Two days ago, the venerable monks who are walking across the United States were in North Carolina. It was Day 91 of their Walk for Peace. I watched their live stream, as I have been doing every day since they began. I can feel their peaceful loving kindness.
Yesterday, it snowed all day. I watched out the windows as it fell. Light and fluffy, then fine and furious. The snowplows passed by several times, clearing the middle of the street, and pushing piles off to the side, leaving mountain of snow and ice, at the driveway apron, easily three feet deep.
Two days ago a VA nurse named Alex Pretti was murdered, execution style by ICE officers in Minneapolis. I watched the videos. I felt 1000 feelings.
Yesterday, I led an online Snow Day Yoga class from my basement. I set my intention for radical non-violence and loving kindness. I thought about the monks. I thought about Minneapolis.
Two days ago, the Trump administration claimed that Alex Pretti was attempting ‘to inflict maximum damage’ and to ‘massacre’ law enforcement, a direct contradiction of what the videos clearly demonstrate. Alex Pretti’s final act before he was attacked and then murdered, was an act of kindness and compassion. He tried to help a woman who had slipped on the ice. His last words were ‘Are you okay?’
Yesterday at the end of yoga, we chanted Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. When I explained that the translation is ‘May all beings everywhere be happy and free’, my voice cracked and I started to cry, just a little. I thought about the monks. I thought about the Minneapolis.
Today, I spent three and a half hours shoveling myself out of my own way. Chopping, scooping, tossing. Chopping, scooping, tossing. Clearing the path. Clearing the way. Slowly moving the mountain from the apron to the grass. Thinking about Minneapolis. Thinking about the monks.
Skip to My Lou, My Dharma 
In response to your last message and germane to this post :
Haven’t seen the monks. Feel curious about it. Love is the only option we see for a different world.
We feel skeptical about all existing institutions, especially religion, since all of our traditional institutions replicate patriarchal hierarchies. Capitalism can withstand all we throw at it. Surrounding it with love is all we can see as an option. Maybe the monks contribute to that…
Yes, buying green bananas to us is hope, an orientation toward life. Our dad lived alone and independently with no daily supports. Quality of life mattered most to him; and he chose to live alone as a widow. And he chose green bananas.
Trying it all together, we wish he’d had more to focus on in his life than capitalism. It was the sun he orbited because he’d inherited that solar system model and knew no other was possible. And he had every myth possible to support that model.
Brighter days will lift our mood. It’s so cold here we can’t be outside without risking frostbite. We need nature! Tomorrow the cold spell abates. We will be ready!
We do feel overwhelmed by how people react to the news. We don’t see the differences they do. We don’t see ICE as an escalation of the systematic killing of our Black and Brown neighbors.
We will not pretend that our institutions can be “reformed.” There is no capitalism “light.” What people here see as a deviation from “normal”—ICE kidnapping and shooting people on our streets—we see as the same as the daily institutional killing of our Black and Brown neighbors via discrimination in healthcare, incarceration, economics, and every system.
People want conservative ICE to leave so that we can go back to killing our Black and Brown neighbors the liberal way: industrial pollution in their neighborhoods, depriving them of wealth and then blaming them for the choices they make for dignity, mattering, to eat. The ends are the same; we don’t focus as much on the means. Does that make sense to you?
We feel pleased you have yoga.
Yes. That makes perfect sense to me. The ends are the same.
We have bitter cold here now, as well. Single digits and negative temperatures. But Groundhog Day is coming. I hope you get outside soon.
Thank you for hearing us: the ends are the same ♥️
Hiked 2 miles on a combo of snow and ice.
Great news! I’m glad that you were able to get out into nature for a while. ❤️