Yesterday was a good day. It wasn't all good, but overall, for me, it was filled with the things that make me happy. I went to my gym and got in a good workout with walking and weight training, plus balance and core work. I went down to WSU campus and had a latte, then walked over to the Detroit Public Library and took out some YA books for the young man I'm tutoring twice a week. It was not all good, I say, because a dear friend of mine lost her twenty-something son to an overdose of fentanyl. Another friend's mum is in hospital with pneumonia and she's over 80. And another dear friend is going through some really tough anxiety and fear that's preventing her from eating and sleeping properly; so all this weighs on my heart. But overall, a good day.
Warning to my dear readers: This post is not about yoga, it's about the reality of Duality for a yogi. When I wrote and published it, I didn't realize that it is automatically sent to everyone who subscribes to the website. So fair warning, bail out now if you're tired of politics and the right and left of the world.
To relax, ha ha, I usually sit with my husband with YouTube Premium (no ads) and my phone and multitask for an hour or so a day. I check emails, look at the badges on my icons, check my booking calendar, return phone calls and texts, make notes, check my TO DO list, make sure I'm ready to teach the next day. and maybe do a little game playing on three of my fav games.
Lately Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis and the state of the Union, Tennessee and Texas and YEP Michigan have been in the feed A LOT.
The comedians, MSNBC and CNN telling the reality of politics, versus Trump on Truth Social and OAN and Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones and Newsmax TV openly denying election results, and other facts in evidence, to the rest of the world.
So I spend another portion of my day at sunrise or so, remembering what I am. I am not my thoughts, my feelings, my actions, my personality, my body. I simply am. This keeps me sane.
But the rest of the time I choose to engage with the world. I choose to show up, come down from the lofty pines and join the rabble, don the mask, weep with the broken and laugh with the jesters.
Be like we all are for most of our lives: Fully engaged in the play of life. Just remembering the green room is a few steps away while I play.
This means taking sides. For me, it means taking sides. It means using my formidable thinking mind to evaluate the facts as I see them and take a stand behind the people who champion those views and to lend the support I am able to lend.
Yesterday, on that mostly good day, I took to the field of Duality and looked at the value system of Progressives versus Conservatives.
I love all people both in theory and in reality as they are actually what i am. We are the same stuff playing different parts. We are in Form. We are informed. But at basics, we are all the same.
So I made a Versus List. This versus That. Because I need to express my information. I am IN FORMATION.
Books: Banning books vs. writing and reading books. All books. Books can't harm you. We do not do things in a vacuum. Books, even bad ones, can and should be read and discussed in community or family.
Schools: Desiring energy put toward realizing the best public free education system in the world, cradle to grave, vs. the continuing tearing down and disinvestment in public education and childhood services, and over-investment in private, for-profit or religious schools. Paying teachers a living wage with unionization and pensions, and expanding that model to other professionals we value, as a country who values children and academic excellence, more than the values of corporations and money.
Betsy DeVos is a prime example of a toxic republican conservative helping to destroy children's lives in Michigan.
Gender Identity. Frozen male and female absolutism vs. the fluid and fluctuating reality of gender in human beings. One causes pain, sorrow and death and the other is the Reality just trying to exist.
Religion. Disdain and derision, suspicion and silencing of the other vs. respect and uplift for all that respect and uplift. Religion and wars are like brothers in arms. Enough already. God doesn't support war period.
Climate change. Working toward sustainability vs denying we have a man-exacerbated, if not outright man-made, problem.
Racism/Anti-Semitism/Hate Groups. Heavily in the Trump supporter column, these white supremacists have been emboldened because Republicans glorified this guy. The guy they knew was a liar, a cheat, a womanizer, a cheesy actor, a rapist, a close friend of a pedophile, a racist, a terrible father and husband, a draft-dodger, a tax cheat, a bad businessman, a scam artist, a con artist, a boot-licker and a lover of authoritarian leaders. This is their favorite man-child. This is the backbone of QAnon, and other conspiracy theorists. Dangerous shit. Obviously I'm against this shit. There are not good people on both sides, Mr. Trump.
Long but very instructive. Are you willing to do the work to educate yourself?
War. Almost Always vs. Almost Never. Funding defense vs. funding social services.
Equality. For all, (not just lip service) vs. for the rich, the empowered, and the lucky.
People over 65. Reverence vs. Disdain. Investment in government funded services vs. cutting social security, Medicare, Medicaid, community services, or by chipping away at these services because we can't tax the corporations or people making over a half a million a year. Politicians, right and left in the USA (and others) are bought and paid for by corporations. Who are people under our laws.
Government. Localized and controlled by petty magistrates: see Harlots. Small and as ineffective as possible so as to maximize the control of the rich and powerful. Capitalists run free while the rest of us are shackled by unfair and unjust laws. VERSUS Federal laws protecting everyone regardless of what backwater town or reactionary state they live in. See also Hamilton, John Adams, books on Critical Race Theory.
Health Care. Medical insurance for everyone cradle to grave regardless of employment status as a matter of human rights vs. health care for those who can afford it.
Reproductive freedom. Trusting the people directly involved and doctors to make decisions! Government should not force sterilization, abortion, pregnancy, gender reassignment surgery, etc. These are private decisions and should be available on demand without government interference at any level. Your BS about embryos and fetus' and LIFE FORCE and God does not trump bodily autonomy for a human being. Versus outright bans, banning Medicare funding, tearing down Planned Parenthood, closing clinics in poor regions of America, placing restrictions on the decision to abort as if a person cannot make their own healthcare choices.
March on Washington, 2004. Why do we have to keep being engaged, keep protesting? Change is won by those who show up and fight for what they know is PROGRESS. It's never one time, it's never easy. We should do what we can.
Food and water. For those who can afford it vs. for those who are living beings as a matter of civil rights.
Children. Are not owned by their parents or by the state. Children are human beings and should not be exploited for profit, for likes and subscribes, for bragging rights at the country club. Versus children should be allowed to fully express their own feelings, wishes and talents within the boundaries of a free and tolerant society. We are so far from this it should be the next big thing if we're gonna rise up.
I mean, there's more, there's always more...prison justice, domestic violence, the militarization of the police, how we view addiction, pollution, fast fashion, planned obsolescence of tech, human rights, amnesty, how to handle a pandemic next time, Los Angeles (yep, leftists, and also hypocrites sometimes) excess, yachts, the big five who own the billions, Putin, North Korea, Brexit, globalization, the need to federally decriminalize marijuana and psychedelics, the wars in Iran and Afghanistan and Ukraine, crumbling infrastructure, irrigation without run-off, Round Up/Monsanto, the meat-packing industry, deforestation, bull fighting, boxing, football, ADHD, Autism awareness, the rights of the disabled, the dawning of the AI revolution, the dark web, and fifty more things we have an opinion about. Whether or not we should be doing Kundalini Yoga!
It is the difference between looking around at the state of things today and wishing we could go back in time one hundred, two hundred, years ago, and working toward becoming better, in the same way we are better in every way today then we were 200 years ago. I'm watching Harlots on Hulu and man, what lessons on sanitation, medicine, small government, sexism, classism and racism! Yeah, things are vastly better now!
So watch The Harlots on Hulu for a glimpse back, and The Handmaids Tale for a glimpse of what we can become when all reactionary conservative hell breaks loose.
This is why I am dancing for the progressive liberal, and why I believe in left-leaning policies and agendas insofar as they seek the improvement of all lives, of all peoples, of all nations, and not at the expense of the death of the planet in the pursuit. Is it too much to ask? No. Other's asked and received for us, cleaner water, better food, child labor laws, social security, public education, better medical care, more justice, a federal government that bans slavery, etc. etc. We received the benefits of their courage to die, to protest, work tirelessly for a better world. Let's keep the torches lit for Gen Alpha. I know my engagement in dancing for what I know is right is not an abandonment of the Truth; it is the dance I wish to display as I Andrea, as I do being Andrea, waltzing through this life that I have, never to be informed in this way again, never to pass this way again, never to be this way, again.
The green room is just there, stage Left I don't spend my whole life there, but I visit daily.
Sat nam, and thanks for watching.