A Post-Election Collective Meditation

On Friday, November 6, we took a collective pause in the midst of post-election uncertainty and confusion. On our Instagram Live, Khara DeWit, our Operations Manager, and Estefanía Romero, our Teen Social Enterprise Internship Facilitator led us in this reflection and a breathing exercise. May these words be a balm to you in anxious times and spur you on in this work we are doing together.

Good Morning, friends:

My name is Khara and I’m the operations and finance manager here at Treetops Collective. In a little bit, I’ll be inviting Estefania, our Teen Social Enterprise Facilitator to close our time with a 10 minute breathing exercise. 

We wanted to bring the collective together today, to
Provide space to pause 
and reflect 
and navigate this weird frustrating time together

If you’re anything like me, this past week was a week of peak anxiety. 
It was the one-two punch of pandemic stress and election stress. 
did you loose sleep too? 
Lack concentration? 
Stress eat ice cream?

I know this stress consumed both sides of the political aisle right here in the US, but I also know it is felt worldwide.

While there’s nothing you or I can do to speed up election results or 
a coronavirus end, 
we do have the power to take care of ourselves and each other.

So, breathe deep.

[Breathe]

What is keeping me going is the thought that what we do today is aimed at a point far out on the horizon. 

Not today, 
not tomorrow, 
maybe not even in my lifetime. 

Hope is steadfastness and resilience, working toward what is right - not necessarily only that which will reap rewards. Isn’t this what active hope is? 

It is also the meaning of the well-known adage, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

It is the message of the Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams. 

She says, “Our anxiety comes from the desire to have things be different. There’s going to be the day after the election. And the day after that. We need to be present to what is regardless of the outcome you want. My ancestors had to prepare themselves over and over again for moving toward a freedom that was nowhere in sight. We prepare for life as it unfolds, not our ideal image of it. That is literally the only path forward.” 

I wanted to leave you with this meditation, borrowed Enfleshed:

Whether you find yourself trembling
or cautiously hopeful. Whether you are holding your breath
or pacing to and fro.Whether you are seeking silence and quiet
or busying yourself with labors you believe in. Whether you are rallying
or praying
or supporting
or readying
or making every last effort you possibly can.Keep close to your precious spirit 
and your holy skin
and your brave being
and your sacred imagination
the knowledge and assurance that whatever will be,
whatever will become,
whatever waits before us,
we are capable of rising to meet it if we do so together.
Together, for justice. Together, for protection.
Together, in solidarity.
Together in love practiced where and how it is needed most.We will have work to do and undo.
We will find beauty to sustain us.
We will need to adapt and create and heal and fight.
We will. Whatever is. So come take your place in the long lineage of hope
that persists through empires’ rising and falling. 
Try to keep your pace aligned with the spirit -
that steady pulse of divine possibilities
beating to the rhythms of creation:
slow and grounding,
ancient and purposeful,
unwavering and persistent 
in adamant defiance
of anything that comes to steal life.