Use Your Voice

“When you vote, you speak for me” – Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

This a gentle reminder to use your voice this coming week by – you guessed it – remembering to VOTE.

Perhaps I should be saving this post for tomorrow evening, so the reminder is fresh enough to propel you out to your car and onward to your civic engagement.

Perhaps.

Or maybe giving an affectionate nudge the day ahead of time will encourage you to take a quick look at your local voter’s guide in order to inform yourself of the races that are up for grabs in this off-year election.

Why Should You Care?

For instance, voting for judges (here in Pennsylvania, at least) is an opportunity to choose people who you would trust to make decisions and render judgments that can have a profound impact upon our lives. Sure, we all hope we won’t have to appear before a judge for anything other than, perhaps, an adoption. Or a name change. (I’m trying to think of the best case scenarios associated with court appearances!)

But let’s face it. In our litigious society, people often end up in court, often more frequently than they can afford, in order to have a stranger tell them how to resolve their differences. This can range from asking a person you do not know (and does not know you) to tell you how to split up your property or how much time you will spend with your child to resolving a business dispute or determining the fate of your adult child who made a fateful mistake (or awful decision).

Or maybe you’ll be part of a suit that asks for an environmental regulation to be enforced that will determine the fate of your drinking water, or an analysis of a statute that could take your land to make way for a pipeline.

Do Your Homework Now

My point with respect to most elected officials, but judges and legislators in particular, is the importance of doing your homework now, before it’s too late. Don’t assume your choices won’t make a difference. And above all, don’t assume your voice doesn’t matter.

You make a difference.

And if you want to learn more or get involved in promoting voting and strengthening our democracy, check out the League of Women Voters, a non-partisan group that does outstanding work.

Some Different Resources

As many of you know, I ascribe to the work of Machaelle Wright, founder of Perelandra, Ltd., and her approach to energetically working with Nature in order to co-create our health and the health of the planet. (Indeed, I didn’t bug you this month about doing your biodiversity practice on the first of this month, but I will remind you before December 1^st!)

I admire the civic engagement the folks at Perelandra encourage, especially since they recognize the direct correlation between activism, our health, and the health of the planet and all who share it with us. They provide some excellent links to resources that you might find helpful here.

And for those of you who might long for a leader who inspires us to make a difference no matter who we are, and what circumstances we find ourselves in, you might enjoy this video.

Elections matter. Use your voice to declare what you value, who you care about, and what your vision is of our future. If you don’t, know one will know – and worse, others will make assumptions, and will do what they want because they’ll think you don’t care.