Counting up to the election: Gevurah and Tiferet

rosefox's post on Gevurah.

Gevurah is about strength and boundaries, and I feel like it's my home base, part of how I am in the world.

( Week of Gevurah )

I do small things toward making the world a better place all the time. Here's a goal: more people voting. This week I joined Vote Forward. I will write and send some letters.

rosefox's post on Tiferet.

Tiferet is the heart, kindness, compassion, warmth. My core, but I have trouble really sitting in it and feeling it for myself. See above about comfort zone.

( Week of Tiferet, with grumpiness )

I am posting here about my activism, and reading what others post all over dreamwidth about what they're doing, and that keeps me company. Having conversations with friends also helps not to feel so alone.

I am doing what feels right to do, balanced with my physical and mental health. I feel immensely, urgently pushed by the world disintegrating around us. I need to learn to push myself less, not more.

Links: Bittersweet, "ya think?", good angles, and dumpster fires

Starting off with bittersweetness:

A Link to Jewish History, RBG's Iconic Collars Were a Beacon for the Marginalized by Jodi Eichler-Levine.

Quinn Brett Shares Her Adaptive Yoga Routine by Hayden Carpenter.

In "ya think?" news:

Women have disrupted research on bird song, and their findings show how diversity can improve all fields of science by Kevin Omland, Evangeline Rose, Karan Odom. Turns out, when women do the research, they notice that female birds also sing.

Microaggressions aren't just innocent blunders, and new research links them with racial bias by Jonathan Kanter.

Good angles on hard things:

Puzzled scientists seek reasons behind Africa's low fatality rates from pandemic by Alexander Winning. Summary: They did the right things quickly, and there may be cross-protection from the TB vaccine.

'How George Floyd's death changed my Chinese students' by Megha Mohan about Black teacher Jasmine Cochran's experiences teaching about racism in China.

Pregnancy and Miscarriage on Social Media: New Metaphors to Make Miscarriages Easier to Talk About, and Easier to Bear" by Lara Freidenfelds. If you call an early pregnancy a sprout, it conveys and normalizes the fragility, and in case of miscarriage, lets you tell people, "I lost a sprout."

Precious Plastics Academy. How to recycle plastic yourself, since it isn't really happening on a larger scale. This is not something I'll be doing, but it's really cool that it's out there.

Okay, dumpster fire territory:

A World is Dying, A World Is Being Born, Rosh Hashanah 5781 by Rabbi Sharon Brous. When your world dies around you, breathe, tell the truth, dream anew.

I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. by Indi Samarajiva. "Living in Sri Lanka during the end of the civil war, I saw how life goes on, surrounded by death."

The more humidity you have, the less smoke you’ll have in the air. originally from Prester Jane, janeprester. Because I'm sure we'll need this information again soon.

This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic by Zeynep Tufekci, October 1, 2020. 'k' is a measure of dispersion. SARS-CoV-2 is "overdispersed" which leads to erratic superspreader events.