EXCELLENT! — Trump Addresses My top Issues: Renaming Gulf of Mexico and Invading Greenland

If this were an Onion piece, it would be among their best. Please also know that in sharing this, in no way am I minimizing anything or saying that the incoming President isn't profoundly dangerous to the welfare of us all. He is! What I am saying is that dark humor is one way of coping that causes no harm, that can actually be therapeutic, and that can remind us that we must not lose our laughter in the midst of the madness that this man and his administration embody. Remembering that, this piece had me laughing again and again — and maybe it will you, too! So lets do the best that we can to not leave out the laugh part of laugh, scream, or cry. We are truly all in this together and together we will get through these very scary times. 💗🙏😁 Molly

Praise the lord! No more windmills, either!

By Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

As a devout supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, I voted for him because I knew he would address the issues that most impact my life.

I’m talking, of course, about militarily overtaking the largely inhospitable Danish territory of Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico and outlawing windmills.

So you can imagine my delight when my hero, president-elect Trump, gave a press conference Tuesday and strongly addressed those crucial subjects, along with other things that matter deeply to REAL AMERICANS like me, including shower water pressure and making Canada part of the United States.

I voted for Trump for one reason: An American invasion of Greenland

Refusing to rule out using the military to take control of Greenland, Trump, who I voted for because I knew he would keep us out of wars, said: “Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. … People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up.”

YES! I was predominantly a one-issue voter, and that issue was the exorbitant cost of seal meat. By threatening our ally Denmark and using military force if necessary, the Trump administration can proudly claim Greenland as a U.S. territory, dramatically lowering the cost of seal meat for American consumers like myself.  That will allow me and my fellow MAGA supporters to affordably make Suaasat, a Greenlandic soup, AS IS OUR RIGHT AS AMERICANS!

Some voters were concerned about egg prices. TRUE PATRIOTS were concerned about seal-meat prices. And Trump is on the case.

I am very worried about the name 'Gulf of Mexico'

The soon-to-be president also announced a change that has been talked about for years in the rural diners I frequent with my fellow forgotten American men and women.

"We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “Gulf of America – what a beautiful name.”

SO BEAUTIFUL! And also, so directly impactful on the quality of my day-to-day life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to miss work because I was feeling down about having to give Mexico credit for that 218,0000-square-mile, semi-enclosed oceanic basin that I know was BUILT BY AMERICANS.

America for sure owns the Gulf of AMERICA, people!

As Trump said Tuesday: “We're going to change, because we do most of the work there, and it's ours.”

Damn straight it’s ours! Are you going to tell me that 200 million years ago when the Pangea supercontinent was breaking up there weren’t big, strong American workers causing tectonic plates to shift and form our beautiful gulf? Liberals probably wrote that in our history books, but thanks to voters like me, Trump will set the record straight.

Finally, a president who hates windmills as much as I do

The greatest president in history, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, went on to bless us with this: “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built.”

Praise the lord! I know some in the MAGA community are more concerned about the economy, immigration and making life terrible for transgender people, but many of us picked Trump again because we abso-freakin’-lutely despise windmills.

They are distracting and can easily be mistaken for giants, leading innocent Americans to tilt at them like the late, great Don Quixote used to do. (Hopefully, Trump will also soon announce that Don Quixote will be renamed “Don America.”)

MAGA voters wanted a president unafraid of Big Shower

Trump also addressed America’s shower-water-pressure crisis, saying: “When you buy a faucet, no water comes out because they want to preserve, even in areas that have so much water you don't know what to do, it's called rain, it comes down from heaven. No water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip.”

Finally, we will have a president with the meteorological knowledge to identify that rain correctly comes from heaven. This is clearly the man best suited to handle America’s nuclear codes.

I'm sure Canadians will welcome America taking control of their country

Speaking of which, Trump also said he’d use economic force to annex Canada as America’s 51st state and “get rid” of the border, which he called an “artificially drawn line.”

Amen, sir. I voted for a man who believes borders are crucial, except for that one. Don't worry, Mexico, you'll be fine.

I can’t wait to watch President-elect Trump continue to make all his supporters’ dreams come true.

As long as those dreams involve whatever he happens to be talking about on any given day.

MAGA!

Please go here for this article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-addresses-top-issues-renaming-210514313.html

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wants to rename Gulf of Mexico. I'm all for it | Opinion

Mary Oliver: Moon and Water

Moonset over the Pacific. Photo by Molly

Moon and Water

I wake and spend

the last hours

of darkness

with  no one

but the moon.

She listens

to my complaints

like the good

companion she is

and comforts me surely

with her light.

But she, like everyone,

has her own life.

So finally I understand

that she has turned away,

is no longer listening.

She wants me

to refold myself

into my own life.

And, bending close,

as we all dream of doing,

she rows with her white arms

through the dark water

which she adores.

— Mary Oliver

Roshi Joan Halifax: Discovery at the Edge of Integrity

Discovery at the Edge of Integrity

In these complicated times, we have plenty of opportunities to transform moral suffering into moral resilience, what ethicist Cynda Rushton defines as “the capacity of an individual to sustain or restore their integrity in response to moral complexity, confusion, distress, or setbacks.” When we have moral resilience, we are able to stand strong in our integrity, even in the midst of moral adversity.

There is a Japanese practice called kintsukuroi, meaning “golden repair.” Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing broken pottery with powdered gold or platinum mixed with lacquer, so that the repair reflects the history of breakage. The “repaired” object mirrors the fragility, imperfection, and beauty of life—and also its strength. The object returns to wholeness, to integrity.

I am not suggesting that we should seek brokenness as a way of gaining strength, although some cultures do pursue crisis in their rites of passage as a way to strengthen character and open the heart. Rather, I am proposing that the wounds and harms that arise from falling over the edge into moral suffering can have positive value under the right circumstances. Moral distress, the pain of moral injury and outrage, and even the numbness of moral apathy can be the means for the “golden repair,” for developing a greater capacity to stand firm in our integrity without being swayed by the wind.

Over my years of traveling to Japan, I have held several of these exquisitely repaired vessels in my hands. I have seen that the “golden repair” is not a hidden repair. It shows clearly the cracked and broken nature of our lives. It combines ordinary stuff and precious metals to repair the crack but not hide it. This, I believe, is how moral transformation happens and integrity opens—not by rejecting suffering but by incorporating the suffering into a stronger material, the material of goodness, so that the broken parts of our nature, our society, and our world can meet in the gold of wholeness.

— Roshi Joan Halifax

From Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom

Where Fear and Courage Meet

Jason Espada: Epiphany — Like Rivers Meeting

Thank you Jason Espada for this.

So beautiful and wise.

🙏 Molly

Three Kings Day, January 6th, commemorates the recognition of Jesus by wise ones the world over, seeing his divinity as universal, and honoring that symbolically with gifts…

The men in this archetype, it is said, were not just kings, but magi, three wise men.

They were magicians, healers, or holy people, and therefore, they were not just representing worldly, temporal power and authority, but spiritual wisdom and virtue as manifested in different traditions.

Three here indicates diversity.

This is the universal recognition of the divinity of Christ.

I reflect on the part of this story that says the three wise ones followed a star - that divine inspiration guided them to the place where Jesus, the Incarnation, manifest in our world…

* * *

There are many names given in spiritual traditions for what is truly the most important thing in life, what is essential for us each to know.

In Christian language it can be called the virgin birth, revelation, resurrection, witnessing the temple not made of human hands, transubstantiation, and changing water into wine;

All of these terms can be understood as metaphor, referring an inner spiritual experience.

All of these then have the same meaning, of being made new by knowing the Divine.

This can also be called epiphany, which is a kind of waking up - a sudden and complete knowledge.

In the story of the Three Wise Men, Holy Ones from different lands and traditions follow a star, divine guidance, and arrive together to honor the Incarnation of Divinity in our world.

These Kings were named as Melchior, Balthasar, and Caspar, and it is said they were from Persia, Ethiopia, and India, respectively.

I imagine they set out independently, from these far off lands, and traveled long weeks and months to arrive together in Jerusalem. At some point they met and recognized they were all going to the same place, with the same purpose in mind.

They were each religious or spiritual figures, representatives of their own great Traditions.

The significance of them journeying to honor Jesus is that of wisdom recognizing and celebrating the divine in another place, in another culture and tradition.

This event being commemorated can be seen then as one affirming universal truth, of vivifying revelation, and divinity.

It is the model for interfaith wisdom, enrichment, and celebration.

I can imagine Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jewish and indigenous leaders also journeying long to meet spiritual leaders of other faith traditions. I know this is possible because this has happened in the past, this happening even now, and it will happen also in the future, I am sure.

So this is a joyful week on our calendar, with profound significance for us all.

The word that was chosen to name and commemorate this awakening and coming together is epiphany, which is this universally recognized as an experience of light, of sudden illumination, and of grace and blessings. It is our aha moment when everything changes for us.

When we have any epiphany of a spiritual nature, we find ourselves lifted up, in accord with all those seekers who have come before us, all those living now, and all those who will follow; familial, and transcending traditions.

When rivers meet, they are of one water, and their joining together is beautiful, and bountiful, and of greater power than when they were apart.

The feeling of it is that somehow we were destined to meet. We have been guided to this day and to this sacred event.

Let word go out then. Invite all to this feast, where we know each other as one family, in communion… 

— Jason Espada

https://jasonespada.com/

Chelan Harkin: SIN

 

SIN

Speak to us of sin. And the Prophetess spoke,

Of all the false names for God, start by throwing out "Judge." God has no podium, no gavel. She longs to celebrate you, to sing to you, to kiss you awake. The structure She wants for our lives is that which will support our growing happiness, more a trellis than a hard, restricting set of laws.

To sin, essentially, means to not drink in as much light as you possibly could have.

The straight and narrow? That notion must go. This life is an ever-widening unfoldment of your luminosity. It is time to step outside the bounds of the linear march towards salvation and begin to see God as a dancing spiral that encompasses all creation.

I am not suggesting moral anarchy. I am telling you we need to move from a harsh, judgment-based, ideological morality to an authentic morality that recognizes we are animated by Life's natural goodness. I am telling you that there is innocence at the root of our missteps — Not an innocence that bypasses accountability but an essential innocence, the recognition of which makes us brave enough to be accountable. I am telling you that institutional models of fear and shame perpetuate sin, and that sin comes from pain that hasn't been able to find belonging.

That said, if you think that the Eccentric God who made the octopus is going to judge you for your sins, I'm afraid you've missed the mark. If you think this Wild God who spins galaxies as a pastime cares to get fussy about your mistakes or has ever made anything that wasn't born essentially luminous, you might need to repent. If you can't yet admit how lovable and infinitely worthy the fullness of your human nature is and if you think God wants to do anything but perpetually pour an abundance of love gifts upon you, well, my dear, your soul just might need to go to confession.

Sin is a distorted expression that reflects disconnect from the truth of our essential beauty. Most often it is not punishment that needs to be administered so much as the beauty of our reality to be attuned to and affirmed.

To sin is to act incongruously with the wild grace of love. But there is no condemnation in that. This love doesn't abandon us with her scorn. Love is incapable of such things. We do, however, experience the natural suffering of dissonance then living outside of the harmonious, interconnected eco-system of Life. This pain yearns not to punish — Nothing about Life is punitive — but to provide feedback that can aid us in reassuring our motivations that we might come closer to nourishing, sustainable relationship with existence.

Judgment is a crude, old-fashioned tool. Attraction to the beauty we might experience and contribute through harmonious relationship with ourself and our world is the paradigm that needs to be nurtured.

Sin is not a condemnation of character or any kind of lasting black mark. It comes from the misperception of experiencing yourself as being separate from love and acting out that pain of that.

The worst thing we ever did is put God in the sky, out of reach, pulling the divinity from the leaf, sifting out the holy from our bones, insisting God isn't bursting dazzlement through everything we've made a hard commitment to see as ordinary. The worst thing we ever did is strip the sacred from everywhere to put in a cloud-man elsewhere, prying closeness from your heart.

The worst thing we ever did is take the dance and the song out of prayer, made it sit up straight and cross its legs. We removed it of rejoicing, wiped clean its hip sway, its questions, its ecstatic yowl, its tears.

The worst thing we ever did is pretend God isn't the easiest thing in this Universe, available to every soul, in every breath.

— Chelan Harkin

Excerpted from The Prophetess:

The Return of The Prophet from The Voice

of The Divine Feminine

https://www.waucomabookstore.com/chelan-harkin-signed-books

I love Chelan Harkin. And I have

all of her beautiful and amazing books.

Such a priceless gift! 💗🙏 Molly

Chris Jordan: I Wish For You the Experience of Beauty

I Wish For You the

Experience of Beauty

This year I wish for you the experience of beauty. Grand and magnificent beauty, beauty in small and subtle details, beauty on every channel and in every dimension. Not as a diversion or avoidance of anything, but as a kind of compass that can guide one home to our essence, to remind us who we are and what matters. May it be so, now and always, with my love to you.

― Chris Jordan

John O'Donohue: At the End of the Year

At the End of the Year

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

― John O'Donohue

From To Bless The Space Between Us: 

A Book of Blessings

Visions, Intentions, Prayers for the New Year ― and A Dedication To Kindness

All photos are by Molly

Visions, Intentions, Prayers

for the New Year ― and 

A Dedication To Kindness

This is the first day of 2025. And I send heartfelt blessings to all today and in the times to come. May you experience growing peace and purpose, clarity and courage, community and connection, kindness and compassion, beauty and love.

I also need to acknowledge that it is sometimes difficult for me to simply say Happy New Year. This is because I am acutely aware of the great suffering on Earth of countless humans and other beings. That said, alongside my sorrow for the pain, loss, and trauma of so many also resides my profound gratitude for the deep gifts and blessings of my life. There are so many!

* * * * *

Random Acts of Kindness

And then I think of Roy. It had been some time since I had first seen him out on the corner I frequent when getting off the freeway on my way home. Whenever possible, my hand would reach his before the light turned green with a dollar bill and a granola bar, my standard that I always keep handy for anyone on any corner with their little signs asking for help. 

There were times before I knew his name that I was unable to reach him because he would be doing a frenetic dance, swirling about erratically and not able to see my attempts to connect with him. And I recognized the meth dance. And I felt so sad. There were other times that angry eyes met mine under his head full of thick curry hair. And I knew that his anger had nothing to do with me. 

Then, finally, one day he was standing there and the light had just turned red and I could see that he was calm as he approached my outstretched hand. And our eyes met, as did our smiles. And I asked, "What is your name?" And he responded, "Roy." And I said, "Hi Roy. My name is Molly." "Nice to meet you," Roy responded. And as the light was turning green and we were still briefly smiling at one another, I looked into Roy's eyes and said, "You matter."

Roy does not think that he matters. But he does. We all do... My heart is touched with these deep truths. Tears....

Among my Visions for this New Year is that, among those of us who are able, we human beings will find our own unique ways to expand our random acts of kindness. Because we all matter. No exceptions.

* * * * *

Finding the Light In Darkness

How is it that we humans grow our capacity for generosity, compassion, caring, and acting out of the consciousness of a higher good for ourselves and others? Such a critical question to be asking ourselves. And, of course, we will each have our own unique responses.

For myself, and as I continue to grow and expand my experiences and awareness in an ongoing way, I have come to see things in a different light. One example is reflected in how it hasn't been that long ago that I would speak of the need to strengthen our hearts. Today I recognize that my heart has always been strong ― and that it has been the blockages, the obstacles that I have built to protect myself from pain which have obscured my embodiment of my already strong-heart.

Which brings me to my Intentions. Very clearly, for myself, this includes the passion to persist on this amazing journey of retrieving and transforming the wounded parts of myself which have impaired my capacity to be more fully alive and grounded in the wholeness of who I am.

This path of growing into greater authenticity is not easy. Not at all. It is a courageous journey. And especially given the unhealthy culture that we live in coupled often with generations of carried pain and trauma. That said, it has also been my experience that being stuck in the old hurting parts of ourselves creates far more pain for ourselves, our loved ones, and beyond than doing the inner work to free ourselves from that pain. The avoidance of this shadow work also puts us on auto-play as our unresolved past continues to show up again and again in the present. I say this with the deepest compassion and tenderness because I know what it is to be stuck. Deeply. And for years and years. And I also know that we all are always and absolutely doing the best that we can.

One way in which I have heard our commonly held human struggles framed very much resonates with my experience. This narrative illuminates that it is like being stuck in deep mud right alongside the road you see and want to be on. Yet with each effort to step out of the mud with one foot, the other foot goes in deeper. Medication can help us get out of the mud. Or 12 Step programs. Or certain kinds of counseling or spiritual practices and on and on. However, and this is key, if we don't retrieve and transform the roots of the pain and trauma which first propelled us into our depression, addictions, anxiety, unhealthy relationships, autoimmune diseases and other illnesses, etc. ― then it is very likely that at some point we will fall off the road and all the way back into the mud again.

Today I understand that our hurting parts desperately want to be seen, held, and freed from their pain and will continue to rise up with different symptoms, and often more and more strongly, the longer that we ignore them. Too often, sadly, what happens is that we connect with resources which, while addressing our symptoms, bypass addressing and unburdening the deeper trauma that we have absorbed. And then we end up back in the mud again and again. This has been my very painful experience ― one which went on for years into my sobriety and journey of seeking to break the generational cycles of addictions and pain for myself and my children.

What I have discovered and experienced over many years now are layers of ancestral, cultural, and collective trauma that I believe we humans all carry. Unburdening ourselves of this trauma is profoundly freeing and life changing. It is this deeply transformative journey that asks of us to stop the endless running and move towards the pain we've unknowingly inherited from our families and culture. 

Francis Weller writes, "I am not suggesting that we live a life preoccupied with sorrow. I am saying that our refusal to welcome the sorrows that come to us, our inability to move through these experiences with true presence and conscious awareness, condemns us to a life shadowed by grief. Welcoming everything that comes to us is the challenge. This is the secret to being fully alive."

There is so much light within ourselves and each other that glows ever more brightly as we move individually and together through the dark places we humans have long carried within ourselves. As we do, we discover our loving core that has always been there and that is the true essence of who I believe we all are.

* * * * *

A Prayer For Unity

How do we nourish ourselves and find beauty and joy and courage and resilience in these times? There are so many different paths which bring us home to ourselves, which empower us to blossom, and which lead us out of isolation and into community. And there are countless resources which empower us to heal, to retrieve and transform trauma, and to experience our greater wholeness as sacred beings. And, of course, no two human beings will share the same path.

It is also my perspective that there are commonalities which are at the core of what supports us to more and more deeply open to love. And that's the bottom line. Does our journey bring us into the place of ever deepening compassion and love for ourselves and all beings? Are we turning our inner and outer walls sideways to become bridges? Are we transforming our tendencies to shame, judge, dehumanize ourselves and others into greater consciousness, kindness, and generosity? For me, these are key questions.

I am also deeply aware that the inner reflects the outer and that the implications of our individual and collective human journeys have far ranging consequences. We are always creating ripples through our actions, beliefs, emotions, and thoughts. And what remains unhealed within us will find its way into the outer world. Thus the value of our paths of heart and healing — and how it is that we find support for ourselves while also offering that support, as we are able, to others — is invaluable.

And as we embody greater unity, peace, clarity, compassion, and love within ourselves, the greater those qualities will also grow and expand in our world.

Prayer For Unity

You, the One

From whom on different paths

all of us have come.

To Whom on different paths

All of us are going.

Make strong in our hearts what unites us.

Build bridges across all that divides us;

United make us rejoice in our diversity.

At one in our witness to your peace,

A rainbow of your glory.

Amen.

— Br. David Steindl-Rast

* * * * *

A Dedication to Kindness

A dedication to kindness offers us a chance to try to make a real difference despite the obstacles and unhappiness we might face. No matter what our belief systems, actions, or status, we are joined together in this world through the strands of relationship and interconnection. That suffering child, orphaned through a tsunami, who we see in Indonesia or Sri Lanka is part of our lives, as we must not forget that. There is nothing that just happens only "there" anymore - not a war, not an exploitation of the weak, not a disease, not a hope for change. We need to stop reinforcing the sense of dehumanization, of "us" and "them," of separation that leads to wanton cruelty in the first place.

And if tomorrow is going to look any better than today, we must realize that the currency for compassion isn't what someone does, right or wrong - it is the very fact that that person exists. Commitment to the possibility of kindness cannot be discarded as foolish or irrelevant, even in troubling times when we often can't find easy answers. If we abandon the force of kindness as we confront cruelty, we won't learn anything to take into tomorrow - not from history, not from one another, not from life.

Even if we are encountering cruelty, we must try to understand its roots and determine not to be the same as those acting it out. We must determine not to simply keep perpetrating the forces of separation and disregard. If we don't make the effort, what will we really have accomplished?...

We can all keep on trying, through the extension of lovingkindness to others, and make the effort to pay attention to them in an inclusive way rather than splitting them off into the "other" - the "different" ones who can be hurt with impunity. This doesn't at all mean that we will like everybody or acquiesce to everyitng that he or she does. It doesn't mean that we become complacent or passive about naming wrongdoing as wrong or about seeking change, sometimes very forcefully, with our whole heart.

Practicing lovingkindness does mean that we learn to see the lives of others, really see them, as related to our own lives. It means that we open up to the possibility of caring for others not just because we like them or admire them or are indebted to them in some way, but because our lives are inextricably linked to one another's. We use the practice of lovingkindness meditation as a way to recover our innermost knowledge of that linkage as we dissolve the barriers we have been upholding and genuinely awaken to how connected we all are.

―Sharon Salzberg

* * * * *

With love and blessings to all,

💗

Molly

John O'Donohue: Beannacht ― A Blessing for the New Year

Photo by Molly

Beannacht / Blessing

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

 

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

 

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

 

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

 

- John O'Donohue