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I voted today. My mail-in ballot had been lost. So I went to the voting center itself, and everyone was helpful and kind and ordinary citizens, simply happy to be participating in the giddy magic that is everyday democracy.
I voted. I filled in a four-page ballot with those magical little circles and used a guide a friend had written out that I mostly agreed with. The whole thing took maybe 10 minutes and it was fun.
“The days are getting shorter and colder, but I ask you to remember: even as the winter comes in, there is hope and there is light.” ~ Seamus Heaney
Hope ain’t passive. Vote.
It’s not enough to post pretty photos of oneself or pretty houses or pretty travels on Facebook or Instagram right now. It’s not enough to say “I don’t get into politics,” right now. On the other hand, we don’t have to join the flood of social media hate to be involved. We only have to care. Care about our neighbors, our town, our city, our neighborhood, our future.
What is helpful is to engage in active love (real love is not saccharine or superficial, but is discerning and allied to the good and wholesome, and does not tolerate intolerance). What is helpful is to vote and help our friends to vote. With one vacuous glutton of a power-mad man seeking to undermine the foundation of democracy for all of us—a free and fair election—we’ve got to turnout and vote in overwhelming numbers.
Take nothing for granted. Then, if sanity prevails, we restore voting rights and strengthen the pillars of democracy for alllll Americans, for all time.
It’ll take decades to undo the partisan damage to our courts, to return the consistent rule of law and ethics and facts and science to our smoldering nation—but that’s our duty. Vote.
Climate Change is here. Vote like it.
But if you should ever feel helpless, change your daily habits. Go vegan. Drive less. Force big companies, like Amazon, to do better (or boycott them, and support local). Go zero waste, find a third place and make a home there, and get out into Nature. ~ Waylon Lewis
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