Speaking Truth to Power
The Courage to Tell Our Story
I caved this past week and bought a subscription to Netflix. Friends and family had been saying for years, “Oh, you need to watch this,” or “You need to watch that.” I am not a TV watcher, but curiosity got the best of me. Strangely enough, the first show that caught my eye was the Harry & Meghan docuseries. I knew little to nothing about the royal family and had not followed their historical drama. I am a person who rarely listens to the radio, reads the newspaper, goes to the movies, or watches TV. I don’t even read the headlines of supermarket tabloids. Harry & Meghan triggered me emotionally and had me in tears. I am grateful they had the courage and opportunity to tell their story of speaking truth to power.
The closest I came to knowing anything about the royal family came from former bandmate Stuart Munro, a Scotsman. He had moved from Edinburgh to London before immigrating to Canada in the late-1980s, where he was living when I met him. Stuart and I had a home base in the beautiful garden city of Victoria on Vancouver Island while touring the Gulf Islands. Amid a rash of scary IRA bombings, we traveled to Great Britain in 1995. He despised the royal family and what they stood for. Harry & Meghan called Vancouver Island home when they first left London and the royal family until their loss of security detail and the threat of COVID lockdowns in Canada drove them to Los Angeles.
Like Harry’s, my grandmother was a wealthy Englishwoman, albeit not the Queen. She taught Mom proper manners and etiquette following polite society, which Mom taught me in turn. Mom held the purse strings, as did her mother. When Mom went rogue, my grandmother wrote her out of the will. When I rebelled, I never thought Mom would do the same, having endured her mother’s painful rejection, but she did. Mom was lost to her family, and I became lost to mine. And that was one of the painful moments in Harry & Meghan’s story that triggered me. We both wanted family almost more than anything, but not more than personal autonomy, freedom, and sanity.
Harry & Meghan’s story is also one of systemic racism. While I may not have been born of mixed blood like Meghan, my father did use the N-word freely. He was half German and Irish, and I suppose it made him feel racially superior. I detested him for it. My father was forbidden to sit at my grandparents’ table for other sins he had committed, which makes the above photo telling, as he is the only husband not present. When my father learned of my then-husband and the father of my children’s extramarital affairs and my plan to leave the marriage and the state, he said, “It’s OK for men to have affairs, but it’s not OK for the woman to leave. You can leave, but you can’t take the kids.”
We all have things that trigger us, and I incurred painful losses from speaking my truth. It takes courage to tell one’s story. When I left my home and family because I could no longer keep up the façade and needed support to rebuild my life, like the crab in the proverbial crab pot, my family tried to pull me back down. They supported my ex-husband to gain custody of the kids and possession of my house and hung me out to dry. I felt powerless and marginalized and narrowly escaped with my sanity and possibly even my life. But the truth made me stronger. It takes courage to tell one’s story.
The Kennedy family legacy is another story of vision and courage that illustrates the high price one can pay for speaking truth to power. I pray for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., currently campaigning for the presidency at significant personal risk. Joe Biden has denied him Secret Service protection five times despite known and repeated threats. After the assassinations of RFK Jr’s father and uncle, the Secret Service law was changed to include candidates for President and their families, starting 120 days before an election. Numerous candidates in the past, all with fewer threats, have received protection much earlier. Perhaps Biden fears Kennedy? Harry & Meghan experienced something similar with the loss of their security detail, including death threats and home invasions. Their stories remind me of how much is at risk and how much there is to lose when fighting for something worth fighting for. The truth remains worth fighting for.
We Will Not Be Lost To These Times
by Eleanor Brown, United Kingdom
I’ve been living in the wasteland / I’ve been clinging in the dark / I’ve been hearing all these voices and losing hope and heart / from a lineage of silence now I break the biggest vow / so I’m rising from these ashes and speaking truth to power - Eleanor Brown
We Will Not Be Lost To These Times performed live by Thea at the Global Goddess Gathering, North Georgia Mountains, USA 2020. Visit Eleanor’s Bandcamp website to support her work and view full lyrics.
Aloha dear Sister.. Many thanks for sharing another facet of your Journey & the Parallels (as well as the costs) seen in the People of this time. Truly, may we each be Found rather than Lost in this time of Re-Birth.. I am grateful that you have been a Mid-Wife to Life all these years 🙏
Hey Thea - Have been enjoying your Articles and Topics . Most of all they make me think, and am getting to know you more. Sometimes our history so parallels, it is spooky.
Sending love __ Val