For week four, I wrote, "You've crafted a vision of the future, and refined it. You've crafted a vision of your own future self and found ways to work toward that future self's sense of accomplishment. You've set up a schedule of actions so you can build a habit of acting. And you've gotten some large-scale perspective to pull you out of navel-gazing and remind you of wonder." Once again, actually achieving all of this was beyond me, as I'm dealing with some personal challenges that are taking precedence over activism even in this very urgent time.

When I think of my activist mentors and heroes, I always think first and foremost of my mother. She took direct action when she was young, going to the South to march alongside Black civil rights leaders, and when she was raising me and my brother, she encouraged and facilitated our activism, writing me excuse notes so I could skip school for anti-war marches and sharing stories of past successes to give me hope. My action in her honor is a commitment to talk more with Kit about what's wrong with the world and how we fight to make it better.

My vision of the future is one that's clean, bright, and healthy, so I reminded myself to think of the labor that goes into trash collection and medical care and to support the work of people fighting for cleaner air and water. My vision of myself on November 4th... that's harder. I keep thinking about how much textbanking and phonebanking I did in 2016, and I want to be doing that again right now. I tried to tell myself I'd do textbanking one night a week, and set Tab Snooze to pop the tab up every day. But so far, it's not happening. I'm settling for sending donations. It doesn't feel like enough, but it's what I can do right now.

Week Five: Hod - Presence, the Moment, Ritual, Thought, Acceptance

Hod follows netzach, the present following the future. This ordering continues to feel very profound to me, especially as someone who's read a lot of science fiction and seen the power of visions of the future to shape actions in the present. Like gevurah channeling chesed, hod channels netzach, grounding those sometimes wild visions and shaping them into reality. Netzach, hod, and yesod can also be emotion, intellect, and the body, or id, superego, and ego. The middle of this three-week set is a powerful and intense place to be.

R' Yael Levy interprets hod as gratitude, but to me it feels more like acceptance. There's value to a gratitude practice, to be sure, but in this political set of interpretations, an acceptance practice feels more useful and necessary. And I'm adding the interpretation of ritual to acknowledge the power of ritual to bring the present moment into focus and anchor us in the real.

10/13: 29. Chesed sh'b hod, love within acceptance: If acceptance feels a little bland and passive, today I encourage you to channel all the passion of chesed into it. Chesed isn't just love, it's the love that floods the universe, the love so intense that it can't be directly perceived without gevurah to constrain it. This process has probably uncovered something in yourself that you struggle with or dislike, maybe that stumbling block we found back in week three. Powering yourself up with chesed, look right at that part of yourself, and do your best to passionately, all-encompassingly love yourself just as you are. We're all imperfect and we're all going to struggle and stumble and mess up. That's okay. We are still worthy of love and we can still make valuable contributions to our causes.

10/14: 30. Gevurah sh'b hod, discernment within the moment: Whew, that was a lot of emotion. Let's shift into the realm of thought. There are three weeks to the election, and if you're like me, contemplating that is pretty anxiety-inducing. It's hard to know how to make the best use of that brief window. But at any moment, we can say, "I am here. From here, I can choose my path forward." In as much detail as possible, decide how you're going to take action from here to November 3rd. Begin by taking some concrete action today.

10/15: 31. Tiferet sh'b hod, focus within ritual: Still struggling with that anxiety? Me too. Now's a good time to make a little grounding and focusing ritual for yourself, or to rediscover one that's worked for you in the past. The ideal ritual is quick, simple, and sensory, and for our purposes, it's great if it can transmute anxiety into action. Therefore, I suggest putting a coin in a tzedakah (charity) coin bank every time you catch yourself stressing out. (If you're out in the world, move a coin from your usual coin purse to one that's designated for this purpose, or bookmark a $1 donation link on your phone that you can easily tap and boost.) This isn't a penalty like a swear jar, but a redirection of your energy from inward to outward, and the feeling and smell of the coin and the sound of it dropping into the bank can be just as grounding as rubbing a worry stone or taking a deep breath. Those coins are individually small, but they add up, and any action is better than inaction.

10/16: 32. Netzach sh'b hod, vision within the moment: Going back to your visions from last week, bend your intellect to thinking of how to begin to make them real right now. Take action in two ways: by doing something to support a cause that's working toward the key elements of your vision, and by committing to shifting your own behavior to be more in line with the world as you want it to be. For example, using my vision of a clean and healthy future, I can donate to Doctors Without Borders and also do my daily PT exercises, make sure everyone in my family gets a flu shot, and take the time to haul my e-waste to the collection and recycling point halfway across Brooklyn instead of tossing it in the trash.

10/17 (Shabbat): 33. Hod sh'b hod, presence within acceptance: I always find this point in the count unexpectedly demanding. Being fully present is hard. My mind wanders, my thoughts and feelings intrude, I'm distracted by sounds or smells or aches. But none of that is doing present-ness wrong; it's part of being a living, growing person whose body and mind are never fully still. Today, do your best to be fully present for a few minutes, and see what you can learn about yourself from nonjudgmentally observing what distracts and interrupts you. Suggested reading: "The Practice of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

10/18: 34. Yesod sh'b hod, motivation within ritual: Go back to that anchor from day 20 and look for a way to build an action ritual around it. My anchor is my family history of activism, so my ritual might be a daily or weekly practice of donating to an organization that one of my ancestors supported or would approve of. If your anchor is something physical, maybe you can take an action that involves moving your body, like writing a postcard. If it's social, set up a scheduled time to do activism with a friend. If it's a vision of the future, work toward that vision. Begin with an action right now.

10/19: 35. Malchut sh'b hod, manifestation within the moment: Where is the world already good—better than good—amazing? When we're so focused on fixing what's broken, it can be easy to start thinking that everything is broken, and that leads to despair. Shore yourself up by thinking of ways that the sacred and splendid are already present: a beloved person, a beautiful place that fills your heart with wonder, a piece of art that lifts you up. Take an action to preserve and sustain something good, or to support an organization that has already brought about tangible changes. This action might not look like charity or activism; maybe you want to buy an album from a musician, or call someone to tell them how much they mean to you. That's just fine. Malchut often brings a perspective shift. Do what feels right, and don't worry about being constrained by notions of what activism should be. Suggested reading: "99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn't Hear About In 2019" by Angus Hervey.

This post currently ends on day 33 rather than going through to day 35, because one of the actions I'm taking to manifest a healthier future is trying to go to bed earlier even when it means leaving something undone. I'll come back to complete it tomorrow. Complete!

At the end of this week, you have taken three concrete actions for social change, and one action to sustain and preserve what's already good in the world. You've loved yourself as you are and made a plan for being who you want to be. You've supported yourself through anxiety, and hopefully out the other side. You've built some rituals and habits, extending now into the future. And you've expanded your idea of what taking positive action looks like. I hope this grounding in the present is helping with all that stress about the future.

Next week is yesod: foundation, motivation, history, and vitality.