Like many people, you may be feeling we are living in a tumultuous and uncertain time that has been intentionally manufactured, and doesn’t have to be this way. The daily attacks from within our own government on our hard-earned democracy, global stability, and the most vulnerable people around the world are painful and frightening to be living through.
We always thought we could count on the United States to be a global leader for the good, but now we’re the ones attacking nations unprovoked, bullying allies, and abandoning our commitments to humanity around the world and within our own borders.
Rebecca Solnit’s “Please Shout Fire. This Theatre Is Burning” is a chilling inventory of just how much destruction our democracy has already sustained — in plain view and not behind closed doors — and with relatively few headlines from the mainstream media. The shocking corruption, cruelty, and rejection of the rule of law by the Trump administration outlined here is the complete antithesis of every noble principle of equality and justice the United States was founded on.
Yet this heartbreak can power a tremendous wellspring of collective energy called “solidarity,” which turns the power of one mind into the force that writes the pages of history, and moves our human story forward. If enough people want something to happen, it will. That’s the only way it ever does. We have the power to project thought and the universe responds, both individually and collectively.
Whatever you focus on grows. If you focus only on obstacles and unpleasant emotions concerning a situation or relationship, running them over and over again in your mind, you’re like a cow chewing on a cud of negativity. By squeezing every last bit of that chaotic energy into your thoughts, there is little room for creating any new experience. However, change your thoughts, and watch the universe respond to that, too.
I am distressed daily thinking of people starving in Gaza, but by focusing only on their starvation, I deepen the expression of fear, pain, and hopelessness around this reality in our world, and amplify its vibration. I can donate relief money, join in activism efforts, go on a hunger strike — all with varying efforts of success in helping the situation — but if I do not also address my own thoughts, I vibrationally create more of the same.
Alternatively, I can increase my awareness of gratitude for all the food I eat and send the vibration of joy and solidarity out into the web of life. This mindfulness might also inspire me to eat less, save the money and donate it to Gaza hunger relief or take other actions expressing my solidarity. My impulse added to every other expression of the same creates the wave for change to occur.
Even the tiniest of thoughts when added together are ultimately responsible for the quantum leaps in human consciousness our race has achieved. Every problem contains its own solution, and the bigger the problem, the bigger the resources available to handle it.
Dream big now, as our chaotic reality is already shifting right before our eyes. Go for your heart’s desires. Yes, I want to live in a world of cooperation, kindness and the beauty of diversity. Yes, I believe in peace and love. Yes, to environmental protection. Yes, we can heal our own bodies from the inside out. We do this when we select those thoughts consciously, and give them free reign and the power to manifest. This is the reality we live in.
We can’t change the world and all its problems, but if we change from the inside, that ripples outward. “Looking at your frown in the mirror, the only way to change that is from the inside and smile. You can’t change the mirror,” says Pam Gregory in the YouTube video Ten Simple Steps To Raise Your Frequency.
Double down on your positive future and our collective future on Earth by bringing only your highest visions consciously into focus as much as possible every day. Choose it moment by moment. Choose it powered by solidarity.
Carol Bedrosian is the publisher of Spirit of Change online, founded in 1987 as a holistic print magazine. For over four decades she has explored and enjoyed the extensive benefits of using alternative medicine healthcare.
Will You Hurt Or Heal? Build Or Break Down?
By Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
It’s been a difficult few months. Someone recently asked me, “Are we screwed?”
What is important in moments like these is not to think in binaries. Good/bad, screwed/not screwed. There is no doubt that things are bad. Some things, really bad. And they may likely get worse.
But that does not preclude the fact that slowly but surely, some good can be growing as other things fall apart. This is not some syrupy sweet silver lining case for optimism. Rather, it is really about a choice all of us will have to make in life, either consciously or unconsciously: will I be a person who is safe and creates good for others?
Will I be a person who stands up? Will I be a person who primarily minds my business and serves myself or try to be part of something bigger? Or will I just be a passive, neutral observer of it all?
Somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same.
What I sometimes tell my staff is that the world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to the world’s problems.
Much of our work is about scaling existing solutions, many created by small, committed groups of people that others haven’t seen or don’t even know are around the corner. So, while we can’t change the world in a day, we can and do have the power to make our own world within our own four walls, or on our own blocks. We can grow from there with the faith that somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same. And we will come together.
That’s why if you’re a parent, how you parent matters. If you’re a neighbor, how you are a neighbor matters. Many of our biggest problems are results of massively scaled up isolation from others. That means many of our solutions can be found in creating community.
Ultimately, we live in this world and in this time. We have no choice but to engage in it while we’re here. Even running away is a form of engagement. So, will your engagement hurt or heal? Build or bring down? There is no neutral choice, so we can at least do our best to make good ones and learn and do better the next day.
You are allowed to be scared. To grieve. To be angry. But you are also allowed to create good, to be soft, and enjoy the small reprieves. Struggle lasts as long as we do.
In solidarity,
Alexandria
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known by her initials AOC, has served since 2019 as the Democratic US representative for New York’s 14th congressional district in Bronx and Queens, with a 100% grassroots campaign.
Statement Of Conscience On The Genocide In Gaza
By Lewis Randa
Recently I stood with others at Plymouth Rock in launching an anti-genocide campaign as part of the National Registry for Conscientious Objection. Gathered there to read the Statement of Conscience on Gaza, we were mindful that this historic site marks the beginning of genocide against Indigenous peoples in North America.
While Plymouth is celebrated as “America’s hometown,” for Native communities it symbolizes invasion, dispossession, and the onset of genocide — now mirrored in Gaza, where Palestinians face bombing, starvation, and erasure, principally backed by U.S. weapons and dollars. Genocide is not only in history; it is happening now, in Gaza, on our watch with our dollars.
Like many of us, you too feel powerless — yet our true power speaks when we choose to speak out against injustice, even when it’s uncomfortable. In moments of moral crisis, our voices become vital, and making a public statement of conscience is one way to do so. Reject complicity and silence, and stand in solidarity with Palestinians and all who resist obliteration.
Folks are encouraged to print the Statement of Conscience and to read it aloud — anytime, anywhere — whenever they feel moved to go on record in public. They can have their statements videotaped and sent to the Peace Abbey Foundation to be archived as part of the Registry for Conscientious Objection.
We must remind ourselves that our true power lies in building solidarity with those who resist oppression, subjugation, and the onslaught of genocide in Gaza. This we must do because we are all complicit.
Reading a Statement of Conscience aloud is more than a symbolic act; it’s a courageous, public expression of conviction. While signing a petition can be done quietly, and for the most part anonymously, reading the Statement of Conscience aloud is a personal declaration: I am publicly stating, within the context of the National Registry for Conscientious Objection, my resistance to supporting and funding genocide.
Public declarations have always played an important role in the peace movement. By inviting people to voice the statement aloud, we shift the narrative away from just signing online petitions and the predictable chorus of “talking heads” and toward something more powerful: the sound of the voice of conscience within each of us.
Ultimately, the aim is to empower people to come together and give voice to their conscience in the face of the genocide in Gaza — recognizing that even this act cannot absolve us from the complicity that comes with being U.S. taxpayers. The truth remains: we still have blood on our hands.
The National Registry For Conscientious Objection
STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCE
On the Genocide in Gaza
I _____________________, hereby make this formal Statement of Conscience to acknowledge my complicity in what I believe to be acts of genocide being committed against the Palestinians in Gaza.
As a U.S. taxpayer, I recognize that my federal income taxes are being used to fund, enable, and sustain military operations that have led to the mass displacement, bombardment, starvation, and the indiscriminate killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Reports by international human rights officials, legal scholars, and war correspondents increasingly characterize these actions as meeting the legal definition of genocide.
Though I do not personally carry out these murderous, vengeful, inhumane acts, I am complicit, through the taxes I am required by law to pay, and through the actions of a government that claims to act in my name.
Therefore, I respectfully request that this statement be formally acknowledged as a matter of public record. I do not offer this as a legal confession of a chargeable crime, but as a moral declaration, because history will remember not only what was done in Gaza and who perpetrated these heinous crimes, but also who remained silent, and who chose to speak out.
Furthermore, I call on the international community, including the International Criminal Court, to pursue legal accountability for those principally responsible for their roles in what I believe are crimes against humanity and the intentional pursuit of genocide against Palestinians.
I issue this statement because I refuse to remain silent while the United States government supports genocidal acts against innocent civilians in Gaza with my taxes.
Not in my name.
Not with my tax dollars.
Not any longer.
Lewis M. Randa is a Quaker, pacifist, vegan, educator and social change activist. He is the Executive Director of The Peace Abbey Foundation and The Life Experience School.
Indigenous Communities Are Crying Out For Our Solidarity
By Jon Wiltshire, Avaaz
So much of the rainforest has now been carved up that scientists say we’re reaching the point of collapse. Yet governments are still accelerating the destruction.
And so, at this critical moment, the best thing we can do is to stand with the people who’ve protected the rainforest for centuries. Indigenous communities don’t just live in the Amazon, they are part of it. Their entire way of life is intimately tied to the forest’s survival, and it’s no accident that the healthiest parts of the Amazon are in their hands.
But too often, their rights to the land are denied, overlooked, unrecognized in law. They need help in order to put the Amazon back in their hands, locked away from governments and corporations that would strip it to the bones. This would enable Indigenous Peoples to secure legal rights to their ancestral lands, such as campaigning for land demarcation in Brazil, funding land purchases in Colombia and beyond, and supporting Indigenous families in replanting vast areas of critical habitat.
They need funding for detailed mapping of land conflicts, deforestation, and illegal mining, which could provide critical evidence to stop the Amazon’s destruction. And they need funding for legal defense and mass mobilizations to fight for the rainforest and all the life it holds.
What happens to the Amazon will affect every single one of us. It needs urgent protection. Indigenous communities need our support right now so they can secure vast swathes of the rainforest — and then get to work regenerating it.
THE AMAZON IS AT A TIPPING POINT. Scientists warn that if much more of the rainforest is lost, it could turn into dry savanna — as we’re already seeing in parts of Brazil and Bolivia.
PROVEN PROTECTORS. Studies show that where Indigenous communities hold rights to their lands, the forest is healthier and more intact than anywhere else.
DAVID VS. GOLIATH. But while Indigenous Peoples have the heart and knowledge to defend the rainforest, they’re up against the vast wealth and power of politicians, agribusiness, mining, oil, and logging corporations. That’s why they’re calling for our support.
GLOBAL STAKES. What happens to the Amazon will affect us all, wherever we live. Protecting the planet’s most precious rainforest is truly a battle for the future of life on Earth.
Indigenous communities are crying out for our solidarity. With our support, they could stand their ground, defend their lands, and help to keep the Amazon thriving.
More information:
Deforestation Strips Colombia of Forest Area Larger Than NYC in Six Months (ColombiaOne)
‘We are perilously close to the point of no return’: climate scientist on Amazon rainforest’s future’ (The Guardian)
5 ways Indigenous people are protecting the planet (World Economic Forum)
Avaaz is a 70-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 22 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
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