WATCH: “New-Style Inauguration” by Rachel Kann

It is my great pleasure and honor to share the video for my poem, “New-Style Inauguration” with you.

With the women’s march in just a few days, it felt more important than ever to share this video with you.

There is so much divisiveness in the world today. I have no time for it. Quite frankly, the planet has no time for it.

I stand with all women who stand with all women.

I stand with all humans who stand with all humans.

I am on Team Love.

I want safety and peace for all people who want safety and peace for all people.

I believe in love, unabashedly.

I refuse to be shamed or broken for continuing to do so, even in the face of outright condemnation and belittlement.

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I have seen how love and humility can melt walls of fear and misinformation, I have seen it recently, even in the last 24 hours.

This Saturday, I will be helping to facilitate Shabbat Services for Kol Tephila at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, CA. If you need a place to feel you belong, you are so very welcome to join me, no matter your background, belief system, whatever…whoever you are, you are welcome.

See, I thought I was going to write a funny little quirky piece here about all the mishaps we had while shooting this video with my genius director, Bradford L. Cooper.

How I stood on an anthill full of biting ants and had to keep shooting while my feet ballooned up in reaction to the bites. How it was 117 degrees in Joshua Tree. How I stepped on a gigantic thorn that I had to really yank out of my foot and blood streamed out. How silly it all was to even feel that I was suffering, since the whole project was my idea, and my dream was coming true. Silly poet!

But I’ve been listening to the whisper of the wind and the river.

And it was more important to say that I stand with the planet. I stand with the plant spirits. I stand with love. I stand with love. I stand with love.

I hereby declare, I do solemnly care.

And even though this world would love for me to just shut up or numb out, I am choosing to stay awake.

I am holding every woman, every man, every person on this planet (regardless of their gender spectrum identification choices, because I don’t give a rip, you be who you want to be,) in the biggest, most priestessly, consensual hug I can muster.

I cannot, will not, refuse to give up on love.