Lessons in: Adjustment
The extrapolation of a social media post originally posted in February 2025
Brief explainer: I have been posting photo dumps from each month this year on one of my social media platforms. The original intent was to write some thoughts about what happened each month in a fairly earnest way, but as life would have it, the universe said, “No ma’am. Not today.” It’s taken me 6 months to get these out of my brain and into some kind of legible order in the physical world. I hope it sparks - that’s all - I just hope it sparks.
Lessons In: Adjustment
February 2025
If January was about acceptance, and it was, then February has been about adjustment. And adjust, I have / will / must. The paradigm is shifting. Consequentially, new modes of operation to meet the challenges of the dawn of a fresh hellscape must be explored.
In some systems of tarot, the Justice card (corresponding to Libra and symbolizing balance and swift, just, application of authority), is replaced by a card called Adjustment. This added layer of dimension provides an element of natural texture to the rigidity of Justice. Justice is fair, and swift, but also cold and very mental. Adjustment on the other hand implies implementing the art of bobbing and weaving, adding (+) and subtracting (-), giving (+) and taking (-), however subtle or exaggerated, in an effort to move most skillfully through any situation. Adjustment is crafty, and allows for softness, and deftness. This is the step after acceptance.
How then, do we adjust to bold fascism? How do we adjust to holding ourselves in a new way as we interact with others? How do we move with allies? Enemies? What about escapism? What about escapism in the form of a person? These are questions I’d love to hear group answers to. All I can speak to is my experience.
Which is to say, I have become deeply invested in protecting my peace at all costs. Let them be wrong. Let them hate me. I endeavor to master the art of being unbothered. Find love. Fall in love as often as I can. With everything. Bask in it. Hold on to the parts that feel so good the bad can’t even find the party, let alone join and thereby crash it. Be kind when I can. If I need to slow down on the freeway to let someone in, no biggie. Come on over. If you’re an ally, yay! If you’re not, I don’t care. At least I’m not a person who thinks winning the length of a car on the freeway is a victory. I am so invested in letting the people who are filled with love, kindness, and curiosity know that there’s more of us out here, that I can’t be bothered with the pettiness of a sad person who hates themselves so much they see using an indication blinker as a marker of their lack of courage.
This isn’t at the exclusion of maintaining the fight, it’s in addition to it. But the fight is shifting (adjusting) right alongside said paradigm. It is starting to become more efficient. The adjustment from frantic, unfocused exertion of effort to targeted moments of clarity with which to strike with precision and potency, is underway. I love, and dance, and smile, and fight, and spar, and gather intel, and formulate new battle plans. Silence and rolling over aren’t options. But standing strong and speaking my mind, will be on my terms, not theirs.
Audre Lorde said, “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
I think about this a lot. While this is a quote pretty directly addressing what would traditionally be considered a feminist theme, true, intersectional feminism applies to every living being.
So how did February present adjustment?
Everything became about expanding, learning, quieting my personal need to express and rather, absorb. All the while maintaining the intention to reimagine the battle / battlefield. Everything became, “Yes, and.” The paradigm is shifting and so am I. And I am not disillusioned enough to believe that I can gain higher ground using someone else’s playbook.