Resist!

Resistance is much on my mind these days. No mystery why! Since it is defining so much of our contemporary life, a major player come center stage, it’s worthwhile to examine that word in all its multiple meanings. A trip to the dictionary reveals at least five distinct definitions, all relevant:

 

1)   Withstand the action or effect of, like antibodies resisting infection. 

The air we breathe every time we tune into the news is indeed toxic and doing its darndest to lay us low, to make it hard for us to breathe, to make our head dizzy so we can’t think clearly, to jack up our stress and anxiety and blood pressure. Our antibodies are on overtime trying to fight it all off, often below the surface so we’re not consciously aware of how much of our physical, emotional and psychic energy is in defense mode trying to fight it all off. 

 

2)   Refrain from doing something terribly unwise, as in “I couldn’t resist buying a new i-Phone.”

Our devices and the media-blitz are shouting at us to turn them on and when we go down those rabbit holes, the darkness increases. So it takes great strength and courage to resist those purposefully-designed addictions and choose to stay informed with the micro-doses are system can handle. A radical self-care while still staying aware.

 

3)   To strive against, defy or oppose, as in a political resistance movement. 

 When we move our struggle from the unconscious survival mode of the antibodies to conscious resistance, we take control in ways that feel more productive. When we take to the streets with 8 million others committed to defying and opposing the fascist takeover, we feel more empowered yet. 

 

4)   Resistance: a measure of the opposition to the current in an electrical circuit. 

Different materials have different capacities for electric flow—high-resistance in material like rubber limits the flow while low resistance, like copper, allows it. With the barrage of atrocities passing through us like an overlit Las Vegas, we need to turn the lights down and sit a bit with the darkness, both to avoid the blinding amped-up overwhelm-ment and feel the grief of what lies at the bottom of it all. 

 

5)   A process for making designs on fabric, most notably used in batik.  It uses wax to prevent dye from penetrating the cloth, leaving "blank" areas in the dyed fabric. The process, wax resist, then dye, is repeated over and over to create complex multicolored designs. 

     The most intriguing of all the definitions! Making an artistic decision as to where to coat our daily lives with wax and where to colorfully dye them, and then repeat the process with wax in other places, finally creating a multi-colored exquisitely designed thing of beauty. And then wear it or hang it or spread it out as a tablecloth. Art as literally a form of resistance.

 

And so. Choose one or all of the above, but whatever you do, “Resist!!”