O Oracle,

Some of those running for elected positions are so entrenched in their incumbency, they don’t feel like they even need to campaign or do more than the bare minimum to get re-elected. What guidance do you have for us?

Dear disappointed community member,

I have asked the Oracle for wisdom and she’s offered up, quite fittingly, the “god of gold”:

god of gold

master of the firm yet malleable metal scepter.
skin gilded, crown unneeded: the king knows
no want. desire reverberates through every cell
anyways but this is not sex with midas. less is
more. enough is too much.

Elections are meant to safeguard our democracy. I appreciate the words of local Richland City Council candidate Shir Regev on her social media recently as she solicited donations for her campaign. She said, quite rightly, that monetary donations show support for her candidacy and the policies she is advocating for. Running a real campaign means a candidate is buying into a democratic process and upholding the belief in a voice for all.

Yet some of our candidates are behaving more like the king (or even deity) in the “god of gold” card above. They know their positions are likely safe; they can ride on name recognition, and they feel no need to campaign. Feel no scarcity. They do have desire, of course, to maintain their power. Much like Midas, they feel the need to accumulate power, the gold of our times, but we all know what happened to Midas. He was choked in his own pursuit of shiny objects.

Less is more, oh entrenched incumbents. Ask yourselves, what benefit is truly served by your playing the role of service for yet another term? I encourage you to take a fresh look at life, ask yourselves what is enough and what is too much and where you have been living on the spectrum in a world that knows great want.

Of course, our candidates may not be reading this, but for us as a community, the Oracle says, the scepter is golden, yes, and it feels firm and heavy in the hand, but gold is malleable, my friends. It is meltable. Be the raging fire of change. Melt the incumbents’ scepters into bowls of preciousness with which we serve the truly needy in our community.

As for a ritual in which we might wrest the power back from tired politicians, the Oracle offers up this:

rituals & rites

melt down the 24 karat wedding trousseau of an indian bride
in an arranged marriage. tiny rubies glitter like scarab beetles’
eyes among the cooling alloy. wrap the misshapen metal in
bloodstained 10,000 count ivory sheets.

Are we as young women in a heavily patriarchal society, who just accept the people who will rule our lives? With elections inherited by people who first won their positions before many of us were born, it’s as if we are adorned and told to look pretty while others made our decisions for us. Again, I offer this up: be a fire. Stoke your passions. Be angry, flaming, outspoken. Question the assumptions and structures around you. Everything gets to be different. Burn down the necklaces and rings that keep us complacent and shape them into something even more beautiful: a community that respects and cares for the needs and desires of all.