I am really excited as a US citizen that we are finally acquiring a new administration.

Do I think our problems as a country or as a society or as a . . . ahem . . . global village will be instantaneously eradicated? No.

My outlook on politics is generally fairly dismal. I really do believe that Obama will try as best he can to ‘fix things,’ but his hands are really kind of tied in many ways – first of all, the prior administration did everything possible to make ‘change’ really difficult. Secondly, the bigger problem is that Americans as a whole, I believe, are not truly ready to embrace the kind of change that needs to happen to make any difference anyway. Most of us are just still too comfortable and quite frankly, still very much asleep as far as some gigantic problems are concerned – problems that could very well inhibit our very existence.

Until we wake up and demand true change, status quo will continue it’s relentless march onward, simply re-naming itself on many levels as ‘change.’ We must not forget the power that we have as a people. We showed that power for the first time during the election. In droves, in communities, together as a force, we asked for something different – and we got it with a resounding ‘Yes, we can!’ But it’s imperative that we keep demanding – together – in a determined manner for exactly what we want. Otherwise we will keep allowing those politicians to silently stuff their pockets in the name of change while the planetary conditions continue to deteriorate.

As I said before, in the past, it’s been quite easy for me to fall into the media-made machine of fear and spiral down into realms of hopelessness when I think of things like Monsanto, factory farming, society’s mass acceptance of debt, war and the destruction of our living planet earth, which is the very organism that sustains us. So, I’m not gonna go there and begin harping on all of those depressing things today.

Today, I’m just another human being on this great big planet, walking down a muddy dirt road. I’m surrounded  by mamacitas on the street, selling plates of rice and vegetables for US 0.75 cents to passerby. There’s a guy on a bicycle with a home-made platform attached to the front. The wooden platform is overflowing with grapes and electrical equipment. He’s holding a microphone to his mouth. The loudspeaker blares his words, “Uvas! ‘Migas, uvas! Uvas!” Grapes, friends, grapes!

It may seem as though I’m ignoring this great day in history, but it’s the opposite. I’m acutely aware of the transition that’s happening today in my home country. I’m staying far, far away from media and television and internet new sites today. I’m instead focusing on this beautiful moment unfolding in front of me, because really, that’s all I’ve got. And whether you are awake or still dreaming the defunct American dream, that’s all you’ve really got too.

Be aware. Be not one of the cogs in the purposefully generated machine of fear. Wake up. Start really noticing these moments that are all around. Listen to your little voice that whispers inside. That loud one on the outside is doing nothing but propagating fear – exactly what is not needed.

And slowly, slowly, one by one as we wake from the collective nightmare, we can realize our power. Then and only then can true and lasting change transform this crazy world into a better place. Join me in the NEW dream where corporations don’t own the rights to life itself, where the world monetary system will not burden our children’s children, a place where genocide is dead and a time when our planet, our mother who sustains us, is healthy again.

Yes, we truly can – dream a new collective dream, that is.

I dreamed my heart was black.

This scared me, because I’ve felt lately

all sad and shriveled up on the inside.

Then the scene changed.

I saw that yes,

My heart was indeed black,

But it was made of fertile soil.

Not something hard and cold and shriveled.

And there was a little seedling

growing out of it.

Waiting to be nurtured.

I’ve been doing research into stress and the chemicals that stress pumps into your body and how some people get almost high on it.

I get edgy and my heart beats fast and I feel like I’ve had ten cups of coffee . . . my nasal passages open up so I can breathe fast, shallow breaths. Everything moves like sound that is sped up. But it’s the electricity firing off in my brain that really creates the buzz. Brain spins so fast, it’s like it’s doing jumping jacks, thoughts moving, flicking so fast that you aren’t conciously processing any of them anymore . . . it’s just like a steady stream of color or a cloth.

And you are focusing somewhere with your eyes at a tangible fixed point in front of you, but you aren’t seeing that fixed point – you are seeing that colored cloth pipeline that only exists in your sped-up spasming grey matter.

Somewhere up there in your noggin you know every single stitch and molecule of that rapidly moving, dazzling tapestry, but conciously, it’s just moving, flicking through your head like film at 24 frames per second, never seeing the gaps between the frames. You cannot hold a conversation or be present to another human.

It takes a long time to cool down and unwind. Sometimes it takes days or weeks. Sometimes months. Sometimes sleep patterns are disrupted; sometimes not. The managable peak, the worst I’ve ever experienced without cracking is the conversation point where when you are talking with someone, your end of the conversation is a hurried, broken, stuttered, “Um huh. um hm. uh huh.” You’re shaking your head uncontrollably like some kind of drug addict.

Because you are. That’s stress juice, baby.

Sometimes I get visions of a needle in my arm. That’s my inner voice, showing me that stress is my junk. And then . . . there’s the unmanagable kind of stress. ABQ has shown me mountains of it. I just want my regular stress level back!

I see an arrow, turning around in blackness inside my mind’s eye, as if twirling on an invisible lazy-susan display in the night time sky. I see the shaft of wood with grain and texture, oil and dirt. The feathers on the end have shape and definition and some are stuck together with grease. The point is sharp greying metal.

Suddenly, the arrow flies through the blackness, piercing it, entering another dimension, entering a forested world of green and strikes a tree with the force of a blast from a lightning bolt. The arrow has disappeared, leaving the wood of the medium-sized tree’s trunk chewed up and bright white. The timber is splinters in some places and bent with greenness in others against the smooth grey of the outer bark.

The arrow is focus, with the power to magnify nebulous energy into a lightning bolt and strike any target with intensity.