September: the first autumn month and often the month of the Jewish New Year. Every four years, it’s also the month of three Swedish elections (general, regional, and municipal).
Every election brings anguish and heartbreak for some. Resigning from my political engagements earlier this year has saved me from some of the agony.
I haven’t been out there working tirelessly for the campaign, haven’t poured my heart and soul into this election, and I’m not exhausted from the constant stress and endless confrontations. Yet, I grieve. I grieve that it’s now unequivocal – a national populist party is the second largest political party in Sweden. And will be, if not part of the new government coalition, at the very least supporting its formation. I grieve that nationalism is more attractive than liberalism, that friends might lose their jobs or miss out on the political mandates they hoped for, and that nationalism almost got our party leader murdered a couple of months ago.
Still and all, I feel a sense of pride in being a small part of a party that stands firm in its values and doesn’t yield to nationalism. The courage I see around me is admirable. I know they will continue to fight for a better Sweden, Europe, and world, even when it feels impossible. It reminds me of the statue of Millicent Fawcett holding a banner with her quote, ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’.
September is a month of reflection and new beginnings. A time to learn from our mistakes, ask for forgiveness, forgive others, and move forward stronger and better equipped for the year (or the next four years) to come. There is still benevolence and courage to be found in this world, ‘and it’s worth fighting for’, as Samwise Gamgee would have said.
Coming Up On September
by Marge Piercy
White butterflies, with single
black fingerpaint eyes on their wings,
dart and settle, eddy and mate
over the green tangle of vines
in Labor Day morning steam.
The year grinds into ripeness
and rot, grapes darkening,
pears yellowing, the first
Virginia creeper twining crimson,
the grasses, dry straw to burn.
The New Year rises, beckoning
across the umbrellas on the sand.
I begin to reconsider my life.
What is the yield of my impatience?
What is the fruit of my resolve?
I turn from my frantic white dance
over the jungle of productivity
and slowly a niggun slides,
cold water down my throat.
I rest on a leaf spotted red.
Now is the time to let the mind
search backwards like the raven loosed
to see what can feed us. Now,
the time to cast the mind forward
to chart and aerial map of the months.
The New Year is a great door
that stands across the evening and Yom
Kippur is the second door. Between them
are song and silence, stone and clay pot
to be filled from within myself.
I will find there both ripeness and rot,
what I have done and undone,
what I must let go with the waning days
and what I must take in. With the last
tomatoes, we harvest the fruit of our lives.