As I watched, with a heavy heart, the acute and often venomous polarization leading into, through, and following the recent presidential election here in the U.S., I found myself thinking of my two grandmothers.

My maternal grandmother, Anabel, was what we might justifiably call a Rabid Republican. She was born before 1900 — a Scorpio Sun — and died before I started university.
She was a gifted seamstress and needle-worker who could whip up a cable-knit sweater, or any article of clothing, or a quilt or an afghan or fine needlework lace, with ease and true mastery. She could repair a favorite blanket or sweater or, heck, even a sock, with equal skill.
She made boxes full of miniature, custom-designed clothing for our dolls, who were, as a result, very well and impressively attired.
She had a real Trickster wit, and a sense for sudden and unexpected outbreaks into “coloring outside of the lines” — like when she and her sisters, definitely ‘elders’ by that point, got a game of kickball going during a backyard family picnic.
A lapsed Methodist and a non-church-goer, she and my grandfather had been married for 60 years when she died.
She thought “Witch hunt Joe” McCarthy was something of a hero, and loathed, passionately, everything the Kennedys and any other Democrat stood for.
My paternal grandmother, Helen, was a staunch Democrat. She was born in the first decade of the 1900s — a Taurus Sun and a “millennial” of her time — and died at the beginning of August 2000, aged into her 90s.

She’d been a single mother, deserted by a fickle husband to raise two young boys, with extended-family help.
She was an elementary school teacher and was a prodigious baker who showered everyone with cookies and pies and other baked (and jellied and pickled) delights, and organized (and stocked) the Church bake sales, dinners, and rummage sales.
She could seem more earnest, but would hold forth with a contagious deep-honeyed chuckle or an amused twinkle of the eye.
A devoted Dutch Reformed church pillar, she used words like “luxe” to describe things, and said, “Oh, heavens!” regularly.
She was deeply offended by what “Witch Hunt Joe” McCarthy stood for, and passionately supported the Kennedys and other Democrats that came after.
All things being equal, I have no doubt that my maternal grandmother Anabel would have voted for Donald Trump, and my paternal grandmother Helen would have voted enthusiastically for Hillary Clinton.
Truth be told, I don’t think they liked each other very much.
But I loved them both, very dearly. And they did have common ground.
To me they weren’t Red or Blue, rabid Republican or staunch Democrat, though they were that.
They were both, absolutely, wonderful and loving and doting grandmothers.
At the very least, they shared in common a love for their grand daughters, which suggests that they likely had other things in common, too, perhaps obscured by the very different world views that expressed as the political leanings that divided them.

For example …
Neither was much of a cook when it came to the savory foods, though one made an excellent gravy from pan drippings and the other roasted a perfectly golden and juicy turkey.
Needless to say, for us kids, the two went together nicely.
Both had grandparents and/or great grandparents who had been uprooted and displaced — and not nicely — by religious persecution and genocide from their lives and their homelands of origin … the lands in which generations of their own ancestors had lived.
Both had lived through the Great Depression, the world wars and the ones that followed, and challenging times before, during, and after these.
Both had two children: Anabel, a son and a daughter born nearly 20 years apart; Helen, two sons born a year apart.
Both had a son or daughter who had married each other, knitting the families and their matriarchs together.
Both shared a skill and capacity for creativity — one expressed through sewing and needle work, the other expressed through baking and canning.

Both kept books for us in their homes, and we spent hours reading during our frequent visits with them.
Both were tea drinkers, and we sat and sipped tea with both.
Both let us dig through closets and drawers looking for treasures.
Both enjoyed the ritual of watching The Lawrence Welk Show.
Both were born before women won the right to vote, and cast their votes from then on.
Both were very well into “middle age” when I arrived on the scene.
Neither wore pants. Ever.
Both shared an unquestionable love for their grand daughters, and a deep commitment to our wellbeing.

Neither of them ever spoke an ill word against each other in my presence.
Neither vied for the love of their grand daughters at the expense of the other.
Nor, when my own parents divorced and our home environment became a long and protracted battle zone, did either of my grandmothers say an ill word about the other parent, even if they might have thought it.
In these ways, they provided loving and much-needed sanctuary, both of them.
Both were very much beloved and both are very lovingly remembered by their grand daughters.
Politics and the underlying world views divided them.

But the fact remains that, beneath the very different world views and political party affiliations, they shared some very true and foundational things in common.
May we …
May in the coming days and weeks and months, we challenge ourselves to look more deeply beneath the surface discord, difference, and venom — within, and around us — to the truly important things we share in common.
May we take a stand as and for that.
May we summon the better angels of our nature and look for and affirm some good in ‘the other’ — even when that seems a very tall and maybe inconvenient or even impossible task — and refrain from routinely and mindlessly ‘speaking ill against’ and adding to the atmosphere of malice, hatred and intolerance.
May we be that change.
In this way, may we begin to build the bridge across the chasm of divide, and connect in and through our common humanity.
May we hold our elected leaders of any and all parties accountable to that humanity and humaneness.
May we — in whatever way we do it — pray it, bless it, vision it, affirm it, will it, and/or be it into being.
May we do this for all of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will either bless us or blame us based upon this choice we make now.
Big Love,

For related inspiration, check out (or revisit) these posts:
Or the ones highlighted below …
November 15, 2016 at 7:20 pm
Dear Jamie, Beautifully put. Thank you for reminding us of the important things.
Much love to you
Isolde
November 15, 2016 at 7:21 pm
Reblogged this on Laura Bruno's Blog and commented:
Thank you, Jamie! This one brought tears to my eyes. What a beautiful tribute to your grandmothers and a poignant commentary on today’s world!
Thank you also for the important reminder that whether or not we have children, WE are the grandmothers and great grandmothers (or grandfathers and great grandfathers) of future generations. WE are becoming the Ancestors even as we live and breathe, whether breaths of love or hatred. May we, as Jamie says, “summon the better angels of our natures and look for and affirm the good in the ‘other.'” Blessed be … and please, take a moment find the blessings. They are there, blooming like late November flowers, for anyone with eyes to see them.
November 18, 2016 at 3:33 pm
Thank you, Laura, and you’re welcome! 🙂 Brought tears to my eyes, too (and the Muse woke me in the wee hours with this one … a Muse phenomenon I’m pretty sure you understand.) Thank you for sharing it with your readers, too. Love, Jamie
November 18, 2016 at 5:16 pm
Yep, I’m familiar with the wee hours of the morning Muse. Much love!
November 15, 2016 at 7:48 pm
I have the impression that you learned some very important things from your grandmothers, not to speak ill from the other! I just love your post and thank you for it😀
November 18, 2016 at 3:34 pm
Thank you, Martina. I’m glad you enjoyed this one. And you’re right … one of many things I picked up from them was just that — that they didn’t say an ill word against each other in my presence — and I’ve appreciated it even more since. 🙂 xo Love, Jamie
November 15, 2016 at 11:49 pm
Beautiful, Jamie. I was most touched by your noting neither ever said an unkind word about the other in front of you, and I think that respect is so important to maintain despite our seeming differences. The election felt very myopic to me… America, America, America… I mean, there’s that. But so little conversation about what the world needs most, what people need most ,and how to provide it. Here’s to the better angels of our nature!
Peace
Michael
November 18, 2016 at 3:36 pm
Thank you, Michael; I appreciate your reflection. Myopia indeed. Perhaps we’ll all be called, in our way, to extend and enlarge that conversation, with that same mutual respect that does seem to inspire us when we see an example of it … or we ‘be’ an example of it. 🙂 Peace to you as well. Jamie
November 16, 2016 at 1:54 am
Beautiful reflection….thank you
November 18, 2016 at 3:36 pm
Thank you, Yvonne. 🙂 xo Love, Jamie
November 16, 2016 at 9:34 pm
Thanks so much for this, Jamie. I’ve spent lots of time lately thinking of my two grandmothers-also very different. One a very conservative Methodist, who was strict, but loving. The other was far more liberal, smoked Pall Mall cigarettes, and was a Spiritualist medium. Great memories!
November 18, 2016 at 3:38 pm
You’re welcome, Laureen, and thank you for stopping by and sharing your own reflection of your very different, loving grandmothers! A conservative Methodist and a spiritualist medium … excellent. 🙂 The Grandmothers are speaking to us … and through us. 🙂 Love, Jamie
November 19, 2016 at 12:22 am
Thank for that wonderful heart-warming insight. Always really cool to hear such a personal piece. I think your kin would be proud to remembered in such an honest and endearing way.
November 21, 2016 at 5:44 pm
Thank you, Leeby. May it be so, they they feel that Big Love spiraling to them, wherever their consciousness is just now. 🙂 xo Love, Jamie (p.s. re the personal musings, yes, I agree. I’ll be weaving more of them into this fabric that is Sophia’s Children, though pretty much all here is grown out of the personal experience! 🙂
December 2, 2016 at 11:56 am
Whatever is you is a part of them speaking through you. It’s co-creative. If they become incarnate they will surely be endowed with the fruits of the growing body of wisdom that you are living within and vice versa. The ancestors, actually petition us for wisdom too. Especially if they were not so spiritually developed in their previous incarnation. We are all growing, learning and developing Karmically together. It’s beautiful to feel the truth of this. And it makes so much sense that our own decedents are often reincarnated versions of our ancestors. I’ll have to tell you about the most amazing piece of spirit work I ever did, under guidance from one of my ancestors once. I have tried to explain it to my relatives but it’s so out of their framework of reference that it doesn’t register. But it’s perfectly fitting for a Shaman. I really should write about it actually. Maybe it’s calling to be expressed. I did get a visit from a beautiful Mercurial-looking archetype recently.
December 2, 2016 at 6:10 pm
Beautiful, Lee. Yes, I look forward to reading the musing you write on this. 🙂 I agree, too, that it’s very much part of the ‘shamanic’ lens, and I too have family members, etc. for whom it doesn’t register. xo and Big Love (and then some), Jamie