I started this blog ten years ago.

I stopped writing online for a long time. I didn't stop writing, of course. I will always choose pen and paper over laptop, and I needed time, time to sink into myself, figure out who I was: out, partnered, parent, educator.

Ten years later, I own a home with that same partner. My kid is in high school with her own struggles and triumphs. I am a grandparent. I have been working on a music theory and vocal qualification that will allow me to teach private music lessons.

I still yearn, as well I should, because I am not done yet. But I am also frightened.

Frightened of a world turned upside down. I'm not hiding in fear, but I am prickling with awareness. Is this the world I want to leave for my descendants? In spite of the progress I believed we were making, we have reversed course in the most terrible of ways. White supremacists have taken over the highest offices of the US government, which cares more for corporations than people. Children are being separated from their parents at the border and have suffered unknown trauma as a result. Kindness is difficult to find. I am less positive about everything.

This morning I watched a Starhawk video that helped me shift my thinking. For those of you who don't know, Starhawk is a witch, writer and activist who wrote "The Spiral Dance," the book that set me on the pathway to pagan spiritual practice.

She offered specific advice, and a spell to change the political energy of the US - I would say all of North America because some politicians, here in Ontario for example, are bringing the rhetoric of division and selling a false narrative: that tax cuts and lower wages benefit the most vulnerable as much as they benefit the corporations that the government now serves.

But my take home: my thoughts create the energy around me. While I am reading all of these horror stories, I am wrapped in anger and despair. I need to take a moment and visualize the world I want to see, direct my thought energy into positive places.

I won't hide from the truth. Part of why I am on this planet at all is to bear witness. I will still advocate, retweet, share, call in, call out, call my representative, put  my boots on the ground and march. But I will also imagine the world - the possible world, and all the wonder that it holds. If it changes nothing else, it will change me, and that is significant.

Please watch and listen as Starhawk shares her wisdom.