The wheel of the year keeps turning ...

I made this primitive-style quilt more than 20 years ago, an adaptation of a Girl Gang pattern called 'It's a Wonderful Life.'  It's personalized, hand appliqued etc. -- definitely an heirloom in my collection.  We use it on our bed during January to represent the calendar and celebrate the circle of the coming year.

Enjoying the quilt had become problematic for me in recent years however, and this time around I decided I needed to change it.  I was no longer at peace sleeping under the depiction of a flag and what it represents now. This may seem trivial, but I'm at the stage of my life where I need to set things right in my own heart.

It has been corrected. 

I am gravely concerned about the coming year, the coming era.  There are many reasons for this apprehension of course, but to put it in personal terms: I have Stage IV cancer.  The disease in my body is being suppressed by very expensive drugs.  My condition is being monitored via very expensive scans and tests.  There is no way we can afford to pay for these things outright, but I am currently getting treatment because of protections in the Affordable Care Act.  Unfortunately, it seems that the incoming administration of the United States is intending to remove the guardrails and restrictions on the health care industry and on pharmaceutical prices.  If the protections are dropped and I can't afford access to the treatments anymore, I will die.

This is only one of the (very specific and personal to me) reasons that I find the incoming administration abhorrent.  I'm also very depressed to observe that the values I've considered to be the foundation and framework for my entire life -- honor, integrity, morality, compassion, decency, honesty -- are in fact no longer of value.  It makes me feel like my life energy has been spent in vain.

I'm very afraid that our world now is going to get much much worse before it begins to get better ... it won't turn around within my lifetime for sure and maybe never.  I'm sick at heart, and I'm afraid that my spirit won't make it through this coming era of hatred and ugliness and dystopia. The incoming president, his government, and those who support them are dangerous, preposterous, despicable and appalling to me. I hope I'm wrong about my fears, but I very much doubt it. 

And every day the situation gets more absurd and alarming.

Onward to 2025 ... 

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