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January 6, 2022

Why Q (part 1)

My friend

'Your letter from a friend is quite sinister.'
'You put too much stock in your "friend".'
'Your friend is DARK energy. That was no friend of yours.'
'What a rude, unsensitive and self absorbed person. Your friends letter is exactly what my own husband believes and we have never been more disconnected than now.'

These are excerpts from comments on a YouTube video posted on January 6th, 2021, the day of the attack on the Capitol, exactly one year ago. They are commenting about me. They are followers of a woman who is a follower of Qanon. That woman is a friend of mine.

The video was posted by a woman I have known for the past 30 years. She had a series of spiritual awakenings that began about 40 years ago and she wrote a series of books on these events. She started up an organic farm and developed a center which has been offering spiritual counselling and courses on developing intuition for decades now. In 2019, I looked at her website and was surprised to learn that she had written a book (which I read) promoting Qanon. I wrote a strongly worded email to her in September 2019 describing my horror at this and she sent a strongly worded response back to me. We remain on good terms with one another.

That is not supposed to happen. People at opposite ends of our cultural divides are not supposed to be able to speak to one another. I do not accept that. I have made an effort to cross these divides. In the last few years I have had debated migrant children with a Proud Boy, the second amendment with an NRA group and vaccines with a friend who was (before Covid) an anti vax mom. I continue to make efforts to connect accross gulfs between people.

One year ago, on January 5th, 2021, I wrote an extensive email/ letter to a few friends and family, with my predictions of what might happen the next day, on January 6th, 2021. I copied my friend on this: the woman who wrote the book on Qanon. She chose to read the letter out loud in a video broadcast to her online followers on January 6th, 2021. The news of the attack on the Capitol came in the middle of her live video.

Her video has 6,407 views and 142 comments, including the ones calling me sinister, dark, etc. This was a bit of a surreal experience for me. A pivotal moment in the history of the world was happening (the attack on the Capitol) and thousands of people who played some part in inspiring this event (the Qanon movement) were watching my thoughts on it as the events happened live. I do not have a social media presence and normally there are only a handful of people that may see the thoughts (such as this essay) that I post on my website. This moment of minor anonymous internet "fame" was not an everyday event for me. It was anonymous because she did not give out my name. I am returning the favor by not giving out her name.

My reason for posting about this does not have to do with the novelty these events had for me. What I am hoping is that there is something of value to be found in the back and forth between myself and my friend. The real novelty to be found here is in two people finding a way to speak across cultural divides that are deep and vast while still seeing one another as fully human and keeping a friendship alive

So, with that preface, here is the way my friend began her video, posted one year ago:

This is a letter that I received yesterday. Today is January 6th. This is from somebody that I like and somebody that I respect and somebody that I've worked with. I find this letter very, very powerful and really interesting, because it so clearly says what the opposite point of view is in the United States. It's a mirror image of what we have been thinking and what we have been saying. I just want to read it.

My friend goes on to read the rest of my letter. When she is done she says this:

I was absolutely stunned by how this is a perfect mirror of what the Republicans have been saying about the Democrats, and it does not bode well for where we are headed as a country. Today is January 6th so there is all kinds of stuff happening in the Capitol, that we are kind of on pins and needles about... If this is a perfect mirror of what the Republicans have been saying, wow.. can we come back together?.

It intrigued me that my friend used the word "mirror" to describe my words. I don't usually write in public in starkly partisan terms. In the articles I have posted online I have not once used words like "Trump" or "MAGA". I chose to do so in this email/ letter to a few friends and family just as our politics was reaching a fever pitch. From time to time I listen to right wing radio, where the hosts often attack anyone who disagrees with them as "traitors" and "terrorists". In the heat of this January 2021 moment, I wanted to give people in the MAGA movement a sense of what it feels like when you are on the receiving end of this kind of talk. In this case, the shoe did fit. January 6th was an attack on our country.

What was even more intriguing to me was the way that my friend took me to task once she began to critique the letter. Here is what she said:

This letter does not admit at all to the corruption... It doesnt say anything about the outrageous condition of our financial system or the way that people keep getting ripped off and cant get anywhere. There are more people living on the streets now than there ever were. When the 2008 2009 banking collapse happened and so many people lost their houses for no reason. It was fraudulent. Stealing of houses. That is not addressed

Here, my friend gets to what I think is the heart of the matter. Do I care what you think of Trump? Not much. I care far more about what kind of world you want to live in. Do I worry that we could be headed to a civil war, in spite of my predictions? Sure. Still, I continually redirect my focus to what emerges and what is born in the long term and in the aftermath of whatever chaos and havoc may come in the near term. It is true what my friend said. I did not propose a roadmap for a new world in my email. That does not mean that I have no thoughts on the matter. I have spent much of my 50+ years on this planet thinking on these things. I feel that now is the time for all of us to envision what kind of humans we want to be and what kind of earth we want to live on. All that I write here today is a prelude to two things that I will do at the end of this essay: I will share my own thoughts on what futures we can imagine and I will call on all of us to engage in this creative work of envisioning new ways of life for the children and grandchildren growing up today.

The Attack

My friend's January 6th video is 20 minutes. She speaks at length about my letter and her thoughts on a number of subjects.... then, 15 minutes in, her talk is interrupted. The screen changes to a split screen, showing my friend and another woman. A man's voice is also heard in the background. I assume this other woman and this man are colleagues or producers of her show. They are telling her the breaking news of what is happening in the Capitol. Here are excerpts transcribed from the video as the Capitol is under attack:

That is how the video concludes. It was fascinating to me, one year ago, to listen to my friend creating an alternative version of the events of the day, essentially instantaneously. In the very moment she was hearing about the events of January 6th (she had not seen the images yet) she was already conjuring a story to help us see that we were not really seeing what we were seeing.

How can we come together? It will not be easy. It will not be quick. Can we meet in the middle when there is no middle to be found? This middle feels like a mirage as the middle fails to hold. It is hard to see or center amid the smoke and mirrors and fire and fury. When you can't go left and you can't go right and you can't find the middle you may need to find a new way. Perhaps we need to look within and find a deeper place.

///////////////// To Be Continued ///////////////////////////

UNDER CONSTRUCTION (WHY Q Part 2):

No He's Not

Q and A

Combing Snakes Out Of Hair

It Is Happening

What Is Not Addressed

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