your attention is your superpower

sending you a few Cancer season reminders from Paris

Hi lovelies,

I know, I’ve been a bit MIA this week. I’m writing to you from Paris, where I’ve been visiting my sister since just before the Fourth of July holiday and long weekend in the States. and let me tell you, my trip has been both strange and beautiful so far.

to be in Paris in July means that the city has been cleared of most actual Parisians, who leave in droves to spend their European summer elsewhere.

to be a human in/this July means to constantly be forced to navigate that which feels impossible to understand.

and on top of it all, it’s Cancer season. the Cancerian tides of emotion are also a constant—pressing and pulling back, ruled as they are by the moon and her phases, her moods.

they also involve the reaching toward softness. a desire for compassion. intimacy. harmony. as well as the retraction into ourselves when we don’t find them in the places we go looking for them.

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while enjoying an otherwise idyllic Mediterranean lunch on a rooftop with a dazzling view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, my sister and I overheard a man dining with his companions abruptly interject their conversation with:

“listen, I feel bad for poor people, but I shouldn’t have to pay for their welfare.”

when we lose our compassion for others, we lose an integral part of ourselves. so much of what makes us human is the desire for connection with one another. we have myriad ways to connect with one another. and yet the gap continues to widen, the divide grows, and many of those who could provide potential support instead choose to burrow deeper into their own greed.

it’s easy to despair, even—sometimes especially when—armed with the knowledge that it doesn’t have to be this way.

but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel it’s a responsibility of those of us who are in the spiritual community especially—those of us who feel we are here to help elevate the consciousness of the planet, at least—to stay in as high a vibration as possible now.

I don’t feel despair now (for the most part). I feel determined, incensed at times (like when I heard that stranger’s disgustingly casual comment at lunch, after which I may or may not have told him he should be ashamed of himself as we left the table. listen, one thing about me is I’m an Aries, and righteous rage is kind of our thing, and we will absolutely call you out if you’re shitty).

and yes, I am also tired and heartsick and afraid. but I refuse, again and again, to relinquish hope.

I remind myself, again and again, that it’s what the malignant powers that be want. the ones who feel they “shouldn’t have to pay for the poor”, as if they are inhuman and undeserving of basic rights, too; the evil and corrupt; those who seek to divide and control and foster racism, xenophobia, human rights violations, and so much more…

that is exactly what they want. more than anything. for us to exhaust ourselves in the fight against the ever-present threat of erasure, violence, oppression, all-consuming fear. and uh, yeah, just outright shitty people.

but again, it doesn’t have to be this way.

let’s remember that:

the ability to focus your attention is a superpower, one that you are in control of.

as I was beginning to write this missive, I reminded myself that what I focus on grows, and that I drive my perception of my reality.

you can always choose where and how you hone your perception, by choosing what you focus on.

and I don’t mean that in the spiritual bypass-y, toxic positivity kind of way that has permeated so much of our understanding of what it means to be “high vibe” today.

I said it on TikTok, and I’ll say it again: I’m not above choosing my own personal happiness in order to spite the oppressive powers that be, or my own inner peace out of pettiness toward them.

and I know that it is possible for a thing to be both ugly and pulchritudinous, malformed and fully whole. it is also possible for that thing to be scarred, jangling with the weight of a multitude of broken pieces, and yet still a force unto its own. even when there doesn’t seem to be space to hold it all.

it’s what it means to be a human in the world, after all.

I’ll be back next week.

xx

Kimia