This is a powerful transitional time for me, for us.

The end of a long, hard winter, the first intimations of Spring, of warmth, of the softer sideways light that photographers love. I drove along a road in Vermont yesterday and saw this very important sky hover about an old barn, the brown stalks of the hay-field already showing.

The colors of this time are now bright and golden, they are soft and filled with hues and shades.

I hear people complaining all the time now about the news, how the world is going to hell,  how great the old days were, but for me, it’s going to glory. I am keenly aware of other things happening, things that foretell a great change, that fill me with hope and excitement, that inspire and encourage me.

I admitted somewhat selfishly that when I plunged into the work at the Mansion, and with the refugees, If felt somewhat isolated, somewhat alone. The news was go grim, so hateful, so disturbing. I wondered what happened to my country, my values, my hope?

Then I decided to change, and the Army of Good appeared mystically and mystically around me and I learned I was not alone.

Last year, the RISSE building, a refugee and immigrant center,  was burned to the ground by arsonists.

This year people from all over the country are sending them clothes and games and shoes and toys, buying up their wish lists, sending them money, and whenever Ali and the soccer boys go out to dinner, somebody picks up the tab or buys them pizza.

They no longer feel alone either. And they are not alone.

At the Mansion, decorations for holidays, gifts, photos, letters, games, cards, stuffed animals, perfumed soaps and cologne pour in daily from all over the country. On Valentine’s Day, every person – these good and needy people – have letters to read, chocolate to eat, balloons to wonder at, bags of gifts. Wait until Easter.

In the world beyond, more good news, every day.

I love the stories I am reading, sad as many are, about women speaking up, speaking out, making big movies, marching in the streets, running for office, calling cruel people to account, helping one another,  vowing to change a world driven to the brink of catastrophe by the old ways of angry men.

I see the Dreamers gathering, marching, promising to fight, promising to stay. I think they will fight, I believe they will stay.  It’s hard to see, but together, we are all making a revolution, and it is much deeper than the President, it is the first rumble of a great change.He is just a symbol, really, a wake-up call. Time to get off of Facebook and look out the window.

On the Internet, every day, I see stirring speeches by emotional young people sick of lies and indifference taking responsibility for their lives and defining a new political reality for the next generation. They are of all colors and backgrounds, they meld together like a beautiful wave.

Their truth is piercing and ruthlessly honest, like a buzzsaw slicking through old wood.

They are past caring, it seems, about who loves who or why or what we choose to call ourselves, they are demanding truth and compassion and reason, and if their so-called leaders don’t listen, they will soon become extinct, an angry shadow on the horizon, sticking their fingers in the dikes only to be washed away.

People like me have a choice to make. We can be relevant, or irrelevant. We can be part of the problem, or part of the solution. I want to make the same choice I made when I started this blog as my publishing world collapsed. I want to be relevant. That is the part that is up to me.

I can stand in the road, or get out of the way. The big trucks are coming.

So we are on this long road, neither simple or easy. Everything happens for a reason. Everything is a gift. I am grateful to be alive at this time and part of this coming resurrection.

This is exciting for me. I think now my leader, our President is a perverse angel of sorts, come to waken us to the meaning of freedom and empathy. We are not being destroyed, we are being reborn. The armies of change are on the move, if you close your eyes, you can see it, if you cover your ears, you can hear it, if you open your hearts you can feel it.

I see now that the Army Of Good are an army of prophets, I was slow to grasp it, they were a harbinger, a chorus of angels, a mystical foreshadowing.

In my more religious moments, I sometimes think God, disappointed in the wars and environmental ruin and greed and hatred of human beings, send a cloud of angels and cherubs down to the earth to spread some mystical dust and make them think about what kind of people they wanted to be, what kind of world they wished to live in. Another chance, perhaps.

I can feel this change coming, I might just live to see it.

As I stood at the edge of the winter pasture yesterday on a rolling Vermont road I thought I saw the sky rolling with hope and promise. Spring indeed.

Send all the bad news you want, I am full of nothing but hope.