Lately I keep thinking of Chris Rock’s joke about how after W we got Obama so after Trump maybe we should expect Jesus. And I wonder: does it work this way? Do we dip into the worst kind of darknesses, push off and then soar to new heights? Is that the point? Is there a point? Can the damage being done right now to women’s rights in our country right now ever be course corrected?

I was remembering an email that was circulating just after Trump was elected. It was about how to talk to children re: the fact that an openly prejudiced misogynist mentally ill narcissist is going to be our president now. It was brimming with all kinds of reassurances – explaining to children how our government is set up with checks and balances and that even a president’s powers are limited and how we have a constitution which protects us and a supreme court where laws are upheld. This letter was circulating in the first few days after the election results were tallied. It was before any of the events which have gone down in the past 850 + days had gone down. I never shared the letter with my kids. Their bullshit meters are too refined.

I was remembering a quote from Gandhi about how the greatness of a nation can be judged on how well its animals are treated. I was thinking about going with my mom to get our dogs spayed and how we called it “getting them fixed” back then, growing up in the 80’s. What were we fixing? More than fixing we were sealing their fate. Deciding for them that they would not wander, impregnate or get pregnant. We were deciding for them because we are the species with the means to dial the vet and make the appointment and show up for it and submit our pet to the doctor for the operation. We are the species who can think and reason and choose. And they are the species that loves unconditionally and waits by the door with tails wagging in the most utterly vulnerable, dependent way.

If we’re going to decide for women as though they’re dogs can we decide for men too? Can we level the playing field? Can we make it impossible for men to impregnate women against their wishes? Can we fix that? Can we fix the unspeakable violence that goes down inside our beautiful country every single day? Our precious land of the free where every 92 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted and every 9 minutes that victim is a child. And approximately 34 percent of perpetrators in cases of child sexual abuse are family members.

Can we fix the real problem? The problem of making another an “other” and then moving to control and over power them? The problem of how lost we are from our innate divine feminine and divine masculine and how this imbalance internally is manifesting externally? The problem that our mothers are not properly protected – including our great mother, our earth – and if our mothers are not properly protected our children are not properly protected. And if our children are not properly protected what kind of civilization are we actually?