It’s easy to whine about annoyances – those circumstances or people that burden the mind with nagging urgency. Harder to cultivate reception when there’s so much confusion, coercion and outright deception filtering down from high places these days.
Politicians have always sugar-coated lies to help them slide down a bit better. But what is going on in this country just now is beyond my understanding. A Presidential election is two weeks away, and far too many are falling victim to hype instead of looking at the glaringly obvious facts: our fundamental rights as citizens and human beings are very much at stake. And we desperately need to shift to a new energy paradigm.

Maybe instead of becoming sidetracked by spin, we could be examining the issues and demanding the candidates address them. Yet the culpable are so worried about returning to the false comfort of a toxic status quo that they are ignoring the silver tongues jammed down their virtual throats.
What keeps us collectively plowing ahead as if greed were our birthright as American citizens? Have we forgotten the warning signs along the way; that actions are now reaping consequences; that democracy is, by its very definition, participatory; that our materialistic desires have infected an entire planet with our disease? Have too many of us lost our minds, if not our hearts?

Discovering joy in the midst of this kind of insanity can be challenging. But here’s the thing: I’ve got to settle inside my own skin. Only I know what is right for me at any given time, and sometimes, through no fault of my own, I am wrong, even when well intentioned.
Still, before November 6, I will be reviewing the candidates and the issues as best I am able (votesmart.org is one place I’ll explore). I will exercise my right to vote, because too many have suffered just to grant me that right. I can get as cynical as the next person about corporations running our government, but just in case it matters, I will go to the polls. And I will scream and I will shout and I will make a joyful noise without uttering a sound. I will do it with my left hand wrapped around a stub of pencil tied by string to a canvas booth just big enough for me. Me and that still-powerful instrument the ballot, that is.
