The collapse of American democracy is a bizarre era to start a creative based business. I don’t know whether to awkwardly chuckle or cringe at the ironic juxtaposition the role “business” currently plays in my life, while at the same time representing the driver of corruption corroding our government and society. Conflicted and confused is an understatement. I am both committed to resisting against and divesting myself from the sinister systems driving this late-stage capitalistic hellscape as much as possible while also relying on the system of capitalism to move my first business forward. The uncertainty around whether that makes me a performative hypocrite or a product of my time is, at times, crippling. 

2025 feels like watching a coin stand on its edge – momentarily stable, yet precariously positioned; split between two worlds. It’s only a matter of time before the law of gravity pulls one side down to table with a clank of finality. But will it be heads or tails? 

On one side of the coin, I am at the dawn of a new chapter. A chapter where I can use the self knowledge I’ve worked so hard for and prove to myself and this patriarchal world that even little ol’ me can make my dreams come true. That I can do the work of discovering who Caroline really is and utilize her resources, privilege, and opportunities to create the life I want for myself without sacrificing my core values and ideals. It’s an image of building a business where social justice is a core pillar. It’s a picture of the power of community and love and goodness prevailing, despite the human fecal matter in Washington and beyond. Creating art as a form of connection, community, and political resistance. 

On the other hand, there appears to be a 50/50 chance that oligarchy, corruption, greed, and inhumanity will force its way on top. That all this effort will be for naught because eventually society will collapse or I’ll be corralled into one of RJK Jr’s camps for being a neurodivergent queer person like two thirds of the US population under 40. It’s hard to maintain faith in virtue, goodness, and your “silly little art” when an unelected N*zi is doing press interviews in the oval office; when children and US citizens are being seized off the streets and sent to Alligator Alcatraz; when suicide prevention hotlines are being eliminated; when governments and institutions justify away the sight of starving children in Gaza, and then punish citizens who protest against the genocide ongoing in Palestine; when the justice system lets an abusive human trafficker go free and a rapist be president, but keeps the People’s Luigi under lock and key. 

Duality.

So the question prevails, which side will land face up? You know your girl loves her guidance. 

The ceaseless sense of doom so many of us are collectively suspended in spurrs caustic thoughts of self doubt. What’s the point of navigating all the unknown and uncertainty associated with rearranging my life if the government is just going to seize my home? What’s the point of soldering this glass if the rapture is around the corner? What’s the point of “doing the hard thing” if climate change is just going to destroy my community in a 500-going-on-5-year flood, or tornado, or wildfire, or hurricane? The What Ifs have sprouted now deeply rooted weeds of fear and paranoia. They’ve kept me still, frozen, treading water. Most of my conscious energy is exerted simply trying to keep my head above water, leaving meager scraps to invest in my dreams for myself and my community – much less the world. 

Boy, it sure is difficult for creative energy to thrive when trapped in survival mode. Even in those rare bursts of energy, I feel as though I’m dizzy and fumbling. I can’t tell which way is up, much less forward. I feel like I’m back in 2002 in my rich friend’s basement playing Dance Dance Revolution, trying to make sure the correct foot lands in the appropriate position without losing pace while also silently calculating how idiotic I appear to the outside gaze. I want to successfully play my role in fighting fascism and contribute to a higher vibration of hope and empowerment, but struggle feeling confident in knowing when, how, and where to take meaningful action. And so, I tread, gasping for air while I still can. 

–

Recently I laid in bed during the wee early hours, eyes closed but mind engaged and already calculating what amount of productivity will stave off paralyzing shame and self-resentment for another day. While normally I’m welcomed into a new day with the calming sounds of train horns and screeching truck brakes, a different sound that wasn’t immediately placed comes through the window. Eventually it hit me: an owl hoot. 

I live in a mid-sized city that is currently experiencing a renaissance. Unfortunately for local wildlife, this means the few hectares of woods that remain within city limits are prime for demolition. A constant within capitalism: “build, baby, build!”. Just last month, a wooded area down the street from my house was razed for yet another corporate owned apartment complex. Distracted by potential impacts to property value, I hadn’t previously considered habitat loss until that moment. Where is this owl? Where does it live? 

For a few moments I lay there, trying to sort through the ambiguity, desperate to construct meaning and understanding from this morning surprise. I think back to my dimly lit depression days of 2023 when I insatiably binged stories by and about native and indigenous peoples. I recalled my white-washed impressions melting away, as an awe took root. The lessons, wisdom, traditions, and folklore of indigenous cultures are as expansive as they are meticulous.

On I thought, raking through the native symbolism I’ve collected from these stories. I remember something about owls, but can’t quite isolate the memory. Was it ominous? Was it an omen? Google to the rescue. “In Native American culture, an owl hoot is often interpreted as a symbol of a message from the spirit world, signifying wisdom, intuition, and sometimes a warning or impending change, depending on the tribe and context; its call is seen as a way to access hidden knowledge or receive guidance from ancestors.”

Butterflies flutter behind my belly button. I swiftly cling to the idea that perhaps one of my ancestors whom I’ve spent hours, or days even, wondering about is reaching out to me. But for what, though? What are they saying? What should I be hearing? My mind bounces anywhere from “believe in your dreams” to “the revolution is coming,” but I’m left with nothing clear, nothing concrete. Much to my disappointment. Eventually, the day’s demands begin to nip at me and I force myself out of bed and go on with my day. Spirituality is counter productive to logic and reason, afterall. 

Hours later, as the sun shines its last rays of dusk, my partner and I are driving home from our evening errands. My mind lazily observes the acreage of red clay dirt to my left that once homed trees and other native flora. Was this once the home of my morning owl? Where have all the birds, snakes, rabbits, deer, and even the occasional unhoused individual gone? Will they survive the displacement? Or did man’s insatiable demand for more, more, more yet again force loss of life? 

My stream of consciousness is suddenly interrupted, “LOOK! AN OWL,” my partner gasps with urgency. My head spins forward. Not eight feet ahead swoops an owl with a broad wingspan flying low, eye level, then sharply ascends as it passes to the right, landing confidently on a football goal post in a city park. Its body positioned toward the car as though watching us pass and drive on. 

My mind swirls. Was this the same owl that contacted me this morning or are these two isolated creatures? I can probably count the number of times I’ve seen an owl in person on one hand, so to both hear and come so close to one in the same day is as unexpected as it is curious. This cannot be a coincidence. My novice insight remembers that native symbology of owls often mean different things depending on the type of experience or situational context. So what does it mean when you see an owl in flight? 

Google, again, to the rescue. “In Native American culture, an owl flying symbolizes wisdom, intuition, and the ability to see beyond the physical realm due to its nocturnal nature, often associated with spiritual guidance, prophecy, and connection to the unseen world; however, the meaning can vary depending on the specific tribe, with some viewing owls as messengers or even harbingers of death.” 

I let my thoughts steep in possibility. Feelings of wonder, comfort, and curiosity dance inside. I picture my grandparents and other ancestors watching over me, letting their presence be known, reminding me that reality might not be all that meets the eye. Pondering the element of death, I don’t feel fear or dread. Instead, I feel excitement and eagerness, as though the death of one makes way for the birth (or rebirth?) of another. 

Thoughts begin racing through my brain in a forceful current now. This moment feels like a collision of realities I’ve previously dipped my toes into with trepidation, bound to the shallows of self conscious rationality. Don’t be so woowoo, Caroline. But still, this ethereal vibration remains in my bones. The grounding value of logic, reason, and measurable evidence that has been culturally dwindling over the last decade or so suddenly comes crashing down entirely, leaving only ancient wisdom, spiritual energy, and universal alignment in its wake. As though my eyes have adjusted to a dark room, I feel like I can see clearly enough to navigate my way to the next door while others, with their constricted pupils, stumble and trip over furniture and around corners. 

The nearly constant tension, anxiety, fear, and rage that has blanketed my body since early November momentarily thins. I consider the universal order of things. I reflect on my lifelong fascination with my maternal lineage. I contemplate the powerful timing of my layoff and launch into a new path. I consider the global return to the Age of Aquarius, and how humanity has waited 2,000 years for this shift in the collective consciousness. All living beings die. Every beginning has an end. Time is a flat circle. My body settles into a stillness as I realize that just because I can’t see what’s next, doesn’t mean nothing’s there.

Duality. 

Not to make everything about Kendrick Lamar, but I also consider how he often explores the end of the world as we know it in his songs. “Mass destruction and mass corruption, the souls of sufferin’ men // Clutchin’ on deaf ears again, rapture’s comin’ // It’s all prophecy and if I gotta be // Sacrificed for the greater good, then that’s what it gotta be.” Perhaps there’s literal truth in those words. We know there’s an abundance of destruction, corruption, and suffering. So maybe too, we, the collective People, have reached the end of one plane of existence, one reality. The end is nigh. And with this ending – the death of our current realities– comes change, new life, a new beginning, a new world. It is a time of change; a time of social, political, and personal transformation, and we –you and I– have the opportunity to experience it. 

As I write these words my mind meanders towards a book I’ve slowly been inching my way through over the last few months, Maiden to Mother. In it, the author explains how patriarchy has suffocated and silenced crucial feminine rites of passage for an age, and how that has (intentionally) kept the collective spirit of women stunted, small, weak, docile – (Patriarchy!). However, when we put in the personal and spiritual work of gradually dismantling those blockers within our inner worlds we can evolve into an empowered, self-defined “Mother”. The author explains that we have to literally end who we were in order to pursue who we have the potential to become. We have to kill off parts of ourselves in order to make way for new strength, and in doing so we can reclaim feminine power, wisdom, and wholeness. “This work awakens the priestesses who are dormant in our lineage, they come back to guide us through. To reach deep inside is to become more powerful every time…But it takes great courage to break with one’s past history and stand alone.” 

You’re far too comfortable on autopilot. You have been surviving in– but never thriving in– the patriarchy. On the outside, everything is fine. The fathers have approved of you, the good girl. You have done everything you’ve been told to do. You’ve lived for everyone else’s approval. You’ve done everything right, maybe you’ve gotten married, perhaps you’ve succeeded at your job or motherhood, and people like you. But you are still not whole; you’ve still got a gaping hole inside you. Something is desperately missing–and it’s you. Soon you start to hear a call from deep inside. In the exhausted sense of surrender, you know that the answers you need will not come from outside of you. You know that because you’ve looked everywhere else, except inside of you. You’ve spent your life learning from other people, through schools and programs, online courses, books, teachers, and trainings. Nothing has stuck but you. You’re at the threshold between Maiden (a child to whom things happen) and Mother (an adult, whom things happen through)….. Only when we break the rules that are killing us do we stand a chance at survival. Well behaved women rarely make history, as the saying goes. 

Well damn. I feel attacked. But also seen. Years worth of therapy, intense inner work, and a lot of clickety clacking on my keyboard summarized into one scathingly honest paragraph. How wondrous of a feeling to have your journey mirrored back at you in the book you read. As I ponder the nature of coincidences that pop up in my purview, another smacks me hard across the face. The author, Sarah Durham Wilson, mentions she’s from my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. Knowing her to be a Chatty Cathy who always knows the tea and eager to spill, I text my mother if that name rings a bell – perhaps she’s similar in age to my sister and they went through the public school system together. “Yes. She used to babysit you. She lived up the street. Why? A friend and I were just talking about her,” was her reply. 

Shut the goddamn front door. This is not a coincidence. This is synchronicity. Excuse my language, but this is some powerful, unexplainable, magical, divine feminine, portal ass shit. This spirit, this soul, that once served as my caregiver during my infancy has re-entered my life in adulthood, now cradling and nurturing my feminine fire. 

All my life I’ve craved clarity. I’ve politely followed the pre-prescribed path ahead of me with precise execution and noble intentions. Sure, that road rewarded me with a few degrees, a salary, and a mortgage, but it corroded every part of my spirit until I was but a ghost of myself, sleepwalking into oblivion. Durham Wilson warned that “god and government only protect the obedient…our protection is conditional upon our submission to authority.” I find it curiously synchronistic that in tandem with my retreat from the corporate grind and my rebuke of a government inching towards authoritarianism, amidst all the national, global, and personal uncertainty, I’ve stumbled upon my own self discerned clarity. I make my own rules now. I owe it to myself and the universal energies that keep knocking at my door to position my actions in alignment with my values. I am the witness to myself. And you to yours. 

Duality. 

–

So here I am. I’ve made it through my rock bottom. I’ve journeyed through the dark underbelly of my own subconscious, rewriting (and then writing) my story so that I am the authority, the author of my own life. I still stumble from self doubt and fear from time to time, only now when I trip I have a foundation of self knowledge and understanding to cushion my fall. I’ve come to know what I need in order to get back up firmly on my two feet. I’ve experienced The End and discovered the abundance on the other side.

WWMTS – What would my therapist say? Probably something along the lines of “two things can be true at the same time.” Insight and ambiguity might be two sides of the same coin. Perhaps I can both receive a message and determine my own meaning. Perhaps the past and present can collide. Perhaps light can exist inside darkness. Perhaps I can recognize that our country is under attack from foreign and national billionaires and I can still take steps toward building a business that celebrates diversity and community and creativity and hope and love and femininity and equity. 

I look back now and reflect on how far I’ve come over the last few years; I sit firmly in my belief that, while my personal journey will continue for as long as my body breathes on this earth, I have summited the initial mountain whose shadow I previously drowned in. I take solace in the idea that my spirit guides are reassuring me to trust my intuition and let it take me where it means to, despite the kneejerk desire for certainty and foresight. I just have to keep going. Whatever that means. 

Like millions of Americans in today’s sociopolitical climate, I’m regularly battling overwhelming dread, anger, and disgust. In tandem, I have also found moments of inspiration, hope, and empowerment as the collective awakens to resistance. I believe in the Peoples’ power when we align with ourselves and unite together. I believe in the fertile ground for art and beauty to sprout and comfort and inspire and empower in times of darkness. So I suppose unless and until society collapses entirely or I’m dragged from my home for being a queer, neurodivergent, child-free woman and vocal dissenter, I’ll keep writing and I’ll keep making stained glass. We all get to be our own hero, we just have to keep going. Keep going. 

“Fear got me nowhere. Faith moved me along,” Sarah Durham Wilson.