Joy is my Sky

Terror is the Storm

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

What would happen if the sky thought it could keep out the thunderstorm?

Friends of mine say that we must protect our psyche, our joy and creativity, you know, stop reading the news, stop talking about all the outrages. Don’t let it trigger us. We must self-monitor all those hydra-headed death thoughts, like, I can’t do it, What difference will it make? And, I don’t want to be here.

But what if I’m not fragile? What if I accept that I’m going to die and admit all those terrible emotions into my trembling heart? What if facing our own death (or the death of our democracy) is the only thing that can set us free - and we’re avoiding it?

I’m not gonna lie. It’s terrible. But right behind the terror is joy. All of it.

I’ve spent four decades healing the effects of toxic patriarchy lodged in my body.

I don’t use the term toxic masculinity, because masculinity is not toxic. The system is. Masculinity is good and necessary. The system, though, gives rise to women like Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Suzy Wiles, Karoline Leavitt, Ghislaine Maxwell, and all the mothers who have told us not to wear something because it makes us look whorish or fat. Some women participate in the system, and some men don’t. The problem isn’t gender, it’s the system.

Almost every trauma I’ve endured has come directly from the imposition of toxic patriarchy. My father, for example, felt such a need to dominate my mother, such shame over his secretly impotent manhood that he medicated himself with scotch and violence. I grew up in such a rape culture that I was not safe sleeping in my own bed. That’s not normal behavior for any animal, not even human beings. That’s culture. That’s toxic patriarchy.

And all this was before I even ventured out into the dangerous world our patriarchs have created. We all know how much men, who need to think they are powerful, lust to conquer the trembling innocence of young women. That’s toxic patriarchy, too. We still haven’t released the Epstein Files, and we all know that was not the only trafficking network for rich men that has never faced consequences. Yet we like to pretend that Jeffrey, Ghislaine, and Donny were a one-off, even though we know they weren’t.

Toxic patriarchy destroyed my family, but it didn’t destroy me because I became willing to feel difficult emotions. I’ve walked through all the terrible darkness, opening my heart the whole time. And that willingness has brought me to healing communities, great friends, advanced degrees, jobs, family, and financial stability. There’s nothing from my past I’m afraid of anymore.

But here’s the thing. I still live in the United States of Dicks in Charge. I am suspended in toxic patriarchy, so the wounding is ongoing. Just this past Monday, I sat on the couch rage-crying over the cold-blooded misogyny that could shoot a woman in the face. Add to that the cold-blooded lizard liars who have the unmitigated gall to slander the recently dead without any regard for her children, her extended family, or her community. Charlie Kirk be damned. That’s some cold shit, there.

Plus, they are knowingly giving Proud Boys permission to shoot again because they want a big enough escalation to declare a state of emergency. If they lose power now, before it’s consolidated, they’ll spend the rest of their lives in jail. And you know what the next escalation is, right? Shooting into a crowd of peaceful protesters. Will they go that far? Since the prize is World Domination, I’m betting they will.

I wonder if they tell themselves they’ll become human again after they’ve won. Does Little Marco Rubio harbor regret? Lisa Murkowski, who voted for all that Proud Boys’ funding? Are they sacrificing their humanity so their progeny will bask in endless wealth?

Every morning, I close my eyes and creak open the recalcitrant hinges. Open my heart. I say it 3 times because 3 is a magic number, and I still indulge in magical thinking even though our patriarchal overlords tell me it’s infantile. I drop the phrase like a stone into a pond. Open my heart. Resistance whooshes into flame, representing just how much I’d rather not feel these painful emotions. Yet my resolve is absolute. Open my heart, fill me with joy.

This is how a heart grows three sizes.

Some days, before the joy comes, I sit with my mouth gaping, sobs wracking my whole body, and I don’t even know why. There’s no story. Just body crying.

After that, I might go for a walk in Nature and be wrapped in joy the whole time. Or if it’s a Threshold Choir day, I’ll go and sing bedside for people standing on the cusp between life and death - the mother of all fears. Sometimes dying is hard work, fraught with pain, but I am present as joy, even as my heart is being meat tenderized.

I am joy, and rage is welcome.

I am joy, and fear is welcome.

I am joy, and grief is welcome.

I am joy, and despair is welcome.

I am joy, and even death is welcome.

Granted, when I was younger, the raw material threw me harder - and for longer. But that’s why, in the old system before patriarchy, grandmothers were in charge. Grand in this sense means big. By old age, everyone is her child. Whether you have physical children or not, you can grandmother the culture. Imagine if the Supreme Court were made up of grandmothers who had alchemized their pain into joy.

If we can take our country back, it won’t be through violence. If answering violence with violence worked, WW1 would have been the war to end all wars.

The stakes are high. By many calculations, we are already in WW3. Our country is already captured. This war’s axis of evil, the NATO-attacking, Putin-backed, Christo-fascists, the media moguls, the oligarchic tech bros, this regime and their Proud Boy enforcers, leaves no doubt as to the existential moment. All their empire-grabbing won’t stop with Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, Cuba, Taiwan, or Greenland. The axis is carving up the world into spheres of influence, and we are merely another resource to be mined for their wealth. Extractive capitalists are cannibals.

And you know what our only state-sanctioned job is, right, ladies? We give birth to the foot soldiers and workers who create wealth for others. They need an endless supply of bodies to exploit. As long as this is the goal, we won’t be allowed to do anything else, not even vote. They think our bodies belong to them.

The antidote to all this toxic patriarchy is a matrifocal community that cares deeply about each member and sets up systems of support for mothers - not heads of male-run households who are the only ones who vote - mothers. Since everyone begins life as someone’s child, supporting mothers means supporting everyone. In a matrifocal culture, the precise opposite of the culture we have now, all our resources would go to supporting the community so the next generation is wise, educated, compassionate, fed, and healthy. Everyone.

Zuckerberg knew what he was talking about when he decried the feminization of his workforce. Feminists are an existential threat to them. And we mean it.

Here’s a secret I’ve come to know in the last few years. Joy is my container. When storms come, joy is holding me. The awareness of joy isn’t shaken even when grief or incandescent rage are present. At first, this seemed impossible, but when I let go of clinging to the storm and recognize that I am the sky, everything is truly welcome, even that most hated of feelings: helplessness. I admit, I’m still working with that one. It’s the most deadly weapon in their arsenal, which is why they bombard us so relentlessly.

The path to freedom goes through your deepest fear, which is why most people avoid it. And now, in the body politic, this is the work we are called to do in community. Face our deepest fear.

The podcaster, Charlamagne tha God, was right when he called the killing of Renee Good domestic terrorism. I’ll just add that domestic terrorism is domestic violence on a national scale.

Since I grew up in a swirling storm of domestic violence and the victim-blaming that inevitably results, I know a thing or two about violent men seeking to dominate a “fucking bitch.”

According to the Childhood Domestic Violence Association, by the age of 17, one-third of us have witnessed intimate partner violence. But half of all incidents go unreported, so those estimates are very low. Adults who grew up in these households are 3 times more likely to repeat the cycle - become an abuser or marry one. That’s an escalating number of fucking bitches, and ever more helpless children. Our toxic patriarchy causes this intimate partner violence. 80% of mass shooters (again, low estimate) were childhood witnesses of domestic partner violence. It leaves a mark.

Domestic violence is the toxicity of our patriarchy, the culture that worships some kind of anthropomorphic male-dominator god that the Heritage Foundation insists… wants this violence and supports them in dominating us. Think about that. Their god endorses this violence. Of course, he does. He’s a jealous war god.

Women are a threat to this system if we aren’t properly submissive. That’s how you become a “fucking bitch.”

Just days after Renee Good was shot, I saw a video of a Proud Boy in ICE clothing asking a group of women protesters, “Didn’t you learn the lesson of the last few days?” He seemed frustrated in a what’s-it-going-to-take kind of way.

When a woman answered, “What lesson? What lesson were we supposed to learn?” He slapped her face and knocked the phone from her hand.

This lesson, Bitch. Daddy’s on a rampage, and all of you terrorized children better just watch in silent horror as he blames our mother for the fact that he shot her.

And that Proud Boy wasn’t even wearing a mask. Since the killer of Renee Good is being protected, what possible repercussions could come from slapping a woman for asking a simple question?

None. I hope that Mama looked that Proud Boy right in the eye and smiled.

We must not shrink from this moment. We have the opportunity to reject that whole worldview. I say we reject it with resolve and joy.

We have examples of how to do both.

Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash

Freedom Riders and Civil Rights marchers like Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash showed us resolve. We can absorb their violence and win. In fact, it’s the only way if blue state governors, congresspeople, and senators continue to refuse out of fear. Resolve isn’t for the faint of heart. Let the black-and-white film clips play. People die. People have already died. The regime is in it so far; they can’t back out. Neither can we.

The Portland frogs showed us joy. The giraffes, the dinosaurs, the absolute mockery of all things violent. They showed us the power of the joyful community. I say we meet this moment with the practice of Joy. Let’s provide the radical willingness to feel it all and live in the joy behind everything. Because joy is a force of Nature.

No matter what the storm does, the sky is still the sky. And when the sky is clear again, the air sparkles with joy. From this clarity, joy becomes a verb. It knows what to do even when we don’t.

So, going back to the opening question, what happens if the sky thinks it can keep out the thunderstorm?

Nothing. Nothing happens. That’s the good news. And the bad? Nothing changes.

The sky simply loses awareness. But we can embrace the storm, welcome it as an opportunity to clear away dead wood. Then, we act from the strength of our inherent joy for the good of everyone.

We are bigger than we think.

I’d love to know what you think about the ramblings of this mythological mind, how this hit you, or what it brought up. Please leave a comment. You are all my teachers.

If you read to the end, please leave your heart, so my heart will find it. It lets me know you were walking beside me. If you were moved at all, restack, please. Subscribe if you’d like to join me on this mythic journey of love and healing, or please upgrade to a paid plan if you can. Thank you for being here. You mean the world to me.