Ampersand Gazette #35

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And as most politicians can attest, it is easier to rally disparate factions around saying “no” than to figure out something they will all say “yes” to—especially when it comes to complex legislation. 

from an Opinion Essay by Editorial Board Member Michelle Cottle
“Speaker McCarthy Is Feeling the Heat” in The New York Times
April 17, 2023 

Complex legislation?!?!?! I’m willing to stake my top bet—a quarter, if you must know—that this congress couldn’t even agree on what to order for lunch on any given day. Which, of course, is not the real question.  

The real question is: Why is it so much easier to say no than yes? 

Is it that we’re just clearer about what’s a no? I don’t think so. In the process of growing up, one definitely discovers that there’s a whole lot of grey area when it comes to life and its decisions. Because, some days, the truth is that I don’t care what’s for lunch. 

There is, however, no day, not one, wherein I don’t care about how large organizations, like Congress, treat not ‘the people,’ no, not them, but the person. One person. You. Me. 

I think a focus on ‘the people’ makes legislators, amongst others, lose sight of the one person. And, not to state too obvious a point, the people are made up of one person and another person and another, ad infinitum.  

The people have similarities, sure. 

The individual persons have differences. 

Both are to be celebrated. 

And so now, here we are in this world where there happen to be a small group of people who would like to tell individual persons how to live because this small group believes that their way is the right way. Further, that the individual persons they want to supervise take the wrong way. 

Well, now there’s an occasion to say a big ol’ honkin’ NO. 

No, because No. No one has the right tell another person how to live. Not even Congress. 

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Now consider the words of Joanna Macy … 

Environmental activist Joanna Macy has worked much of her long life on what she calls “the work that reconnects.” … Of our current crisis, Ms. Macy has said, “The darker the circumstance, the more brilliant the invitation.” 

from an Op-Ed Essay in The New York Times by Mary Pipher
“Grandmothers of the World, Unite”
April 16, 2023 

And what is that invitation that Ms. Macy so tantalizingly offers? The work that reconnects, and this is where our yesses must apply, soundly and often. 

You see, it is disconnection personified to talk about ‘the people,’ to think about what ‘the people’ want, to presume to know what ‘the people’ need. Disconnection itself, in living color. 

Ah, yes, but to accept her invitation to connect, Beloved, can be hard. Especially when we’re dealing with people who want to shame or stifle or otherwise dis-exist our very souls. It’s very hard, and yet, it is what’s required, and here’s why. Read on. 

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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938) 

from Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day email
April 18, 2023 

What’s required is that we offer to those who do not wish to see us, deal with us, acknowledge us, as the persons, the individuals they are, even when they do not offer the same courtesy to us. 

I want the right to be free. So, I hope, do you. If that’s the case, we have to learn to say yes to the individuals who keep saying no to us—to our very existence, it matters not what subcategory you fit in: drag queen, pregnant person, trans person, person of color, queer person, non-Christian. I could keep going but why? We know who we are. 

We have a mission in the face of our world at the moment. That is to say no to dis-existing us whilst at the same time offering those who attempt it the invitation to connect, a distinct yes. I believe we pick our missions long before we get here. It’s a soul thing. 

When you are next disheartened by some small group or other trying to erase you, and, sadly, you will be, we all will, stop. Say your no, even if it’s just within yourself. Then also within yourself, offer a chance to reconnect to that person who is adamantly no-ing you. It’s simple, not easy. 

What you’ll find, eventually, is that you truly do connect within yourself with that desire to be seen as a person, sovereign unto yourself, and then it will be far easier to see the sad, scared, mad bullies in front of you as just the same. 

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To the Editor: 

Attempting to revise classic literature for a modern world sounds great at first. But it has serious ramifications. 

We cannot rewrite history for our own contentment. Because if we do, we’re refusing to acknowledge the anguish caused by the prejudice and bigotry they delineate. 

We cannot pretend that racial slurs have not been violently thrown off the tips of tongues, and that they didn’t wound those they were intended for. We cannot pretend that women have not been suppressed for millenniums, and that chauvinism wasn’t prevalent in many facets of life. We cannot pretend that people weren’t disparaged and dehumanized. Because they were. And they still are. 

If we change these words, if we change these stories, we aren’t merely effacing the discrimination within them. We are effacing the years of pain and suffering they represent. 

Keya Mehta
New York

The writer is a high school freshman.
from Letters to the Editor in The New York Times
April 15, 2023 

These are the words of a person who is most likely fourteen years of age. Fourteen. She’s one hundred percent in the right as well. Rewriting history “for our own contentment” is a notion that has travesty writ large within it. 

Personally, I think a better phrase might have been “for our own complacency” because, in fact, that’s really what it is. Aren’t all these revampings, updatings, rewritings all about we don’t wanna? We don’t wanna have to do the work that the facts ask of us. 

Do I like it that I was born to become a nice white lady and that such a label comes with some assumptions and a status that is, really, abhorrent? No. But was I? Yes.  

Don’t erase the past, though! Please! It’s important that I know how and why I arrived as I did where I did so that I can own my side of the street within that selfsame past, heal it, and be part of the solution. 

Book-banning is no solution. It never has been. David Merrick, that fine old rapscallion of a theatre producer used to say, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity except no publicity.” The more taboos that are placed on books that tell the truth, the more they will sell, and the more popular they will become. It’s been proven time and again.  

[Whatever you do, don’t think about pink elephants. How long did it take them to show up? A nanosecond? A zeptosecond?] 

Instead of rewriting history—for any reason whatsoever—perhaps it would be better to start a book club for reading the originals of the great classics, and talking them over through the lens of the values of today. See where that takes you. 

We are surrounded by cautionary tales, Beloved, if only we’ll read them. 

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And in publishing news … 

It’s May Day as I send this, our wedding anniversary, and very happily the first one in which we have a proper marriage certificate from the State of New York. We had to sue the Department of Public Health to get it, but so? The best thing about that is that we set legal precedent for the entire fifty states as a result. 

Within the next few days, I will be getting in touch with my book designer to begin the process of the visuals for Book 2 of The Subversive Lovelies, Jasmine Increscent, which will be finished TODAY. So exciting. It took me just shy of three months to write almost 250,000 words—now that’s a story that wants telling! Believe me when I tell you, it pushed me every single day! I think I missed two days of writing in all that time. 

For those who want to get a head start on the series, here’s Book One, Jezebel Rising. 

I’ll keep you up-to-date on the process with Jasmine as I go along. Now comes re-reading, my edits, then my editor’s edits [Even if I am married to him, he’s the BEST—after all, the man edited my books for twenty years before I married him … just sayin’…] and integrating those, then we read it aloud, and then it’s time for the physical production to commence. 

SNEAK PREVIEW: I think I’m going to be going right into Book Three of the series as my next writing project, Gemma Eclipsing. These Bailey sisters have me riveted. 

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Soulful Conversations at OneSpirit Learning Alliance May 4th  7-8 PM on Zoom 

Everyone is intuitive. Everyone. Without exception. It’s just that so few of us have been taught how to pay attention to it. In our fast-paced, consumer world, intuitive anything is actually counterintuitive! Go figure that. 

Why? Because intuition is quiet. Because intuition is interior. Because intuition is personal. And

it doesn’t require a class or a book or a teacher, but … in case you need a little brush-up on

connecting with your intuition, chakra expert Dr. Susan Corso will lead today’s soulful

conversation based on the sixth chakra, the intuitive one. 

Begin to honor the depth of your own intuitive knowing … 

It’s free, and there’s a suggested donation if you can. Register here. 

I finished the prep for this presentation on Friday. It ought to be an enlightening hour. 

Ignite the Light Expo with The Afterlight Institute May 12, 13, & 14, 2023 

I will be interviewed by Lauren Grace, the founder of The Afterlight Institute, on Facebook Live on May 12th from 8-9 PM. 

If this conversation with Lauren is anything like the others I’ve had—I swear she’s my sister from another mother—it will range all over the spiritual universe and ought to be a lot of fun. 

Click the title to register. I’m really excited about this one! 

Reclaiming Our Spiritual Heritage: An LGBTQ Spirituality Virtual Conference June 17th to 24th, 2023 on Zoom

It’s quite a thrill to have been asked to be a featured speaker at this conference, especially since our trans family members are under such attack. Christian de la Huerta, the author of Coming Out Spiritually, is the host of this worldwide Zoom event. 

You are in for a real treat for this one. I did my interview with Christian this week, and it was amazing. Christian and I have known one another for thirty years, and we find that we are so often on the same page spiritually that it no longer shocks us.  

We talked in depth about the lawsuit against New York State, how to resist without being in resistance, and using energy work for meta-healing, and someone (like me) always going first. Utter magic. 

Beloved, I know it can feel like things are getting rougher and tougher in the world. Please try to remember that in doing your own work, you help to heal everyone and the planet. Don’t lose heart! Be ampersand, and I’ll see you in two weeks, S.