— by Cindy Wolf —
As evening falls this Solstice, the lights in the village windows remind me that islands of warmth and camaraderie are that much more precious when the world feels cold and dark. The increasingly hostile rhetoric coming from the White House and contempt for democracy shown by the national legislature are hard to hear; the unvarnished, collective, pervasive truth about sexual harassment and misogyny is painful to see. Deep wells of rage and hopelessness can drown you, sap your energy and silence your voices. Courage is called for. Thank you each for offering a torch of hope and wisdom to the people around you.
The thing that made the difference in Alabama, the thing that turned Virginia blue, the thing that flipped the Washington State Senate, the thing that drove our own Immigrant’s Rights Ordinance, was the courageous work of women and their allies willing to believe in each other, organize, speak out loud, and have the conversations that change hearts and minds. As you enjoy the company of your loved ones this Holiday season, I hope find your voice and tell some stories.
Perhaps you can tell your littlest relatives about how the Bald Eagles nearly went extinct from DDT, and then people listened to scientific data and made rules against the poison and the Eagles came back. Give the older kids a glimpse of Three Mile Island and rivers on fire and race riots and school integration and feminist awakenings with all the eye witness details you can add to the story. Tell them how people got together and overcame fear and powerful opposition to make the country safer and more just. Give the adults your memories of the things you are proudest of and the things you wish you had done better and your stories of survival and transcendence. You are the memory of how things were and how they can change for better or worse. You have the power to keep truth alive, provoke thought and plant seeds of activism simply by telling your stories to people and listening to theirs. Even the women we profoundly disagree with politically are at least experiencing what it is like to be entitled to an opinion and empowered to act on it.
Refuse to be silent and invisible. Keep writing those postcards and making those phone calls. Get out and march in Seattle or rally in Olympia on January 20th, 2018! Go see that we are not the only island of support and sanity. Women all around this country are bringing about profound change because we have found our voices. We are working together and trusting each other. Hold hands and breathe.
Cindy Wolf is a founder of Orcas Women’s Coalition (OWC)
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Eloquently stated and forcefully argued, you speak the truth.
The Dali Lama predicted it would be Western woman who changes the world. Indeed, with leaders like Cindy Wolf stepping forth to lead, galvanize and encourage women, we will find our lost voices and our unrealized courage and we will be the ones the world has been waiting for.
Thank-you, Cindy for all your leadership and hard work in helping to organize the women of Orcas after the election of Donald Trump. The Orcas Women’s Coalition -through the leadership and unflagging energy of its LIFT subcommittee- convinced our County Council to adopt an ordinance to protect peaceful and productive undocumented immigrants in San Juan County. We door-belled to help elect Manka Dhingra and flipped the State Senate Blue. Wow!