What Would You Do?

Getting back up on my feet today. Yes, it's true, I got knocked off 'em, Again. What do I keep tripping on, what is this wall I've run into, yet again?  What is the loop, the pattern that is emerging that calls for attention?  

Demanding CHANGE?

Each time I hear a new story, bear witness to the actions, reactions, and consequences on the affected people of our communities, families, and overlapping spheres of contact - it's another intersection of information, a data point in a set that is continually expanding the big picture - the larger story in which we are all starring.

Panarchy (Nested Adaptive Cycles)

What I'm coming into personally, is my looooong view, one of the advantages of being a grandmother is I can now see patterns over a few generations of nested cycles.  I see my daughter falling into the same patterns that I fell into, I can see my grandson's father following a pattern of breakdown now prevalent in so many of his generation and mine before it, with roots going deep into artificially constructed  societal 'norms' that run counter to human nature.

I can see it for simply being, that things ARE changing, Again, and once I zoom out a bit..  get a bit of time and space between the emotional response and the factual observations.. then I can see what must change, and I will BE that change.

The impetus, the spark that re-ignites embers of passion for diving fully into those changes, is back again to my own progeny, whereas for these last few years, it has been at that zoomed out scale.. in service to those working to better this planet that our children will inherit from us.  Or at least, stop effin it up so bad.

It has now been brought sharply down to the most intimate of detail..  to my grandson, my daughter, and to the recognition that we have this vast village of sisters, brothers, aunties and uncles, elders, which, when united by love and compassion, has the power to break negative patterns, to stop passing on old trauma stories in the retelling, reliving, reinforcing of outmoded thinking that encourages divisiveness and separateness.

Do you know this City High song, What would you do? This is 'what I called life' for a LOT of years. I danced to make money raising my daughter on my own, I went on welfare to get out of it, left her in the care of others way too much to get through that year of school with honors and 'get a job' through staying put instead of heading out to explore the world.  I vowed she would never lack for anything - then wasn't there for her because I was working all the time to pay for daycare (considerably more than rent) and all the trappings of career life, and.. I still had to keep dancing on the side to make it through much of the time.

Now she's faced with the same scenario of raising a child as a single mother - while deep in recovery from her own mistakes that have cost her freedom and livelihood.  Are we still in the same paradigm of, "if my mother did it, you can too girl", get up on your feet, tough love world?

I already lived it.  My mom was gone when I hit high school, I had 7 half/step sisters and brothers mostly younger than me so the rest of my extended parental units still had their hands full doing the same damn thing.   I went and did what the song says, Got up on my feet and let go of every excuse.  Became the corporate whore instead of the dance floor queen, sold my soul instead of my art.  And you know what, I made the very best of it, I learned to love my choices and my life.  And yet, I was still doing it all for money, so I could feed my baby.  And I am still working my way through the mountains of guilt and valleys of shame just as my own mother is, finding peace somewhere in our having done the best we could, with what we knew at the time.  

Do I wish this on my own child?  HELL NO. 

The patterns of a colonial culture, the systemic oppression and resulting competitive, get out there and fight your way up mentalities are still present in our minds, our belief systems.  The rites of passage have been reduced to get a degree, get a job, a car, a house.. go do it yourself, instead of we do this together.  And so present also is this inherited abandonment, the feeling of being left alone to do something that we now know it takes a village to do well.  

What does it really look like, for a village to come together in ways that help us raise children in healthier, more resilient environments that can carry us, and them, through tragedy and back up onto our collective feet again?  

Is it coming together for a fundraiser to get them through the tough time?  Is it sending all the love and prayers, well wishes, and a meal delivered with a hug here or there that we can eek out of our own already overwhelmed lives in these times of shifting values and priorities and demands for survival?

What does a Village look like in action??  I want to know.  I want to see it.

I believe in it, and therefore I need to do everything in my power to become that village for this child and grandchild of mine and yet... 

To become it in a different way than what's been done before.  To encompass the full interconnected map of people, doing wonderful things together, with each other, for each other.. and for the health and wealth of the village... instead of on my own, for my own.

What would you do?