"At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women's March, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again.
"We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages. We know that we gather this afternoon on indigenous land and we follow the lead of the first peoples who despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle for land, water, culture, their people. We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux.

​"The freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of this country's history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter. This is a country anchored in slavery and colonialism, which means for better or for worse the very history of the United States is a history of immigration and enslavement. Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and rape and building walls will not erase history.
"No human being is illegal.
"The struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for social justice.
"This is a women's march and this women's march represents the promise of feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. And inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation. . . .
"Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. . .
"This is just the beginning and in the words of the inimitable Ella Baker, 'We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.' Thank you."

"Thank you for understanding that sometimes we must put our bodies where our beliefs are. Sometimes pressing send is not enough. . . .
I've been thinking about the uses of a long life, and one of them is you remember when things were worse. . .
So don't try to divide us. Do not try to divide us. If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims. I know that there are women here from corporations and media and all kinds of places that make it kind of risky for you to say what you care about, what you feel, and what you support. And there are women here, I know, who have survived a national and global sex industry that profiteers from body invasion. We are united here for bodily integrity. If you cannot control your body from the skin in, you cannot control it from the skin out, you cannot control your lives, our lives. And that means that the right to decide whether and when to give birth without government interference.
We are here and around the world for a deep democracy that says we will not be quiet, we will not be controlled, we will work for a world in which all countries are connected. God may be in the details, but the goddess is in connections. We are at one with each other, we are looking at each other, not up. No more asking daddy.
We are linked. We are not ranked. And this is a day that will change us forever because we are together. Each of us individually and collectively will never be the same again. When we elect a possible president we too often go home. We've elected an impossible president, we're never going home. We're staying together. And we're taking over. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Make sure you introduce yourselves to each other and decide what we're gonna do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and we're never turning back. Thank you."

A New Year's Eve bluebird sky over fresh snow . . . Expansive wonder. My long-time friend Sharon Hall shared her wishes for 2017 and I concur: "May you deepen in truth. May resilience enfold you. May beauty heal your heart. And may our circle of love expand to all beings." Big Sky, Montana

This last week was most certainly a challenge to inner peace... with family losses and those throughout the world, the most media-evident ones being in Paris, at Garrissa University in Kenya and in Beirut.

This morning I found some solace in a meditation led by Deepak Chopra entitled "Belief Embraces All Differences". Here are some of his messages:

"In parts of the world where people are divided and hostile, their faith and deepest beliefs have been distorted and constricted. When it isn't distorted, belief is one of the strongest forces for uniting in a common purpose and vision."

"The most divisive belief is 'us vs. them'. The most uniting belief is that humanity is one family.... 'Us vs. them' begins in the ego's desire to feel safe. The ego feels safe with the known and unsafe with the unknown... By clinging to only what it knows, the ego shuts out an entire world of human experience."

"The human family should be source of joy. When you find this joy in yourself, you become a unit of peace for the entire world."

"Once you share and unite with other people, the ego loses its sense of being separate and insecure."

"Open your awareness to see how alike you are with other people and how alike they are with you... It is through small gestures that we begin to express the common spirit that unites everyone."

MacArthur Fellow RICK LOWE (Project Row Houses)
Keynote Speaker,  Open Engagement Conference, #OE2015

Takeaways: 
Our task as socially-engaged artists is to bring into focus social and community projects that society has lost the capacity to see.

Deep listening - Before we act, we need to know the community in which we are working. We need to communicate with and hear our community partners. We need to learn how to see a place versus focusing on "making" a place.

It takes courage for us to do this work. Whenever we take a stand, we WILL get our ass-kicked by someone. Thank our critics for the lessons they provided us and keep going. We need to muster the courage to claim the things we believe in.