I am fundamentally anti-establishment. It’s not in a hostile way, but it’s being a stranger in a strange land. Years ago, when I was married to a prominent TV writer/producer/director, all of a sudden the wife of a big Hollywood producer, whose butler took our coats when we came for dinner, was in Greece, nestled in with a local fisherman. It was a shocker to everyone that she could leave so much for what seemed like so little, and I was baffled. Mingling with Hollywood royalty, I hadn’t caught on yet to there being a bigger game.
I’ve led three lives. Childhood was Father Knows Best in the last of the generations where all the moms were housewives. Then, it was showbiz wife, which was glamorous but I still was the little woman. My third life is a makeover. A high wire act. As a Flying Wallenda said, “All life is on the wire.” I can balance there in this life thanks to Brian Swimme‘s cosmology, where humanity is my family.
What I always wonder about is where everything came from. There are 70,000 vertebrate species, many of them tiny creatures in coral reefs that hang in my mind from how spectacularly complex they are. All different. What designed them? As we understand things, design is a capacity unique to humans. Where did all our creatures, let alone the whole universe, come from? It’s a miracle, but we are inside it so we don’t see it. (As the student fish said to the philosopher fish, “Water? What water?”) However, we are a learning species and we can come to realize that humans, from the get-go, are awesome.
We’re going backwards now. Let’s pray that’s an in-breath, and with the out-breath we’ll blow the house down.
Really, have you ever heard of any behavior where someone being filmed for a news report calls another person stupid? I bet never. We don’t do that. But Trump doesn’t even reserve it for something unusual; he barks it to anyone who asks him a question he doesn’t want to answer. I can see him as a modern day deus ex machina. In Greek tragedies, that’s when gods would descend from heaven to make judgments that resolved the issues in the play. For us, it would be a Trump god wiping away our underpinnings to clear the way for us to create a new methodology.
About gods, maybe this is the time to stop supplicating to any of them and take on being divine creatures. Jesus said who followed would be greater, and it’s now or never to realize we are divine authorities. How long are we going to let our well-being be neglected while our taxes pay for wars that devastate the world and for removing workers we vitally need? How long are we going to proceed without a rebellion? Dear rebels, meet here!
I like this for how to hold these times:
Perhaps the optimism lies in the recognition that humanity has arrived at a crossroads. When old patterns of fear, separation, and endless striving reveal themselves as unsustainable, something deeper has the opportunity to emerge. What if this evolutionary inflection point is not merely about changing systems, but about remembering who we are beneath them? Beyond the noise of the conditioned mind lives a quieter intelligence—one rooted in presence, compassion, unity, and love. The challenges we face may be unprecedented, but so too is the possibility of awakening they invite. This is the moment when humanity decides whether to continue unconscious patterns of division or to step into a more conscious way of being. Perhaps the future is not asking us to become something new, but to remember what we have always been.
It’s from Kara Frazier, who wrote a wonderful response to the great Substack about Marianne Williamson that I cross-posted to you last week. Here’s some of what Kara said:
For years I have been drawn to the understanding that the quality of our lives is shaped by the quality of our consciousness. A fearful mind creates fearful responses. A loving mind creates the possibility for understanding, healing, and wise action. The systems we build often reflect the consciousness from which they arise…
Love is often misunderstood because we reduce it to sentiment or personal emotion. Yet the deeper form of love described here is neither soft nor passive. It is the courage to see clearly. It is the willingness to face suffering without turning away, to tell the truth without hatred, and to recognize the dignity of others even when we disagree…
The challenge is not merely to bring more love into politics. The challenge is to bring more awareness into how we see ourselves, one another, and the world we are creating together. That, to me, is where meaningful change begins.
And how about this, that I sent to Rosie O’Donnell?
Rosie—I have an idea. You occupy a unique space as a nemesis to Trump. I could see Hollywood getting behind something like We Are the World now. It could be done electronically, where people don’t have to be together. Collect every right-minded powerhouse in Hollywood and you MC the 250-year special of our dreams!!!!!
Here’s me as Rosie’s last guest on her talk show on OWN. That’s Oprah’s Chicago operation that Rosie had a show on after her years as a daytime superstar on NBC. The NBC show got my daughter, Liza, some Emmys being one of its producers.
And look at this. Humanity is so worth saving!
Here’s another PEP TALK FOR HUMANITY, from decades ago that I could have just written:
The Optimystical Age: It Begins
1988
Is there someplace we can go, deep deep deep into the heart of ourselves, and stay together forever?
What is the door that can stay open between us for eternity?
What vows must I make for you to know how safe it is with me for you to be yourself?
Under all of our arguments and all of our opinions, can we not know this beingness whose thinking mind moves from harmony to chaos? It is the design of humans. Do not fear the dark. It is fuel for the light. The dark night of the soul sits on our shoulder, cheering us on. The shadow is our friend. Thank you, shadow. Let us dance together. It is the dance of eternal birth. I create you to inspire me. I called you into existence to show me more of who I am.
So, too, with me who is you by another name. Dance with me forever. Sometimes we waltz and other times drums beat us into wild frenzy. Do not turn off the music. Let it reverberate through our open door.
Can we allow each other full expression? Drums insist on wildness. Can I let you think what you think, and, if I think other, can you let me think that, trusting, ever trusting, that this is the process of life, the dance of discovery, the endless eternal serving of a truth that wants to educate us to ourselves and to merge us into one another?
Can I know that you know that I love you, and you know that I know that you love me, and can we stand on this knowing as the bedrock of the Club of One Heart, a league of beings, a united peoples?
Let us grow a new reality together. Come with me into the heart of yourself. There shall I be until forever. Let a play of hearts define a world that empowers and enlivens this fortuitous creation.
To get immersed in the point of view I argue for, have a look at comments I’ve made in Substack Notes.
HOUSEKEEPING
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Suzanne,
Thank you for this. I think what keeps returning to me is the question beneath the rebellion.
There are certainly things worth resisting, especially when systems become disconnected from human well-being, community, and the living world. But I keep finding myself drawn to the creative side of the equation. If old structures are breaking down, what are we being called to build in their place?
The passages from Kara touched something similar for me. The quality of our institutions, economies, and political systems cannot really be separated from the quality of consciousness from which they arise. Fear tends to generate more fear, division, and control. A deeper awareness of our interconnectedness opens the possibility for something different.
As someone who has spent the last few years immersed in questions of recovery, resilience, and systems change through my work in Lāhainā, I have become increasingly convinced that meaningful transformation is not only political or economic. It is also cultural, relational, and spiritual. Communities are sustained not only by policies and infrastructure, but by trust, purpose, belonging, and a shared vision of the future.
I think that is why I continue to return to conversations about hope. Not because hope ignores reality, but because it expands our capacity to imagine possibilities beyond the conditions immediately in front of us.
Perhaps this moment is asking us not only to challenge what no longer serves life, but also to remember what it means to be fully human and to create from that place.
Thank you for continuing to ask these larger questions.
So many people give up pursuing their passion. And yours is more important than most. Saving the world. How do you stay motivated?