Words for a New Era
Photo by Evengi Tcherkasski on Unsplash
January 24, 2025
The inauguration has happened. The new regime has begun and every day brings more reports of its actions. As I’ve been reading and listening to responses from those with the expertise and skill to respond in useful ways, the question that emerges through my brain fog is, “How shall I then live?”
Related to this (albeit related only because I say so) is that I’ve been working toward choosing a Word of the Year. I did this last year for the first time, without a sense of direction or organized process for my search. I settled on the word vision, which never felt exactly right but seemed good enough. And it was good enough!
I want to put in a good word for good enough. So often I have felt intimidated to paralysis by everyone’s else’s achievements of creativity, eloquence, beauty, originality, and perfectly fitting Words of the Year. But now I’m letting go of all of that—all that gets in the way of my own creativity. My choice of the word vision didn’t make or define or reveal my year 2024, but it was there for me, and at times useful to recall.
I have chosen my word for 2025, but will save the big reveal for next week, as this week is winding down and writing this post has been interrupted many times, because continuous interruption is my new normal. (See The Tjikko Chronicles, below.)
Resilience is built through persistence, not perfection.
— Daily Dose of Kindness, 1/24/25, The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
This year, we are in hard times, as in the title of Sarah Bessey’s Field Notes this week: Good words for hard times.
When things feel uncertain or scary, true and good words have often functioned like a lighthouse, shining in the darkness to help me find steady ground.
— Sarah Bessey, Good words for hard times
In the good words that I’ve been reading and listening to this week, I find at least three themes: self-care, community, and hope.
Self-care
There are as many ways to care for one’s self as there are selves to care for. The practices for effective nurturing of one’s body, mind, and spirit are highly individual; but the thing about self-care that is universal is that it’s not optional. An article that clarifies the connection between self-care and political resistance is “Self-care and resistance for the political road ahead,” by Daniel P. Horan (National Catholic Reporter, 1/9/25).
Horan leads with a quote from the poet Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Horan adds:
When commentators have observed the differences between the reaction to Donald Trump's 2016 victory and his return to power in 2024, it is Lorde's line that affirms the need for people of goodwill to ready themselves for the ultramarathon toward justice and peace that marks this moment and not the sprint that more than half the nation anticipated eight years ago.
Horan then draws the connections between “the need to care for and pace oneself for the long haul” and three areas of resistance. Political resistance connects with the theme of community, and Horan advocates focusing on your local communities. In the area of intellectual resistance, he suggests caring for yourself by “being deliberate about what information one takes in and what the source of that information is.” Finally, in the area of spiritual resistance, Horan shares from his progressive Christian point of view, but emphasizes caution regarding “the ways the term ‘spirituality’ is often misused in the American context.”
Community
The astrologer Chani Nicholas, in her podcast episode this week, talked about the conjunction of the Sun with Pluto, on January 21st, which signifies that we are entering a new era. In astronomy, a conjunction is the phenomenon of two objects appearing close to each other in the sky. Chani says, “The Sun and Pluto are coming together for the first time in our lifetime, in Aquarius, which means it’s like the dawning of a new era.” This has an ominous energy; however, “it’s [also] the inception of collective power.”
While this looks like the destruction of of many different systems that benefit the people, there is also a calling … and planting of a seed for our understanding of the fact that we are the only ones that are going to save us; that our government—no matter what party you are from or are voting for or connecting to—has massively let us down. We have got to reclaim our power from the systems, we have to save whatever structures we can. …
I do think that this is a seed moment, for possibly some of the most disastrous things to happen, because Pluto takes us into the Underworld, … but also for some of the most hopeful things to happen. We forget about trying to find a savior. … We forget about trying to find a hero. And we instead refocus on our collective course of action. We refocus on our ability to take care of one another. — Astrology of the Week Ahead with Chani Nicholas, 1/20/25
Hope
On Monday Wendy MacNaughton took down the paywall on Day 20 of her 30 Days of Drawing prompts. She sounded An Artist’s Call to Attention and gave us this invitation to Take a Walk:
The Tjikko Chronicles: Go Outside and Look
Tjikko, 13 weeks old now, is at the developmental stage approximately equivalent to a 3-year-old human. It’s the stage of highest energy, curiosity, and activity. When I taught parenting classes many years ago, there was a study back then in which professional football players were given the task of following a 3-year-old around for a day. The football players were exhausted before the kids slowed down.
Curiosity leads to attention, and that is something Tjikko is teaching me. This morning I walked him out of the house for one of his dozen or so daily potty trips. We descended the front porch steps—a skill he fully mastered a couple of days ago (climbing up the steps came first, as it’s easier)—then trod a well-worn, iced-over-snow path around the corner of the house and through the holly and forsythia shrubs, which thankfully are free of snow and ice under the branches.
When we reached the side of the house Tjikko stopped, sat down, cocked his head and watched intently across the narrow lawn toward the house next door. He would not be coaxed back to business, so finally I looked to see what might be attracting his attention.
I saw movement in the next door neighbor’s foundation plantings, and then I saw two or more birds that were causing the stir. I have never before seen birds in low bushes like that. Birds, anywhere and everywhere, are hopeful.
Roberto Che Espinoza, PhD writes:
As we step into this week, may we carry this hope in our hearts and our hands. Let it remind us that justice is not a destination but a way of walking. Let it fuel our capacity to persist, to dream, and to organize for the sake of the world we long for. And let it anchor us in the truth that we are not alone in this work. We are a collective becoming, bound together by love and a shared yearning for something better.
So, dear ones, let us rise this morning and every morning with the conviction that the Beloved Community is not only possible but already here, waiting for us to notice it, to nurture it, and to expand its reach. This week, may your words be gentle, your actions bold, and your dreams unyielding.
Together, let us be the becoming. — Roberto Che Espinoza, PhD, Monday Meditation, 1/20/25
And a final word, from Wendy MacNaughton:
Do the things you want to see more of in the world. More to the point, make them.
