100 Days of Creativity

SHOW UP FOR 100 DAYS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS

Have you heard of the 100daysproject?  There are 2 simple rules;

#1 Repeat a simple creative task everyday for the duration,

#2 Record each day’s efforts.

This is my fourth year doing the hundred days project and each one has taught me so much. I first heard about the 100 days after reading The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion by Elle Luna. From a young age, I have always loved doing art and have managed to keep it sacred—something I do for myself. It is for pure pleasure and processing thoughts and feelings.

One day my daughter had a new pal around and she was proudly showing her all of my artwork and her friend thought they were amazing and asked if I was an artist. My daughter looked at me and I didn’t know how to respond. I mulled this over and realised I would like to explore this further and would commit to the 100daysproject to see how I felt after 100 days of creativity about calling myself an artist.

So I began, one pen drawing a day. No pencils, as I wanted to learn that mistakes didn’t matter. It was great, each week brought more confidence and doing it with others really helped me be accountable.  It wasn’t linear—there were moments when my confidence dipped and I would want to make excuses to stop. I had to wiggle my way through finding my own practice, not care what other’s thought but also be fuelled by the community and public sharing. Within the small group of 100daysproject through Tribe Porty, we encouraged each other and on the days I didn’t feel like making the effort, I showed up for them. It quickly became something I looked forward doing at the end of the night.

The practice became a meditative ritual and also led me to find the local community in 100 Days Project Scotland. 

Now reaching the end of this year, it has been once again, transformational.

Here are some of the first drawings for my first 100 days.

By the end of the 100 days, I called myself an artist. I maintained that art was for myself and no anyone else but the encouragement was also welcomed. it felt good and I was hooked.

Year Two

This time I tightened my brief a bit. Again using pen but stuck to portraits and played more with lines. I really enjoyed the therapeutic benefits of drawing so many lines. By the end of the second 100 days, I was confident enough to do even paint a large mural.  Here are some drawings and a picture of part of the mural.  One drawing also ended up as a tattoo on my arm.

ink drawing of a woman with a bird on her shoulder

 

Year Three

This year was different because I started experimenting with drawing on the ipad, something I never thought I would like but I do and in love with quite quickly.

I set myself a goal to get some printed and even went on to create Capturing Dani a website and shop with prints and postcards. I received commissions and now draw illustrations more than on paper.

 

2021 has been transformational

This year I decided to combine the creative process with gratitude and would draw a part of my body and give thanks. After almost two years of chronic pain, multiple exploratory procedures and fatigue. Every day has been a surprise- nothing has been planned and I have changed the way I see myself.

Just over halfway through, something changed how I looked at myself. I found a new level of acceptance of the good and of the imperfections. I looked at myself the way I would look at a body in a live drawing class. Admiring the curves and not viewing with critical eyes.

 

8 more illustrations to go

I am a bit behind and realise this is for a few reasons. Firstly, I have been busy with a family wedding and work. Secondly, I don’t want it to end and thirdly, I haven’t figured out how to carry on with some sort of practice.
I have learned a few big lessons about what the 100 days of showing up does for me.
-It’s not a talent- its just doing the work. The practice that is the magic.
-Learning from the work is different than learning from the outcome.
-My body is amazing, despite all of the issues, injuries and insults to it, it keeps going and has taken me so many places.
I am so grateful for this practice, the 100days community and for this body which offers limitless exploration.
  

Embracing Change

An invitation to make the community what you want

We have quite a few new people at Tribe and our first social gathering (outside) this week. And it feels good. But it is different then it used to be so in some ways I feel like we are starting over but I guess that is change. So how do we embrace change that builds resilience? When change makes us better, it’s because we have learned how to turn a challenging situation to our own advantage, not merely because change happens.

BBC’s, The Collection, Why embracing change is the key to a good life,  writes;

How we handle change is the essence of our existence and the key to happiness, particularly in our current times of uncertainty.  Since humankind has existed, many great artists, writers and philosophers have grappled with the notion of change, and our impulse to resist it. “Something in us wishes to remain a child… to reject everything strange,” wrote the 20th-Century psychologist and author Carl Jung in The Stages of Life.  For these thinkers, a refusal to embrace change as a necessary and normal part of life will lead to problems, pain and disappointment.  If we accept that everything is constantly changing and fleeting, they say, things run altogether more smoothly.

We all know cognitively that change is nothing new and inevitable.  Yet, by nature, change feels unfamiliar so we often try to resist or desperately try and make sense of it. Pain is often the agent of change, which is why we fear it.  It is hard to see beyond the pain to the opportunity of anew – but that is the only good choice.  The alternative is resisting change, a futile and ultimately more painful option. Not to mention missing all of the opportunities for growth.  Change takes practice and the more you accept it, the better you get at it. So in theory, we should all be a bit more practiced right about now.

 

“All that you touch you Change. All that you Change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.” – Octavia E Butler

 

Change can be an engine of progress

Today we had our first social gathering since before the first lockdown. It was so nice. Everyone missed that community feel of our coworking space. In some ways we felt more united, all having experienced our own disconnection and struggles over the past 17 months. I would like to think that a show of solidarity and support in different communities has emerged; perhaps even a broader sense of equality and empathy. Now is the time to reflect and find the opportunities from change. Let’s not go back to being disconnected, isolated and self interested. I am hopeful that we can find a deeper understanding of our humanity, discover new priorities and be driven by our values in order to change and heal.  Remember that change isn’t always out with our control.

Focus on your values instead of your fears.  Reminding ourselves of what’s important to us — family, friends, great music, creative expression, and so on — can create a surprisingly powerful buffer against unexpected change.

Social lunch helps too.

Take us up on the invitation

If you want to see more or less of something, take action, make the changes you want to see. In our behaviour, we tend to be making an implicit distinction between getting other people to change – and changing ourselves.  We often think more about how to change others or complain about others rather than making the changes ourselves.  Sometimes because we don’t give ourselves permission and sometimes, well, because it’s easier to point than do the inner work.  We might know we may have to develop in certain ways, but for now, our focus is on altering others.  However, we miss an important insight: changing how you behave to others can be the fastest way to alter how others behave towards you.

Here is a brilliant video by School of Life which illustrates how and why you should be the change you want to see and how mirroring is the best way to change yourself and others.

 

Would love to hear your thoughts if you want to share, email me.

Dani Trudeau

Creative Workspaces that Move People

A Place to tap into your creative work

Tribe is slowly picking back up and gaining new members; more and more people are needing community and a creative space now more than ever. It has been such a long time for so many of us who have been cooped up in a small flat or sharing a kitchen table with a partner. Taking never ending zoom calls and not seeing another human in the flesh has taken its toll-not only on our wellbeing but on our creativity and productivity.

Over the years, many people have asked advice about how to turn their extra space into a coworking space.  Beyond the basics, desks, seating, good wifi- the community part is an art. The people are what makes spaces special. And the people part is the hard work. We are all different, with different needs. One of our hot deskers was telling me the other day that he comes to Tribe because it taps into the creative work. He has structured his working week in such a way that he does his creative thinking work from Tribe because the space and the people in the space encourage that kind of work. This is such music to my ears as this is what we set out to create with Tribe.

There is no shortage of designer spaces to work from around the globe.

The Future of Coworking and Supply & Demand

A few folk have made some assumptions that coworking spaces will be exploding in the near future. We have certainly seen a new group of members, not just freelancers but people unable to do their work from home for practical or emotional reasons. The pandemic has forced us to change our model and reduce the size of our event space due to no events taking place for so long.  This is true for many other coworking spaces as well. According to Deskmag’s 2020 Coworking Trends Europe, “While the supply is often shaped by the demand, this is less the case during this pandemic. Example: Legal measures such as distancing rules often have shrunk the desk capacity, especially in open workspaces. The prohibition of physical events have negatively impacted community oriented activities despite their demand.”

This has definitely been true for Tribe but the recent ease of lock down is building confidence for our members to return.

We will continue to adapt and respond to our community and challenge the definition of what workspace is, from where work is done to how it’s done, and then keep our spaces creative to reflect that.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

– Charles Darwin

If you have any questions or want to book a free trial day, please get in touch.

Wellbeing Economy

Purpose, People & Planet

I just completed some training for business advisors and entrepreneurial support professionals who want to learn how to help the businesses they support to understand, define, measure and improve their environmental, social and governance performance. The training programme was delivered by Scotland CAN B and was called the Impact Economy Advisors Training.  Scotland CAN B is an initiative launched in partnership between the Scottish Government and B Lab (the non profit organisation behind B Corp certification) to explore what happens when you combine the entrepreneurial, innovative and business for good ambitions of one country.

During this course we covered a variety of content including: connecting to the local and global context of the future of business, frameworks for impact, including the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)  and Scotland’s NPF (National Performance Framework), and how to apply them in a business context, in-depth understanding of the broad range of impactful business models and legal structures, and using a selection of comprehensive and cutting-edge impact measurement tools.  Although we are a small business, we are big on supporting our members and our focus on social capital aligns with Scotland’s mission to create a resilient wellbeing economy.

We value our membership and our local community.

We are also proudly a social enterprise, which ensures our profits are reinvested back into our community with no shareholders. Tribe has a small board, small team and have a managed to be sustainable and not reliant on grants. We also have lots of ideas and always want tot do more and find ways to build community capacity. But we struggle to find ways to connect beyond our members, especially now that our community facing events we have run in the past are not happening due to covid.

For the past 6 months, we have been working with a service designer to come up with ways to connect and support our community post lockdown and during these strange times of distancing and restrictions. We have our long standing members who are back, members who have not come back and new members who only know us they way we are now. We interviewed a few members and they came up with some great ideas. Most of them are exploring ways to engage with other local shops and food outlets.

Some ideas include;

If any of these sound good to you or you have any ideas of your own, we would love to hear from you.

Dani Trudeau

 

Seven Years of Tribe Porty

Community Coworking

I started out saying YES, learned how to say NO and am finally pretty good at knowing when to say both.

It is my 7 year anniversary of starting Tribe Porty. May 2014, I embarked on my journey of trying to create a place for good people to do good things.  I spent 11 months researching and applying for the building warrant and start up grants, renovating and engaging in community consultations.  I said yes to everything and everyone. “Yes” builds bridges, “Yes” opens doors. Yes is a great way to start.

I then quit my job (that I really liked) and committed to making my vision a reality.  I spent another 9 months renovating and working with the team of TEDxPortobello volunteers. TEDxPorty launched the same time as Tribe Porty and kickstarted our bigger vision of doing and seeing things differently (the theme of our fist TEDx). Over the past 7 years, we have welcomed thousands of people by providing space to work and create and we have hosted hundreds of classes, events, and workshops. We have worked with approximately 400 different freelancers, entrepreneurs, charities and social enterprises. We have renovated this tired, old building into a hive of activity, from global conferences, bike maintenance, wood workshops, music lessons and so much more. I have met so many wonderful people through Tribe, it has enriched my life beyond my imagination.

In 2018, we nearly lost our home and scrambled to save Tribe and our home here at Windsor Place. We managed to take over the long term lease of this privately owned building and once again started renovating and designing spaces to suit our ever growing community. At this time, we also launched Tribe Women, now rebranded as Keystone, an online business programme for enterprising women which combines business teaching with wellness rituals. We sold out two years in a row and have enjoyed building this powerful network.

More recent times have been challenging but the pandemic has really exemplified how strong our community really is. Members have supported Tribe and have also checked in on one another – a commitment that has genuinely demonstrated unconditional kindness by supporting the constant growth and improvement of ourselves, each other, and our wider environment. This level of showing up for one another is what it is all about and also drives the team and I to work hard for Tribe.

Although the improvements, renovations and upgrades never cease, I have also learned how to say no. I say no to things that do not fit within the values of Tribe. I no longer exhaust myself convincing people how great we are. I don’t need to. If we aren’t right for you, that is okay- we remain great either way. This might sound a bit arrogant but promise it’s not.

I finally trust in the work. 

A big heart felt thanks and a YES!, with both arms in the air, to the past, present and future supporters, champions, members and community.

We are still here and stronger than ever.

 

Remote Working

Autonomy published their blueprint for remote working; The New Normal authored by Francesca Farruggia, Phil Jones, Julian Siravo and Alessandro Bava. Ways of working continues to change and statics indicate that since Covid, remote working is on the rise. Access to remote work is in actuality a statutory right, available to any employee that has worked in their current role for at least 26 weeks. With social distancing measures likely in place at least until 2022, many will continue working from home for the foreseeable future.

Working from home has its benefits but there are also negative impacts like extended boundaries between work and leisure becoming blurred. The UK labour force survey found that 80% of overtime carried out from home goes unpaid, compared to 60% of office work. During the pandemic, the average workday increased by 8.2% – nearly 50 minutes.

Community Coworking

Tribe has been built on the benefits of local, community working. The value of being able to physically separate work from home, connect with others and build your professional networks are easy to demonstrate. We have, until the pandemic, mostly catered for freelancers-providing a place of work and combat isolation. We are now seeing enquiries from employed individuals who are finding working from home impossible or challenging. The meshing of employed and self-employed opens up new collaborations and opportunities yet to be fully realised.

Revitalise the high streets

Other perks of local coworking spaces have shown that remote workers generally prefer to shop locally.  This shift represents a significant opportunity to restore the UK’s failing high streets. Tribe really hopes that once our local cafes, deli’s, restaurants, library and shops are fully open, the larger number of at home workers and the community from Tribe, will help rebuild our local high street businesses.

If you have thoughts or ideas regarding Portobello’s local businesses, we would love to hear from you.

Compete with yourself

There are two major types of social comparison: upward comparison, when people compare themselves to people who are better than they are, and downward comparison, when people compare themselves to those who are less proficient than they are. Both upward and downward comparisons have strengths and weaknesses and in some ways unavoidable; our minds want to quantify. Our minds want to rank and file and organise information and understand where we fit into the scheme of things.

I think if we can be more aware of how we are comparing ourselves, we can take back some control and use it to our advantage. There is no denying that we all do it, so if you tell yourself you don’t, then you’re kidding yourself. Comparison can also be a liar who says your best won’t ever be good enough. Especially in the world of Instagram realities, measuring your success through comparison is an easy way to feel unhappy.

The best way to stop comparison’s green monster from taking hold is to focus on your own path.  Use that comparison energy for your own life. You can learn to redirect the comparison to a past and a present self and keep the comparison within.

“We last longer if we compete against ourselves for the good of others instead of competing against others for the good of ourselves.”

—Simon Sinek

What are you doing today that you couldn’t have done five, three, or even one year ago?

We are always becoming more. Who you are today is a result of the decisions you made yesterday. We are always in a state of creation if we choose to be. And be sure to be kind to yourself. This is radical self motivation in the most nurturing way with positive self talk and behaviours. Ask yourself these questions if you need some prompting;

Celebrate other people’s successes

Through community we can expand our individual shared identities. We are separate AND one community, and through each other, we learn more about ourselves. Nurturing relationships can help us see our interior world in the larger context and a shared space can be a platform to lift off from and come back to when needed.

Let’s stop comparing ourselves to each other and start competing with ourselves and cheer on one another from the sidelines.

How do you compete with yourself? Would love to hear from you.

by Dani Trudeau

 

Pain is always personal

by Dani Trudeau

It has been a bit of a tough month. I have not been well and in pain and after a load of tests and scans, I still don’t know what is causing it all. That being said, it has taught me a few good things too. Before I sound overly dramatic, I just want to say that I am grateful for my health, albeit not brilliant at this very moment, as for as I know it is nothing serious. Like most experiences outside our norm, it is an opportunity to wake us up and take notice of what we do have.

As darkness helps us see the light, I think pain helps us see the joy. Being in A&E for 8 hours last week and witnessing the pain of others, I felt really sad. I felt sorry for myself but also for others; those alone, the young guy passed out, the elderly woman being ignored. It also showed me how ill prepared we are for loss and vulnerability and how our default coping mechanism is often denial. The systems we live and work in don’t support us very well most of the time. I was just outside the nurses station and it was clear that they work within a system which dictates that patients are moved or discharged by a certain time. They had up to 4 hours to move me out of A&E. Unfortunately, they moved me up to the surgical ward with little communication and I was prepped for surgery without knowing what was happening. I then waited another 4 hours for the consultant to tell me he didn’t know what was going on and to go home.

I understand why these ‘efficient’ systems are implemented and can be useful. Something happens though when the system because more important than the work. It must be far less satisfying for those healthcare workers to work for the system instead of the patient as well. From my perspective, I felt hugely disconnected on a human level. There are parts of ourselves that the conventional health care system isn’t equipped to heal or nourish, adding to our suffering.

There was a moment when I was being rolled out of A&E and up to the surgical op ward when I looked over at the man in the next room, bent over, watery eyes and in obvious pain. I quickly looked away and then thought about hearing the nurse comment about how he knows him (in a “oh yeah I know Dave” kind of way). Did that comment make me less empathetic to his suffering. Did I not want to see his suffering or did I at some level, not even believe it. I felt horrible about this. How can I accept suffering and not get tripped up by my own discomfort around it. In fact, maybe that is what some of the healthcare workers have to do to cope with the daily onslaught of other’s suffering.

I love what palliative care expert,  BJ Miller, MD has to say on the topic. “First, let’s all get better at being vulnerable because we are vulnerable. If you’re in the course of a normal life, any one of us is going to be a burden to someone sometime. It’s just not possible to only give care and not need to receive it. Getting more savvy with needing one another is one way to turn down the pain.”

After getting home, it took me a day and some serious self talk to get me out of feeling utterly shite. No one could help me and maybe somehow I was making this all happen or making this up? I had to remind myself that normal scans and tests were a good thing and that I had to just keep checking in with how I felt and asking more questions. I had to remember to trust myself and that the body doesn’t lie. And although most of us don’t know when we are going to die, we are all dying.

The more intimate we get with the idea of dying, the closer we come to folding it into the fabric of our daily lives, the better off we’ll all be, Miller says. Advice on how to die well is really no more than advice on how to live well, with that unavoidable reality in mind.

My takeaways-

  1. Take care and advocate for yourself
  2. Connect in to others to find support
  3. Seize any opportunity for learning, even when it’s not obvious
  4. Suffering is a teacher of something if you are open to a lesson
  5. Pain is always personal and those individual lessons are the greatest lessons
  6. The only way out is through.

It’s Bigger than You

by Dani Trudeau

Perspective taking and the unfolding of inner life; what does that mean and why bother? Ultimately we all part of the same systems; we interact, conform, resist, seek out connection and have a desire to find our place of belonging. Unfortunately, we are living in a time of many broken and out-dated systems. We have a dated educational system, a broken food chain and career pathways which no longer serve us well. So why is it so hard to change systems to better suit us?

Systems change is about addressing the root causes of social problems, which are often intractable and embedded in networks of cause and effect. It is an intentional process designed to fundamentally alter the components and structures that cause the system to behave in a certain way. Systems thinking also requires an acceptance of unpredictability and loss of control that runs counter to most models of leadership and accountability.

(Chart taken from London Funders, see more of the article here).

I think we can make these big system changes best by starting with ourselves. When setting up or running your enterprise, ask yourself these questions;

Are we as open as we claim to be?

Are we as courageous as we ask others to be?

Do we bear as much risk as we ask grantees to hold?

Are we as humble as we should be?

Are we sharing power?

Are we sharing learning as much we should?

For an individual to become ‘more conscious’ is a story of personal growth, not ever easy but always worth it.

Best said by the folks at Perspectiva, “When we develop a deeper reflexive awareness of the ways in which we are shaped, when we start to commit to such processes together, we can speak of a more conscious society – a collective effort to see our challenges in their fullness, and thereby live larger and less deluded lives. When a critical mass of people ‘grow’ in consciousness in this way we can speak of a collective awakening.”

This collective responsibility coupled with personal attention to individual growth is powerful. It no longer gives any airtime to the ridiculous notion that working on yourself is somehow selfish. It is your duty to tend to your soul and your soul contributes to the whole.

#Me too Reflections

-Dani Trudeau

Let’s not call that toxic masculinity. Saying “toxic masculinity” implies that masculinity is the core problem here, and suggests that a tiny bit of masculinity might also be a tiny bit poisonous. Using the word masculinity suggests that all men have a toxic core. I don’t buy that. What we’re seeing in the Sociopathic Baby-Man bestrides the world of ordinary men like a colossus. It’s more important than ever to make this distinction.-by Heather Havrilesky,

Read her full article  -Don’t Call It ‘Toxic Masculinity.’ They’re Sociopathic Baby-Men

The past week or so has been interesting to experience, watch, partake and converse about. From the #Me Too ‘campaign’ (although here is a link to the original campaign which did not come from Alyssa Milano), to the media and public’s reactions to Weinstein, to the conversations around raising our sons and daughters, changing our language away from the victims and put the emphasis on the aggressor or the one abusing their power. If you haven’t been thinking and speaking about it, even just a little, maybe you should.

I have struggled with the phrases; boys will be boys and extreme male to define some ‘masculine’ behaviours. I don’t want the males I know and love to be put in the category of masculine if they have to stand next to the power-hungry, human-destroying, women-fearing, pussy-grabbing, consume-at-all costs, kind of men. Maybe the best term for them is sociopathic baby-men-I am not quite convinced but I get what she is saying. We definitely need to stop calling it masculinity. I for one want to raise a strong, empathetic, human loving son. I want him to be able to cry, love and feel deeply for all living things. I don’t want him to have to imagine an unfamiliar women is me or his sister when he is older and partying at a club to be able to not mistreat her. I want his deep respect for all humans lead his decision making. This sounds so basic but it seems not to be our current norm. Culturally we live in a world where we normalise abuse, we accept world leaders who brag of the dominance over women, we use language which puts all of the burden on the victims. (I recommend reading this, Don’t Talk to Your Sons About Sex – Talk About This Instead).

So why is it so hard to stand up to these types of people and why do people silently watch these men abuse their power? Better question, why have I let several men abuse their power over me? This is obviously complicated and highly personal but I bet the story is very, very common. The world tells us to be quiet, to not make a big deal of things, to get over it, move on. This is part of the problem. From older kids, teachers, ‘friends’, bosses, ex partners, strangers; I can actually think of endless examples of men thrusting their attempts of power over me. Some of these attempts have landed with serious actions and have been followed by life changing views of myself. This is powerful stuff. We need to reset our baseline of acceptability. All of us. This is the time to believe victims- it is not easy to come forward.

There are so many little ways the balance of power is played out in what some might consider small incidents.
I can actually give an example which happened just last week.  I received a creepy, unsolicited instagram message from someone I do not really know. I met him once at a café a few years ago. The text was about a dream he had and was extremely creepy, ended with I love you and was totally out of the blue. I ignored it at first, thinking that it must have been sent by mistake. Then I remembered my friend saying she thought he was shady so shared it with her. Instantly she was angry and wanted to take action. This happens when you doubt yourself a bit. My friend doubted herself enough not to confront him at the time. She just avoided him and moved on. When someone does something a little off but does it in such a way that you question yourself. These are skilful predators. This is one reason why we must not respond to ourselves or to others with anything but support in the first instance. But we don’t. Even as I wrote this paragraph, there were doubting thoughts about what others might think. Will some folk think that there must be more to the story; that I must have done something to warrant such message. Nope. I did nothing, absolutely nothing.

My friend immediately rallied trusted troops (men actually) and instantly they all had my back. After a few ideas of how to best handle this, one friend wrote a suggested response. It was perfect. It was strong, confident, took-no-blame- perfect. This made me feel loved, protected, justified and in power.
It also made me think of all of the times when people didn’t respond this way. Feeling false guilt, shame, blame and deeply damaged is exacerbated when people don’t believe your pain or your truths. Sadly, I think the majority of people respond badly, if at all, to these types of situations.  Let’s change this. Let’s not make it a female/male thing. Let’s look at all of us in the confusion as humans. How do we treat fellow humans? We should want better for ourselves and for our fellow humans. The time is way past now to make it all of our responsibility.

For me, I am making more of an effort to think of all of us as humans too. I am trying to stop saying ‘all men…’ After all, we all have different experiences and although I have been hurt more often and deeper by men in my past, I have also loved many men.  I too need to see past the gender and look at the person.
Here is an excellent blog post by columnist, Courtney E. Martin, For Guys Reading #MeToo Testimonies. “A world this riddled with sexual harassment and abuse will never be healed by a hashtag, that’s for sure. Yet, this moment could be the first one that you choose to do something different, to lay the first brick in a world that is built differently, a world safe for women’s bodies and men’s feelings, a world worthy of everyone’s wholeness”.

And to the creep sending messages to women you don’t know, I am really not sure how to help you and more importantly, how to stop you from deceiving and preying on women. For a start, read the article at the top and understand the part you play in it all. Secondly, I believe this is really about fear and violence.  It sadly makes up the fabric of our world and nothing less than the dismantling of our current systems, a complete discrediting of what we now consider power, will compel the sweeping change we so badly need to see.

And to my friends, you rock. I wish everyone out there had you guys behind them.

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