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We join our voice with the collective voice of prayer for the lives lost in Belgium.

This letter has already broken the record for the most shared post in history – and it’s only been one day. In contrast to most viral content that gets circulated around the web – this has no shock value. There’s nothing novel or shocking in Brandon Stanton’s words. Yet, in this era of insane times, when sanity appears and immoveable truths are spoken with such calm eloquence, they stand out like a flame piercing though our dark night.  These words resonate for me as if they were my own personal truth. So RedFlag.org is moved, along with the millions of others who have already done so, to “re-post” and “share” in the hopes of spreading sanity. 

An Open Letter to Donald Trump:

Mr. Trump,

I try my hardest not to be political. I’ve refused to interview several of your fellow candidates. I didn’t want to risk any personal goodwill by appearing to take sides in a contentious election. I thought: ‘Maybe the timing is not right.’ But I realize now that there is no correct time to oppose violence and prejudice. The time is always now. Because along with millions of Americans, I’ve come to realize that opposing you is no longer a political decision. It is a moral one.

You already have all the love and belonging you will need for the rest of your life time inside of you–right now.

We are born worthy and deserving of love–we are love.

Our self worth does not live in external things–it is something that is inside of us from the moment we open our lungs and take in air.

We forget this.

We experience moments as children and then create stories about our worthiness and if we are “enough”.

Then we manifest experiences to validate our beliefs we have formed on stories that are not truly real–because we are already love.

Love doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s inside of you.

Yet we create these “to-do” lists for self love.

Checklists and worthiness that will only be attained by accomplishing, completing, succeeding, doing.

Our need to “do” to achieve love isn’t real.

We go to school to get the piece of paper, we get the piece of paper to get a job so we can afford a house, we get a job and the house and the car and then go, “Phew, okay–I’ve done all the things, now I am READY for my life partner. Now I am ready for love and to be loved.”

You have been ready to be love and be loved since the moment your heart first started beating.

Love is a room in our house we don’t even know exists.

And then one day, maybe, we work on ourselves and we are strolling through our houses and a door pops up suddenly and we go, “Holy fuck! You mean all the love and belonging I will ever need is right here? And it’s been here ALL along? And I’ve been holding onto stories and experiences and beliefs that weren’t real? Holy fucking shit. Look at all this cool stuff in here I didn’t even know existed!”

Right now, Monday February 29, 2016, you no longer need to “do” anything to have love and belonging.

You are already that–your tank is full, and nothing can take away from that.

No one not loving you or accepting you will ever take away from your birthright for love and belonging.

You have the power and choice to leak it out and give it to other people, but no one can reach into your tank and take away your worthiness for love.

That is something only you have the power to do.

Fix those damn leaks if you have them.

When we realize we are all the love we will ever need, people can not show up or let us down, or say, “You’re not my person” and none of this will take away anything.

For we already belong to the most powerful person we can–ourselves.

Your tank cannot shrink, it can only get bigger and expand more.

You are love, stop looking for it.

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time:

the need to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. 

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is Love.” 

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Stockholm Sweden, December 11, 1964. He was the youngest person at the time to win the Nobel Prize.

This Photo was taken at the jail in Birmingham, Alabama, where King was arrested on April 12, 1963 for demonstrating without a permit. During his 11 days in jail, he wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in response to a letter published by Alabama clergymen that criticized King’s use of jail time to demonstrate civil injustice.

In the letter, Dr. King explains why he chose to use prisons as a tool in his civil rights movement. He writes, “I submit that an individual who breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law.”

He concluded: “Never before have I written a letter this long — or should I say a book? I’m afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?”

Lâfí  (Peace): We join our voice with the collective voice of prayer for the lives lost to terrorism in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. “Ouagadougou”, in the Burkina Faso Mòoré dialect, means “You are welcome here at home with us”.

This story was chosen from our reader submissions as part of our initiative to collect Love Stories from our readers for Issue No. 9: Love. To submit a story email info@redflagmag.org.

My love, my sweet husband, although I know there is no use, sometimes my mind will wander to what it would have been like if life were reversed…

If I had been the one that died that day.

If I was the one that lie on the side of the river without a breath in my chest and you were the one who received the call in the hallway of our home. 

I think about what it would have been like for you, my love, how you would have reacted upon hearing those words. Hearing that I had taken my last breath and closed my eyes leaving you to keep going without the comfort of my presence in a world that is spinning out of control.

As I think of this my body physically aches to the thought of your pain.

I think of your reaction. I wonder if you would have made the same visceral sounds that came out of my throat in the moments after I heard the gut wrenching words.

Would you have cried and cried until your eyes glossed over and you stared at the space ahead wondering if perhaps it is possible to die of a broken heart?

I am so thankful that you didn’t have to feel this, my love, and that you were beautifully ignorant to the kind of pain that I now feel is etched into my heart creating magnetic, raw scars.

These scars that are still tender but comprise evidence of their healing.

I wonder how you would have moved through the grief. Through the hours of silence and the years of tears. Where your eyes would have turned during the darkest hours and longest nights.

I am growing and changing and moving forward, whatever that means. I am more vibrant; I can sing and dance, laugh and smile.

But through all of this, my love, in the moments that I least expect it, I once again get the wind knocked out of me by the overwhelming feeling that you are not right next to me.

The scars being stretched with each of these reflections.

I look at pictures and physically ache with a longing to hold your face in my hands and hold my lips to your mouth only to feel your breath in the air.

So, as the scars leave their mark while my heart heals, I reach deeply for the answers to my powerful imagination of what it would have been like for you, my love, and as I do, my mind goes back to this time…

After you died I was blessed with the opportunity to hold your hand and to kiss your lips.

You looked so beautiful; so perfect.

I walked up to you as if I was walking on air, tiptoeing to the last moments I would have with you on this earth.

I grasped your hands so tightly that I couldn’t quite tell if it was actually your hands that were cold to the touch or if perhaps they were mine, our lives being confused for one last time on this earth.

It is in these singular memories that I now understand what it would have been like for you during this entire process of grief; don’t I my love.

For our love has always been intertwined so ornately that I know the answer lies in my own journey.

When we married we did so with the idea that we would became one. Our love and our light interlacing together. So, my love, I am thankful that life was not reversed.

That your heart was spared the shattering of it’s lining.

For I know your journey would have mirrored mine, our hearts equal in their measure, just as our hands were that day long ago.

Our joys and our anguish will continue to cry out together, yours on the other side and mine on this journey of life.

Your heart is so much a part of mine that I will walk forward not knowing where yours ends and mine begins.

Until we meet again, my love,  I will use our love to shift the universe. You can change the world with a powerful love story.

As we always said..

I love you equal, I love you to the moon and I will love you for eternity.

Melissa

Melissa Wilder Joyce‘s love for words, love for traveling and love for meeting unique and diverse people have helped shape her into a woman with less fear and more commitment to the inquisitiveness of what else is out there. As she travels the world and continues to grow in her understanding of what is real, her hope is to continue to help inspire others to take a different path every time they leave their front door. Follow her to find out her latest thoughts on love and life. Connect with her by Face Book @ Melissa Wilder Joyce

Photo credit : Julia Kinnunen @ juliakinnunenphotography.com

Sometimes my brain kills love.

I’m a thinker, not a doer.

I’m a dreamer, a lover–in the clouds. I analyze–try to fit all the puzzle pieces in place before I begin or even know what the puzzle is.

Sometimes, I want love so badly, I don’t kiss long enough to know.

I don’t wait before I throw romanticism and expectations prematurely, excitedly, carelessly on the heart before me.

I have an unsaturated thirst for love that I am proud of.

But sometimes my brain puts out the spark, the magic, interrupting the flow by dousing buckets of logic and question onto a moment.

Some of this is because I am emotionally intelligent and aware of what moves in and out and speak it freely from my heart.

It’s also a defense mechanism–sometimes, wanting to know if it’s safe to open before I know that there is in fact something to open to.

I want to figure it all out. Breathe clarity. Open in safety. Skip the vulnerability, the grey, the uncomfortable–the not knowing–and be able to fall in love in security–assurance–protected.

It is a strength and an insecurity.

I want the wave but I do not want to fall.

I want to know there are arms to catch me at the bottom before I leap and I do not deserve this.

We must leap and then see if love catches us back.

When we are thinking we are not living from our heart.

My brain declares and knows she wants love.

Yet my heart is still wading in the shallow waters of you seeing what she thinks.

She asks, “Do we want love? Do we want love with this man, this heart?”

And my brain is quick to reply, “Yes we want love–we live for love.”

It isn’t brave to analyze.

It is brave to feel.

It is not courageous to lie beneath brown wooden beams at two am and talk till we are dizzy–it’s cowardly, it’s safe.

What is brave is to show up willing to not know, willing to fall face first. Willing to be wrong, willing to be hurt, willing to be accepted.

So dearest brain–quit killing love.

Shut up so my heart can hear itself think.

Let her catch a breath.

Love is not a sprint.

I will likely never turn my brain off and be completely present. I love to chew on this life with my thoughts, but I am aware today that if we operate too much from upstairs, that we miss the succulence of the unraveling–we miss hearing the heartbeats at our finger tips.

Images by Morgan Stone Grether (@grether) http://www.grethershot.com/

“Empathy is really important… Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential.” These words from Dr. Jane Goodall¹ might just be the formula for saving Florida Black Bears. At least, that’s what six artists hope.

As realist artist J W Baker explains, there is an “unacknowledged sentience that exists within all living creatures.” Inspired by his own encounters, J W’s paintings give these naturally curious beings a voice all can relate to. The title “Remember Me” suggests what the last living bear might say if he could speak.

Drawn together by dismay over the Florida Black Bear hunt, myself and five artists want you to care as much about this unique subspecies as we do. We believe Florida’s 3,000 black bears have as much right to live as its 20 million humans. If you knew that these bears were in fact recently endangered, you might understand why we are working together to give them a voice.² With Goodall’s wisdom in mind, we wish to evoke your empathy and encourage you to speak out with us against next year’s hunt.

Painter Lucas Lamenha of Pernambuco, Brazil has only been to Florida once, but doesn’t hesitate when it comes to helping others. His painting suggests bears may wonder why they are targets when there are so few of them. Lamenha continues to help by incorporating this message into new work.

Artist and sculptor Herb Williams theorizes that animals communicate through signs that most of us cannot see. In his series “Call of the Wild,” he suggests their language is more colorful than we might think.

Photographer Chris Norcott understands bears very well, as he’s spent many years observing them. His mission is to capture and share their journey, which from his experience is not much different than ours. Norcott states, “Black bears are gentle, timid creatures, but they do have their own rules of etiquette, which we need to learn and understand in order to peacefully coexist with them.”

Leif Erik Johansen has seen the effects of wildlife displacement firsthand. The bear who visits his yard in North Carolina in search of food has inspired surreal works that examine our relationship with nature. He proposes everyone treat bears the way he does, with respect.

Respecting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s decision to open a hunt on black bears after 21 years³ is something I find difficult to do.  The FWC made close to $400,000 from permit sales.⁴ Ponder this question: Which is more important in our society – financial gain or the environment?  As I illustrate in my painting “The Greater Green” (2014), the answer can be turned either way – depending on who’s holding the coin.

We plan to coordinate an exhibit to further connect hearts and minds on this issue. Florida residents who would like to help are urged to ask their mayors to sponsor a resolution in support of the bears and respective senators to stand behind the Florida Black Bear Restoration Act 1096 of 2016.

For more information and ways to help follow the links below.

Image Credits: Slide show image 1: “The Bear and the Hummingbird”, © 2012 J W Baker  | image 2: “The Beekeeper and the Bear”, © 2014 Leif Erik Johansen  |   leiferikjohansen.com  |  IG: @leiferik40 | image 3: photo of a Florida Black Bear and cub © 2015 Chris Norcott  |  chrisnorcott.com |  IG: @chrisnorcottphotography | image 4: (left) “The Greater Green”, © 2015 Melanie Oliva  |  melanieoliva.com  |  IG: @melanieolivaartist & @inspirationpollination (right) photo of a Florida Black Bear by Chris Norcott | image 5: “Stop Black Bear Hunting”, © 2015 Lucas Lamenha  |   5am.ag  |  IG: @lucaslamenha_artist | image 6: “Remember me”, © 2014 J W Baker  |  www.jwbart.com. Thumbnail image by Herb Williams. 

Action Links:

http://stopflbearhunt.com

http://www.speakupwekiva.com/Stop_the_Black_Bear_Hunt.html

https://www.facebook.com/SaveFLBears

SOURCES

1 NOVA’s series The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers.

2 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151023-black-bear-hunt-florida-animals-conservation/

3 http://myfwc.com/news/resources/fact-sheets/bear-hunting/

4 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/hunters-kill-295-black-bears-two-day-florida-hunt-article-1.2411330

It is not extraordinary people who save this world–it is people who not only see the pain in this world, but act on it.

Many of us look away, turn the television off–we hide from the eyes who need us.

The activists and movement makers and give a damners are the people who see need and can’t look away.

The ones who stay up at night in agony with what they can’t do–and then go back into this world with a fighting heart and do what they can.

When we throw love into the face of poverty and of need, we do change this world.

I love the humans who feed the dog with jagged ribs their sandwich.

I love the people who practice compassion and walk forward with love and accountability for all beings on this earth.

So how do activists begin?

I stumbled across this story of beginnings from Andrew Burson, president and founder of Kote Sabon’ last week.

Kote Sabon was founded in 2012, and their mission is to provide the underprivileged children of Haiti the foundation necessary to follow whatever dreams they may conjure.

Kote Sabon’s dream is to build a boarding school where unwanted children are given not only a life-saving education, but a place they can call home.

Kote Sa Bon is creole for “Where it is good”.

Andrew is not someone who looked away.

Andrew saw the need staring him in the eyes–in this case, two pairs of eyes, Harold and Hilik.

In Andrew’s words:

“When I first met Harold and Hilik, we were in the midst of a yearly summer camp I co-organize in the northern part of Haiti. We were staying in the same apartment, in the room next to theirs.

After a few days, I discovered that they were brothers, that their mother had died and that their father wanted nothing to do with them. Their new “guardians” seemed to despise them. They’d beat them severely and regularly. They would leave them alone for days without food or water. Neighbors would complain but the guardians didn’t seem to care.

When the guardians returned home one night, I asked if it would be okay for the boys to hang out with us for a day, to learn and play with the other kids at our camp. The idea of a day without them seemed welcome, but we were to “be careful” as they were “very bad boys”. I told them we could handle them, and told the boys to be ready the next morning at 7am if they wanted to go. They eagerly nodded their heads.

6:50am the next morning there they were, sitting next to the car with their little backpacks, ready to go. They had woken up by themselves as their guardians were still asleep, which was pretty impressive for a 5 and 7 year old. We spent the day playing games, learning, and taking field trips around town. It was clear that they weren’t “bad boys”, just boys, boys who wanted what all little boys want; to play and laugh and belong somewhere.

What started as a day turned into a little over a week, and each day the boys seemed a little better; a little more comfortable, a little more open, a little happier. When finally, the day came when we had to leave. The night before, I explained to them as best I could that we were leaving and that we’d miss them. They seemed sad. Their faces were expressionless and they wouldn’t look at me. But all the same, we had to go.

The next morning I went to the car and to my surprise there they were, sitting next to the car with all their belongings. Sadly, I asked my co-founder Jimmy to better explain to them what was going on. He said he tried but they thought maybe they could come with us anyway. Carefully, and as best I could, I told them that they couldn’t come with us, that their home was here, but that one day we would be back and we’d see each other again.

They weren’t buying it… Not one word. And showing little emotion, they grabbed their things and disappeared back into the house.

I almost cried… I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a place or a plan or even enough room in the car. I barely knew what I was doing with the few kids we were looking after. Still, during the drive back it clawed at me. Thinking about the days and nights ahead of them. Thinking of the beatings, the fear, the sadness. I couldn’t bear it. I broke. An hour down the road we called and asked the guardians if Harold and Hilik could come live with us, and without hesitation they said they could. That they had been looking for someone to take them for sometime anyway.

People often ask me where all this is going, what my five year plan is, where I’m going to get funding, what if this and what if that. And the answer is: I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong. I have dreams and fears about what I want to do here. I want to make things better. I want to build a place and a school in the country that these kids can call home. I want to be able to tell unwanted kids like these that they too have a place where they belong. That they too have a place they can call Home. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. And I don’t know where all the money is going to come from. All I know is that today, I’m not fucking leaving them behind. Today they’re coming with us.

And today, we’re going to the beach.” – Andrew Burson, President and co-founder of Kote Sabon

For more information on Kote Sabon or to support visit http://kotesabon.org

Sometimes when we are ready to let go of a traumatic experience, an unhealthy situation or a limiting belief —we hesitate.

What will go in the space?

It’s almost like two parents who focus on their kids nonstop, then their kids move out and they look at one another and go, “Fuck. Now what?”

“Do I even love you anymore? Do I want to live in this house? What are my hobbies?”

When we let go of something that is taking up a lot of space, it creates a lot of space and that space can be scary.

It can be uncomfortable and new and make us want to shrink back into the story or belief we had.

For the past five years I have consciously been working at the belief of being unworthy.

It was a belief that originally stemmed from the absence of a father.

When I was little part of myself equated his absence to : “I’m not enough”.

If I was enough and was worthy of love, he would have showed up.

He never showed up.

About five years ago I went out into this world and found him. In one of our conversations my big-bad-wolf of a limiting belief stared me in the heart when he said openly, “I got the postcard your mom sent when you were born. I knew you were alive, and how to contact you. I chose to raise one daughter, not two.”

I wasn’t chosen and not only did I not feel chosen growing up, I also had the privilege of hearing my belief and fear from my father’s mouth directly.

So I went home and did a fuck-ton of self growth and work.

For the past five years I’ve been vividly aware and accountable to playing small. I have countlessly acknowledged the belief of my unworthiness and each time had to find the strength to tell it to scram.

A few days ago before I began the first workshop I ever facilitated I started to feel unworthy.

I started to feel afraid of my ability and hesitated from taking the step to expand my life’s work into new contexts.

Leading workshops and mentoring are the new horizons my belief that “I am worthy” have allowed me to venture into. I’m excited to extend the “why” of my life’s work,  but it’s a space I’m still maneuvering – a space where fear and limiting beliefs started to slip back in.

It lasted for about a moment and then this feisty sassy part of me loudly hissed, “How the next two hours goes does not decipher your self-worth.”

Brene Brown talks a lot about how we cannot attach our self-worth to projects.

We are not the result of our actions–we are our actions.

And when we act in alignment with ourselves, and with truth and fire and love and authenticity–we will never fail.

When we do what we love we will always be a success, regardless of the outcome because we are walking our truth and in our power.

This is why risking and starting before we’re ready and taking big swings are so important.

My belief of being unworthy was a big fat fucking crutch that was allowing me to shrink and stay small—in friendships, relationships and business.

I no longer feel like writing, speaking or saying “I am unworthy”.

As of three days ago I feel pretty fucking worthy and I don’t want to live in the unworthy space anymore.

That belief was taking up a lot of time, energy and filling my life with scarcity, low self-esteem and bad relationships—it sucked.

The work of letting go of unworthy has been done. The hands of my heart are clean and I am ready to fill that big empty space with something seriously fucking awesome.

Abundance, success, connection, relief and love are all waiting for us in that space once we let go of the need to be a victim to our past.

These things can’t enter into your life unless you create a place for them to grow.

If your bed is filled with unworthy, why would a lover or partner capable of loving you show up?

Listen world : I am ready to let go of unworthy.

Dear Unworthy,

I’ve acknowledged you. I’ve heard you. I’ve observed you. I’ve spoken to you. I’ve written about you. I’ve talked about you. I’ve dreamt of you. I’ve lived you. You’re taking up too much space now. It’s time for you to go.

There are bigger and better things waiting patiently to fill that space.

They are jumping and hooting outside the door saying, “Is she ready? This is going to be SO awesome! Being worthy ROCKS!”

They are ready to join the dance party where unavailable men, undeserving partners, and scarcity aren’t allowed in because my new beliefs are popping champagne showers and raising the roof on our success.

Love,

Worthy

Janne Robinson is a contributing voice to Red Flag Magazine. She is a poet, writer, bushwalker, idealist and animal activist currently residing in Vancouver Island. She cuts kindling with her teeth, eats Bukowski for breakfast and makes the habit of saying the word feminist as much as possible. Janne’s lifes-work is to be transparent. She makes a living off hanging her dirty and clean laundry out for the world to see. Her mission is to give others permission to also walk and exist with the same transparency.

Hεrε (Peace): We join our voice with the collective voice of prayer for the lives lost in Mali.

We join our voice with the collective voice of prayer for the lives lost in Paris and for a country and world shaken with grief. With each of these attacks we continue to lean on the strength of peace.

I just wrapped up doing my “30 days of vulnerability challenge”.

The intention was to share a moment of vulnerability every day for thirty days.

It was my version of a “yoga challenge”, “juicing challenge” or “no sugar challenge”.

I was joined by people who talked about their own self sabotage, fear, challenges they faced starting their own businesses, insecurity while dancing, taking chances, uncertainty, depression, insomnia, breaking, missing past lovers, being a single mother, sexual assault, being tired, sleeping till noon and eating apple pie for breakfast.

An outpour of human experiences is documented all over social media behind #30daysofvulnerability.

Sometimes, all it takes is going first.

I’ve met people who have shame around telling me they’ve met their partners on Tinder or their husbands on Plenty Of Fish.

Once, I had felt worried about saying, “I just had an abortion” and then discovered all three women working with me had the exact same experience.

We make up shame-filled stories attached to things in our lives and not saying it out loud only gives our shame more power.

Who else is currently grieving?

Who else is currently healing from a miscarriage?

Who else ate popcorn for dinner and stayed up all night binge-watching Vampire Diaries?

“The antidote to shame is empathy and awareness.” – Brene Brown.

When we say things out loud it not only takes some of the weight away, but it also gives other people permission to do the same.

My life’s work is to empower people to live their truths and be authentic.

How I do that is transparency—I write nonfiction online for 40k+ people every day.

I don’t just write about the joy and the love in my life—I also talk about being dumped, insecurity, feeling unworthy, being broke, the non-rainbow emotions that came with finding my father and recently my process while grieving a close friend who committed suicide.

Social media is somewhere I go to share my poems about sex, desire, love, humor, achievements, art…and it’s also where I share my pain.

People are uncomfortable with pain.

Every time I post something about feminism, abortion or grief I usually lose trails of followers—and that’s okay.

I only want people on my bus who can handle all the truth—not just the feel good, inspiring, empowering bits.

In sharing my grief the last five months I have created a space for other people’s grief.

My inbox, emails, and comments are full of not only support, community, and connection but also people who are  grieving.

“My boyfriend committed suicide last night, what do I do?”

When we let our pain live out loud we create a beautiful space for people to also exhale and know it’s okay to say it out loud.

I wrote a post about depression in my 30 days of vulnerability challenge where I said that I believe depression is a room that every single human on this earth can end up in.

It’s the room down the hall in our house and we sometimes hover outside of it and pray we won’t ever wind up inside.

I talked about the importance of self care—mental, heart and physically moving energy and pain from our bodies.

How without my physical self care, I would end up in that room too.

The next day an email landed in my inbox from someone anonymous who thanked me for sharing my post on depression. They expressed that they were also depressed and said a few things that rang suicidal bells in my brain.

I thanked them for their transparency and asked if they were suicidal.

They replied that they were, and that they had been planning on taking their life two days before.

I wrote them a big email, giving them my number for support and asking for them to stay—but I wanted to do more.

I wrote a Facebook post that night asking for the support of my online community of readers, it read:

I need your support.

Last night I received an anonymous email from someone who claimed she was depressed.This triggered my own grief and fear around my friend who passed. Lately, I don’t want to touch depression with a ten foot pole.

I replied last night and her email back today she said she is suicidal.

I’ve offered myself and my number as support and told her I want her to live, but I want to do more.

I want her to be hit hard by the love of strangers who are rooting for her to live.

She is anonymous, but I also know she is a reader of my work–and my hope is that every like and comment on this post will thrust life into her soul and hope into her heart.

We are here to feel seen, connected and loved.

We don’t talk about depression, we don’t talk about suicide–it breaks my fucking heart.

I want to talk about these things & I want to use social media for something meaningful.

So, tonight will you join me by sending written prayers and love to a soul who we want to keep on living?

I want her to choose to live. I want her to feel loved and connected and seen.

Thank you.

1,100 people liked the post, and 395 people commented with words of encouragement, love, and support.

People shared of their own moments of being suicidal, of their own depression.

People gave phone numbers and offered themselves as ears and support.

Someone even wrote a song for her.

1,500 people cheered and loved a human they didn’t know.

And this person wrote me and said she spent the next day writing every single comment of love and support down—to fall back on and read.

This is what we can use social media for—to start movements that allow us to be seen, felt, heard, connected and saved from feeling alone in the darkest of the night.

This film was so fun to watch. It brings art and activism together against the backdrop of nature – as caught in the net of politics. There’s so much incredible wisdom in this film. It was truly eye-opening to issues.

As the world continues to struggle with energy needs – hydropower seems like the messiah to the oil crisis. Countries like Costa Rica are making promises to go “carbon neutral”, which sounds so progressive and exciting. Yet, looking closer the power needed to fuel a nation is created through the construction of dams at the cost of chocking rivers – the arteries needed for the health of our entire biosphere. This is a cost we are finally heeding the clear evidence that we cannot afford.

China may boast the largest dam in the world, but America is starting to set the pace of a movement that may prove to be more impressive: “Dam Removal”.

This film documents that fight and that movement. To watch the film or take action go to: http://damnationfilm.com/take-action. You can also join the organization Americas Rivers in their work http://www.americanrivers.org/.

Motherly Love is an enlightened love—truly pure and vast, and yet it’s unbelievably primitive. Once you’ve crouched down and bared another animal out from within your body, there’s no going back to being a civilized human being. You are now both primal animal and enlightened heart.

I want to take a giant bite out of my child, consume her, perhaps as she consumed me. Sometimes I take a restrained bite and call it a “love bite.” Sometimes, I accidentally bite too hard and get scolded. “We don’t bite, Mama!”, she reminds me firmly. It sounds strange, I know. Maybe even sick to the uninitiated. Though, I literally can’t help myself. The love I feel for my child bursts at my inner seams. I simply have no other way of relating to this kind of mad-love and whole-hearted devotion.

I’ve spent the past weeks sitting with the words “motherly love”, and as I meditate on the definition of that term I find that the meaning keeps evading me. This is a love in constant motion, shapeshifting by the season, even by the day. The love I feel for my daughter is like god-consciousness. It’s just vast and endless and everywhere. It’s an active love that you can transform to meet the moment, and it transforms you too. You needn’t chose this love. It will always choose you.

Motherly love is even more primal than animal—it’s almost parasitic. A parasite you can’t rid yourself of, and one you would never want to. It’s a wondrous parasite that steals all your nutrients, deprives you of sleep, frazzles your nervous system, tests your marriage, provokes all your unprocessed emotional baggage, and to whom you will still always offer your last bite of something yummy, who you would die for, kill for and cannot live without. It’s the most horribly incredible thing that has ever happened to me. It has hijacked me and I’m better for it. No, I’m grateful for it. 

Before having my child, I had never loved someone in a way I could embody. The love I have for my child is so rich and complex, unyielding and unending, it has literally consumed me—I have actually become this love. Every love we feel towards an-other changes us a little or a lot. But “other love” has always been, no matter how intense and consuming, still yet another aspect of my life and self—a facet based on certain conditions that existed within the space of a relational contract.

See, romantic love can’t help but ask, “What will you do for me? How much do you love me?” Sometimes, even, romantic love asks, “…do I really love you? Is this real? Are you right? Are you worthy?” But motherly love is truly unconditional. The love I feel for my daughter began the moment she was conceived. I grew her. Her angelic essence emanated from my womb, vibrated in my cells and took over my system completely. Since she was born, that love has revolutionized me. It has become me.

With that miraculous fertilization of an egg our hearts can become truly enlightened, even if just conditionally to start. It has the power to free its victims from selfish, self-centeredness. It has taught me how to be a better lover to my husband. My child has shown me what my heart is capable of —a level of acceptance and forgiveness and grace that I’m not sure I could have glimpsed if not for her. I am a mother, and with that, I am love. 

Some days this embodied love looks like letting go—giving space, backing off, resisting the urge to connect and kiss and hold, to allow my child the space to reject me, to be mad at me, to not want me, to not be just like me, to simply be in a state of active individuation. This motherly love was big enough to allow another human to come through me and it is spacious enough to allow her to keep moving through into her own selfhood.

Sometimes it feels as though the most precious piece of me now walks among this wild world without me. This serves as a reminder that as mother I am a passageway, a guardian, a beacon perhaps, but not a sculptor. She is just passing through and I trust that she will take what she needs on this path to finding her own way, uncovering her own essential truth.

Motherly love—a redundant term, really. Mother, in and of itself, is a like a synonym for love, as a verb particularly. It’s a thankless, messy, no-where-to-run kind of love. A love too big to ever be satiated, and one that can illicit its opposite, rage, like few others have the power to. It’s a love you can never be cured of. Mothers of grown children will attest to the fact that they still lay awake at night worried, thinking about, and praying for their kin. It never ends.

I believe that cultivating our motherly love will be what saves our world, our relationships, our planet. My motherly love came with conception and birth, but children are miraculous and powerful. I believe there are other ways to harness that motherly love, should we seek out its unrelenting grip of deep goodness.

Jessica Mahaney is Co-Founder of Root + Rise – A Quarterly Publication For Conscious Mothering. Honoring the light and shadow of birth and nurture, Root + Rise is a collective of mothers – writers, artists, and activists sharing experiences that capture the process of mothering, the meaning behind the choices we make and creates space for each to be seen in our unique efforts and approaches. www.rootandrisequarterly.com 

So today is the day they’ve been waiting for. 3,543 bear hunting medallion holders will set foot on designated lands in the sate of Florida today to seek out their kill. Sounds like fun. Sounds like murder. Sounds like the news we all shudder about when we hear there was a bombing in a public square. A young student opening fire on his classmates. A father killing his entire family and then turning the gun on himself. A terror plot finally unveiled after years of planning and taking the lives of thousands of innocents.

When we step out into the world with the intent to kill we bring violence into this world. Violence does not discriminate. When it’s carried out against children, adults, or animals – it’s still violence. When there’s no purpose behind it, when it’s senseless, or worse yet, when it’s for sport – that’s when it’s even harder to forgive.

Today armed men and women, for the love of sport, for the thrill of the game, will kill living creatures in the midst of having their breakfast, foraging for food for their babies or finding a cozy spot to take a nap. Some nervous hunters with rusty bear hunting skills will kill mothers, leaving their young behind to fend for themselves. Soon after those babies will die too.

These men and women will get all dolled up in gear. They’ll drink some beers and eat some snacks they bought at the gas station when they filled their trucks up this morning. They’ll pull out their maps and plot out their course. It won’t be hard. These bears haven’t been hunted in over 21 years. The bears will be curious, calm and often in plane site for these armed men and women. The kill will be easy depending on the skill of the so-called “hunters”.

When the bears die, it will be really painful. These animals are large. No matter how big the gun, the bullet is merciless. The hunters are looking to kill in a spot that the taxidermists can work with. These will be long, painful deaths for all of them. With bow hunters it could potentially be even worse if they don’t hit the right vein – which most can’t. You’d have to be an Olympic level archer to kill a bear painlessly.

Once the bear dies. The hunter will pose next to their kill. They will likely post the photo on Facebook or Instagram. Some may fear the backlash of tens of thousands of people in protest of this hunt. They may have some sense and just text it to their friends or family members. Then they’ll attempt to drag the body out, but it will be damn heavy. They’ll need help.

At this point somewhere inside of them a small voice will speak up and say “Why the fuck did I do this? What the hell am I going to do with this goddamn bear?”

Some even smaller voice, which will grow louder will say “I feel kinda shitty for doing this. Was this right?”

It’s not right. It’s not cool. It’s murder. I’m not an extremist. I’m not some fanatical animal rights hippie person. I am a person who knows the laws of truth. What we bring into this world effects all of us. So I believe in choosing wisely and compassionately.

It’s been 21 years since bear hunting was permitted in Florida. There are only 3,500 bears in the entire state. Hunting was banned to allow their endangered population to come back. Why is it that humans seem to love to build things up and then tear them down. Today each medallion holder is permitted to kill one bear. With 3,543 medallion holders, that’s more bears than the 3,500 bears that the state has in existence. The state ruled the kill quota to cap at 320 bears. It’s going to be interesting figuring out how to enforce a cap at 320 kills among 3,543 men and women in very spiffy camo gear bearing arms hellbent to kill the bear they paid for.

In case you want to play their game too. Here’s their very complicated, well-thought-out strategy for their games this hunting season. Looks a lot like premeditated murder to me. http://myfwc.com/hunting/by-species/bear/rules/

If you want to stand behind non-violence, please choose compassion in each moment. I send my prayers to both hunters and bears today.

I wish the hunters had chosen peace and compassion today too. I fear a society where children are raised by men and women who choose to get dressed in gear and bear arms to kill for sport on a beautiful Saturday morning.

I was once asked, “Does being vulnerable get easier because you write non-fiction each day?”

The answer is no.

Does falling out of love get easier, just because we’ve done it once?

Does dealing with grief become easier, just because we’ve had someone else close to us die?

Every single day I feel a little afraid to hit the publish button and share my transparent truths with 30,000 people.

I speak of rejection, I speak of a grief that haunts, I speak of shame with sex and masturbation, I speak of finding my father for the first time, the process I had in my abortion—and it’s scary every single time.

I don’t grow a skin and get tougher.

Vulnerability doesn’t get easier.

I just shut my eyes, squirm and as Elizabeth Gilbert poignantly put, “Do my dance anyhow.”

Being a transparency teller doesn’t mean I’ve figured out a way to beat the fear.

I just tell my fear when it’s not welcome and ignore it when necessary.

Sharing truth, authenticity and transparency in our world is worth the fear.

I was asked by a reader on Instagram last week if I would start a thirty day vulnerability challenge.

Instead of doing yoga, juicing, or not drinking for thirty days, the invitation was to start a movement where people commit to sharing something vulnerable every day.

Peel another layer back and let it breathe into the world—wide open for all to see.

I loved the idea.

By being our authentic selves, we give other people permission to do the same.

Being vulnerable for thirty days can benefit not only ourselves but all the people around us to have “me too” and “I’m not alone” moments.

Every morning I’ve been waking up and choosing things that give me the vulnerability squirms and share them specifically.

The crazy thing is, most of our shames and fears are universally shared and will be connected with.

Often the thing we are most afraid to say out loud — because we fear judgement from those around us—is something the people who love us won’t even raise an eyebrow to.

I remember telling a dear friend on a long walk in the woods something I hadn’t told anyone before—something that was so scary to say out loud it made me cry.

I was afraid if I said it out loud, he would think poorly of me or never want to talk to me again.

He listened gently and immediately responded with a similar experience he had.

He made fun of me a little for thinking it was something so big that he would think less of me, or not want to be in my life.

He hugged me and we carried on—that was it.

My big, scary, shame-filled thing was something he experienced–and many others had.

We repress these things. We hide them.

The big scary monsters in our closets and our purple shame elephants often visit the hearts of people we walk beside.

Something interesting that happened so far was a few people participating in the challenge wanted to start a private group to share posts in.

To me this defeated the point of the entire thing.

Vulnerability isn’t private. It isn’t safe.

It’s scary and open and real.

This challenge isn’t about being conservatively vulnerable–it’s about being liberally out loud vulnerable.

I don’t want to sit in a group and be vulnerable privately with other people being vulnerable.

What’s the risk in that?

This challenge is a space for some of the squirms to be said out loud.

To practice rawness, nakedness and to show our bare beating hearts to the world.

It’s scary and it’s rewarding as all hell.

To take my layers I’ve peeled back and show them to the world.

To be vulnerable in new experiences with new people.

I want to breathe vulnerability into the entire world and let the world hide, squirm, stare, gawk, shout and cheer me on.

I’m here to cheer all of you on too.

You can join me in the challenge and share your posts on Instagram (or Facebook) with the hashtag #30daysofvulnerability. You can also add #experimentswithlove to partake in Red Flag’s “love laboratory” to expand awareness of love in its many forms.