The Shadow

In Jungian psychology, the shadow is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is one’s unknown side. Or, for brevity:
The shadow’ is the side of your personality that contains all the parts of yourself that you don’t want to admit having.

The times we’re living in – particularly in the United States are fraught with The Shadow. We the People of good intention appear loathe to accept what’s going on in the US Congress: a concerted effort to disenfranchise vast swathes of Americans, largely because they’re the “wrong” color, the “wrong” ethnicity, the “wrong” ideology….

News blues…

We Have A Real Life Fascist Movement in America  (10:46 mins)
Republican efforts to disenfranchise Americans 

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In South Africa, we evaluate the pandemic by access to alcohol. This week, the news is good as the ban on the sales and distribution of alcohol is expected to be lifted. The country is expected to move to a lower Covid-19 lockdown level this week as the cabinet is expected to ease Covid-19 restrictions. Looking forward to alert level 2...
I look forward to visiting TOPS (liquor store) for a rum refresher but more so, I pray the swimming pool will re-open.

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Dr Fauci explains… (but it’s complicated… ) (2:04 mins)

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Thanks

The Lincoln Project: Leaders of The Lincoln Project, a conservative political action committee that opposes Donald Trump, denounced [Project] co-founder John Weaver on Sunday after a New York Times report revealed unwanted, sexually provocative messages he sent to several young men, sometimes alongside offers of professional favors.

...Steve Schmidt, a fellow co-founder and public face of The Lincoln Project, said in an interview with the Times that the group was “outraged and horrified” to learn of Weaver’s behavior.
In a statement Sunday, The Lincoln Project called Weaver “a predator, a liar, and an abuser” who targeted his accusers with “predatory and deplorable” behavior. 

More shadow showing?

Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Sunday offered a glimpse of what it’s like being one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump: Friends and family turned against him, and he was told he’s “possessed by the devil.” 
“Look it’s really difficult. I mean, all of a sudden imagine everybody that supported you, or so it seems that way, your friends, your family, has turned against you. They think you're selling out,” the Illinois congressman said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I've gotten a letter, a certified letter, twice from the same people, disowning me and claiming I'm possessed by the devil.”

While they deal with that, let’s share a little humor… (2:40 mins) 

Healthy planet, anyone?

Take a page from a panda playbook (0:51 mins) (Courtesy Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute)

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Can Prez Joe Biden pull off a more progressive – and planet-saving – direction in the next 100 days?

President Joe Biden’s administration is … all establishment in the front-facing roles, with a progressive party happening in the back.
Biden’s high-profile Cabinet picks tended to have experience, personal relationships and an ability to earn approval from across the ideological spectrum ― Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have all earned bipartisan stamps of approval in the Senate. But left-leaning Democrats are excitedly watching Biden fill agency and sub-Cabinet posts with younger thinkers who have developed big ideas designed to solve the economic, racial, health and climate crises the Biden administration hopes to address.

Here’s hopin’ this strategy works…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Today, my mother was bright-eyed when I arrived and found her in her Laziboy chair. (Yesterday, she was asleep and we had no interaction.)
Life right now is day-by-day with large dollops of acceptance. My new reality requires a new way of “seeing” my mother, a new way of talking to my mother, indeed, and altogether new way of talking. I know she’s listening to my monologs as I interrupt regularly to ask a question or offer a sip of tea through the syringe. She nods or shakes her head in response. I talk about the dogs, the monkeys, the excess water trying to escape through the culverts, and how the hadedah ibis flock to the water-logged lawns to seek worms.
Sometimes I bring my phone and show her photos of dogs and family members.
It’s a new way of being in the world.