The Ground is Shifting

The path from despair, to rage, to hope.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve really been struggling.

The onslaught from this regime is no joke, no matter how strong you may consider yourself. And that onslaught is by design. It’s meant to overwhelm us with hopelessness while at the same time making us feel too panicked to look away even for a day.

A significant part of the issue for me is the fact that I’m an empath. When something happens to someone else, I feel it in my body. It’s an involuntary response. So the kidnappings, the descriptions of the detention camps, the assaults and shootings, the sick children…even the dog being kicked by an agent. I can’t shake it. I walk around with my body in fight or flight, breathing shallow all of the time. I feel each event like a weight in my chest. It sits on my shoulders like a boulder. I carry it with me whether I want to or not.

Then there’s the Epstein Files.

I’ve been careful about how much of the files I read about or hear about. Like I’ve said, this is about balance and I’m trying to stay informed while remaining somewhat sane and centered. But I inadvertently read an email from the files last week that I can’t even describe.

It was quite simply the most monstrous thing I’ve ever encountered. It involved a little girl. Now, there is no reason to repeat it here and I’m not going to. I bring it up because just knowing about it shifted something inside me. And that’s not only because I could feel the abject terror of that little girl in my own body, but because I could also feel the horrible weight of the evil of the perpetrators. See, that’s the problem with being an empath. I don’t get to choose whose feelings I connect to. I feel all of it.

It broke me for several days. That’s the thing about evil - the black hopelessness of it. The bottomless pit. I felt haunted by it and still do. I went on about my business every day as best I could while it tore at my heart with bloody fangs. I’ve actually read comments from other women referencing this exact email. I knew I wasn’t alone.

But at the same time, I’ve been involved in something happening in my small town.

We’re up by Lake Erie, and a few months ago we found out that our county commissioners are trying to force two AI data centers into our area. One would be about 12 minutes from me and the other would be practically in my back yard. Of course the commissioners have been at this quietly, keeping as much as possible from the public for as long as possible. Some of the people involved, when questioned, have the audacity to claim they’ve signed NDAs. And these are elected public officials paid with our tax dollars! Turns out, AI centers not only pollute the air and make a ton of noise, they use as much fresh water per day as an entire city. And instead of searching out abandoned malls or factories for these abominations, they want to steal our forests and farmland. This, by the way, is one of the reasons this regime has gutted the Endangered Species Act: they want zero barriers as they plunder our land and resources. And YES, this is all Trump. He has very publicly touted AI production as one of his primary initiatives. (More on that in another post.)

When my rural community began to hear about this, everyone was LIVID. Republican-governed states like mine are actually giving enormous tax abatements to AI center developers while making their constituents pay for the electrical surges and infrastructure. That means our town won’t even get the benefit of the taxes paid by these companies because they aren’t paying any. Our commissioners are Republican, the state Representatives pushing this are Republican, and they’re basically telling their constituents to fuck off when we try to question them. Their exact response? “If you don’t like it, move.”

Well, suffice it to say everyone is enraged. Most of these families have lived here for multiple generations. The audacity of these officials is nothing short of stunning. And it’s led to 2 things:

1. We’re coming together as a community to stop this. No one is asking who’s Republican or Democrat. We’re united.

2. People are finally seeing the Republican Party for who and what it is - even MAGAs and long-term supporters.

I’m not just surmising this - I’m seeing it in person and hearing it in our community groups. Some Republicans are saying we need to do away with the two-party system, and some are saying they just won’t vote. These are open conversations. Between this, the blatant racism of the “jungle” video Trump put out, and the Epstein files…something is happening.

And here’s the thing - these AI centers are being forced on rural communities all around the country right now. People who voted for Trump are being personally impacted by his ruthless policies and they know the call is coming from inside the house.

Now…

You’re not likely to see this shift online. Why? Bots. The number of MAGA bots on Meta and X is staggering. Here’s an example from Threads (Meta’s “Twitter” platform). We started seeing a lot of these types of posts so someone did a search…and just look at all these bots found in one simple search.

This is designed to make you believe that our online platforms are flooded with people who support Trump for 2 reasons: to make those of us who don’t support him feel like we’re outnumbered, and to make those who who still support him feel like they’re part of a movement. The reality? His base is collapsing in real time. (Side note: I beg of you to stop arguing with bots. It’s a waste of time and energy and makes your algorithm full of this crap.)

At the end of last year I revealed an oracle card for myself. This card represents Community.

I knew right away what I was being called to do: get out and build community IN PERSON. I gotta be honest…I wasn’t thrilled about it 😂. I’m an introvert who’s built her business online. I sailed through Covid spending weeks in and around my house and seeing barely anyone with no problem. Being out and about and socializing in public isn’t my preferred state. But I KNEW that card was meant not only for my personal growth, but for a greater purpose. So that’s one of the things I’ve been focusing on so far this year. I’ve attended town meetings in person. I’m in the town groups and I’m interacting and speaking with people behind the scenes. I even spoke up against a bully in one of the groups and several other women came to support what I said and stand against him as well. And I took the huge personal step of putting my products in a physical store here in town. I’ve never done anything like that before.

And however unusual all of that is for me, it’s given me something so valuable: hope. This is how we begin to heal this country. We stop arguing with bots, get offline, and start connecting with people in person again. There will still be hateful racists and hardcore cultists, unfortunately. But you might just be surprised at how many people are changing their hearts and minds. People are coming out of the trance. I read last night that FOX media viewing is down significantly.

Here in Ohio we’ve finally come out of the brutal, deep freeze that’s been plaguing us for the past month. It’s been sunny here and in the 40s for the past few days, and of course I ventured out to the trail. We have so much to learn from Nature if we would only listen. She’s speaking to us all the time.

For example, did you know that it’s not the Sun that warms our air, but the Earth? The Sun warms the Earth, and the Earth warms the air. That’s why even though the upper hemisphere begins tilting toward the Sun at Winter Solstice in December, we don’t begin to experience warm weather right away. The atmosphere is slowly warmed from the ground up.

So it is with us. There’s no one coming to save us, and surely we know that now. It’s more apparent everyday that we have to come together as a nationwide community and save ourselves. And that starts with our neighbors. It’s not easy or comfortable, and some will remain in the cult and be left behind. But if we’re to survive this with our democracy in tact, it will be from the ground up.

I’ve shifted from hopelessness to the fury of a thousand suns. That fury is fueled not only by the audacity of the relentless injustice of the patriarchy, but by the idea that they’re trying to pluck our humanity and our love for one another and this planet right from our hearts. We can’t allow them to succeed.

I will remain tender-hearted. I will not let them steal that from me. But I also won’t let them snuff out my rage with hopelessness. We stick together. We keep fighting.

We don’t give up.💚