Stop.

Ground.

Listen.

Sense.

We are being bombarded by histrionic information. This is not an accident. It is by design.

Ground. Then shields up. Strong. Sense. Think.

What is really going on? Quiet your soul. Breathe. What is actually occurring? When you have an idea of what’s really happening, come back to your tribe and tell us what you’ve learned, please.

But right now–ground, sense, listen. Intuit.

It is neither the one nor the other, but both and neither. Look for the third way, and the fourth.

Strategy.

Wide-ranging thought.

Profound connection.

 

The days since last week’s Women’s March have been very full, emotionally challenging and charged. Social media–in my case Facebook and Twitter (I am a terrible Instagram slacker)–is full of hand-wringing as well as genuine distress. Reports are coming in from the new president’s first full week in office and every stroke of his pen seems designed to insure disaster, taking the Republic over the edge of the cliff.

Or are we well-placed to engage deeply as citizens, to stand up to the Powers that Are and stand by the citizens–the neighbors–that need us?

Yesterday, I recommended that every woman read Machiavelli’s The Prince and my friend Thrax recommended Xenophon’s Cyropaedia.  But first, may I suggest we start with the foundational documents of our tattered republic?  How about The Declaration of Independence? 

Let’s broaden our knowledge base, sharpen our compassion skills–and remember what it means to be an active citizen in a democratic republic?  “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” was queried of Ben Franklin, after the Constitutional Convention of 1787. “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” 

Can we?