Here’s a poem for Zohran Mamdani. It’s not about traditional politics, billionaires, or big money. Especially, not about billionaires. It's not about political labels, often used to confuse and anger people. It is about average citizens, the hardworking folks, and everyone who just wants a good life, done the right way.

Zohran Mamdani is modeling a possible future in American politics, that is more wise, just, and affordable. In short, a pro-social vision. A future certain about its values and goals, yet wisely demonstrating the inclusive art of "maybe" regarding how to get there. (Hint: Many heads, hearts, and hands are needed.) This week's episode and poem feature a way forward, where the loud, vexatious, and pathologically certain do not rule the day.

Listen, if you’ve been waiting for special permission, here it is. If you have longed for your political perspectives to be officially declared, “Good enough to have and speak?” Then consider yourself officially supported. Maybe you’re wanting the universe to grant you a special ticket, an “eat-all-you-want” pass to the great buffet of your life? Granted! And especially if you’re waiting for fashion to change, so that how your heart hurts and breaks, becomes suddenly in style? Well, wait and ...

Your life cannot be separated from all else, including art and all life for that matter. In this way, each of us is being called to more and deeper connections. We're being asked to grow, evolve, and become increasingly aware. Art reflects this, in plain, simple, and sometimes profoundly beautiful ways. Each of us is invited to open our minds and hearts just a little more each day. Art can't help but help.

Stories age out. Their prescribed rituals grow demented and destructive. Stories become untethered from reality, serving no one, including the Earth and all inhabitants. Turns out, hospicing these stories is the price of our passage to a more life- and planet-affirming future.

The 85%/15% Rule Of Effective Citizen Action. It says to marinate your mind and heart in 85% beauty, art, nature, and nurturing relationships to inform your best, most skillful, most inspired 15% actions you take in the world...

"Sorry, but when we said settlement, what we really meant was stolen..."

PATHMAKER THERE IS NO PATH WE MAKE THE PATH BY WALKING… –Antonio Machado / Robert Bly Translation

The practice of unrestrained, uber-criticism towards ourselves and others is almost never helpful. Very often, we are well-oiled machines of criticism, again aimed at ourselves first and foremost, then others as a byproduct. Why? Often it stems from a desire to be perfect. The writer Anne Lamott put it this way: "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people."

Our minds are increasingly becoming domesticated, taken over by prescribed strategies, markets, algorithms, clocks, bureaucracies, and conformity. Of course, we need productivity and a degree of control in order to live our lives. But our many complex challenges – climate collapse, ecological overshoot, increasing isolation and loneliness, vulnerability to demagogues – their politics of scapegoating... will not be resolved by our domesticated minds.

There’s been a palace coup. For fifty years, our logical, linear, analytical selves have been in charge. It’s not wrong or bad in and of itself. At least until this side of us gained a kind of absolute “monopoly” power. It’s turned into a profound overreach. In essense, we’ve domesticated ourselves and are headed for catastrophe, politically and ecologically. My new course, begs to differ, challenge, and balance. Most important, it seeks to renew, revive, and rewild. At The Fromm Institute i...

I say argue with poems not people. First of all, you’ve got to get clear about how you actually think and feel before you go blathering away at others. And that’s huge and potentially helpful no matter what else you do. Second when you argue inside a poem, it let’s others see your perspective without making it personal. Even when your perspectives are strong and doctrinaire, people can hear them with a little more objectivity when they themselves are not being attacked.

A good poem invites you to walk inside and have your own experience. It becomes a room to wander, feel, and carry with you. Savor that gift—and pass it on.

The last few lines are often where poems bloom or detonate. Slow down. Let them land. Even the poet, maybe especially the poet, must be surprised.

These are the lines that shimmer with more-than-words, inviting you to stop, feel, and be changed. Not every poem has a heartline—but the ones that stay with you always do.

Silence speaks volumes—before, between, and after words and lines. Listen carefully to what poems don't say, as much as what they do. Sometimes a pause will include repeating a line or lines, and playing with inflection. And if we listen deeply, poems will signal precisely where the quiet wants to be.

Don’t Perform – Speak The Poem… Let the poem live and breathe through you.Speak as if sharing something private and true, not putting on a show.

Despair is that feeling of "ending" full stop. As if nothing can, or will ever change again. Cahnge can, and will happen. No feeling is final... Just begin again!

Stay tuned for a new format and new episodes beginning July 4, 2025. In the meantime, I'll be giving talks and teaching at The Fromm Institute. More details here: https://courses.fromminstitute.org/posts/84396387?utm_source=manual

This poem is wonderfully subversive when it comes to exposing the biggest lie reinforced by our cultural stories...