The morning after the election The Los Angeles Times ran a banner headline: Democrats Take Back the House. I grinned reading it, standing in the gateway of my courtyard. Something flickered in me, seeing the words spread across the page, a taste of older headlines, bigger news, maybe, not always good (Milk and Moscone?). Whatever it was, the headline caught me in the chest. I never got a chance to read the front page story, but it sat on the floor of my living room for days, proclaiming our good news each time I walked by. I listened to KPFA the morning after the election and learned in the act of taking back the house our country elected a twenty-nine-year-old woman, two Native American women and two Muslim women. It was just before the new moon, and I remember standing in my living room during the Cazimi window talking to the universe about how I want to be more in touch with magic in my life. And the news about these five women we elected to the house made me cry big happy grateful tears. It reached deep in me, this reassurance from the world that we are going to move in the right direction, despite all evidence to the contrary. And it felt like we were sending a message, too. We don’t want to do things your way. Yesterday there seems to have been a surprising level of civility between Governor Brown and Governor-Elect Newsom and President Trump on his visit to California in the wake of the fires. President Trump didn’t threaten again to deny us federal funds but instead promised 100% support. Reading that, I softened toward him for a moment. But I still get all shiny inside when I think of those five women we elected to the house and the message it sends. I still dream of the day when I’ll get a glimpse of the house or the senate on TV, and there will be all these young people in the mix, and black and brown faces everywhere, graceful hijabs, women of all colors, white men scattered about among the rest.

[The Cazimi window, as I understand it, is 30 minutes before and after the exact moment of the new moon when we can take action both practically and symbolically for things we want to manifest in this lunar cycle. I’ve come across it here.]