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Donate to Democracy Now! here.

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Meanwhile, this week offers plenty more opportunities to speak truth to power simply by signing you name in support of deeper freedom for all. As always, I only post campaigns that I’ve already supported myself.

Fight Against the Drug War

Tell President Biden to Follow Through on Expunging All Cannabis Arrest Records (NORML)

Tell Your Congressional Representatives: Join the Cannabis Caucus (NORML)

Protect People Behind Bars from COVID-19 (DPA)

Don’t let President Biden pick a prohibitionist drug czar (DPA)

Decriminalize Drugs…

Beginning with St. John’s Wort (SJW), I’ve been experiencing the magic of plant-based medicine for years. The SJW literally saved my life from my own hands and opened up my perspective. As a result of this psycho/spiritual shift, I experienced cannabis and mushrooms for the first time in my late 20s, followed by ayahuasca on my 34th birthday.

I’m 38 now.

Within the last year, as the world collectively faced the arrival of COVID-19, I finalized my divorce, received a serious cancer diagnosis and began the heavy process of closing one company and cultivating a freelance career. I moved with…

Walk, dance and exercise as much as you can.
For you, movement is life.
So is writing, creating and cultivating both
community and magic.

The day will come that your lover must carry you —
your body small, encased in one of your sweaters,
like the wings of the owl-woman you imagined saving you
all those years ago when you actually saved yourself.

But one of those memories is a long time gone,
and the other a long time to come. …

Recently, on LinkedIn, an insightful woman that I follow made a post about equity. A 20-year veteran of Hallmark now working as a consultant and entrepreneur, she wrote:

The reason this #equity work is so important to me is because I want Black and brown people to not have to “hustle” to reap the rewards of their hard work. White men have accelerators — they are closer to the insight, access and opportunity.

Insight: Unwritten rules and business knowledge.
Access: Critical networks and “high” places.
Opportunity: Important projects and growth roles.

It’s like chutes and ladders. Some are sliding into…

I’m among the masses who previously viewed LinkedIn as the least of the social media giants.

Then, I got cancer. The setting was pre-COVID-19, late 2019.

In order to help me afford the cost of care, I started a crowdfunding campaign. However, rather than simply asking people to give me money, I promised them a signed copy of a poetry collection that I was writing to help me process my journey with cancer.

I started out spreading the word via Facebook, but my network there quickly shut me down. While I did gain a few donors via private messaging, most…

I have always been neurologically divergent, but I grew up just being called “weird.”

Creative types and boys with a sexual interest in me either looked past it or were intrigued by it. The rest of the world had a hard time knowing what to do with me.

They wondered why, as a child, I was always tapping on things.

Today, people still question why an adult professional like me:

• has a hard time making eye contact.
• holds pencils and scissors so strangely.
• bounces my foot around when I drive.
• keeps such an odd schedule for sleeping, eating and working.
• …

Lately, my social feeds have been crowded with debates about wealth, health, and the various ways society is shifting its approach to these areas. If the topics of financial equity and health equity interest you, here are some things about me that you might like to know.

My debts are bizarre.

Say the word “debt,” and I think most people think of student loans and credit cards. Or maybe mortgages and cars.

While I have a few ordinary debts, the vast majority are actually to 26 people around the globe, a couple investors, the state of Georgia and the IRS. …

Ask me how I’m doing, and I’m likely to tell you that I’m holding. I often feel caught between spaces, unable to move forward or backward, forced to accept wherever I am.

Back in 2015, a man rear-ended my Subaru, pushing me into oncoming traffic. I spun, lost consciousness for a moment, hit an elderly couple returning from the hospital, and finally came to a stop in the driveway of a pool supply store.

A EMT tended to the recently discharged patient, and the investigating officer issued a citation to the man who’d hit me. …