A beautiful photo of a community member holding another community members baby at MUSEA. Seeing the mother over her shoulder, seeing her face.

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Thank you mamas *Correction to the audio - I said public instead of private, only discovered that in the transcription - sorry.

Pride, Gate-Keeping and Keeping the Heart Open During AI Infiltration

I have two moms and I'm proud of it. I have pride that I was raised in a family of matriarchs. I have a father too. Just because I'm raised by matriarchs doesn't mean it's anything against the fathers or the men.

It's Pride Weekend. San Francisco is hustling and bustling with the freedom that we have fought to maintain.

It wasn't so very long ago that women didn't wear pants on TV. It wasn't so very long ago that if someone came out being gay, their readership and viewership dropped. Can you remember how long ago it was that you had to be married to own property if you were a woman? This entire nation has been built on injustice and inequity.

We know that already. But today, we celebrate with pride the idea that people get to love who they want, how they want, when they want, in the way that they want. We celebrate that people get to choose who they are and how they are and yes, that includes the gender that they are.

Although I wish that we would wait until we were older to make finalizing decisions. Everything is changing. It's curious that this event, this idea is called Pride, which is still a reaction to that we were shamed about who we were. When I look at the rainbow flag and the changes, the addition of the black stripe and the circle, and looked it up to see what all the changes meant to that rainbow, which represents so much, not just for people who identify within it, but for the community members and the family members and the people that love people who love, however they want. I was raised to believe I could love whoever I wanted. And I can.

And you can too. But just in this exact moment of feeling the pride for loving who we love, how we want to, when we do, and whoever we do, in whatever way we want, I just want to pause and notice that it's still a reaction to shame.

Moving out of reaction-based behavior is one of my life practices at this time. It's one of the things I teach all the time in Intentional Creativity. It's asking the question: What would I spend my life force on if I wasn't reacting and forming organizations and statements and images that are in reaction to injustice and the right way to do things. Because we have to protect, we have to guard, we have to be a gatekeeper of our rights. As Bob Marley says: Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.

Yes, they're going for our minds. But they're not just going for our minds, they're also going for our hearts. But they're not just going for our hearts, they're going for our gut. They're not just going for our gut, they're going for our private parts. Right now, We live in a world where we have to defend what is precious, what is vulnerable, and what is fragile. Right now we are in a situation, y'all, that requires us to be hypervigilant, that requires us to be gatekeepers in a way that we haven't had to be before. And I can't help but think about how so many of us, our brains are not wired, not even wired, to digest the level of information that we're dealing with.

Predatorial energy is here at an all new level. And in our community, it's been increasing for the past two weeks. I'm pretty sure most of you know this, but I'm just saying it anyway. This is part of my Pride day, which is just to say, we must all learn to be gatekeepers, to protect ourselves. And how sad that we need to do that. But we do. The AI infiltration is happening in a huge way across the majority of social and tech platforms where people gather. It's all a setup. The gig is rigged and we know it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have to be so proud and defend against the shaming.

Why does it have to be such a big deal to love how we love and identify how we identify? Why?

~ in other news…

Our private group on Facebook, which is called the Red Thread Cafe, now has a bot asking people creative questions. We got it out one time and it just came back and I just blocked the effort.

I know that Facebook was a free service and I can't expect privacy. Why is an AI bot asking creative questions such a problem? It's harmless, right? It wants to know about our creative practices. Wrong. It's not harmless at all. We have an app. It's called iMusea. We have private groups for our students, but the main thread remains open and has since 2020. Again, we've barely had an incident with unwanted app peeps, but this week we had a whole bunch of, “men” “artists” come in and start messaging people and posting ridiculously fake art. Yeah, you drew that little puppy, did you? Yeah.

I pay over $600 a month for this app so our students can get off of the social platforms and interact and build community. I tell everybody the main thread's not private, but it's hard for people to know that for sure. If I made it private, our students would have to pay to come in. Hmm, more gatekeeping.

My substack, Tea with the Muse and the Cura Council, has an infiltration of new followers. But when I click on their names to follow back to see if I might want to, nobody's there. No one. Even though they have a follow back button. What is the agenda for new followers that might not be people?

What are they gaining? My information. It is challenging to talk authentically to one's, quote “audience”, when one has built it over 30 years, when so many new listening ears are nefarious and playing on vulnerability.

Right now, if I share my truth, if I speak my voice, it will be used against me. Pride says do it anyway.

Pride says share and deal with the backlash. Be proud of who you are, who you love, and where you came from.

People that I know are getting scammed left and right. They don't know it. They can't believe it. Haven't spent the time developing that level of protection. Our brains have a hard time grasping this level of nefarious activity, all designed around greed. It's toxic, y'all. When is that new paradigm we are seeking coming into being? I know. I know. It's already here. It's just my perception. But is it? What about for those of us who are community builders, who now have to be protectors at a whole new level?

How sad that we must be gatekeepers to this degree.

What would I be doing with all my life force if I wasn't trying to protect myself and my community? They're all gathering data and preying on us. Look, I don't really have anything to hide, but as a community gatekeeper, I cannot keep my peoples safe. Not that I ever could. I've never promised safety. I've only said let's create sacred space and that we're all responsible for creating it. But if people are in there who are predatorial, I can't even create sacred space. All I'm saying is, it's different now.

And I know I can't be a good gatekeeper right now because I can't protect against the influx. So we need to wise up together. We need to report weird stuff and double check and click but not too much and realize what we thought was safe enough never was at all.

Then they're going to charge us a premium to protect us from the intruder when in many cases the intruder and the protector are the same in the capitalist world.

You might want to check out Jonathan McCloud’s new book, Chaos is the New Black. He points to the reality of where we are, how we can engage with the narrative in a new and powerful way. I recommend Chaos is the New Black book and Substack.

~

You know... Getting emails from confused women and elders asking me, is this person safe? This person who flatters me, who wants to do my portrait, who wants to buy my art for their wife. Blah, blah, blah. Take me on a date. Pay for my private jet. I'll come pick you up and whisk you away to another world. Our brains are not wired to protect at this level. We're just not used to it. Maybe the younger generations are.

There are so many things to be pissed about right now. And this is one of them. It isn't just privacy keeping. It is protecting against invasion and full infiltration. What a waste of time for good humans to have to spend so much time and money and brain and power protecting our already fragile space. Listen. There's dissonance being created.

Because what our eyes see and what our ears hear and our brain perceives, our heart will not want to accept that it's dangerous. Because our heart wants to be open in love. So to keep our eyes open and our heart open is a challenge. It's a discipline. Dissonance is here. And then let's just talk about the gut for a minute. As soon as I talk about the gut, I get all kinds of ads for gut support being sold to me for only $29.99 a month. Please just put your subscription in here. We'll send it to you every month for the rest of your life. And you can unsubscribe at any time if you can only figure out that precious password. It's a paradigm of b******t passwords. What a waste of time for good humans to have to spend so much time protecting an already vulnerable and fragile space.

And the gut, which is supposed to help the heart and the brain discern and be wise. How many people do you know with gut issues right now? So I ask you this question.

What would you be doing if you weren't spending your time gatekeeping?

What would you be doing if you didn't have to protect yourself all the time? What would you be doing if you didn't have to turn the shame for who you love and what you love into being proud of it?

I'm proud of every person in pride who has had to defend against the world that doesn't want them to be who they are.

When is that new world coming? Is it here?

Let's learn to keep our eyes and our ears and our heart open. Like the country song says…sleeping with one eye open.

So today, as I honor pride and my roots, I also honor and alert us all to what we already know. Danger is at the door. Do not let it in. Do not be taken in by false narratives. The impacts of false narratives in our lives is very real. We will grow. We will change.

We are creating the new world right alongside the one that no longer serves good humans. I don't mean good like moral or pure. I just mean we want to live our lives. I can't help but wonder if it was easier to just live one's life 50 or 100 years ago. But it doesn't matter. We're here now.

And this brave new world requires even more bravery. It requires us to be discerning. Shall we? Shall we become more discerning together? I think we're going to have to. Maybe becoming more wise and more proud could be a good time. I'm in. What about you?

Shiloh Sophia

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