What happened?

This was not a protest. It was a clarification. A realignment.

It was not an aggrieved victim struggling to have her lonely voice heard as she implores power to hear truth.

It was power speaking to power. Legitimate power speaking to illegitimate power.

It was a global, universal tweet speaking to an arrogant twit.

The phoenix shaking off the ashes.

It was liberation speaking to domination. Diversity speaking to white patriarchy.

The heart of freedom speaking to the heel of oppression. Right to wrong.

When I watched footage of the hundreds of marches in cities and towns all across America and then discovered that there were masses of people in the streets in other countries, it was clear something significant was happening. The deadly gloom of despair was lifted by the joy of millions of colorful, exuberant, powerful people.

The point was tipping. This was not like the massive protests against the lies of the Bush administration in 2003 which propelled us into the Iraq invasion. Consciousness wasn’t raised then in enough people. People now realize an arrogant demagogue surrounded by a covey of ego-bloated generals, billionaire bankers and smug CEOs full of fear-mongering and racism, sexism and war-profiteering, science denial and nature destruction is not the way forward. This was a clarification. A re-set. Howard Zinn said our problem is not civil disobedience, it’s civil obedience. This was the exhilarating freedom of disobedience.

Obedience is uniformity; disobedience is a declaration of new identity. This was the people of the world speaking not so much to power as to each other. We’re in charge. We can shape the future we want, not be prey to what they want. Let’s practice respect. Let’s try love. Let’s embrace peace. Let’s insist on justice. Let’s honor the reality of our place in nature. Let’s build an economy of decency rather than disaster. Let’s base diplomacy on the common good.

As Trump was pathetically obsessed with the size of his inauguration crowd, the world passed him by. On his first day in office, the world passed him by! He’s already an anachronism. Dangerous, but an anachronism. The power has shifted.

Trump is the rock in the river from which we can leap to the other side.

Thank you, women.