly illusion rife with ill-intent and fueled by wrongdoing, is collapsing but not disappearing. As I understand it, this is a pattern in our history, the tug-of-war between the desire for equality pulls against classism. We stand at a moment of opportunity, a moment of structural tension. We can in this moment, if we choose, once and for all put to rest the ill-intent of disparity, the nightmare of authoritarian inequality and servitude held by a privileged few. It was the dream of the confederacy. It was the star followed by the robber barons. It is the northstar of maga.
We will one day weigh our destiny against a feather.
Will we, once and for all, chose the heart path of equality, equal justice, equal rights, equal opportunity…or will we repeat the pattern and start the swing back toward division, fueled by propaganda enraged brains?
read Kerri’s blogpost about THE HEART LEAF
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