Last night marriage equality passed on the ballots in Maryland, Maine and we’re hoping in Washington State as well.  I got an email at 1:10am from my dear friend saying, “‘I’m getting married!!!!!???!!!!”  On Monday, another dear friend could hardly contain her awe and joy that she had the opportunity to vote for her right to get married, while, in the same room, a third dear friend pent up her anxiety and didn’t dare hope – the populace had shot down the measure each of the 30 times it had been on a ballot in the past.

When I read the news on waking up this morning, I had this huge sense that the tide of the world is truly shifting.  I have believed this in theory – we’ve overcome inequality for blacks and for women and I have believed it to be hopefully inevitable that it will continue…for LGBTs, for hispanics…that all the yelling from those who are against is so loud because they are losing the fight.  But this morning is different.  This morning proves that the world moves when enough people are ready and when that happens, it doesn’t matter that some aren’t ready yet.  Growin’ and Changin’ as my friend is so fond of saying.

Growin’ and changin’ happens even when I don’t feel ready…in fact, one could argue that I’m struggling to keep up – working in the wake of growth and change that was so ready to happen that it already has.  I’ve been wrapped up in my cocoon trying desperately to learn how to grow up a little more, how to change in some ways, how to hold on to myself as that happens…thinking that I’m needing to figure out how to lead the charge.  Perhaps it’s the other way around and I’m really negotiating the waves that were created by being in the wake of a huge tide of change.  Damn it!    How many CEOs and world leaders do we love to laugh at for being out of touch know-it-alls!  They are so wrapped up in keeping their position and their loyalties and their sense of power that they are not only afraid to change, but they don’t even realize how far the world how moved beyond them because they haven’t changed.

The tide of the world shifted yesterday.  Despite the nay-sayers and the sniping political ads – and also with the enormous effort and enormous love of many hard-working people.  The liberation feels like a deep, calm shift to me – I know that’s strange and I’m sure that it was not a calm night for so many folks…but where I am, waking up to the news and having been in my cocoon, it sends a message that we’re walking through change and we are growing even when we are blinded to it.  The phrase that comes to mind is”trickle down liberation”…which amuses me greatly!