Guest Post by Margaret Anna Alice
One of the deepest joys of my Substack journey has been connecting with members of my karass from nearly every cranny of the globe as we pool our knowledge, efforts, and talents to resist tyranny; awaken the sleeping; save lives; restore liberty; and work toward justice.
Drama geek and fellow truth gladiator Tonika of Visceral Adventure is one of those kindreds, and I am elated to share this video Tonika created for my vignette Do You Remember? (text below), which I wrote around a year after COVID emergency powers were seized and shared at the end of this piece:
I first reached out to Tonika about a potential collaboration in early November, and she responded:
“Uhm, fuck yes! 😂 I think the first time I made a comment on your stack was to see if we can do a visual representation to amplify your powerful words.”
I was thrilled to see she was as excited about the idea as me and encouraged her to peruse my podcasts to see which one inspired her.
I had almost forgotten about Do You Remember? (no pun intended), so her picking it was a fun surprise. I love how she brought it to life and illustrated it with such complementary imagery and music—all perfectly cadenced. I feel like she captured exactly what I was trying to convey in the contrast between BC (Before COVID) and AC (After COVID).
To my amazement, Tonika completed the video in record time, and I feel it serves as the ideal Christmas card to you, my beloved readers.
I think this also makes a wonderful video to share with your family and friends, awake and asleep alike. Its gentle, nonthreatening tone may remind them of what once was—and make them question why it is no more. Queue it up during your holiday get-togethers and see if you can get them to watch, which may prompt thoughtful follow-up discussions.
I wish all of you the exuberant joy, meaningful connections with loved ones, and radiant freedom of the BC era as we work together to merge the best of what came before with the newly awakened consciousness sweeping over the planet.
With love, gratitude, and wildly optimistic dreams for 2023,
Margaret Anna
Do You Remember?
Once upon a time, a little over a year ago, in this land and all lands across the earth, people could walk freely, smiles visible, into businesses of their own choosing, and those businesses could open or close as they like.
Do you remember that?
When families could visit family members, when friends could visit friends. When people could hold weddings and funerals and birthday parties. When grandparents could hug grandchildren. When kids could go to school, play together, and sleep over at friends’ houses. When people who got sick stayed home until they were better, and the rest of the world went about its business. When people could encircle their dying loved ones. When mothers could hold their babies after they were born without the threat of separation pending arbitrary test results. When every death wasn’t attributed to a single cause and announced in the daily death toll dispatches. When a perpetual storm cloud of fear, paranoia, and tension didn’t hang over us, threatening to burst any moment. When people could travel freely, without having to show their papers. When people didn’t think twice about dining out, meeting for coffee, singing, exercising, and dancing. When you didn’t have to arrange for curbside pickup, schedule appointments for everyday errands, and have someone else select and deliver your groceries. When money wasn’t printed in the trillions, falling out of the sky and turning to toilet paper—which, as it turns out, would carry more value—on its descent. When people thought for themselves, decided for themselves, worked for themselves, took responsibility for themselves. When people weren’t deplatformed, shunned, reported, and unpersoned when they shared contrary opinions and scientific evidence. When this information wasn’t then scrubbed from the commons. When people didn’t turn against neighbors, friends, and family members. When it was considered rude to ask about someone’s health status and medical choices. When people helped people, cared for people, and touched (yes, literally!) people. When people didn’t let politics or religion come between them—okay, that one was more than a year ago. But you remember the rest, don’t you? You remember what it felt like? And you know it doesn’t feel that way now. At all. At all. At all.
Oh, how quickly the conditioning takes effect. Oh, how quickly the freedoms flit away with nary a second glance. Oh, how quickly the world becomes an internment camp—its invisible walls constructed by our collective learned helplessness—with rules about when, where, and what you can do, and we all line up for our allotted portions, saying please and thank you all the way.
I remember when.
What do you remember?
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I remember getting paddled in school for sassing the teacher.
After that, I did not sass the teacher anymore. Neither did the kids that witnessed my ass-beating.
I learned that lesson from my Dad much younger than school age. I also learned that may parent’s friends had full parental rights to bust my ass if I got too out of line. It gave me a healthy respect for grown ups and rules.
Ya, and now the government will lock you up for trying to discipline a child.
Margaret Anna Alice, your beautiful words and art gave me hope when the hysteria began; I shared it on LinkedIn and Slack to my coworkers whom I tried to rally as our employer, Waters Corporation, lowered the boom in the form of a tyrannical vax mandate.
I was the only employee I know of who’s religious exemption was denied and I was separated from the company after 20 years. None of the others followed, many took the vax they swore they never would.
But I am grateful that I found where my principles lie and that I did not abandon them.
Ironically, the religious exemption I wrote was the most read article of 2021 here at TBP. So my testimony was read by 1000s but rejected by HR as insincere.
Tony – I remember your exemption article and passed it along to my SIL. From all appearances, HR, used these exemption requests to get rid of those on their hit list. Whether it was for performance or personality, if you get on the wrong side of HR, they have “6 ways from Sunday in getting back at you.”
I have heard directly or indirectly from many, many religious exemptions. They were ALL approved.
Yours was the only one I ever came across that was denied, Tony.
I bet they were looking for a n excuse to get rid of you. Consider yourself lucky that you got out of that toxic relationship earlier than you otherwise would have.
Thank you for sharing this moving testimony, TonyBaloney. I am sorry your exemption was denied, but as you said, you discovered something far more valuable in the process—and your exemption was likely used by others, so there’s no telling how many lives you are responsible for saving.
Congratulations on being a Badass German 👊 You passed the test with flying colors.
P.S. Can you share a link to your exemption letter in case I have an opportunity to share it in a future article?
😆🙏
That looks like a drawing that depicts Owen Benjamin.