How to be in times of injustice.Advice from my Creative Self to yours. by Wolf Terry “What are we going to do?” “I feel so helpless…” “This is the end, isn’t it?” My inbox has been flooded with direct messages, texts, phone calls, and emails since the morning of November 6, 2024. Stream-of-thought paragraphs laced with despair, seeking some source of comfort from someone whom they believe to hold answers to the world’s latest dilemma, or at the very least a kindred spirit with which to commiserate. As a former advice columnist and a Wise Woman through no choice of my own, it may be a shock to everyone that my response has lacked direction, instruction, or even sympathy. As a person who has spent the entirety of her existence being thrown from one trauma to the next–whether personal or collective–I have hit a moment of apathy in some ways, and a moment of intense clarity in others. The only thing I know for certain is that my creativity is my strength. So is yours. At 16, my father beat me black and blue over Thanksgiving Break. I returned to the private boarding school my impoverished ass had weaseled her way into, and was met with blank stares and whispers behind hands. None of my teachers, save one, attempted to help me. There was no formal investigation launched into my home-life, even though I was loud and honest about what had happened. I had to wait for a month before being held at gun-point by my father two nights after Christmas before any form of justice was served. The only people who cared were my fellow queer artists; a gaggle of thespian weirdos who had been socially othered and basked in the glow of our collective weirdness. Our arts (music, theatre, poetry, painting, dancing, crafting) were my refuge and my tool against my oppressor. During the bloodiest battle of my teenage years, my creativity paired with the community of creative peers served as my ultimate weapon and tool for liberation. These dark times are not unprecedented. History has seen this before. In our bones we know what to expect; we can predict what the next absurd headline will be and how quickly the media will very obviously drive propaganda through the masses until it implodes on itself. And while many of us are actively trying to undo the damage that is already set into motion, some of us are stuck. Frozen and worrisome, we find ourselves pacing the hallways of our mind, unwilling to approach the nightmare that is alive and well in our metaphorical living rooms. But, we must approach. Not unarmed, but with and in our creative power. This is what we are going to do. This is how we help ourselves and the collective. This is the end of our self-torment and the beginning of everything we dare to dream. Welcome to the Era of Creation. There is no specific framework or advice I can give you, other than “Create,” and “Be.” Find people to share your art with, to be inspired by, to get free with, and then do it. Attempt the thing. Whether it is writing a book or making doodles on scrap paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s “good,” and it is NOT about making this into a new side-hustle to soothe the internalized capitalism we ALL have living inside of us. It is about awakening your own specific brand of magic and strengthening it with daily practice. I am reading a massive pile of cozy, witchy, fantasy books. I am knitting. I am journaling. I am painting. I am writing. I am singing and playing music. I am dancing. I am cooking and baking. I am “being” by allowing myself to live creatively because I know that at the peak of battle, the sustenance we seek to move us forward is not reassuring words or daunting to-do lists of activism, it is inspiration that comes from within our very souls–the magical atoms that bumped together to make us, us. This unique brand of magic is necessary in our fight for collective liberation, in our fight to save democracy and build a new Way. We are at the point where the people who are looking to help save us are about as useful as the 50 some-odd adults at my boarding school were when my eyes were swollen from days of sobbing and my jaw was still sore from my father’s fist. No one is going to save us. No one but us can. So we must gather round the reject table and soak up each other’s weirdness. We must see ourselves as beautiful, feed our souls with movement and color, joy and poetry. There is no other way. And when the time comes to place that call, the one that will drag our tormentor away in their tangled bathrobe and frothing mouths, we will know. We will be ready. We will have courage enough to stare down the barrel of the gun and wait for justice to serve itself. It always does. And whether or not our collective art becomes a footnote or a hallmark in the tomes of History is not for us to decide. The accolades aren't the reward. The liberated Self is. |