Consider yourself unstoppable

I have to say that ranting feels good. Ranting with intention feels even better.

It’s a step beyond Grumpy Patti, which is the nickname my business partner, David, has recently given me. "Grumpy Patti is good," he’ll say, smiling, after I’ve said my truth in a meeting with a client, not the Euphemistic Blither-Blather Truth to Get More Work, but The Truth Plain and Simple, the Truth that asks the question, "what is your intention in doing this work?"

And so, my recent Grumpy Patti rant has resulted in a lot of emails that will no doubt power some additional writing in the coming weeks. One reader in particular, journalist Lee Hancock, sent me two things I must share. Thanks, Lee.

"Stop thinking this is all there is. Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and environmental devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counter-balancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral. Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake your head and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel. Realize that this is the perfect moment to change the energy of the world, to step right up and crank your personal volume; right when it all seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and bilious… there’s your opening.

Remember magic! And, finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a seemingly small but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift, the beginning of something important and potent and unstoppable."  -Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle columnist

And Lee also sent this spectacular poem by Marge Piercy…

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

-Marge Piercy

I believe Lee sent them to me to say keep the faith. It worked. Perhaps it will work for you, too.