Anna Colibri

Because Joy Is Resistance

anna — Wed, 06 May 2026 16:18:47 +0000

On April 7, 2026 Donald Trump said “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Importantly, threatening genocide is a crime. Even if it were not a crime, it is unethical, terrifying, and sadistic. Trump, more and more, makes evil commonplace. And, in this case, hollow and false. Though shocking, it is no surprise that Trump also said he is “not at all concerned about committing war crimes.” (April 6, 2026). In the face of shocking and relentless moral chaos and depravity, how (and why) do we maintain equilibrium, not to mention joy?

We resist.

Resistance is an obligation. Resistance is both political work and a capacity for joy; it is not optional.

I don’t say resistance is an obligation lightly: the people so far most-affected by the evil inundating us now are the overworked, the poor, and the disenfranchised. For them to resist may invite grave danger. Already, people are hiding in their homes (as in World War II Germany), afraid to get groceries or take their kids to school for fear of being detained by ICE. We live in an increasingly dangerous, undemocratic, and frankly weird country. Even I – a white, middle aged, more-or-less economically secure woman – question whether making public statements like these could cause me harm. Nevertheless, I persist.

When times are good, the work of social justice and basic human rights is never done – much like the chores of our domestic lives. And that is what I mean by obligation. We are obligated to take care of ourselves and those we love. These particularly menacing times demand unrelenting opposition and increased expenditure of personal resources including time, money, and labor. At best, those who have extra resources should give more and remember that love doesn’t keep score.

Recovering from this brutal time will not be short work. It took 13 years to displace Hitler. The Chavistas have remained in power for 27 years. The Palestinians began their struggle in 1948, 78 long years ago. And we know that it is people like us, ordinary citizens, who defend our communities. Remembering all of this indicates an inevitable long game and, perhaps counterintuitively, signals a call to celebrate and uplift life.

We can do the hard work while remembering who and what we are and the beauty and integrity of our entire magnificent world: a global assemblage that includes up to 30 million unique organisms, more than 400,000 plant species, countless ancestors, over 8 billion people, 7,000 languages, with human-built and natural wonders. Some of my favorites: the Golden Gate Bridge; Yosemite; Oakland’s Cathedral of Light; Guy and Monique’s back garden; the the ever shifting aqua waters of Hawaii, Jamaica and the South of France; the cenotes of Mexico; crumbling grand old homes everywhere; and all of the good books ever written.

Remember the people you love – in my case my partner, my children, my family, my friends, and my pets – and the people you will never meet who likewise have partners, children, family, friends, and pets. Resist because you like to smell the earth after a good rain and delight in the feel of late afternoon sunshine as you take a moment to stretch your body after a day at work. Resist because you love dancing with friends on a Friday night. Resist because you remember who you are and what you find important.

Today I will not ask you to join the resistance; I have asked that elsewhere. I will not tell you all about how taking action is good for your mental health. I will not repeat, as I have already hinted above, how harrowing and precarious our situation is. If you are like me, when you pause, you can sense the disbelief, fear, and anxiety permeating. I don’t need to add anything to your existential terror.

The toxicity we are experiencing reminds me of a story one of my yoga teachers told a group of students about being on retreat with the Iyengars in India. The retreat took place in Pune, where the air is quite polluted. Students asked the teacher how he could do pranayama – yogic deep breathing – in a place where your nose runs black and he said “Just breathe the good molecules.” We all laughed and I invite you to laugh, too.

In this toxic environment in which our noses are running black, remember who you are and breathe in the good. Today I ask you to reflect on what’s beautiful in your life. It could be as simple as affording your rent or having legs that comfortably carry you up stairs. Perhaps you have lovely art or a great view. Maybe your family brings you joy or you have good friends and interesting pursuits. It’s possible that sometimes you sit still and enjoy silence or the sound of rain.

My open invitation is to luxuriate in the pleasure and promise of all that brings you gratitude and well-being as you do the necessary and obligatory work of stewarding this world and all you cherish. Having remembered who you are and why we do the work we do, let it all go. Experience your life in all its sensuous earthiness and airy exaltation. Experiencing joy during dark times is resistance.

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

The post Because Joy Is Resistance appeared first on Anna Colibri.

Goodbye Mother, Goodbye Country

anna — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:04:00 +0000

My mother, Linda Lea Cooper, chose hospice on January 20, 2025, the day Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States for a second term. In both cases it felt significant, and in both cases I wondered if some type of fraud was in play. Among the infinite differences between them, one is that while my mother was a sick woman addicted to pharmaceutical drugs, Donald Trump remains a sick man addicted to power and money. Despite his sickness and addictions, it’s hard to feel compassion towards our elected official because he harms so many people.

In the leadup to my mother’s final decline, 49.8% of American voters chose Donald Trump to be our president in a nominally free and fair election at least in part because they felt he understood their pain. You can read his inauguration speech here, the one in which he pledged to make our country rich again (even though it already is rich), save our auto industry by revoking the electric vehicle “mandate” (despite the fact that the EV industry was at the time a net creator of jobs in the US), and deport “millions and millions of illegal criminals” (despite the fact that, as of this writing, there are under 10,000 undocumented criminals in the US).

The day after my mother died on February 7, 2025, our Trump loving relatives came to give their regards. We got into the kind of shouting match that is part tragic, part comic if only because it is now such a common occurrence in American households.

Words were said, including “A 40% drop in the S&P is already baked in because of f****** Biden!” and “Do you know when you’re being lied to?!” The question recalls political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s comment regarding totalitarianism that “…constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.” Perhaps it’s this inability to distinguish between right and wrong that explains another element of Donald Trump’s success.

Before the visit was over, conversation (naturally?) turned to the promise and peril of DOGE, whether George Soros, as a child in World War II, purposely sold out other Jews to be murdered in concentration camps, and the Chinese threat to American democracy. We eventually said our “I love you’s,” promised to see each other more often, and parted ways. I can only imagine what my mother would have said had she been there in body and not just spirit.

During the time from when the new president was inaugurated to when my mother exhaled for the final time, while I was (among other supportive activities) bathing her dying body, the elected president of the United States signed 89 executive orders on topics including “Granting Pardons And Commutation Of Sentences For Certain Offenses Relating To The Events At Or Near The United States Capitol On January 6, 2021,” “Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization,” “Unleashing American Energy,” “Putting People Over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California,” and “Limiting Lame-Duck Collective Bargaining Agreements That Improperly Attempt to Constrain the New President.”

Since my mother died and as the year has unfolded I have come to face, in addition to cruel and often nonsensical executive orders and behavior, other variations of sickness, decline, and death. My stepmother received a terminal diagnosis, my elderly aunt first became a full time caregiver to my wheelchair bound uncle and subsequently broke her hip, my mother in law and her partner elected hospice following his traumatic brain injury; she has since died. One neighbor was treated for cancer and his wife’s father died. A dear friend’s beloved aunt died, and so did a neighbor. I learned more recently of a friend, now in a coma, who got drunk and crashed his motorcycle. My partner’s cousin died by suicide.

During this same time, the number of executive orders aiming to disable everything from libraries to federal service positions has more than doubled, court orders have been ignored, individuals, including US citizens, have been plucked off the street and, yes, murdered by masked ICE officials (who are now on track to be the largest police force the United States has ever seen), and white South Africans have been brought to the United States as political refugees. He has by now far out-executive ordered any other US president; an effective and impactful way to circumvent democracy.

A sizable minority of our US citizenry still find meaning, comfort, and hope for the future in this president and his colleagues. People like Russell Vought, Stephen Miller, and Charles Koch actively build and fund Project 2025’s deregulation, no tax on the rich, and regressive white supremacist agenda. They are succeeding mightily.

2025 was a sad, strange, and confusing year and, alarmingly, 2026 is so far serving more of the same. Each day we learned of some new assault on the rule of law or past moral transgression such as the (ambiguous?) role Jeffrey Epstein played in Donald Trump’s life. We’re being told Tylenol causes autism, that residents of Springfield, OH eat their neighbors’ cats, and that we should – contrary to trusted research and environmental impacts – emphasize protein at every meal. Hannah Arendt’s comment that “A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong” was never far from my mind.

I am experiencing what’s happening in our country now as death: the death of ideals and hopes and a sense of security and pride I didn’t know I had. Secondary losses include a cohesive sense of reality and fear for my children’s future. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Trump policies directly and indirectly cause death in the United States and abroad.

The death toll began even before his pandemic policies, with environmental deregulation, and efforts to alter or repeal the Affordable Care Act, continue with foreign aid cuts (research shows that we are on track to lose 14 million people, including four million children under five, if the defunding continues), immigration detention, and worker safety deregulation and culminate in resumption of federal executions after a 17 year hiatus – literally a killing spree. In contrast, my childhood included, almost before I knew what death was, televised anti-death penalty vigils.

To further illustrate the contrast, I was born during the beginning of the end of the peak of American political generosity, wealth equality, and laws to protect the earth and our human rights. My mother gave birth to me in coastal California in May of 1969. While I was being readied for this world, a rocket was flying to the moon, abortion had been legal in California for two years, and in that year the internet was born. Now Donald Trump is defunding and attempting to destroy important US research centers including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Land Conservation Cooperatives, the National Institute of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Science Foundation.

My earliest political memory is an image of Nixon’s face on the inside of a toilet seat. I didn’t understand it at the time but it left an impression on me. My mother organized the first organic food cooperative in our town. My stepfather, bless his soul, repeatedly shared this opinion: Never trust the government. I was too young to know, and the adults around me did not understand that they were standing at the apex of an important cycle in American history.

The period between the 1940s and the early 1970s, called The Great Compression, was a time of a rise in economic equality and an increase in protections for nature in many parts of the world. Globally and as a nation, we experienced expansion of civil rights, decolonization, progressive taxation, strong unions, living wages, the first-ever environmental regulations, and expanded access to education for women and minorities along with better health care. Sadly, progress resulting from a nation willing to work together and compromise, has devolved from “we” to “I” thinking where too many people concern themselves more with personal gain than community well-being (I direct you to The Upswing for more information).

As a child, I did not know that The Great Compression, especially regulations that included environmental protections and occupational safety standards along with greater taxation of the rich, sounded alarm bells for the very wealthy. I did not understand that the late 60s and early 70s were a time of intense transition in our country and the beginning of challenging authority, identity politics, and political polarization. I did not of course have any perspective at all that things take time to come to fruition. We are of course experiencing much strange fruit these days.

The countercultural movement and fight for economic rights and occupational safety sparked a period of political meddling and financial investment that has escalated as it continues in the present and has culminated in an American flavor of good, old-fashioned authoritarianism. For those who are not aware of how much money has influenced American politics, I direct you to the Open Secrets website.

The alliance among the so-called billionaire class, which makes up just 3,200 or so individuals, the so-called Christian far right, and the manipulated poor is a reaction against and stands in contrast to social and technological changes that include access to birth control, increased access to education and employment for people of color and women, overall increasingly humane treatment of society’s vulnerable and, yes, decreased crime.

The truth, like death itself, hides in plain sight: Unchecked capitalism, along with the billionaire class, have contributed to or caused most of the problems we face today. Some billionaires are aware of it. According to Farah Nayeri:

“[…] in the decade and a half since the 2008 global financial crisis, capitalism has started to be called into question, even by those who profit from it the most. The billionaire Warren Buffett has repeatedly asked that he and other very high net worth individuals be taxed more, noting that his secretary is taxed at a higher rate than he is. Fellow billionaire Bill Gates has acknowledged that companies “need to take a long-run view of their interests and not just focus on short-term profits,” and that when it comes to capitalism,’ we should do more to curb its excesses and minimize its negative aspects.’”

Throughout the world people have been sold the notion that capitalism has benefited civilization as a whole. Certainly, capitalism can be credited with many short term material gains, including wealth (albeit unevenly distributed), consumer access (even poor people can have a TV in every room), innovation, and investor returns and business-friendly climate.

What have been the costs? What do we believe about how we should live that makes the tradeoffs worth it? Do you enjoy working for others and seeing only a small fraction of the benefits? Do you like living by the clock? Do you enjoy endless competition? What have the impacts of the climate crisis been on you? Is the US investing in long-term stability or are the pockets of the very few bulging evermore greatly?

A global analysis of height, wages, and mortality since the 16th Century show that not only was extreme poverty rare before the rise of capitalism, but that in fact where progress has occurred it occurred with the rise of anticolonial and union movements that coincided with the Great Compression. In fact capitalism offers a false promise that at this time most benefits a tiny minority and harms the earth.

Capitalism, of course, is not the only cause of the troubles facing us today. There is another, yet more insidious problem: Complicity. We eat capitalism’s table scraps: endless AI-fueled entertainment and easy answers, packages delivered in less than a day, and big chunks of plastic wrapped red meat. These are the promises capitalism fulfills, but to what end? Capitalism’s promises fulfilled deplete the earth and our own bodies.

Following a heated discussion about the history of racist zoning laws in Berkeley, CA, my partner once conceded, “There’s gross injustice, we benefit from it, and we enjoy benefiting from it.” The “we” here are affluent, often white people – and the more affluent the greater the benefit, at least materially. The cost to a soul of taking more than its share has yet to be calculated.

What does gross injustice mean? It means that as a country, a world, and as a global community of human beings, we have always lived with slavery, genocide, wealth inequality, and betrayals and abuses that include inequitable application of laws, violence, and neglect.

Benefitting from gross injustice is what we do when we eat foods produced on industrial farms with fossil fuel fertilizers, hire most prostitutes, buy fast fashion, live in formerly redlined neighborhoods, purchase the homes at a cut rate of those Japanese who were interned during World War II, or use cellphones made possible by child slaves in the Congo. Gross injustice is funding a genocide in Gaza or turning away from even more loss of life in Sudan. The biggest news of 2026 thus far has been the illegal attack on Venezuela, killing 80 people in the process. While Maduro was an evil man responsible for much misery and destruction, Trump seems to be on a violent spree that now includes Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela with threats against Canada and Greenland. The examples are literally endless and the injustice is often invisible, hidden in the past, or deliberately obfuscated. Where will it end and how many will suffer?

Abraham Joshua Heschel put it well when he said “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” What are we to do in the face of injustice? How can we evolve beyond capitalism and into something far more sustainable and life-affirming? How can we regain a “we” mindset that transcends differences and tirelessly seeks areas of agreement and mutual benefit?

A friend once shared the following story, as told by French activist and philosopher Pierre Rabhi and adapted from his work La part du colibri:

The forest was shining and green, dense with trees, flowers, and food. The animals played and worked together by the river, tending their homes and sharing their lives. Out of nowhere, a storm erupted and bolts of lightning shattered the peace. One bolt of lightning struck an old tree and suddenly, fire was everywhere.

The animals did not know what to do. They were filled with fear and ran this way and that, trying to save themselves, their possessions, and their families. While the forest burned, Monkey saw Hummingbird doing something different from the rest.

She was going back and forth from river to fire, carrying droplets of water in her tiny beak and tossing them on the flames. Monkey screamed and pointed at her, stopping the animals around them in their tracks. He said to Hummingbird, “What are you doing there, Hummingbird? Everyone knows you can’t save this forest with your tiny drops of water!”

As Hummingbird kept working, she replied to Monkey, “I am doing my part.”

I was charmed by the story and still try to live by it. As a younger woman, I naively thought that just by each of us doing our part in a flawed world we would eventually reach a finish line with justice for all and no suffering. Sweet thoughts for a young woman! What I now know is that there is no finish line and that we as individuals must each do our part together.

Despite having been taught that I should never trust the government, I did not understand the reality of our government working hand in hand with the rich. I did not see the flow of history and how and why some people suffer and others prosper. Safeguarding human rights and stewarding our environment is a project without end.

Where within the flow of history did the story of our current authoritarian leadership start? It’s no use to blame one man. We have to understand how nature and humanity – life itself – works. The existence of everything including rocks, people, and seasons is a flow – continuous expansion and contraction, birth, and death.

For our purposes, shall we start the story of our current destruction with the pandemic, which seems like a distant dream but served to further destabilize an already fragile world order? Would it make more sense to start with the 2016 election? Should we go back to the Civil Rights movement, which scared the haves so much they organized amongst themselves to the great effect we are seeing now? Or do we start further back in our evolution as animals with instincts to protect territory and kill for survival?

Because it coincided with my mother’s decision to go on hospice, I chose to start this story with Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Now we live through his second term and his entourage of a mixed bag of greedy and evil people, many of whom have faces stuffed with collagen and frozen with botox (both substances made more accessible by the wonders of capitalism). It’s getting harder and harder to believe that some of Donald Trump’s closest “friends” are merely misguided, caught in the headlights of the cult of personality.

As California Congressperson Lateefah Simon has said, “We are in the midnight hour of our democracy.” While I could quibble about how democratic our nation has ever been, even at the peak of its vitality, her next words are equally important. She said, “And do you know what comes next? A new dawn.”

And so it is when we write our histories, both personal and political, that what we call the beginning, and likewise what we call the end, are in fact placeholders – pins we use to mark a point on a continuously unfurling ribbon of forward motion. This moment in history is dark. I am actively grieving. Many of us fear for our futures and those of our children. To comfort myself, I remember that what we’re going through is just one part of an ongoing cycle. It’s not that we, or these times, don’t matter; we are each a precious part of what makes now what it is.

My mother and I struggled with a difficult relationship made more challenging by the pandemic and declines in her mental and physical health. There was a period during which we did not speak. I am grateful that in the months leading to her death, we reconciled. That I could care for my mother so intimately in the final weeks of her life was a gift to me. I was her daughter and performed a daughter’s duty – with the beautiful teamwork of my partner and stepfather – as she left this world. We expressed love, gratitude, and forgiveness. She died a peaceful and dignified death. Embedded in her death was healing.

Likewise, embedded within the current darkness of corruption, complicity, and power grabs, there is much truth, beauty, and light. Just as my mother’s death was a sacred and healing experience in which I was honored to participate, so too is this moment of upheaval throughout our country and our world.

While our Covid pandemic did not unite us, it demonstrated most surely that we are all vulnerable and interconnected as inhabitants of this planet. Our way of life up until this point is dying if not dead. Our world order has shifted just as implacably as Covid made its way round our world. There will be more suffering and more death through this transition. What the results will be no one at this time can say.

The diseases of unchecked capitalism, corruption, and thirst for power and money have spread and festered; we can choose hospice. We can let systems of oppression, greed, and corruption die peacefully as we transition to a new way characterized by peace, prosperity, and dignity infused with love.

These are the truths of the human condition: the inevitability of loss, change, and rebirth and renewal. The importance of how each of us lives our lives has been made more apparent to me as I age, as I watch my parents age and die, and as I see decisions to be made internationally that poison the earth, impoverish citizens, and encourage violence and despair. Colibri’s story shows one way to act when the forces of political life and changes in world order are larger than any of us as individuals. My mother’s death showed me that healing can take place at any time. We each have a choice to cultivate a living into death that reflects our values and our humanity.

Not at all immune to the fear, despair, and violence around us, I wrote this essay both to let the record show I said “NO!” to much of what I see around me and as an invitation to you and all the people we love to join me in that “NO!” and amplify it.

Let’s consciously choose life and all the joy, magic, and unstoppable abundance life offers. You may be grappling with certain questions, including: What should I do now? How can I make a difference during authoritarian times and times of great change? Can I live luminously in dark times – even when I feel weak, vulnerable, or sad?

My offering to you are a few guideposts and reflections that may shed light as you journey through this midnight hour:

Accept that change and death are inevitable. We can’t go back. Life moves forward. It is our choice to direct the flow as best we can within our means and abilities.

Live by your most deeply held values. Most of us value safety, health, connection, generativity, and having agency to direct our lives. Our differences are generally surface. So go deep and discover what connects you to those you love and the world around you.

Courageously live the truth of how you want the world to be. Your values can inform a vision of how you want the world to be. Have faith that your vision can come true, though perhaps not ask quickly as you would like.

Acknowledge yourself as part of the whole. You are part of what makes our world and our communities what they are. While living your values, acknowledge that diversity is what makes nature work, and you are part of nature. Everything you do alters the whole. You matter.

Decide what your part is. During dark times and light, there are so many choices! It is often challenging to know what your part is. Reflect on your skills and capacities, considering what your unique offering will be.

Take action. Take to the streets. Write the letters. Plant the trees. Pick up the garbage. Offer your personal NO! to greed, corruption, violence, hatred, and senseless destruction. Embody your truth with your actions.

Grieve, rest, and celebrate accordingly. In fact even in the best of times, there is grief. There are moments to pull back and rest and there are moments to throw up your hands and dance. Since you’re precious, take time for yourself whatever that means for you. And never forget that joy is part of your birthright, no matter how cruel your circumstances.

You will find resources, below, to help you get started on your unique and creative contribution to resistance, rebirth and renewal. If you would like to discuss these important matters, please reach out. I want to know more about you and what you want to share, do, and be. Until that time, may you live surrounded by love and light.

RESOURCES

Political education

Self-Liberation by Gene Sharp with the assistance of Jamila Raqib

https://race-class-academy.com

Organizations

https://indivisible.org

https://www.nokings.org

https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/ (also has courses on nonviolent action)

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en

https://www.agrariacenter.org

https://actionforhappiness.org/volunteer

Organizations against misinformation

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Academic Freedom Alliance

Protect Democracy

Center for Truth and Justice

Society of Professional Journalists

Algorithmic Justice League

Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society

Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life

Data and Society: Disinformation Action Lab

European Digital Media Observatory

Free Software Foundation

Local Voices Network

Network Contagion Research Network

Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard

Open Technology Institute, New America

Oxford University Programme on Democracy and Technology

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Podcasts and YouTube Channels

https://endoftheworldshow.org

https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson

https://www.youtube.com/@ivehaditpodcast

Apps

https://5calls.org

https://www.turnup.us

https://www.allsides.com/content/normal/download-allsides-mobile-app

https://acleddata.com

Good news

https://89percent.org/

https://squirrel-news.net/

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

https://imagine5.com/

https://www.optimistdaily.com/

https://reasonstobecheerful.world

The post Goodbye Mother, Goodbye Country appeared first on Anna Colibri.

The Benefits of Fascism

annacolibri — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 23:37:52 +0000

Bird on a Wire by Alison Wong for Anna Colibri

Since Brexit and the election of President D., fascists the world over are finding their comfort zone like they haven’t since the 1930’s. No longer needing to hide in alleys like California smokers, fascists are finding they can be public with their sentiments and even their actions, which many are finding a good thing.

It’s no longer embarrassing to support internment. We can all take comfort in the fact that internment has a “precedent” in our country, just like slavery and genocide. We don’t want to have to turn to those methods, but if it becomes “necessary for national security,” we will do what we have to. As history shows, it was ever thus.

Since fascism is the flavor of the day, let’s understand it. Let’s discover the benefits and why so many of our brothers and sisters are celebrating their new found freedom of self expression.

The Benefits of Fascism

Enhanced security. Because fascism protects the rights of the state over the rights of individual citizens, intrinsic to the system is a strong military. If you like military spending and a thriving military industrial complex, you’ll love fascism.

Increased efficiency. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini famously stated that under his rule “the trains would run on time.” Although Benito’s promise was not fulfilled, Hitler’s Germany was very efficient. The trains taking people to the camps and soldiers to war fronts were numerous and on-time thanks to Hitler’s leadership and IBM’s punch card technology.

Patriotism. Flag wavers, unite. Fascism, with its emphasis on a strong state, gives everyone a chance to unleash his, her, or their inner patriot.

Limited media. What with the “post factual” media era, limiting media might a good thing. Without information, it’s hard to fight, so fascism in this way promotes peace. And don’t all of us spend a little too much time indoors binge watching Orange is the New Black when we could be spending time in the great outdoors marching in formation?

Economic growth. As the government seizes the means of production and controls how commerce is conducted, fascism fuels economic growth. In many ways, economic growth is fascism’s biggest promise. All in all, when certain portions of the population are living in internment camps or being deported, there are fewer mouths to feed. The question is, will yours be a mouth fed, or a mouth left in doubt and dread?

Fascism can be wonderfully salubrious for those on the right side of it. Chances are, you will benefit from the accumulated and left-behind wealth of those who are evacuated; you will know exactly what to think and what to do; and you will enjoy the peace and order that comes from leadership that is not “ruled by committee.” Trains will run on time, and the government will have a free hand to improve the economy. And, with centralized power at their disposal, your favorite fascists may decide to fix the climate while they are taking care of over population.

Think it over: With benefits like these, what more could you want from your government?

The post The Benefits of Fascism appeared first on Anna Colibri.

We Should Be Proud

annacolibri — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 22:00:23 +0000

We Should Be Proud | Illustration by Alison Wong

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Leonardo da Vinci

I’ve always believed that it is important to live by my values, and now I pretty much do.

According to my values, living in community, driving less, buying less, and pooling resources are important ways to leave a smaller carbon footprint and foster the relationships that put love at the center.

Being healthy in mind, body, and spirit as well as having time for my children and being creative are central to the way I want to live. Owning a business, as I do, allows me to spend time with my children while also using my talents and creativity to my capacity. And, since my company, Colibri Digital Marketing, is dedicated to the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit, we often get to work on projects that make the type of difference we as a company want to see.

In short, I live a healthy life and I am surrounded by people I love. I am the San Francisco version of lower middle class, yet I can still be generous with what I have.

A couple of years ago my mom asked me: Why are you 45 years old and have a roommate (If you are reading this, Hi, Mom!)?

Why indeed?

I live in San Francisco and am trying to support two children; having a roommate helps. The collateral effect is that I am living by my values. Should I be proud?

Let’s take the average African villager. I sometimes joke that African villagers are environmentalists because they leave a very small carbon footprint. They do not have electricity, they do not have cars, and they walk for miles to get their water. They do not use more than their share of it because, darn it, water is so heavy to carry. They should be proud. They are doing their part against climate change.

We all know the backstory: It’s called colonialism and what it means is that African villagers are not “environmentalists.” They are poor. In America poor is a very dirty word.

Few, if any, people ever have this conversation with me: Wow, it’s great that you are doing so many out of the ordinary things. You must be such a strong, resourceful, and creative woman. You’ve stitched together a life that is rich and full but also uses fewer resources. How does it feel like to live that way? You must be really proud.

Ha!

As citizens of the United States, we are uniquely unprepared to live by our values—at least those of us who say we value the health of the planet, less materialism, and strong community. Our culture tells us that to have is to be. Many of us drone away at jobs we hate so we can fund the escapes that make life feel worth living. Are we who, like African villagers, live by our values because we are have to, pitied because to misunderstand and diminish us is to be relieved of the guilt that we could all live with less?

To live in a just society is to recognize, among other things, economic inequality. To live in a world in which we also recognize our earth as a sustaining organism leads to hard choices. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live simply so that others may simply live.” This call to action implies that we give something up when we live simply. Leonardo’s claim that simplicity is not merely sophisticated, but the ultimate form of sophistication, in contrast, calls on us to engage in the art of living at the highest level.

When my mom asked me (Hi, Mom!), “Why are you 45 and have a roommate?” I could have told her, “I am a forward-thinking woman who understands the world’s resources are finite, and that by living simply I can both have more joy and achieve my financial goals.” In other words, I can be sophisticated.

If I were to inherit a couple of million dollars (enough, where I live, to buy a rather modest home, a car, perhaps pay for part of a college education for my children, and buy groceries or health insurance but probably not both), would I continue to live by my values, or would I gratefully return to a life of feckless consumption?

I am putting my all into lifting myself out of economic precarity because, of course, absent choice, I am living my values only by default. And therein lies the shame.

The post We Should Be Proud appeared first on Anna Colibri.

Writing in Three Dimensions

annacolibri — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 00:24:12 +0000

Image by Anna Colibri

Words, I have found, have a way of being naked —— and brutal —— in unexpected ways. It takes a lot of courage to be a writer —— self reflection and honesty are absolute requirements. What makes this honesty so hard is that it is not fact-based honesty, it is an honesty based on trying to convey universal truth. Writers take the stuff of experience and translate it using words, which, of all things, are most subject to personalized interpretation by readers who, perhaps despite themselves, translate truth back into what they think are facts. It’s horrible! Why can’t writing be read like melodies are heard? Whatever the answer may be, writing is not read the way melodies are heard.

I recently joined Toastmasters to improve my public speaking in general, but also to add a dimension to my voice as a writer, and to see if saying words out loud would help me say them more honestly. This post is part of a 10 part series based on the 10 speeches I am giving as part of my Toastmasters membership. This first speech, the “Icebreaker,” was a four to six minute exercise in self-introduction. I hope I told the truth.

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

My name is Anna Colibri. But it wasn’t always that way…

This is the story of my five names, the five lives that go with them, and how they made me who I am today.

I was born May 19, 1969, to a family of hippies, in Butterfly Town, USA.

Yaya Cooper Kiggins

My first name was Yaya Cooper Kiggins. My parents were hippies, so my dad said my mom was going to give birth to a Yaya rose —— whatever that is. When I was born tea roses bloomed in our front yard, and my dad brought my mom a bouquet in the hospital. As that was about the last effort my dad made on behalf of the family, my mom did some editing. He landed on the cutting floor, and I became:

Yaya Cooper

Just to be clear, when you’re named Yaya, you get teased. So, when I was eight I decided, in pursuit of my passion to become a ballerina, that I would become Anna, after Anna Pavlova, and leave my hippie roots behind, so I became:

Anna Yaya Cooper

Anna Yaya Cooper was an excellent student, received scholarships, and studied at UC Davis, abroad in France, and at UC Berkeley, after which she began a career in social work and launched a life in the beautiful city of San Francisco. She got married and, good feminist, kept her name while working with nonprofits across the country helping them market programs for older adults. When the time came to have children, she wanted to live a white picket fence life with a nicely unified family name to go with it, so she became:

Anna Yaya Kelleher

Anna Yaya Kelleher left social work behind to become a yoga teacher and a yoga teacher and stay at home mom to two bright and beautiful boys. Their father decided to become a rock star and fell in love with the younger, bustier, blonder accordion player in his band, and that was the end of Anna Yaya Kelleher.

Anna Colibri

Anna Colibri was born of necessity and pride. As a newly single woman with two young boys, she needed to make a living and yoga, as much as she loved it, just wasn’t going to cut it. Anna Colibri was originally the “doing business as” name of my digital marketing business which, as it grew, became Colibri Digital Marketing.

What do these five females have in common?

Three of my core values, in life and business, are:

Faith
Courage
Fun

Anna means full of grace. When I am strong in my faith, I am full of grace —— that’s the Anna part of who I am.

Colibri, in most languages, means hummingbird. Hummingbirds, small as they are, fly faster than anything on earth and are fierce fighters. That’s courage and I’ve found I’ve needed it time and time again.

Hummingbirds survive by finding the sweetest, brightest flowers. They do it all day because their lives depend on it. What could be more fun than burying your head in flowers and sucking their juices for a living?

My goal is to live a life that reflects my values, my history, and the woman I’ve become. I aim always to make the most out of life so I can uplift my family, friends, colleagues and clients and help them get the best out of their lives, too.

Without faith, courage, and fun, I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t be Anna Colibri, proud mom and founder and CEO of of B Corp certified marketing agency, Colibri Digital Marketing.

Thank you.

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Hello. My Name Is . . .

annacolibri — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 00:31:42 +0000

Hello! My Name Is | Illustration by Alison Wong

I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am. – Thomas Cooley, Symbolic Interactionist

Do you ever get that strange and dislocating feeling that you’re not sure who you are? It often happens when you are traveling to new places, or find yourself unexpectedly alone. It can also happen after a job loss or a break up.

According to the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, our identities are made up of our internalized perceptions of how other people see us. While that may in fact be what identity is, I’m not sure “identity” itself isn’t all that useful a concept.

Here’s what I’ve been playing around with:

We are not our identities
Identity isn’t as necessary as we think

Identity is an optional tool we use to create order for ourselves and that other people use to create order for themselves. In a best case scenario, we use “owning” an identity to set ourselves free from the effects of (harsh) judgement. One common example is a person who comes out of the closet and “owns” his or her LGBT identity. Yet even in that positive example, we can see the limits. To be identified as LGBT sets a parameter and a definition around whom a given individual is.

Flipping the situation, we find so many examples of identity used to harm. For example, the identity of “woman” earns you an average of $.79 to the dollar. The identity of “black” opens you to racial profiling. And at the end of the day, each person you meet is going to have a different idea of what it is to be a woman or to be black.

Identity, therefore, is inaccurate, unstable, and limiting.

We Are Not Our Identities

I disagree with Thomas Cooley that “we are who we think others think we are.” We do not know who others think we are. We are not in their heads. So, even if we build an identity around it, we are building an identity on the shimmering fruits of our imaginations and therefore identity by nature is actually just a made-up fantasy. We are not shimmering fruits!

I know, it’s alarming to think that our identities are just dreams and fancy. This is the stuff of existential crisis, but hang on: I have a solution.

First, though, a personal anecdote:

When I separated from my ex husband and moved into my own apartment, my identity was shattered. I was no longer the sweet little stay at home mom I thought other people thought I was. Lol. I was nobody. And I wasn’t sure what to do.

I reached out to a wise woman friend of mine, Elizabeth Rutherford, and I asked her advice. She painted a picture of me going through my day, waking up, getting the kids ready, doing laundry, and so on. In other words, I would just put one foot in front of the other and not over think it.

We Don’t Need Identity

I was amazed that it could be so simple. Identity free me would do all the things that I had done back when I had an identity. The take home? We don’t need an identity to take action. We can just do what we need and want to do.

Others will judge us and decide who we are; we cannot control their perceptions. While others are judging us we can be folding the laundry, racing the cars, and singing the songs.

It’s not, do I think they think I am a meditator. It’s: I meditate.

Life is about perception, yes. But it is also, I would say mainly, about action. You are what you do.

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The Happiest Place on Earth

annacolibri — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 23:14:48 +0000

The Happiest Place on Earth | Multi Media Illustration by Alison Wong

I’ve learned to take my pleasures where I can; in my case, as those who know me know, that often involves Victorian novels in bed. I do not expect to find pleasure or its more evolved offspring, fulfillment, where pleasure is usually found: drunken nights, fancy food at expensive restaurants, and exotic sex are all, I think, overrated.

Up until this weekend I would also have put Disneyland squarely into the overrated category, except that Disneyland, unexpectedly, was for me a spiritual venture.

At Disneyland I felt almost zero anxiety and came away from my time there with the feelings of love and connection I consider the holy grail of human experience. As for anxiety, the absence of it really is one of life’s underrated pleasures. For those who deal with anxiety, I know you know what I’m talking about it. When it lifts, you feel so light you’re almost high.

I visited Disneyland with my son for our annual mother-son weekend. He selected the venue (Had it been up to me, we might have ended up in Scottsdale, AZ, at an all-inclusive resort binge watching whatever . . .).

I didn’t overthink the trip beforehand because I was very busy working. We arrived, and I just let the Disneyland thing take over. If you stay at the resort, you get a “magic hour” each day before the park opens to the rest of the hoi poloi (lol, that’d be us!).

I would have thought Disneyland would be anxiety-provoking, but it’s not — at least once you surrender to the heat, the lines, and the expense. Which I did. Disneyland, at it’s core, is a pretty simple and well-organized place. There’s not much to do except have fun.

We arrived late Friday evening and took some time to schedule out which rides were our priorities for the following day (including Space Mountain, It’s a Small World, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and Pirates of the Caribbean) and, because of that lovely magic hour, rode all six plus a couple of bonus rides (Toad’s Wild Ride*) before 10:30 am. Huzzah! Maybe that set the tone, but basically, except for a couple of times when I became hangry (different from anxiety, there’s an easy fix), we just kept having fun.

We walked 20 miles in 21 hours of park time over the span of the less than 36 hours. Impressive, no? And I have the giant blister to prove it!

You may still be wondering how this could have created a spiritual experience for me. Well, it happened like this: On day two, we used our magic hour to ride California Screamin’ about seven times in a row – no lines!

Time three, we both decided to close our eyes. During the initial acceleration, my son reached for my hand and held it all the way through. We sped through time and space downside and up, hair streaming behind us, and that still fairly little hand held mine firmly yet gently and I could feel all the purest love I’ve ever wanted in the span of those three to five minutes. There was no past, there was no future. There was just love and connection. There was just life the way I believe it’s meant to be and not always is.

So I do hope that when the visa bill comes I will remember what’s really important and why I do what I do. Life can be very sweet.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

*When I was a very little girl, I went with my cousins to Disneyland. Not wanting to miss out on my first trip to Disneyland, my parents hopped on an airplane and met me at the park. I remembered how surprised I was when they appeared out of nowhere; that was its own magic.

And speaking of sweet, I remembered Victor, my step-dad’s, joy when we rode Toad’s Wild Ride and how the ride felt so much more bouncy and intense when I was small, tucked between Victor and my mom. At that time, I didn’t know what Wind in the Willows was, or that it would become my favorite children’s book — a shared pleasure between Victor and me.

Disneyland is a sneaky place. It creates memories and tucks them into unexpected places in your heart and mind where they will wait for you to discover them at different times and in different ways. Again: Life can be very sweet.

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Don’t Stop Until You’re Proud

annacolibri — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 15:56:48 +0000

All exists here, no doubt, for the delight of existence, all is a game or Lila; but a game too carries within itself an object to be accomplished and without the fulfillment of that object would have no completeness of significance.

— Sri Aurobindo

Here’s my advice:

Stay in the game, whatever your game is. There’s other advice about figuring out what your game is, and what causes happiness for you. Many of us struggle with that question for sure and for too long or sometimes forever — never quite settling on a game plan. But this post isn’t about that.

This post is about staying in the game. Because life is indeed a game. You lay out the chess pieces, make your moves and then, one way or another, the game ends. Lights out.

So it really isn’t whether you win or lose; it really is how you play the game. Because at the end of the day we’re all losers. But I don’t think we want to be quitters.

I will admit there is an appropriate time and a place for quitting (I learned this the hard way with my divorce but at least I learned it); this type of quitting is called stopping. Or changing directions. So it’s not really quitting at all.

When, on the other hand, your desires haven’t changed but the going gets rough — don’t quit. Freshen up your lipstick and keep going.

Staying in the game is about throwing drops in the bucket. It doesn’t always feel like much but it does feel like you kept going. Persistence is subtly and quietly powerful. Persistence is power as it was meant to be: peacefully magnificent.

Here’s the thing: Drops in the bucket will add up for as long as you keep adding them. Keep adding drops to the bucket until you and your life overflow.

Don’t stop until you’re proud.

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Welcome to America: Thoughts on Immigration

annacolibri — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 17:13:51 +0000

Image from the Armenian Genocide | Wikipedia

I am here in America today as a result of the Armenian Genocide, which took place mainly from 1915 to 1917. That moment in history is not widely known or remembered, but it was real, and impacted millions of people. I am also here because relatives immigrated from Norway and England — I can’t say why.

As our country was founded, the majority of the native peoples who lived here were killed or pushed onto reservations. Another portion of our population was brought here against their will as slaves or deported here because they were criminals. Others came because they, and their families, simply and broadly put, did not have enough food or freedom. What would you not do for your family if it was actually hungry?

Today, people still come to our country for opportunities, and many of them get excellent educations and make a lot of money. They build businesses, they file patents, and they probably pay taxes at the lowest rate their accountants can negotiate for them — just like rich people everywhere. What’s less known is that undocumented workers in our country pay over $10 billion in taxes each year.

Among immigrants to America, there are also poor people and criminals. There are people who need emergency medical care and food. That’s no surprise, given the fact that every country in the world has poor people and criminals along with people who get sick or need food.

Pretty much everything that can be said about immigration has been said lately. I want to say something, too. I want to make a contribution to the side of the argument that is pro-immigration.

I want to live in an America where not only are immigrants welcome, loved, and encouraged, but that Native Americans, the ancestors of slaves, and people like the Armenians and now the Syrians, are acknowledged for the wars and genocides they have experienced and the contributions they have made — and continue to make — to the country we live in today.

Our country frustrates and grieves me with all of its economic inequality and violence. I am grateful, though, that ignored though I may be, unheard though my voice probably is, I can at least write and publish these words without fear of reprisal.

And so I will just note a few things that I think are important to know about immigration.

How many immigrants and undocumented workers are there in the United States?

Immigrants in the United States and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 81 million people, or 26 percent of the overall U.S. population.

Mexico, India, and China make up the largest immigrant populations in the United States.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

As of 2016, that the number of undocumented workers in the US is estimated at 10.6 million individuals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2016/01/20/u-s-illegal-immigrant-population-falls-below-11-million-continuing-nearly-decade-long-decline-report-says/

Do undocumented workers pay taxes?

As of 2010, it is estimated that undocumented workers pay over $10 billion in taxes each year.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/

Do undocumented workers pay into social security?

Undocumented workers pay more into social security than they will ever consume in public benefits.

According to CNN, “Take Social Security. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), unauthorized immigrants — who are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits — have paid an eye-popping $100 billion into the fund over the past decade.

“They are paying an estimated $15 billion a year into Social Security with no intention of ever collecting benefits,” Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the SSA told CNNMoney. “Without the estimated 3.1 million undocumented immigrants paying into the system, Social Security would have entered persistent shortfall of tax revenue to cover payouts starting in 2009,” he said.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/

Do undocumented workers drain our economy?

Undocumented workers are less likely to receive benefits than poor US citizens. However, their citizen children do receive benefits, at a cost of about $14,000 per year per “illegal” household.

However, those children will be contributors to the economy when they reach adulthood.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/

Do undocumented workers take jobs away from citizens?

On the one hand, undocumented workers create jobs through their entrepreneurial work. On the other hand, undocumented workers fill positions in agriculture, landscaping, healthcare, restaurants, and hotels that US citizens may or may not want to fill. Undocumented workers also pay taxes and social security and spend money in our economy.

It may also be noted that, at least according to some: “For far too long, our broken immigration system has allowed employers to drive down wages and working conditions in our country,” the AFL-CIO says on its website. “The brunt of the impact has been born by immigrant workers, who face the highest rates of wage theft, sexual harassment, and death and injury on the job.”

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/news/economy/immigration-myths/

Do immigrants contribute economically to our country?

According the Atlantic, “A report by the Partnership for a New American Economy, which advocates for immigrants in the U.S. workforce, found that they accounted for 28 percent of all new small businesses in 2011.”

The article goes on to state “… Immigration, on the whole, bolsters the workforce and adds to the nation’s overall economic activity. Look at the impact on cities that attract the most foreign-born residents. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston are all major immigrant destinations and also economic powerhouses, accounting for roughly one-fifth of the country’s gross domestic product. In New York, immigrants made up 44 percent of the city’s workforce in 2011; in and around Los Angeles, they accounted for a third of the economic output in 2007.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/us-cities-immigrants-economy/398987/

“In 2013, immigration added roughly 0.2 percent to GDP, which translates into $31.4 billion (in 2012 dollars), according to the Economic Report of the President.”

“The average immigrant contributes nearly $120,000 more in taxes than he or she consumes in public benefits (measured in 2012 dollars).”

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/addressing-common-questions-immigration

Final thoughts

Some people hate immigrants. Haters are gonna hate. If you are a hater, just be a hater. Don’t try to justify your hatred with ill-conceived arguments that immigrants are a drain on the economy.

And remember: You, or the people who brought you here, are either a slave, a refugee, a deportee, or, that’s right, an immigrant.

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When the Going Gets Rough

annacolibri — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:45:12 +0000

Colorful chalks on blue background with copy space for text. Back to school concept

As a result of health problems I’m experiencing and a concurrent growth spurt in my business in combination with the facts that my kids are out of school and unoccupied and several of my closest friends are gone for the summer, I have been feeling pain, fear, and sorrow along with some guilt, self-doubt, and a sense of isolation. There. I said it.

These strong emotions and circumstances lately converged to create intense fatigue which in turn produced a cycle of anxiety-driven fatigue. In my ungrounded state, fear hijacked me and I became a little delusional. Sounds dramatic, I know, but we’re all a little delusional from time to time, what with pervasive negative self-talk, doom and gloom attitudes, and subtle paranoia (I don’t think she likes me!).

I began to have fantasies (not the good kind) that fatigue would take over — probably as a result of cancer or some incurable form of chronic fatigue syndrome — and I would be rendered unable to work, my business would fail, and my kids would have to act as my caregivers (Ha!).

Under pressure to finish three proposals on a Friday afternoon, I ran late to a meeting and then hit traffic. The final blow came when, half an hour late, I waited another 20 minutes (at an admittedly swanky workspace) before receiving an apology email letting me know that something had come up and he had forgotten to let me know. I was being stood up!

To be honest, I was a little relieved. I decided, after spending the whole day inside (not good for morale), to walk the two miles home in hopes that it would clear my head. Walking home, now at relative leisure early on a Friday evening, I began to regain my senses.

It was a beautiful San Francisco day, the kind that always makes me glad I live here. Through my isolation filter I could still see and feel the city I love’s energy; beautiful people dressed and ready to celebrate, construction, traffic, architecture, and noise. I walked straight through the Tenderloin — a neighborhood I love for reasons that are about to become clear.

As I walked through I saw, as I always do, children, elders, gangsters, people in wheelchairs, bodies ravaged by drugs, and the men! “Hey, beautiful, will you go out with me?” “Can I talk with you for a minute? Just one minute!” I stop, smile, briefly chat. These are people, I know, who understand despair and, like me, do what they have to do to survive it. Their worlds are real and not dressed up in Lululemon.

The spiritual upliftment I feel as a result of being around this kind of reality carries me home and finally I am strong enough to acknowledge my struggle and the relief I feel that Friday night is here and I have a day or two to feel my pain, fear, and sorrow in relative peace. I do what the tough do when the going gets rough. I break down and cry.

Then the doorbell rings and my son’s friend’s mother is at the door. I am crying too hard to fake it or hide the tears, so I am exposed to everyone. And here’s what happens: They hug me. First the mother, then my son, then a group hug, and then more hugs before they leave.

I feel strong in my vulnerability and grateful for the love that comes my way via unexpected sources. A previous me might have felt shame, but the current me understands that when life gets hard, we of course feel pain, fear, and sorrow. It’s part of being human. The trick, if there is one, is to consciously and courageously feel these feelings. The miracle is to have the strength to keep going, one foot in front of the other, despite the difficulties.

I am a single, middle-aged, bisexual mother of two boys living in one of the most expensive cities in the world at a time of radical technological, environmental, political, social, and economic change. If we survive it, I know this period will stand out as one of history’s great turning points. Of course these circumstances are a challenge. What’s not of course is that I feel strong, beautiful, and intensely grateful to be alive, sharing this journey with soul mates near and far, known and yet to be discovered.

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