Orphaned
Community and Country, Lost and Found
I drew “The Orphan” card. I pulled it randomly from the tarot deck offered during the final class of a series I’ve been taking at a local yoga studio that invites ritual and imagination into contemplative practice. The image on the card was really striking to me.
It depicted a black bird-like creature standing on a barren planet in profile, wings hanging limply at its sides, its one visible eye half welled with tears. Surrounding the creature on a black background of stars was a yellow orb on the left and a red orb on the right (sun and moon?), white objects like crumpled tissues floating overhead (ghost birds? ancestor birds? birds of another color?), something that looked like a sailboat or spaceship in the distance, and maybe a tiny human standing on a raft. Overall it gave the feeling that the creature was alone yet completely surrounded. Inside the creature’s body was a whole universe of colorful dots - as if it also contained what was outside of it.
Researching the card I found themes of loss, disconnection, not fitting in, questioning one's place in the world, and a search for one’s "soul tribe", a new community, or a sense of belonging. The class has exposed me to new avenues and opportunities for introspection and insight that I may not have otherwise explored.
There is the literal mass orphaning that is happening to children around the world because of the cruelty of deluded men. There is also a broader definition of orphan that includes anyone lacking support or care and those who are abandoned, lost or alone. When I think of it this way, I imagine lots of people may be feeling “orphaned” these days.
The pandemic orphaned thousands of people. Not only did it kill humans, it shuttered many of our third places. Though in-the-flesh group gathering was already in slow decline, COVID took us into a social tailspin. I know I’m not alone in mourning the loss of certain important communities that are gone or going extinct.
Unskillful politicians and bad politics orphaned us. We thought we knew who we were, but we’re shocked at what’s been revealed. Maybe you too have been surprised to discover the previously unspoken beliefs of friends, family colleagues, neighbors, or fellow country-people through the divisive politics of the last decade.
In my generation, it was considered taboo to talk in “mixed company” of politics, religion and money. So, we often didn’t know where people really stood or what their status was and we were left to guess. There has also been incentive for some to hide their beliefs and there have been some really interesting studies involving “secret” voters. If, like me, you tend to see the best in people, your assumptions and expectations were generous.
There is so much good in the worst of us,
and so much bad in the best of us,
that it ill behooves any of us
to find fault with the rest of us.
- James Truslow Adams, an historian who popularized the phrase the American Dream
Somebody wrote in the comments of a Substack I follow, “We have been taken over by the Worst of Us.” Though I might have changed the word “of” to “in”, that really hit home. As a person who has always been curious about the human condition, I remind myself that we “contain multitudes.” We’re capable of great compassion and cruelty and what gets expressed depends upon a complexity of causes and conditions.
Recently I was in conversation with some folks talking about the “whiplash” they were feeling around the political back and forth of the US. We take some steps forward and there is an inevitable backlash.
It has been helpful to explore what’s happening intergenerationally. My elders seem concerned, but less devastated. They say this is not new and we will survive. They take a long view. Retired lawyer
wrote:American democracy survived the secession of eleven states.
It survived the relegation of Black Americans to status as second-class citizens during the Jim Crow era.
It survived the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
It survived the era during which J Edgar Hoover and US presidents used the FBI as a domestic spy agency to surveil and disrupt civil rights leaders and their followers.
It survived a Supreme Court telling Americans that segregation in education, transportation, and housing was sanctioned by the Constitution.
It survived a secret US war on Laos and successful efforts by the CIA to overthrow governments on three continents.
It survived the Supreme Court telling women that they are second-class citizens who surrender their personal autonomy when they are or might be pregnant.
Each of the above abominations was committed by men (yes, all men, except for the addition of Amy Coney Barrett) who justified their lawless actions in the name of the Constitution.
Each of the above instances—and many more—were (and continue to be) constitutional crises of their own. And yet, the American people have not given up. They return to the Constitution after each crisis and resolve anew to achieve the promises of the Constitution.
I’ve found that one of the most difficult mind states to work with is disillusionment. Though it can happen at any time, disillusionment tends to show up during life transitions and first-time experiences, such as the transition from childhood to young adulthood, becoming a parent, or falling in love. Often these are times when reality pales against hopes and dreams.
Some cultures still have stories, rituals and ceremonies to help guide us through these experiences, but for many of us we’re on our own. Our guides were buried long ago.
Personally I’d hoped disillusionment might unfold like a process of desensitization - each time a little easier - each reality check easing me reliably into a more accurate view of the human experience. Turns out illusions are sturdy and there are always many more layers of that onion to peel.
Some women friends and I were discussing this one day - how painful it has been to discover over and over again that the world isn’t what our mothers told us it was, in hopes their words could dream it so for us. Or if you didn’t have such a benevolent mother, what you wished for yourself and the world. Its been hard to see hard earned rights rolled back.
Perhaps this is the boomerang. I’ve definitely been feeling a sense of things coming back around. With all the twisting and contorting things can get so bent out of shape that very little feels recognizable. The people, the places, no longer feel like they fit - like we no longer fit. Each generation finds itself reckoning with something that should have been faced long ago.
…the boomerang reveals that the violence, the horror, and the excess that cannot be contained—they all start in the imperial center. This is the place where the boomerang’s arc of flight begins, spilling out degradation across the spaces of empire, before circling back to where it started. The colonial boomerang is a kind of karmic judgment. The violence done to others returns to violate the colonizers. All of that violence was always blowing back into the imperial center, always amending the terms of who could be seen as human and extending the ranks of those who could be used and abused in any which way, because they were deemed lesser and the benefits arising from their degradation were deemed more important. - Gargi Bhattacharyya
Now the rug has been pulled shamelessly back and we’re standing in the big mess that has been continually swept under it. May we start to sort it out together.
Some day I want to be resourced enough to read Tadeusz Borowski’s book Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories. Borowski was a political prisoner in Auschwitz. Timothy Snyder called him brave because he did not romanticize his survival or set the camp “apart from the world.” Rather, he portrayed it as “a natural part of the world,” a part of society and part of our human “capacity for degradation” and depravity “in a world given over to naked survival and deprived of moral norms” - just as much as we have capacities for love and joy (especially when conditions are optimal).
Borowski wrote in his story “A Visit”:
In that mild darkness I had my eyes wide open... I can recall nothing from that night other than what I saw with my wide-open eyes... All these people who, because of phlegmon, scabies, and typhus, and also because they were too thin, were going to the gas chamber, begged the nurses to look and remember. And to tell the truth about man to those who haven't learned it by experience.
Snyder wrote of Borowski, “What he bore witness to in his writings about the Holocaust and the concentration camp universe was the complicity of everyone, victim and victimizer alike, in the social system of the camps that left no room for ethical responses.” In this way, we really do belong to each other.
Knowing that most of us have, like the creature in The Orphan card, this whole universe of possibility within us, can help us nurture the capacities that are merciful, joyful, liberating. Even though we can be the gate keepers of one another’s hell on earth, as a wise teacher who recently passed, Dr. Larry Ward, once said “we are still each other’s only hope.
I will leave you with a heartening poem he wrote that reflects this quite profoundly - click the title to hear it in his own words.
With Eyes Wide Open,
Tracy
When I became Currency by Dr. Larry Ward
When they came for me, I tried to contain my fear and heartbreak.
My bones longed for home, as I lay in the bottom of a ship, becoming a dark currency
Carried over the seas.
I was sold and sold again, a commodity, an instrument of profit seduced and sustained by greed, hate and ignorance.
Cold and beleaguered in a new land unknown.
I have tried to forget such horror in my bones
But the looks and silent whispers even until this day remind me.
I am a class of color created by a colonial mind missing its own self-worth.
But the dance of ancestors also in my bones has kept me awake.
I live beyond such limiting constructs of heart and mind.
I am free because I am not confused.
I am stardust awake,
I am Earth and Sky embracing all.
I ride the wind with the eagle and the hawk,
I flow with the rivers towards the ocean of justice,
I am touched by the sun and moonlight like all beings.
I am nature herself awakened, powerful and resilient.
I offer the love of all my ancestors to your ancestors and the ancestors of all beings.
I offer my presence like the rain falling on the wise and unwise, just and unjust, the troubled and untroubled.
My wish, that the wounds of time may be healed and transformed into that which we are deeply yearning for, in this very moment.
Purple morning sunrise with bird sounds:
Resources
Every Saturday @ 3-3:30pm Stand for Democracy at Cooper Creek Park 5730 Roeland Dr. Roeland Park, KS 66205
Every M, W, F @ 3-5 pm and every Saturday @ 12-2 pm Tesla Takedown 10111 State Line Rd Kansas City, MO 64114
Every Thursday from 4:30 - 5:30 pm Tyranny Take Down Thursdays 100 E. Santa Fe. Street in Olathe
Every Saturday from 11 to Noon Four Corners in Lenexa Standing Rally W. 87th Street Parkway & Maurer Road in Lenexa
Monday 9/1 from 2-5 PM Solidarity Concert & Variety Show - Sheltering From the ICE Storm: Fundraiser to cover family expenses and bail for victims of ICE to support the Cross Border Network's Bienvenido Bail Fund and Advocates for Immigrant Rights & Reconciliation (AIRR)'s Emergency Fund at All Souls UU Church | 4501 Walnut, KCMO Bands. Dancers. Spoken word. Food. Drink. $20 advance, $25 door
9/16-9/20 Blackout the System 2025 - We will launch a 5-day nationwide economic and labor blackout with a petition and a number of demands. It is scalable with a working strike, tax exemption, and banking shift.
Wednesdays Sept 24 – Nov 12, 2025 Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) from 5:30 – 7:30 pm + retreat Saturday Nov 1 from 1-5 pm online CEs available
November 14 - 19th, 2025 Being with the Wisdom of Self-Compassionate Embodiment Online Retreat - Offered through the Center for Mindful Self Compassion, Dr. Sydney Spears and Tracy Ochester will guide embodied practices and exercises to cultivate spaciousness, as well as meditative, movement, reflective, and other contemplative experiences to help cultivate self-compassionate mind-body balance.
Who’s Funding Cruelty? Boots on the Ground Midwest - Divest from businesses that are major funders of the politicians that are driving the cruelty bus.
SURJ Mobilization 101: Standing Up for Immigrant Communities & Resisting Authoritarianism Part 1
BOOMERANG: Empire and Britain's economy - in this 30 minute documentary from openDemocracy, academic and author Kojo Koram visits the city of Liverpool to explore how decisions of decades past are breaking Britain today – and how an honest reckoning with the legacies of empire can help us build an economy that works for all.
What would a general strike in the US actually look like? By Waging Nonviolence
Disappeared in America: Across the United States, families—some with legal status, others still navigating a broken system—are being detained, disappeared, or deported without warning. The stories featured on this site are not just data points or headlines. These are true stories of nearly 700 people that capture one of the darkest moments in American history.
Disappeared In America Toolkit - stories are powerful. This toolkit provides social media videos, verbiage, photos and memes. Share these posts and spread the word.
The Insidious Doctrine Fueling the Case Against Mahmoud Khalil: How a century of immigration law has evaded constitutional rights by Debbie Nathan - discusses decades of injustice rooted in McCarthyism and explains the current bias and discrimination woven into the system.
KeepTrack - Monthly summaries of all the most important news stories related to the current US administration. I have a lot of respect for people who can do this. Right now especially it is depressing and thankless work, but we need to know.
Slavery by Another Name PBS Documentary - a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Nontoxic Masculinity in Leadership and Life from the Center for Trauma and Embodiment - A 60 minute conversation between several men about experiences, lessons learned, mistakes made, and aspirations.
Social Justice Resources for Museums - A bibliography of articles and resources
5 CALLS - Make your voice heard! 5Calls is the easiest and most effective way for U.S. constituents to make a political impact. 5Calls makes it easy for you to reach your members of Congress and make your voice heard.
Indivisible Boots on the Ground Midwest - We’re a grassroots organization that mobilizes and motivates our community in response to the crisis in our federal government. Action is power.
Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den is a 72-volume collection of classified documents captured in 1979 during the takeover of the United States embassy in Tehran.
In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Rebecca Solnit on Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine: "Truth is whatever the powerful want it to be."
Mindfulness Speaker Series - Brown University speakers series with presenters like Jon Kabat-Zinn, Richard Davidson, Zindel Segal and Isabel Roth.
GoodsUniteUs.com - started in 2017 to help consumers more easily align their everyday purchases with their politics, Goods Unite Us empowers people to become political consumers and investors so that we can all collectively put an end to corporate political donations.
opensecrets.org - OpenSecrets is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Their mission is to track the flow of money in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy.
Defund the Trump Agenda - Any government can only function with the cooperation and consent of those governed. We can defund the agenda if we dare to do so.
Resisting Taxes in the Trump Era - “If you don’t support what the Trump administration is doing, why are you paying for it?”
Research: On Targeted Manipulation and Deception when Optimizing Large Language Models for User Feedback by Marcus Williams
