Mirror, mirror on the wall...where is Trump in us all?

In the words of Pema Chodron “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

If you are reading this, chances are that like me, there were many times over the past four years that you wished Donald Trump would just go away. Today, November 7th, with the election of new President of the US, I hope that we have learned what we needed to learn from him. Truly, he is the greatest mirror for the collective program of greed, separation, violence, and abhorrent misuse of power that we could have possibly asked for.

That he has been (and still is) one of the most powerful people on the earth at this time is an energy that we have all created. Not just Americans. ALL of us. We are all* active and passive (or in many cases…forced) participants in this collective program, and the energy that we have put into feeding this beast of a system through thousands of years of occupation and oppression, and that we continue to put in by participating in the running of this well-oiled beast, have created this very present moment.

This very present moment that includes a clear road to climate chaos and mass extinction; extreme social inequities across the globe with whole countries like Yemen experiencing extreme famine while in places like Ontario the food that we throw away accounts for something like 8% of global warming; and where white supremacists and neo-Nazis not only still exist, but openly thrive. Of course, these three points are just the tip of the greed and separation iceberg.

We may not like it, but Donald Trump is the perfect mirror for this program that exists inside all of us. Having had four years of having our faces rubbed in our own shit, I really hope that we are done. That now that we have been forced to really see it, we will find that we cannot turn away from it anymore. And that we will now turn our attention very directly and actively towards the changes that we need to make to eradicate this program of greed and separation if we hope to survive. Yes, our lives really do depend on it.

Think about it…would Black Lives have risen up with their roars of ENOUGH IS ENOUGH if it weren’t for the pitchforks of white supremacy jabbing at them so profoundly these past few years? Would the fires of change have been stoked enough under the leadership of Hilary Clinton? Did we need Donald Trump to ensure that it just got too hot to handle?

There is truth in the saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” The occupiers created a system of endorsed segregation, enslavement, and the superiority of one-over-all (human and non-human). And although the occupied resisted (and still do), with some more success in some places than in others, at some point even the occupied had to try to join ‘em, atleast to some extent, for their own survival. But now, these people have risen in their power with their voices demanding change. Donald Trump gave them no choice. It just got too hot. And ENOUGH IS ENOUGH they had to say. (AND don’t forget #MeToo also happened with Donald Trump’s energy stoking the flames of that unbearable fire too.)

And so, has it gotten hot enough yet to let the movement continue ripple into all of the areas of our lives that so desperately need change, to continue bring down this system so deeply embedded with such extreme separation? Has it gotten hot enough yet to actually acknowledge the massive systemic changes that are needed to right the extreme imbalances of not only racial and social disparities (and outright violent oppression) but also for the global environmental/eco-separation crisis that is climate change?

I hope so.

And so I say Donald Trump thank you for being the greatest mirror you could possibly have been so that we could all see so clearly all of the ways that we hold this program of greed and separation in our world, and in our very own bodies. I hope that we do not just wash our hands of you, and turn away from this painful program in apathy, neglect and perceived necessity, and return to numbing ourselves out enough so that we can keep living in this pain.

Because truthfully, we can no longer afford to turn away. We have to face the suffering that is inherent in this system of our creation, or we risk taking so much down with us.

I will do my work.

I am not afraid of looking in the mirror.

And you don’t have to be either.

Underneath those layers of violence and separation that have been scratched again and again into our surfaces is a whole lot of love and light, and a deep soul-centered understanding of connection and belonging to this place as an equal part of creation.

But first, we have to stop self-harming, and take the actions that we need to take to help to heal those wounded layers in ourselves and each other. Only then will we be able to step forward in co-creative love, and build a whole new way of being with each other, and the earth.