Category Archives: Spiritual Activism

Yes, your magic has power.

We can weave from common threads a world of strength and beauty.

Say it 25 times.

Or say another sweet phrase you have found in your heart.

Yes, your magic has power. Immense power, and now is the time to concentrate. Listen to the rain, the wind, the traffic, the children. Calm yourself, and chant. Offer your chant as one thread in a great weaving of the common ground. Embrace all the other weavers who are trying the same, speaking out, fighting in the courts, working the campaigns, staying by candles in their living rooms.

Before the votes are counted, your magic has beautiful power to affect not only the outcome of this election, but how people behave themselves, by calming and raising the collective environment. Do we come together? Do we see our nation as beautiful, rich with many colors? Do we find that voices resolve to a mature tone, a higher collective self, a strength and forgiveness?

Please be with me in this time so we are not all alone, watching a horror spectacle. Join with me and chant, sing, rock, hum. Know our collective tone is real and is not separate from the whole.

I do not write these things for money or promotion. I write to you because if I don’t, my heart will burst. I invite you to be a part of this community. Do, comment, react, laugh, share, connect. That is what this cyber-space is for. It can only be nourishing if you participate.

Blessed Be.

Spiritual Work You Can Do – The US Presidential Election

I wanted to repeat a shamanic journey I’d done before. I planned to ask the Spirits of Kindness to take me to the beautiful future I want to live in, so I could experience the world in this state and to draw the energy back here to manifest.

But my spirit friend brought me somewhere else. She said, “You are not alone,” and dropped me off at the Great Web of Light. The web of millions of people who hold together our collective healing vision of a future where we experience equality, peace, justice, honorable relationship with the land and all the beautiful things that many diverse people dream for.

She said, “Be a part of it.”

I plugged myself into the circuits and felt the white-blue light stream through my body. I was reminded that the Spirits of Kindness cannot do their work without us working as hollow bones and/or sacred witness. I was told to trust. No, not to trust, but to keep my awareness on this reality, the reality of all these people from all over the world, dreaming for a balanced, flourishing, loving world. It is important to focus on the collective dream.

This is what we must do. Hold the dream.

People are already getting their mail-in ballots around the country, so the time to do this work is now.

I was also reminded from an elder in the Wombs of Peace online ceremony today, that what we focus on is what is manifested. Another elder stated that we need not build peace. We can activate peace.

Beyond doing your own spiritual work, I urge you to take the time to listen to the Oct 13th 2024 Wombs of Peace ceremony on YouTube once it is uploaded. The theme was “How to find ground in the eye of a storm? – The holy-land and other whirlwinds”.

There is a beautiful meditation to embody stillness in the storm and then stories from women present about doing sacred work for peace while in the war zones. Painfully, one woman present was hearing bombs drop in the next neighborhood from her house.

W.O.P. ceremonies are very strong. There is a palpable, deep, grounding, loving energy that can be held together over Zoom, as we listen to indigenous wise women from all over the world.

I’ll see you in the web of light, the dream for a better future.

Blessed Be.

Tasara

Apolitical Spirituality is an Oxymoron

Subtitle: Turning Off the News is Hurting People and What You Can Do Instead.

If we continue to separate politics from our spiritual life, we will wake one day and find we are being persecuted for our spirituality. It happened to shamans all over the world. The witches were persecuted. The monks in Tibet. The Uhygurs in China. The list goes on. Why do we think we are different? Even more poignant, why shouldn’t we care about others?

Pagan/shamanic cultural world view is that everything has a soul. Our entire experience of the world is about being in relationship with everything around us. We honor the collective soul. Cutting ourselves off from the collective is harmful to ourselves and to the collective.

But I am Preserving My Mental Health by Ignoring the News!

No one said that paying attention meant you had to run the woes of the world through your energetic system. That will make a person sick. It is perfectly alright to bracket your concerns and focus on key issues. 

We must weigh the mental stress the news causes us against the persecution that will happen if we stay idle. Also, take into consideration that taking action – in any form – is moving energy. Stagnant energy twists, degrades, sickens. Emotional response is grist for the mill. Moving energy is life, a salve to depression.

Think of the people that cannot ignore the news because they are already suffering under the harmful governmental policies. Yes, I am talking to the middle-class white part of my audience. Not acting in defense of the other is how Nazi Germany happened. Othering has been going on too long in this country already. We have been gaslit and psychologically traumatized into silent apathy, and we must fight to win our souls back.

Think of all that awareness we push underground to avoid the news. It has been growing in a deep storehouse of emotional energy, love and concern, fear and anger waiting for you to tap into it. When it comes out, it will be HUGE! Use it for whatever you see is fit for you in this time, in your life. To be fully yourself, show your colors, to honor and support others, to stand strong, to express your rage, your sorrow, to MOVE the energy. Create relationships with people not like you. Defeat Otherism.

The Writing on the Wall Couldn’t Be Clearer. Fascism is Very Near.

We are not immune. Our legal protections are diminishing every day. We cannot meditate or pray our way to freedom and true democracy. The whole notion of democracy is participatory governing. Living and acting in the mundane world!

We already have witnessed:

  • women traveling across states for critical medical treatment
  • state laws that require the 10 commandments be posted in schools
  •  children ripped from their parents at the border
  • our lives surveilled through the wires and cameras in almost every corner of public life
  • people losing their jobs because they publicly oppose genocide in Gaza
  • humans and animals dying from the overheated planet    

And now the supreme court has flipped our presidency into a kingship with the stroke of a pen. 

Democracy itself is about to crumble. Where will we be then?

Trump is not making threats. He is making promises, 

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/04/politics/trump-campaign-promises-dg

and his language is scary:

root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country….”

What Can I Do? What Power Do I Have?

Plenty, and I’m sure you can do one thing in each of these categories without a lot of effort.

Power with the Spirits of Kindness 

Root yourself in your purest intentions and values and use your spiritual skills to find direction. Here are some ideas for shamanic journey intentions:

  • How can I stay awake to what is happening and use the energy, rather than be harmed by it?
  •  What is my role in this world at this time in history?
  • How can I shift my world perspective to be ‘us’ and never ‘them’?
  • How can I make people around me feel included?
  • How can I support the issues that are dear to my heart?

The Spirits of Kindness want to help us, but they cannot help us if we do not go to them!

There are lots of things you can do on the spiritual plane but that is covered in another article. [link] This is about our spiritual work on the beloved, messy mundane plane of existence.

Power of Being Fully You

Corporate culture has overcome human, non-work culture. This has caused homogenization and contrary-opinion policing. 

I miss the days when you could walk down the street and see people wearing their freak flags, expressing loudly in public their views, getting a little obnoxious and laughing out loud.

Things have gotten so bad, it is revolutionary to voice your opinion, to appear out of the norm, to attend non-consumer gatherings of people.

This is not a time to hide who we are. There has been a creeping pressure over the past 10-15 years to ‘fit in’, to ‘appear normal’. Our freak flags have been discarded or stuffed in closets. We are wild creatures. We are shamanic, pagan, witches, aligned with the spirits and the land and moon and stars, the sun, the rocks the rivers. We are non-binary, gay, straight, neuro-divergent, from many many cultures and subcultures, economic backgrounds and when we do not show it, the overculture mows us over.

There has been a creeping pressure to not talk about politics, to not rock the boat. There has been a subtle fear in the air, supported by the fact that we know we are being surveilled.

Without diversity we all start to think the same. Or at least think we should think the same. Homogeneity is bad for creativity and it’s no fun at all. Express your unique self.

  •  Put a sticker on your car (gasp!) that reveals something about yourself that you wouldn’t share at a corporate job. It’ll make a lot of people feel good and make some other people’s mind spin a little.
  • Wear clothes that you really like even though other people may not.
  • Find an open mic and revel in the humanity. You don’t need to agree with everyone. Just let their thoughts blend with yours and see what happens.

Money is Power

Don’t think your $5 $25 $50 $200 doesn’t count. It most certainly does. Candidates using the anti-corporate funding-raising model have done plenty fine working with millions of small donations. 

  •  Decide who is doing work that makes your heart sing and give them some money. Done.

Voice is Power

Speak to the government, to our neighbors, family and friends. It changes minds. It changes culture. 

  •  Write to your representatives and sign petitions. Look for petitions that you wish were out there. They probably are.
  • VOTE! You know the voting records are dismal. Voting is the one big power that can change the face of our futures – IF PEOPLE VOTE. If you were on a sinking ship and you had the choice between burning it down and fighting over the life raft or installing a mediocre captain who can at least get the holes patched before we all die, which would you choose? Would you choose?
  • Look up letter-writing campaigns to voters in swing states

Here is an ACLU petition calling on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment overturning the ruinous Supreme Court decision.

When we don’t speak up, our representatives are even more swayed by other forces. When they hear we are behind them, they can be brave. When they hear we are watching, they have to keep themselves somewhat in line. That’s how democracy works.

Information is Power

New information that is received by the mind changes the mind. Educate people. Educate yourself. Read books, even ones you don’t agree with.

Collective Action and Culture Is Power

  • Refuse to be isolated. People are good and some of us have forgotten it.
  • Refuse to stagnate. One way to get moving is to ask yourself what the questions are inside yourself and then go find the answers. Rinse and repeat.
  • Find ways to forge relationships with other humans from backgrounds you do not understand.
  • Learn about nonviolent communication.
  • Seek out other perspectives online and learn about the new progressive movements going on. What are you curious about?

That’s What I Got

Spirituality and politics have something important in common; they are both rooted in our deepest values. The values are the same.

I wouldn’t ask you to do these things if I wasn’t doing them myself. We all have a gift and there is no time to wait. Whatever it is that makes you shine, please, SHINE.

And yes, put your thoughts in the comments.

Tasara

Stay Awake in Times of Crisis

There is a cry going up in the world for humanity.
There is a cry for justice, for a cease fire, for accountability.
A cry for seeing each other as the precious gifts we all are.

This cry is a collective song being sung from every corner of the earth. Join in this song, this cry, to make it louder, to be nourished by the communion of it, to save the soul of humanity.

Do not hide from the news to preserve your sanity. Turn up the glorious song of freedom and let it fuel you. Sing it wherever you can, to your friends, your family and to your representatives. There is never a time to not shine. Let your shock, dismay and all your emotions about what is happening in the world fuel your next endeavor. Will it be prayer? Will it be art? Will it be conversation? A long-planned or unexpected life change?


We must be whole. We cannot allow ourselves to become compressed any longer. The world is insane, but that does not mean we have to be. It is best for Mother Earth when we are in rich relationship with her, when we allow the Spirits of Kindness to nurture us, to allow inspiration grow within us. It does not do anyone any good to not be well, even when others are devastated.

We must shine. Each of us has something different and unique to contribute to this song of the world. When we are in our personal song, others can hear it. They are lifted and in this, can hear their own song. We must shine for the world.


We must be big, not small. When we are in our true light, there is room for everyone. We cannot allow outside forces to dictate the psychic environment we live in. Instead of suffering, we can bring our own environment to the common space.

This is a form of spiritual activism.

For those of you who have been following me over the years, you may have noticed my own long struggle to get back to my service to you. I’ve suffered under oppressive work situations, oppressive situations of my own making, physical ailments, fatigue and I earned a master’s degree while working full time. Just like you, I can feel like I am underwater, but I continue.

Right now I am applying for jobs in a new career because the field I have been in has been toxic for me. Once I have made this shift, I will be able to devote my energies to my calling again, informed by my studies in Instructional Design. My soul does not turn away from my master plan even when I forget it myself.

My new offerings will be geared towards those who are on the sacred path for the long haul. The main banner will be spiritual activism. What is spiritual activism? How do you define it? For me, my spiritual activism is helping you find what you are called to do in this world and assist you in creating a manageable scope for it. Also, when we explore and understand our own creative process, it is much easier to allow it to happen without self-judgement. There will be some hybrid offerings, (online/in person).

Thank you for hanging in there with me. Holding circle is my happy place and I am so looking forward to being there again with you. Hopefully, in the meantime, I can provide a little bit of inspiration.

Much love,
Tasara Jen Stone


(Inspired by watching and listening to activists from all over the world on ‘Democracy Now!‘.)

A Shamanic Response to Atrocities in the Middle East

This list may have grown if you come back to it later.

Hello my friends. I’m sure you have been following the heartbreaking stories coming out of the Middle East. I will not repeat them here but it is clear that we are witnessing war crimes, millions displaced, families decimated and in it all, no mercy. Both Palestinians and Jews are calling for a stop to the violence.

As a shamanic person, there is much we can do. If you truly believe that we are all connected, that we are all one in some invisible way, your actions have certain impact, just as a person’s silence or non-doing allows forces of destruction to continue on undisturbed

Here are five things you can do:

Psychopomp Ceremony, Sunday, October 22nd at 2-3:30pm

I will be hosting an online ceremony to assist the souls of the dead who are ready and willing, in crossing over into the light.

Psychopomp is not a safe practice to do on your own without training.
In our ceremony, we will be inviting the psychopomp spirits to do all the work while we hold space and bear witness. Please register at this link.
– Virtual sacred space via Zoom will be open at 1:45.
– No one will be admitted after 2:05pm.
– The meeting will not be recorded.
– Please prepare sacred space before you sign in and be ready to work.

If you know me personally and have been to my home in the past, you are more than welcome to come in person. Let me know if you are. Bring some snacks and we can have community time afterwards.

It is my view that psychopomp also relieves pressure on the world at large. The more unrest souls we have in the physical plane, the more intrusions, overshadowing and possession we experience. This affects human motivations and actions, including some of our world leaders.

Personal/Group Shamanic Journey for Healing

There is a way to assist through your work with the spirits and still honor the ethical boundaries of the free will of all beings. The method was developed by a small group of shamanic practitioners who met in retreat and worked with the spirits over a long period of time. It is spelled out in a little book called Shamanism without Borders which can be found here in e-book or print: https://shamanicpractice.org/…/shamanism-without…/

The organization that hosts free, online shamanic ceremonies to aid global catastrophes is here: https://shamanicpractice.org/shamanism-without-borders/

Journey to Comfort Those Trapped Under the Rubble in Gaza

Here is another thing you can do immediately (10/17/2023).

Journey to your helping spirits and ask them to ask the helping spirits of the 1000 people trapped under rubble in the Gaza strip to comfort them, to lessen their terror, to give them some faith and hope. Whether they are about to perish or be rescued, they have a great journey in front of them. Lessening the trauma is greatly needed.

Using Music and Dance

You can use dance, repetitive rhythm, drumming, chanting, fluting, strumming to express your own feelings about the situation into the world. Any sort of healing involves getting energy to move and that includes energy in your own body.

Know that you are not alone. Hear the grief, anger frustration of the collective and join the song. Feel the togetherness. After expressing your own, perhaps bring your songs of comfort, kinship and love into the collective.

All shamanic cultures are very, very expressive in their practices, until of course, state sponsored persecution of shamans. Lying down still and silent to journey is not normal. We engage and invest our physical energy into our work and it comes to life in powerful ways.

Write to your Representatives

Many of us overlook or belittle the small act of writing to our representatives. What can an email do? A lot! Our representatives need backing from their constituents to make their voices stronger in legislature.

You can look up your representatives here: https://www.house.gov/
And here: https://whoismyrepresentative.com/

“Never again” means “Never again” for all peoples. As I heard someone say, the hardest part of being human is staying human when under circumstances like these.

What Other Ways to Support Healing and Balance in Israel/Gaza Strip are You Practicing?

Please, put your ethical (not interfering with the free will of others) shamanic ways in the comments so others can benefit.

Thank you for all the work you do for healing in your own life, your family and your community.

Blessed Be,
Tasara Jen Stone

We Are Born With Fire

[Martin Luther King Day]

We are born with a passion that, when allowed to fuel our dreams, takes us out of the mundane, grants us exponential energy and creativity.

At the same time, there is the necessity of a paycheck. The complications of life. The unhealed trauma. The abusive relationships, be they close to home, in the workplace or engineered through society.

There are the blankets we wrap around ourselves to comfort ourselves with: binge-watching, self-medication and the comfort knowing that “everyone else is doing it, too”.

We try to engage in activities we know are ‘good for us’. We experience moments of clarity, small embodiments of perfect balance, of knowing the path we see before us, this plan we dreamed of cycles ago. Back then, it opened a deep hunger in our every pore. Where is the ecstasy now?

My friends. It has been so long since I’ve written, I thought I had nothing else to say. Now I realize I was drowning. Or was I was preparing?

My master plan never changed, but life causes me to forget it, even while I work in its service. Always, I have wanted to be a catalyst for others to come into their own fire, fire that will open them to their calling, to shine with their gifts.

For decades, I focused on this dream. I placed little value on my day job. And then, as it happens, I got older and began to panic. I can’t give so much of myself that I am risking homelessness when I am elderly! So I have been trying to catching up.

I still have a plan. I have never stopped working the plan. There are pieces that need to come into place.

I am asking you, if you have read this far, if you have seen the spark in me, if you have witnessed my passionate fire, to mirror it back to me. It will fill me and hold me accountable. Don’t let me slip under the heavy waters. I want to be here for you, or if not for you, for someone else. I want to hold the torch again, not because I think I can make global change but because I will never feel right in myself if I don’t. I am not myself if I am not in the revolutionary fire that was opened to me. I was not born to be a person that goes to work and comes home to the mundane every day. This can be pleasurable but for me, it is a denial of my purpose.

Remind me of my fire and I promise you, I will remind you of yours. There are forces greater than us that wish to keep us drowning. What is your master plan? Tell me your master plan.

Blessed Be.

Tasara

[Thanks to the movie Rebel in the Rye to encourage me to write again
and Martin Luther King for the contagious fire in his speeches: https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/17/mlk_day_special_2022
]

Magic, Tattoos, Hate and Transformation

Let’s unpack the spiritual potency of a tattoo. It may be a symbol, a colorful depiction or it may be just words, but its form, resting endlessly on that body has an active meaning which imprints itself deep into the psyche and plays into the subconscious. It also changes and evolves over time as the wearer changes through their life experiences. They are homemade archetypes, always there, always speaking, always.

Tattoos are a form of blood magic. A person has to cross a threshold of pain and shed their blood in order to receive it. It is a life commitment made in a pain-induced state of elevated consciousness. One enters this ceremony knowing that a tattoos are permanent, and that even if they try to erase it in later years, their body will always show some mark. Most of us are thinking about the symbol or words throughout the entire process which binds us to it and gives the tattoo spiritual power. It becomes a talisman made of one’s own living flesh.

There is no going back. Only transformation.

So imagine what it would be like to have a tattoo of hate emblazoned on your body that you didn’t want anymore.

WHITE PRIDE. A swastika. Perhaps it felt right at one time. Perhaps it never did, but actually was a mistake from long ago. Imagine the dissonance of having to live with an active archetype on your body that does not stand for who you are anymore, and still be able to feel its power, moving and expressing itself on a multi-dimensional level.

Imagine having your character broadcasted as something you are not. Imagine being afraid you might encourage another person to go down the wrong path. Imagine hating this and not having the funds to change the tattoo.

This is where spiritual activism comes in. Sometimes we can do ceremony for others. In this case, we just need to fund someone’s blood ceremony of transformation.

I am donating to Redemption Ink, a nonprofit collective of tattoo studios that are removing symbols of hate for free. Please join me.

Social change happens when people change on a deeper level. Imagine the change.

https://www.redemptionink.org/

Trump’s Illness and the magic of the Election

Yes, I laughed my ass off when, half-asleep, I opened my laptop to find that Trump was diagnosed with Covid-19. I didn’t want him to die, but I couldn’t bring myself to the shore of other people who were truly concerned for his health.

Now it’s been a few days and it’s become real. It is no longer symbolic or part of the game of politics. It’s about a human being. I was able to shift and put out a message on social media saying,

“I envision that Donald John Trump receives the care he needs and the outcome of his illness is aligned with his pure soul’s deepest desire.“

Lots of people are having moral conflict in their own reaction to Trump’s hospitalization. I completely understand. After he bullied Biden in the debates, as he puts his own staff at risk of infection, it is hard. But this is a test. As you are concerned about ethics, and karma, and the trajectory the world is on, this could be a turning point on your spiritual path. I am not perfect. I think that writing this is helping me get to that shore, so bear with me.

We created this situation with our political apathy and cynicism. If we don’t want this person to be the President of the United States, we are meant to use our power and vote in someone else. We can even reach across state lines and reach people in swing states. There is still time to make this happen. See the links at the end here.

But wishing someone unwell is a malevolent use of magic. Period. It is in times like these, time of crisis and real feelings of life and death for our planet, ourselves and our brothers and sister, it is times like these when people can sooo easily turn to using their metaphysical abilities for harm. Doing so sets off a whole chain of events in oneself, changing the shape of who you are and making the likelihood you would do such things like that again in the future. Deciding to channel your energy in a way that aligns with your true values, despite the great duress, will also shape you. Times like these reveal one’s true character, and can mark one’s character, too.

Let the forces of the Wyrd decide. We are not Gods and Goddesses. There is POTUS, and there is the man, who we know is profoundly traumatized, wounded and out of control. He is not asking for prayers, as far as I know. We do not know what his soul wants. So we don’t try to heal him, just as we don’t try to kill him. We send up a flare with an image of hope that his soul find what it needs, but we send it no where.

It is also important to decide and cement what your energetic response to his illness is, so your strong emotions and unconscious thoughts do not leak out and send energy you do not intend. Time to tell your whole confused system who is in charge and what the energetic directive of the hour is.

Keep doing what you were doing before this happened. Do more if you can. Do something if you haven’t been doing anything. Let’s invest our energy where it is needed, rather than reacting to the news. Let’s keep going. I am with you. I love you. I need you, and I see a world where were we all come together and rejoice in the relief we feel when we discover that we are working together, rather than waiting for someone to save us. And through this, we find each other and our sense of true community and family-outside-of-family is restored.

Here. Over here. Point your magic here. I need you right now. And I’m not the only one. There is still time:

https://votefwd.org/ Letters to swing states.

https://votesaveamerica.com/adopt-a-state/
Phone calls to voters.

And, Blessed Be.

Tasara

(excuse the first draft, this is a message sent when I should be getting ready for work)

Returning My Crystals To The Earth

Lately, I have taken to driving for hours in search of the right high mountain road, where I can return my crystals to the earth. I have been picking through my crystal beads, asking, This one? Yes. This one? Not yet., mixing the yeses together in a box, with salt for purification, in preparation for when they will be released to the waters. I am thinking ways to let them be wild, where no human will catch them.

Box of crystal beads, mixed with salt for purification
Box of crystal beads, mixed with salt for purificaiton

I am not infusing them with prayers or directing their energy into any configuration. I am not even making proclamations. I am saying, Here. This is yours. Be at peace. Knit yourself back together, now.

This is my act of love. Mother Earth needs no more.


It all started with a group journey to the Spirits of Kindness. We were asked to go the ley lines of the Earth and ask if there was anything we could do to help. I saw them, so beautiful..

Immediately, a loud voice shouted, again and again, “STOP BUYING CRYSTALS”.

Now, I had done my stopping of buying crystals years ago, but I started up again recently. I already knew. In my journey, I saw images of the land being gouged by the mines. The destruction. The dissipation of the earth’s power centers.

I knew this was a message I need to listen to, and at the same time, I also was conflicted.
I asked, What about the magnified power and healing we get from them, each in their own way?
The answer was: If you have ever known a crystal, you can always tap into it again. It’s like knowing a mudra.

I asked: What about the ones I already own?
In answer, I felt a deep desire from the crystals to go back into the earth. They can’t communicate, connect with all the others, be charged, do their thing when they are trapped in all these little boxes we call homes. I could see that if I had my own backyard, I could put them down and visit them there still. But I don’t have my own backyard. I was told to journey more about it and take my time learning how to transition out.

In the weeks after this journey, I have been slowly and silently guided by the Spirits of Kindness to find alternative magics. See, I use crystals a lot for protection and I need to be taught some other ways. I am in my home, often gazing at crystals, asking, You? Where How? Thank you.

I have found that different stones desire different things, so I listen, and listen. I am not getting rid of all my jewelry in a fell, unthinking swoop. I am listening. I am learning so many things. The stones that have been locked away say to me, See how well you have done without me!

I do not hope that my short post here compels you to purge every stone person in your house. I only hope that it reminds you to listen.

Blessed Be.

Rubber Bullet Talisman

Send me your rubber bullets and I will build an altar for us.

It will contain the power that struck the hammer,
sending them, cutting through the air.

It will be packed with the force of cold, negligent denial
of all wrongs done from slavery until now.

It will be charged with the emotions of our people
on the streets, shouting until they can’t speak,
marching until their bodies hurt,
retreating through tear gas and chanting in unison,

of those tased in the car
while police slash their tires,
merely for being there.

It will hold the memories of those who held out their hands,
those who risked their lives,
those who crossed the lines,
those who took a knee for peace.

It will be purified by the mere act of picking it off the street,
turning it in one’s fingers,
and taking it home
to channel such
into societal transformation.

Take your rubber bullets
place them in a small dish.
Surround all that passion
and song
and force
and rage
and grief
and sweet bonding,
with petals
and nurturing sounds.
Then, light a candle
to hold witness to us all
as you shine in your heart to envelop us
with your sweetness.

Take your rubber bullet,
pierce it with a hot needle.
Pull a strong thread through the hole
and make yourself a garland.
Make yourself a thing of beauty,
wrought from the forges of rebellion.
Take it with you always,
to fuel your revolution,
which is our revolution,
to crystallize your truth,
which is our truth,
to remind you,
never,
never to stop.