Long ago I read a thought provoking article by Lt. Dave Grossman, In the article he defines three groups in society: sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves.

The sheep are the kind, good people who don’t want to think anything bad will happen, and take no actions to protect themselves from that possibility. (This term is not used as a pejorative.) The wolves are obviously the bad guys who prey on others. The focus of the article is on the sheepdogs – the good guys who have the capacity to confront and resist evil.

In the context this was written, I fall well into the sheep category – depending on the good guys to physically defend me in a bad situation. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this analogy lately, since it goes further than readiness to respond to physical threats.

When a physical crime is enacted, it’s clear that evil is taking place. But there are other dangers that aren’t visible even when they are happening in front of our eyes.

Sheepdogs have the ability to recognize the danger long before others, and their task is to protect the flock. They write articles, speak out, hold rallies, and warn others about the dangers with the intention to help others protect themselves.

We need the sheepdogs, the people who will stand in the uncomfortable space of recognizing threats (dangers that the ‘sheep’ prefer to think don’t exist) and taking steps to neutralize those dangers to the rest of the population.

Since last winter, our sheepdogs have increasingly have been censored, silenced and deplatformed. And who are left? The wolves and those who think everything the wolves do is for their benefit. ***

Many months ago the media adroitly took steps to promote a narrative that would divide and polarize the population, defining anyone who questions their narrative as selfish, paranoid, conspiracy theorists. Since the vast majority of us are good, kind people who care about our fellows and want to get along with them, we went along with that. We distanced ourselves from being defined as part of that undesirable population.

Rather than question the narrative ourselves, we turned on the those who are trying to alert us – for our own protection – that excessive government control was dangerous to our freedoms. It’s so much easier to live in denial than to confront evil, and it’s easier to turn on the sheepdogs than on the wolves. The great irony is that by turning against those who are protecting us, we leave ourselves wide open to harm by the wolves.

Truth and the defense of truth is very important to me. In this context, that makes me a sheepdog. For a sheepdog to act like a sheep is deeply distressing, and I’ve been living with an acute sense of conflict for months as I continually hold back. I want you to be aware of what is happening, so you consciously make choices that will best serve you, and so you can prepare for the challenges that are coming. Not because it gives me the jollies to alarm anyone, but to keep your family safe.

You may be asking yourself, is she talking about the jabberwocky? Yes, in part, but it’s much bigger than that.

My lifeblood is to educate and empower others, so you can live your best lives. I predicted the current censorship, which has been extraordinarily successful – and most of the population has no idea how extensive the censorship is, because you can’t hear those who are silenced – and I believe we’re going to see increasing censorship: of holistic health, nutrition, education, economics, etc. All the things I write about that are still acceptable to talk about now, which preemptively I am reluctant to continue to write about. Dissension and even independent thought are not going to be tolerated.

In my final expressive arts class, we were asked to decorate a slice of a circle that defined each of us, and then the slices were connected to make a whole.

When we were asked to share about my painting, I didn’t want to speak, since it was so emotional and conflicting for me. My core essence is to outflow in all directions, to share with and impact others, and it’s painful to me that sharing with others about anything that isn’t superficial feels unsafe.

None of us can or should repress our core selves. It’s not fair to me, but it’s also not fair to you. I don’t know how to navigate this new world that is going insane. I may change some of my wording or in some cases, you may have to read between the lines of what I write and extrapolate. Or I may choose not write. Sometimes it takes so much emotional energy to think about writing that I’m left too tired to actually write. But I’m going to try.

Avivah

***Edited to clarify: I am not referring to the average person or lay advocate who takes a different position than myself as ‘wolves’. I absolutely abhor the demonization of people on either side of the aisle. My reference is to much broader forces.

I’m not an art person – it’s just not something that I ever explored beyond coloring. No, I’m really not exaggerating when I say that. Crayons, markers and coloring pages are literally the point when my artistic efforts ended.

When I saw a notice about an expressive arts class forming earlier in the year, I thought it sounded interesting. I liked the idea of learning something new. I had no idea that it would become the powerful experience that it’s been.

We’re a small group of six women, with two arts therapists facilitating the group. The two hour session begins with a short relaxation exercise, and then we’re encouraged to seek out the materials that reflect how we’re feeling at that moment. After an hour of creating, each woman writes in her journal, answering the questions provided that are meant to stimulate awareness of the internal process. After that, each woman shares about her work and her answers to the questions with the group.

Since every other woman there has an art background, this was initially an intimidating experience for me. I felt so inadequate – like a preschooler in a college classroom. I had no experience with any of the artistic mediums, and didn’t know how to use the various materials.

When I was seventeen, I learned about perfectionism, realized it was a trait that I had, and recognized that it wasn’t something I wanted to hold onto. For the last thirty years, I’ve consciously been releasing that tendency to want things to be the way that I want them, to let things be enough as they are, and not to compete or compare with others.

This has been a huge part of my personal development and a significant, defining feature of my parenting and what I teach others about parenting. And this tendency was hugely challenged by my participation in this group.

It wasn’t easy for me to sit with myself and quiet the peanut gallery in my own head as I worked – I had such intense feelings of frustration and inadequacy in the beginning. To create and and then have to display my work to others who are much, much more advanced, when I hardly knew how to use the paints or brushes… it was very hard for me to be so bad at something they were all so good at.

But each week something shifted as I painted or drew, as I focused on how I was feeling and my only goal was to capture that. It stopped mattering to me if anyone else thought it looked good or not, and it stopped mattering to me if it looked good or not. Instead, I found that I was enjoying the process of putting my feelings onto the paper in art form as it helped me get in touch with subtle emotions.

For example, when my son was dating, almost all of the suggestions were of young women from very mainstream homes, which in many ways was perfect for him. A quality that our family has, and that I’ve seen in every one of my children’s spouses, is an interest in others, an openmindedness and ability to think for oneself. In the case of the suggestions being made, I had hesitations about agreeing to most of them because I didn’t see this quality. I wasn’t sure if I was imposing my preferences or if it was something important for him, albeit something he wasn’t consciously looking for. In this painting, I explored my feelings about that – every color, every stroke, every shape has meaning and is representative of something significant.

Several times in the early weeks of the group I shared my feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness with the group leader, and she told me that I had an advantage over the other women, precisely because I had no art background. I couldn’t understand what she meant, and thought she was trying to make me feel good.

Several months in, I head another woman expressing frustration that the limited time allotted didn’t allow her to create something satisfactory. I shared with her my experience of creating just for the pleasure of it, for the expression of it – and her response showed me the challenge for someone who knows so much being able to let go and enjoy the expressive process.

She couldn’t release her expectation of herself and what her art should look like. And I realized that not only could I do that in the art class, but it extended into a different area when faced with something similarly new and intimidating – I just did it, didn’t worry what anyone else was thinking, and enjoyed it.

It’s been really interesting to ask myself, how do I feel today and what medium do I want to use to express that? What colors, what textures, what movement reflects that?

It’s been surprising for me as someone with a high level of self-awareness, that using art as a medium deepened my connection with my own emotions. I can really see how powerful it can be to use art as a therapeutic tool, having experienced some benefits even in a non-therapeutic setting.

Avivah