It's Always Been Us
Revolutions Cannot Happen on an Island, and They Know It
It’s always been us.
Listen, nothing that I’m going to say here is original to me. I might be the first person with pale skin that you have heard talk about this (hopefully not!), but I am here today because I’ve had the opportunity to have so many marginalized women teach me how to show up for my community.
It’s always been us. It’s always been the women, specifically.
That’s why regime after regime has gone after the women first.
Make no mistake. The actions of the last 90 days come from an old playbook. An ancient one, actually. I know you’re thinking “oh there she goes talking about her Romans again”, but the Romans actually borrowed/stole this playbook. It goes back as far as the Assyrians, and possibly further.
Maim, kill, beat and imprison the women. Scare them into submission. Disperse communities. Make it illegal to assemble. Violently “handle” any person or group who threatens this hold on society. Old news my friends. The women and “outsiders” have always held the strongest bonds the keep communities together.
Today it’s an assault on women’s healthcare, criminalizing doctors who help women, abducting and disappearing college students, imprisoning people who speak up at town halls.
That’s because to this day these old tactics are still incredibly effective and terrorizing. Millions of people across the US are paralyzed right now, as the genetic memory of this tactic used on their ancestors is activated. It’s true, some are in agreement with what’s happening, but makes up a very small minority of sadists.
By and large, most of our neighbors and fellow citizens were already in survival mode. They don’t see a way out for themselves, and they don’t have the energy or curiosity to explore other options. Putting your head down and minding your own business seems like the only way to survive, until they come for you.
This is why Black organizers have been telling us for decades that we can only resist tyranny through being in community. They always come for Black and Brown communities first, so they naturally have the most experience in how to resist.
It’s always been us.
We keep each other safe. We, as in the people you live next to. The people you see every day when you drop your kids off at school, or when you go on a walk in the forest (which I hope you are doing as much as possible right now).
One thing that stands out to me starkly right now is that most of us are not connected to those people around us. I used to think it was because some areas are more neighborly than others, but there are some really interesting patterns here and more importantly - a huge opportunity to disrupt a system that’s keeping us alone and more vulnerable as a result.
We’ve been taught that we are only deserving, successful, strong, essentially “good” if we’re self sustaining (i.e. independent). My friends, this is a trauma response. When the Babylonians conquered during the old testament, they dispersed the Jews that survived. When the Romans conquered a land, they stole people, moved others, and enslaved many. When the English conquered the Scots and the Irish, they did the same. Then, the Portuguese, Dutch, and English (among others) did the same thing in Sub Saharan Africa, what we now know of as the United States, and what we think of as Latin America.
Our ancestors felt it was unsafe to depend on anyone else after the trauma they went through, which is why they focused on being self-sufficient (and has since morphed into hyper individualism). We are living in the aftermath of a long line of destruction of communities, and the resulting trauma response of hyper individualism.
Human Design emphasizes over and over, whether it’s through hanging gates, split definition, profile/lines, your view, your environment or even in your planetary placements that we are here to do things with other people. This is a core remembering that is at the center of the healing we must undertake here. We are here for each other: to share, to support, to witness.
Likewise, Astrology speaks to this within the houses. Both your 3rd, your 8th and 11th house especially speak to the ways the groups of people around you are a vital part of the human experience. Zero surprise oppressive regimes figured out real quick that systems like Astrology threatened their ability to control.
Your Human Design Experiment and your Inner Child healing is a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to healing your community.
Knowing yourself increases your ability to be in true self (this is the term we use when you’re operating in alignment with your Human Design). True self is medicine for the community. We are remembering, which means there’s a large unknown. The unknown can fuel the not self: doubt, expectations, fear, frustration. When we are following our strategy & authority, we can show up with space and grace for people to be themselves. We give others permission to be their full self. This piece is critical before we can unwind the conditioning that is keeping us siloed and disconnected from each other.
Next, I’d like to lay out some internal reflections for you to start to prepare for the necessary work of building local community support. This is the most potent defense we have against tyranny. Yours and my resilience are directly connected to the people we are surrounded by. It’s LITERAL safety in numbers.
The homework, if your inner authority says yes:
Reflect on the people that you feel closest to in your day to day life. Is it the people you work with? Is it the neighbors you live by? Make a list of at least 7 people.
What parts of your Human Design work for you when in Community? What parts are challenging?
What are some of your favorite experiences of being in community? Did you get to know your neighbors in COVID? Did someone show up for you unexpectedly when you got sick? Get specific. This informs your body that it’s safe to work on this area of your life.
What are some core wounds you have around being in community? My husband has a core wound of exclusion that dates back to his family being kicked out of the church when his parents divorced. I experienced mean girl/kid bullying when I was young, so I have a core fear of being picked on. Whatever the experiences that come up for you as you reflect on growing up, it’s important to know where your Inner Child might be hesitant and need help processing and understanding what happened in your past.
Once you’ve gone through this reflection process, surrender all of it - the amazing and the challenging - over to your Inner Being. You can listen to the sync up from this episode of HDxLiberation to guide you to connecting with your Inner Being. Once you’re synced up, surrender all of the confusion and conditioning that tells you you have to do things yourself over to Her/Him so that your IB can help you process and integrate it all.
This is part 1 of a series on Community Building as Resistance. Next, I will share specific steps I have taken in the last 3 months to create systems of support as a defense mechanism against tyranny.
If the results in my own life are any proof, building community is life giving and vital. These are skills that far surpass our current urgency to defend against Authoritarianism, and yet - they’re incredibly effective here and now as well!
I hope you’ll take some time over the next few days to do these reflections. They will ensure you are coming to the members of the community with openness and self awareness. It’s super important we don’t transpose the learned violence of our society onto these new explorations of being held and responsible to each other.