Weekly Card Pull - 1-27-26

The Star showed up for our card this week. I had to really concentrate on why this card showed up for us. So, while I pulled this one on the 25^th, it’s taken me a couple of days to really tune into what it’s telling me. The horror of the day before made it harder to put it into words. I also put off posting the other things I had already written. It didn’t seem right. They’ll be up later this week.

This past weekend was traumatic. The killing of Alex Pretti was a tipping point for many. For those of us who have fought against the many issues with law enforcement and violence, it felt like we just couldn’t handle another life taken. For no reason. For those of us who have shouted into the void, warning that what we are facing is not just “politics as usual”, it’s been overwhelming. This is a time when we must choose. What side of history will we be on?

Since 2020, I’ve become far more aware than I ever wanted to be of the lives brutally taken by those who pledged to serve and protect. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and those are only two. But, while it has been gut punch after gut punch, I have refused to look away. It’s horrified and humbled me. It’s made me look at my privilege and force me to confront things it allowed me to not see.

Over the last nearly 20 years, I’ve tried to listen and learn. Lessons learned about things that my privilege shielded me from. I was aware, even as a kid, that there were things in this country that were wrong, people who faced racism and hate, that lessons were not learned after the Civil War. That the Civil Rights Movement was only a step in a journey we had not completed. But I honestly believed that we had made progress. In 2008, I learned that what I thought we had moved past wasn’t in the rearview mirror. It was right in front of us. The election showed an ugly side that had been hidden. The Tea Party was a red flag. Did we realize that yet? I don’t think so. We learned how big a flag it was in 2016.

I became more active in 2017. I feared where this country was heading. I demonstrated at the airport against the Muslim ban. I tried to get to protests when I could. It’s never been enough, but I’m one person in a country of millions. I can’t do every march, every protest, every action. I don’t have that much vacation time to be at them all. So, while I know I can only do what I can do as far as being present at events, I have a voice. And I have refused to be silent.

People don’t always see me at events, but I talk to people where I am. I speak out against lies. I point people to multiple sources of information, many from other countries to show it’s not just “the fake news”. Facts that other countries are reporting, we just don’t see them. I try to show people the truth. And sometimes I just stand firm and tell people what they really don’t want to hear.

Have I changed minds? I don’t know. I hope I have. There’s much more to do.

So, what does The Star have to do with any of this?

The Star is hope. It’s light, guiding us toward what we need to make happen.

The Star pours light down upon us to take away the negative energy we absorb every day right now. It’s gentle light giving us a reason to keep going. When we’re lost in the darkness, light is what gives us the strength to take one more step. And then another. And another.

So, what is it telling me to tell you? It’s telling me to let you know that there is light ahead, where the darkness is at its peak. I see people post all over social media that they felt a shift this past weekend. It’s a start, but there’s much more that will happen. I know that it will get worse before things get better. I’ve known that for a long time. I’m still waiting for the signal that the tide has turned. We’ve reached a tipping point, yes. The tide is starting to go our way.

However, the tide doesn’t change when things start tipping. We must throw our bodies toward that point and force it. We must throw our bodies toward that light. We must push hard against this assault on our Constitution and our democracy. This attack on what our family members fought for 80+ years ago. The original Antifa.

Let The Star show you the way. The North Star of our better angels. There is hope ahead, but we must work for it and earn it. We earn it with our actions, with our resistance, with our insistence that we will not sit idly by and pretend that it will all work out. Democracy is hard. Protecting our neighbors and the rights of everyone on this soil is hard.

We must fight against those that wish to take away what my great-uncles fought for in the Pacific, what my ggg-grandfather fought for, far from his Indiana home. He fought in the Civil War. He lived to see the 75^th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, he was there when they lit the eternal flame in 1938. He was 98 years old and brought one of my great-uncles, who later served as a Marine in the Pacific, with him. I went there in 2013, 150 years later to pay homage to him and those he fought alongside. I saw the picture taken of the veterans at the eternal flame. My family has fought for this country from the beginning, 250 years ago and counting.

That flame at Gettysburg is the light for me. Where Lincoln called upon us to dedicate ourselves to affirming that the men that died there would not have died in vain. That this “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”

Find your light and let it guide you.