Beloved community,
We exist and persist through an alchemy of joy and grief. In this past year, I have gone deeper into grief than I would have ever thought possible. And yet, there's joy, peeking its head, then blooming like dark purple lilikoi blossoms, waiting to be pollinated. Every occasion of grief opens my soma and psyche ever larger, so that I become more receptive to joy, such that each gaping wound invites cleansing and healing. Each year, more healing becomes possible, through the sibling practices of grief and joy.
Every single day this year, I have awoken to the wails of my expanded `Ohana around the world, crying out for justice, freedom, safety, food, water, and shelter. Every single night I pray for all who are living under occupation. I breathe my way through the unbearable, washing the path with my tears.
Meanwhile, I sing, dance, write, moan, hike, swim, run, jump, and flip upside down with my grandkids. We make up songs and dances and games and laugh like crazy. We are here to nurture future generations, to care for the land and sea, to drink the life-giving juice of every moment. All the while, we carry the grief like a swaddled infant.
We refuse to ignore war crimes. We cannot avert our eyes from atrocity. We cannot turn our backs on genocide, especially when it's committed by our own government officials. Friends, keep fighting for Palestinian freedom! Otherwise the moral injury of inaction will wear us down, make us ill, cause irreparable harm on every level, from the intensely personal to the global.
Grieve with me. Hold my hand and walk with me. Come to the stream, the ocean, the mountains, with me. Help me spread the ashes of our suffering. Let's break our hearts open, over and over again. Let us compost all we have lost, and bask in the solstice, refresh to enter the New Year, and embody the power of Umoja, true unity, on this first night of Kwanzaa.
Free Palestine, Free Hawai`i, Free Korea. Stop genocide everywhere. May all people be free.
Ever fighting for your freedom and mine,
Peggy Gwi-Seok Hong
