A Willingness to Participate

We could feel it, the flowing of love and acceptance among people. The receiving of blessings. The release from cynicism. The need for action.
A poem by Alice Walker telling us that the world has indeed changed. Energy beings showing up at a psychic reading to say that humankind has shifted to a higher vibration. News from Jamaica that folks were celebrating as if it were their own government. The safe transition of power from one regime to the next. Unwavering messages from Obama as he takes sure steps into office. At this moment I do not need to say, "Not in my name!"

Here is Alice Walker's message

This one was read by Alice Walker on Democracy Now for the Inaugural
ALICE WALKER: A poem honoring the people who don’t believe this is happening. I wanted to write a poem for the people who are still saying, “Oh, no, this can’t happen,” you know, because all along the line of this struggle to get Barack Obama to the White House, people feared that something awful would happen to him, and so many people hold so many angers and pains that they just can’t believe today. So this is a poem for the people who basically don’t believe that it’s happening. It’s called “The World Has Changed.”

The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean that
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.

AMY GOODMAN: Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, reading her poem “The World Has Changed.”