Brigid Warns Us Against Hopelessness in Trying Times

In June of last year, the U.S. made some of its first strikes in Iran that sent me into a tailspin about World War III. It was then that I received a message from Brigid to focus up because my career was about to receive a huge sucker punch. As you know, because I have been fairly open about it, it’s been a long and fucked up eight months, but spring is finally here: Brigid's season heralded by her festival of Imbolc.

I come to you this week after an eventful end of the February, and frightening beginning of March, with an oracle for you that resonated deeply with myself: Hope. Let’s talk about hope in this oracle pulled especially for you.

Imbolc has just passed, perhaps that's why I am feeling more hopeful than I otherwise might. However, that doesn't mean the constant death-making, warmongering, and fascism going on each day hasn't gotten to me.

If you’re like me, you were probably present during the lead up and subsequent invasion of Iraq in 2003, and maybe you’re seeing history repeat itself. I know I am. What we didn't have in those days was the plethora of social media we have today. We didn't have all the information (and mis/disinformation) blasted directly into our eyeballs every second of every day.

The double-edged sword of social media reveals that many people are also committed to speaking truth in this moment, that even amongst all the slop meant to distract us, many are calling out blatant propaganda being spouted. That gives me hope even as I am shaken and horrified by the images of hellfire raining down on Tehran.

The algorithm of our social media feed is meant to capitalize off our hopelessness by keeping us in a freeze state—overwhelming us with bad news and unable to provide action items that might keep us moving. The antidote for hopelessness is action, a chairde, and action can be quite small. Brigid as smith and builder asks us what and how can we build in these times? Much like making your bed in the morning functions as a step toward a productive day, each phone call to your representatives, each friend you reach out to talk about an issue, builds momentum for the next action. You also can't be everywhere all at once, pick an issue and I assure you it will most certainly loop back around to another. As many organizers will tell you, we have to trust that others are lifting in the areas we can't be in.

Looking for deeper involvement, I was recently at a gathering at a local bookstore where community members gathered in solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants—a group of demonstrators being criminalized following a demonstration outside of the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The arrests and the aftermath have been nothing but naked state repression. One community member, who was not at the demonstration, was followed and accused of obstruction simply for having a box of zines in his car. He and the others are now facing trial.

The store was packed with people who came to see Chicago organizer Kelly Hayes in conversation with community members organizing on behalf of the Prairieland Defendants. As we talked about the case, stories from the ground, and resisting the framing around “criminality,” I was filled with hope. Available to me were many ways I could be involved not just with this case, but with lots of community organizing on the frontlines resisting the regime that terrorizes people here and in across the globe. I saw people hand out masks to each other when they saw other people were in the store already masked. I saw care.

A lot of times, and I know I can be guilty of this, we prescribe hope in this toxic “good vibes-only” way. But, much like how the whole love-and-light version of witchcraft is bullshit, this too is bullshit. Educator and organizer Mariame Kaba says that hope is a discipline. “Hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense,” she says. “Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism.”

For me, this view of hope as something that coexists with sorrow, with anger, with all the "bad" feelings, has been hammered home in my devotion to Brigid. Brigid herself has many aspects, which blend and blur depending on the cycle you’re reading, and your own personal experience. In my experience, I would describe Brigid as kind as one might expect a healer to be, but also fueled by passion—water and fire coexisting within a multifaceted entity.

I’m not here to tell you World War III isn’t here or on its way. I’m here to tell you that it’s hard to hope amid the chaos. It’s a conscious choice to hope every single day, and some days that choice is harder than others. What I can say with certainty is that people are awake, more awake than ever. Just as the snowdrop blooms beckons the beginnings of spring, I have seen solidarity and hope in all its messiness all around me. So cry, and scream, and curse all of this fascistic, warmongering shit, use that to create hope, action, art. (Art is so important right now y'all.) These will all give way to the next thing.

I can say now, with many months behind me, that the end of my movement journalism career was for the best, and I have other means of impacting the world than through that particular work. I have other means of living through my values: through this newsletter, through learning to speak an endangered language (Seachtain na Gaeilge Shona Daoibh, a chairde!), through my art and writing. I have more hope now than I ever did working full-tilt in the news for over a decade with very little rest.

With all this in mind, choose to hope. Find a project you want to be involved in, or create one. Brigid is beckoning for you to do this. Within that freeze-state of hopelessness, there is also a great desire for action burning within you. If you're wanting a stepping stone, I'll share some links for the Prairieland Defendants here. Their case will have far-reaching implications if the state is allowed to repress these comrades. If you're in the Fort Worth area, trial support is needed!

For more information (including updates as the trial gets underway) visit: https://prairielanddefendants.com/

If you would like to write to the defendants please visit (be sure to follow all guidelines explicitly): https://prairielanddefendants.com/write-to-the-defendants/

Check out the zines for more information: https://prairielanddefendants.com/resources/zines-flyers/

To learn more about artist and comrade Des Revol learn more at @free-des-revol

Like I said, it was a busy February with little sign of slowing down. Here are some of the projects I've been apart of lately:

I have a poem coming out April 25 in Sardine Can Collective’s anthology Bruised Knees and Gardenias. It will be available for free online, but I hope you’ll consider a print copy for purchase as it is a small press. I am tremendously proud of my very first creative publication.

I am also a social media associate over at Lit Match Collective, a resource for writers that want to hone their craft through writing workshops, industry talks, and more! Consider signing up for our newsletter and trying out a membership!

I have also started as a flash fiction reader for Okay Donkey literary magazine, we have not hit our monthly cap, so consider submitting if you’re a writer!

Who Gives a Focal is a reader-supported publication, which cannot exist without readers like you. We are just getting started and would love for you to support us in our trial months today if you like what we do.