The sun emerges as I put together the pieces for Wassail!, a Solstice event this December in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada.

My hope is that every one will feel welcome and loved there – it will be a gathering of us around music, respect, laughter and community – just one of many possible sane answers to the appalling political choices we’ve all been witnessing.

We always have a choice to be our better selves, together. To support each other, expand our understanding, and grow stronger. Together.

In the forest where I’ve been living, on the lake where I gaze, there is no gender, no division, no skin colour, no greed. It’s easy, when immersed in words and social media, to forget that such places exist. That this is, in fact, our natural state, too.

When the fury of these past two weeks was no longer sustainable I woke up, tempered, stronger, clear.

I am skinless, boneless, without living organs

you put yourself into me and call me white

you lay yourself onto me and call me woman

you fill me with your need, which is what I learn to be

I think that this is what life is for

and so we continue,

until your need becomes far greater than I can fulfill and

You try to eat me. You try to kill me, to fill your greed.

That’s when I wake up.

That’s when I begin to understand what I’ve been feeding.

That’s when I take back my skin and my Self.

I choose to make music, instead of feeding you.