Savage Voices
I will not lower my voice
"It only takes one voice, at the right pitch, to start an avalanche.” - Dianna Hardy
Savage is an uncomfortable word.
It reaches past the reasonable, rational parts of our brains and stirs up instinctive trouble.
Cellular memories, embedded in our DNA, evoke visceral reactions - anxiety, nervous twitches, uneasy glances at passersby, at strangers waiting in line to pay, pick up, drop off, sign up, make returns, and board public transportation.
Savage makes us particularly nervous when others fail to meet our expectations - when they behave in ways we don't expect or assert their independence, strength, and right to self-determination.
Savage Voices seeks to redefine what it means to be a proud, purposeful, and passionate voice in this world. Once heard, a savage voice cannot be unheard and becomes a force to be reckoned with.
I want each and every one of you who watches this video and reads this post to find that Savage Voice within yourself.
Refuse to be silenced;
Refuse to allow any individual or government to control your body;
Refuse to allow any individual or government to tell you who you can and cannot love;
Refuse to allow any individual or government to tell you what books you and your children can read;
Refuse to allow any individual or government to tell you what you can and cannot believe.
Stand in your strength, stand in your truth, and know that a whole army of Savage Sisters is standing with you as we head to the polls to vote.
Jena
Something stirred me about the post, and after reading it several times, I realized it was the word "refuse". It's defensive, it's aggressive, it's about being a block of concrete against the world. It is not harmony. It has the spark of revolution.
And maybe that is what we need. Always need for change. Pockets of revolution that stir up the status quo, like the bursting boils on a diseased body. The boils also destroy the body, eventually.
The question that has been with me all my life is, how can I be a voice without being a loud fanatic activist? How can I nudge change without being at war?
I don't have an ideological answer, just my life, and seeing that by living true to myself, every so often, I said or did something that made a difference; sometimes to one person, occasionally for dozens, once for thousands.
Savage is undomesticated, savage is untamed, savage is living true to my nature, sometimes, loudly.
I do not lower my voice
As only I can hear the words
As I squirm in a drop of reality
Of amoeba humans without ears