like you, i’m feeling the revolution as the usa celebrates independence tomorrow and the whole world is feeling the uprise… usually. i like to celebrate it as interdependence day and it feels more and more of us are awakening to that truth – that we are interconnected in an amazing tapestry, what happens to one, happens to all…

in this pivotal moment in the usa when more and more of us are facing the music that we are a country built on genocide and slavery and injustice, in this opportune moment where we can choose a revolutionary path and walk the talk of our ideals, let us listen to the prophetic and poignant words of a black live movement leader from a speech 168 years ago…

“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….

  …Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the ‘lame man leap as an hart.’ 

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…”

~ Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 ~

america is not yet what she was proclaimed to be, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” have become hypocrisy while black Americans are continuously brutalized, while the money runs out and the rent is due for 140 million poor and low-income folks and while the COVID-19 cases disproportionately affect and devastate black and native american communities and essential workers are sacrificed to this system…

so let us commit to and act from our true nature of generosity and cooperation and compassion to weave the tapestry of a country and a world understanding no one is free until we all are free living liberty and justice for all… howlelujah for the full moon and lunar eclipse energizing the revolution, release and rebirth…