Children should not fear their classrooms. Teachers should not carry both lesson plans and exit strategies. Parents should not wonder if goodbye at the door might be the last. And yet, this is the world we are living in. Now more than ever is a time to come together.

Patriarchy’s metric of worth is a rigged game. The more you give, the more it demands. The finish line always moves.

What if the Bible told us the gospel of Mary Magdalene alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? What if Lilith had remained Adam’s equal in the garden instead of being cast out as a demon for refusing to submit? How different would our stories be? How different would we be?

What if the neurodivergent mind—creative, intuitive, nonlinear, sensitive, emotionally rich—is not a deviation from the norm, but a return to our true nature?

You don’t have to fix the world. You don’t have to stay silent either. You just have to tend your own frequency and ripple that out like the revolution it is.

When I finally told a couple of family members what happened to me as a child, I truly didn’t know if they’d believe me. When I told my husband—and he did believe me—I thanked him. I actually said the words: Thank you for believing me.

But what happens when the political becomes personal? When the conversation isn’t about policy—it’s about rights, survival, dignity?

There was a time—before patriarchy, before empires, before ownership—when we lived by the rhythm of we. We survived together. We raised children in circles. We mourned and celebrated and healed in community. We didn’t ask who deserved support—we simply gave it. Because it was understood: what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

We are being asked to face the consequences of our collective choices—the way we’ve treated the Earth, the way we’ve treated each other, the systems we’ve upheld by participating in them (even quietly, even unconsciously).

If you don’t know what you love, you’re easier to sell to, easier to control, easier to shape.

We’ve been raised in a world that treats the Earth like a resource to be used, not a being to be loved. Taught to consume, discard, and repeat—rarely pausing to witness the trail we leave behind. But the Earth is not a backdrop. She is a living, breathing, aching body—and she remembers every choice we make.

But when the economic blackouts began—collective calls to halt our spending in protest of policies that no longer serve the people or the planet—I felt a pull. Not a push. Not guilt or pressure. A pull. A whisper from deep within that said: what if you stopped feeding the system that is starving your soul?

A story about what happens when greed wears the mask of leadership—and small business owners are the ones left to pay for it.

It’s a byproduct of a cultural movement that has handed people permission to be cruel in the name of patriotism, nationalism—even God.

This country is already hard to live in for so many. We don’t need to make it harder. We need to make it more human.

What is our responsibility when we are the ones who get to wake up free?