In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement

This past Saturday I volunteered with the Omar Fateh for Mayor campaign at the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) endorsing convention in downtown Minneapolis. (NOTE: The DFL is affiliated with the national Democratic Party and is one of two state Democratic Party affiliates with a different name from that of the national party, the other being the neighboring North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party.)

I’m happy to report that Omar, a 35-year-old Minnesota State Senator, won the DFL’s endorsement for mayor of Minneapolis. Indeed, without any major organizational backing, he defeated the two-term incumbent Jacob Frey, who has the backing of Senator Amy Klobuchar, Governor Tim Walz, former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, and a number of other DFL party officials.

Over the last couple of days I’ve received a number of extremely negative responses to some positive comments I’ve made online about Omar’s recent endorsements (above) for Minneapolis mayor, including most recently the apple cart upsetting DFL endorsement.

Of course, these comments are nothing compared to the sickeningly racist (and at times threatening) comments that are being hurled at Omar. For more about this “racist and factless meltdown” by the right over Omar and his candidacy, see this previous Wild Reed post.

But I want to keep things positive this evening, and so share the following sampling of media coverage of Omar Fateh’s endorsement by the DFL. This coverage is accompanied by some of the photos I took at the July 19 DFL endorsement convention in downtown Minneapolis.

Omar Fateh won the Minneapolis DFL endorsement for city mayor over incumbent Jacob Frey at a convention at Target Center on Saturday.

The 35-year-old, who has been the senator for Senate District 62 – covering south Minneapolis – since his election in 2020, received more than 60% of the vote from delegates late Saturday evening, despite complaints from the Frey campaign about convention procedure and attempts to deny the party a quorum.

Fateh, a democratic socialist, is running on a platform including rent stabilization, boosting affordable housing, introducing a local income tax for the wealthy, and adopting a “compassionate approach” to homeless encampments.

“I am incredibly honored to be the DFL endorsed candidate for Minneapolis Mayor,” Fateh said following the announcement. “This endorsement is a message that Minneapolis residents are done with broken promises, vetoes, and politics as usual. It’s a mandate to build a city that works for all of us, [one based on] our vision for a Minneapolis where housing is a human right, public safety means sending the right responders, and city government stands for working people, not corporate donors.”

. . . The first round of voting saw Fateh get the support of around 43% of convention delegates, with Frey getting 31%, sending them both through to the second round of voting.

Rev. DeWayne Davis fell just short of getting the 20% of delegates needed to advance, while Jazz Hampton gained 4% and Brenda Short 0.35%.

None of the other candidates have indicated they would drop out in the event they didn't get the endorsement, but Fateh and Frey are expected to be the leading names in the mayoral race this November, which will pit the progressive branch of the DFL against the moderates.

– Adam Uren
Excerpted from Minneapolis DFL Endorses Omar Fateh
for City Mayor Over Jacob Frey
Bring Me the News
July 20, 2025

Minnesota state Senator Omar Fateh has won the endorsement of the Minneapolis Democratic Party for the city’s upcoming mayoral election, becoming the latest progressive candidate to gain traction within the party.

Fateh has drawn comparisons to New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won the party’s nomination for New York City mayor last month.

Fateh’s campaign shared a statement with Newsweek via email on his behalf: “I am excited to further grow our coalition of Democratic voters who share a vision for a Minneapolis where housing is a human right, public safety means sending the right responders, and city government stands for working people, not corporate donors.”

Fateh has become the latest candidate to the left of the Democratic Party’s mainstream to rise within the party’s ranks, which could be seen as a growing willingness among Democrats to support more progressive viewpoints. . . . Fateh, a self-described democratic socialist and the son of Somali immigrants, is running on a platform that includes introducing rent stabilization, raising the minimum wage and combating police violence. Fateh’s platform is considered left of the party’s mainstream, similarly to Mamdani’s. The latter won the New York mayoral primary in a decisive win over former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

– Alia Shoaib
Excerpted from Minneapolis Democrats
Follow Mamdani Trend With Left-Wing Pick
Newsweek
July 21, 2025

A Democratic socialist member of the Minnesota state senate won his party’s endorsement for the Minneapolis mayoral race over the incumbent, giving momentum to the progressive left’s political rise.

Omar Fateh, a state senator from Minneapolis’s southside, beat Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who served as mayor during the George Floyd protests and through the pandemic. Fateh gained momentum after Zohran Mamdani, also a democratic socialist and state lawmaker, won the primary for New York City mayor.

Fateh was first elected to the state senate in 2020 and won re-election in 2022. He was the first Somali American and Muslim elected to the chamber. He chaired the higher education committee and advanced a plan for free college for families who make less than $80,000.

. . . Like Mamdani, Fateh focused on affordability and has emphasized that he is a renter throughout his campaign – topics he has been committed to as state senator as well. There are some Minnesota twists: “We’ll shovel sidewalks, build shelters, and finally reopen public spaces,” he wrote on X about his platform. “I’m here to fight for the people this city’s left behind.”

Fateh has been attacked with racist and Islamophobic comments by rightwing commentators in recent weeks. Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, claimed there has been an “Islamic takeover” in the country and shared Fateh’s [campaign] video, saying people need to “commit to stopping all third world immigration.”

Fateh was born in Washington DC.

– Rachel Leingang
Excerpted from Minneapolis Democrats Endorse
Democratic Socialist for Mayor Over Incumbent
The Guardian
July 21, 2025

The Minneapolis DFL on Saturday endorsed state Sen. Omar Fateh to be the next mayor of the state’s largest city.

In a post on X, Fateh says he is incredibly honored to be the candidate endorsed for Minneapolis mayor.

“This endorsement is a message that Minneapolis residents are done with broken promises, vetoes, and politics as usual. It’s a mandate to build a city that works for all of us,” he said. Fateh is currently running as a Democratic Socialist.

Current Mayor Jacob Frey’s campaign manager released a statement following the vote, saying, “This election should be decided by the entire city rather than the small group of people who became delegates.”

The Frey campaign on Monday submitted a challenge to the state DFL. The campaign in a news release said there was an “extraordinarily high” number of uncounted votes produced by the “highly flawed and untested” electronic voting system used at the convention. Frey is asking for the endorsement to be invalidated.

Fateh has represented the South Minneapolis area where George Floyd was killed since 2021. He’s championed the cause of UBER drivers, and has backed an additional tax for affordable housing, rent stabilization and a $20 minimum wage. In 2021, he supported a losing charter amendment that critics say would have defunded the police.

The state senator has had brushes with controversy. Like other political figures, Fateh had to return $11,000 of contributions with links to Feeding Our Future. In 2022, a Senate ethics committee complaint against him was upheld, and a second complaint was dismissed.

Fateh has pulled off a major upset before. In August 2020, he shocked the Minnesota political world when he defeated former Sen. Jeff Hayden in the DFL primary.

– Esme Murphy and Jason Rantala
Excerpted from Minneapolis DFL Backs
State Sen. Omar Fateh for Mayor
CBS News
July 21, 2025

Omar Fateh has won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination for Mayor of Minneapolis under a socialist platform. This victory follows his fellow socialist’s, Zohran Mamdani, stunning win in New York City, signaling a change in the political landscape among Democratic strongholds in large metropolitan U.S. cities. While Fateh and Mamdani have differing objectives and goals for their uniquely different cities, one thing that they do have in common is their aim to raise tax revenues to pay for their agenda and these tax raises primarily deriving from high-earning tax payers via a progressive local option income tax.

– Nathan Goldman
Excerpted from Three Key Ways Omar Fateh’s
Proposed Tax Hikes Might Impact Minneapolitans
Forbes
July 21, 2025

8/3/25 UPDATE: Earlier today Sen. Omar Fateh was interviewed by Sam Seder of The Majority Report. Following is the full 21-minute interview.





Related Off-site Links:
Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist Omar Fateh for Mayor Over Incumbent Democrat Jacob Frey – AllSides (July 21, 2025).
Who Is Omar Fateh? Mamdani of Minneapolis Faces MAGA Abuse – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Anti-Muslim, Racist Hate Targeting Sen. Omar Fateh Amid Rising Political Violence – CAIR-Minnesota (July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Faces Racist Trolling: “Go to Mogadishu” – Times of India (July 14, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).


UPDATES: Sitting Down with Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh – KARE 11 News (August 7, 2025).
Minnesota Democrats Stab Omar Fateh in the Back – Concernicus (August 27, 2025).
People “Are Tired of Backroom Decisions”: A Conversation With Minneapolis’s Omar Fateh – Peter Lucas (The Nation, September 5, 2025).
Omar Fateh Has All the Right Enemies – Alex Skopic (Current Affairs, September 5, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh
• Omar | Jazz | DeWayne
• The Rational National’s Take on Zohran Mamdani
• A Timely and Important Conversation
• Dorothy Lennon: Quote of the Day – June 26, 2025
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC

Convention images: Michael J. Bayly.

Morning Shadows

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Morning Light
• Interiors
• Shadows and Light
• Photo of the Day – April 7, 2023
• Photo of the Day – June 27, 2022
• A Sacred Journey, a Pilgrim Path

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Omar | Jazz | DeWayne

Earlier this evening I attended a meet-and-greet with three of the candidates for Minneapolis mayor – Sen. Omar Fateh, Rev. DeWayne Davis, and Jazz Hampton.

About 50 people gathered in the beautiful backyard garden of a south Minneapolis home for this event, one which was organized and hosted by Minneapolis City Council member Aurin Chowdhury.

Fateh, Davis, and Hampton were featured as they are the three candidates that Chowdhury is encouraging people to vote for in the rank-choice manner that November's election allows. My own ranking of the three serves as the title for this post.

All three are excellent candidates, and Minneapolis couldn’t go wrong with any one of them as mayor.

Yet of the three I heard from tonight, I found Sen. Fateh the most compelling. The following video helps explain why. In doing so, it makes some interestng comparisons between Fateh and the popular New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.





Related Off-site Links:
Who Is Omar Fateh? – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).

UPDATES: Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Wants to Build a City “That Works for Everyone” – Politics Nation (MSNBC, July 27, 2025).
Why Democratic Socialists Are Winning More Seats in Recent Elections – CBS News Minnesota (July 27, 2025).
People “Are Tired of Backroom Decisions”: A Conversation With Minneapolis’s Omar Fateh – Peter Lucas (The Nation, September 5, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh
• The Rational National’s Take on Zohran Mamdani
• Dorothy Lennon: Quote of the Day – June 26, 2025
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• A Timely Conversation
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates (2020)

Opening image: Michael J. Bayly.

The Choice Before Us

The following is credited online as the words of a contemporary Hopi leader named White Eagle. The international press agency Pressenza, however, investigated the origins of this text and concluded that its author “remains unknown.” Furthermore, the agency stated that “we now assume that the text is neither based on authentic Hopi traditions nor represents the statements of a Hopi representative.” That all being said, I find it to be a very inspiring and hope-filled text. Perhaps you will too.

This moment that humanity is experiencing now can be considered a door or a hole. The decision to fall into the hole or walk through the door belongs to you.

If you consume the news 24/7 – with negative energy, constantly nervous, and with pessimism – you will fall into the hole. But if you take this opportunity to look at yourself, to rethink life and death, and to take care of yourself and others, then you will go through the portal.

Take care of your home, take care of your body. Connect with your spiritual home. When you take care of yourself in these ways, you take care of everyone at the same time. Do not underestimate the spiritual dimension of this crisis. Take perspective of an eagle who sees everything from above with a wider view.

There is a social demand in this crisis, but also a spiritual demand. Both go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. Without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and futility.

You are ready to go through this crisis. Grab your toolbox and use all the tools available.

Learn the resistance of the example of Indian and African peoples: we have been and are still being exterminated. But we never stopped singing, dancing, lighting a fire and having joy.

Don’t feel guilty for feeling lucky during these difficult times. Being sad or angry does not help at all. Resistance is resistance through joy! You have every right to be strong and positive. And there’s no other way to do this but to maintain a beautiful, joyful and bright posture.

This has nothing to do with alienation (ignorance of the world). This is a resistance strategy.

When we walk through the door, we have a new world view because we faced our fears and hardships.

That’s all you can do now:

• Serenity in the storm

• Keep calm, pray daily

• Make the habit of meeting the sacred everyday.

• Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Active Hope
• Something We Dare Call Hope
• Active Waiting: A Radical Attitude Toward Life
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Resilience and Hope
• Why “Revolutionary Love” Gives Michelle Alexander Hope
• Clarity and Hope
• In the Eye of the Storm . . . A Tree of Living Flame
• The Act of Surrender
• Surrendering in Sacred Trust
• Trust and Surrender
• Trusting God’s Generous Invitation
• Giving Thanks: A Spiritual Act of Trust
• Jesus and the Art of Surrender
• Trusting the Flow
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved

Image: Artist unknown.

A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh, Democratic Socialist and Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate

Although I’m not (yet) a U.S. citizen, I do my best to advocate for and support genuine leftist and/or progressive movements and candidates.

Socialist Kshama Sawant says that “If you are a progressive, the road for your movement inside the Democratic Party leads to a graveyard.” I must admit I go back and forth in fully agreeing with this contention, and for sure I’d prefer a progressive candidate to run outside the corporatist Democratic Party. But when a progressive candidate does run as a Democratic, I usually do what I can to support them, hoping against hope that they will spark a radical transformation of the party. Examples of such candidates include Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson, Nina Turner, Ilhan Omar, and Zohran Mandani. I also support candidates who run completely outside the Republican/Democratic duopoly, mostly Green Party folks like Jill Stein and Butch Ware.

Now that I’m back in Minneapolis from my recent Australian sojourn, I’ve determined that Omar Fateh (left) is the Minneapolis mayoral candidate I’ll be supporting. He has a great energy, a record as a Minnesota state senator of “working across the aisle” to get important things done, and a much-needed progressive platform, not dissimilar to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Both are democratic socialists running in the Democratic Party. And like Mamdani, Fateh is receiving some really vile racist comments and attacks from the right.

Following is John Iadarola and Brian Unger’s take on all of this as presented earlier today on The Damage Report podcast.





NEXT:
Omar | Jazz | Dewayne

Related Off-site Links:
Who Is Omar Fateh? Mamdani of Minneapolis Faces MAGA Abuse – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Anti-Muslim, Racist Hate Targeting Sen. Omar Fateh Amid Rising Political Violence – CAIR-Minnesota (July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
“Somalians Shouldn’t Run for Office in the U.S.”: Hate Floods In as Omar Fateh Runs for Minneapolis Mayor – The Economic Times (July 14, 2025).
Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Faces Racist Trolling: “Go to Mogadishu” – Times of India (July 14, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).

UPDATE: Omar Fateh Has All the Right Enemies – Alex Skopic (Current Affairs, September 5, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Fighting the Rich and Their Two Parties
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• An Opportunity for Organizing Against Duopoly
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• A Timely Conversation
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Jill Stein: “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• AOC Falls in Line
• The Cassandra of U.S. Politics on the “True State of the Union”
• Mark Harris: Quote of the Day – August 10, 2023
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• Heather Cox Richardson on the Origin of the American Obsession with “Socialism”
• Bernie Sanders: Quote of the Day – June 12, 2019
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making?
• Terry Eagleton: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2011
• Playwright Tony Kushner on Being a Socialist
• A Socialist Response to the Financial Crisis (2008)
• Capitalism on Trial
• R.I.P. Neoclassical Economics
• Hope Over Fear: Voting Green

Last Days in Australia

I return to the U.S. tomorrow (7/14/25) after a three-week sojourn in Australia.

This time in my homeland was focused on my mum and her move to the assisted-living part of the retirement village that’s been her home in Port Macquarie since 2013 – first with dad and then, after his passing in 2019, on her own.

As difficult as I find it to leave my mum and family at this time, I’m choosing to do so with an abundance of gratitude in my heart.

First and foremost, I am grateful for the remarkable recovery mum has made (and continues to make) from the stroke she experienced in early April.

I am grateful for the many people who have helped facilitate and guide mum's recovery – from family members and friends to the staff at the various medical facilities mum has stayed at – culminating in her move to the assisted-living hostel that is now her home.

I am grateful for the ways mum has chosen to respond to the challenges and changes in her life. They are ways of grace and gratitude, surrender and trust.

Finally, I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had these past three weeks to be mindfully and lovingly present to my mum, my family and friends, and the Australian landscape. Such mindful and loving presence has made a difference, a transformative difference, in my life and the lives of others. Familial bonds have been deepened, friendships strengthened, and I’ve experienced a grounding connection with the land and the healing energies that imbue it.

For all of these things I am grateful.

God of mystery and unimaginable inventiveness, who has created each of us in all our beauty and multifaceted energies, we give thanks this day for what we are and for what we have, for our own mysterious life forces and for our hopes for more of this life tomorrow. We simply give thanks to be and to be ourselves and to be linked to those we love. Give us courage for the unique life journey that is ours, and give us spiritedness to live it joyfully.

– William Cleary
From We Side with the Morning:
Daily Prayers to the God of Hope
Sorin Books (2009)

The landscape itself [is] plural, ever-changing, a festival of light and rock, always different, and so naturally this complex world [gives] rise to many stories, to many myths of place.

– David Tacey
From Edge of the Sacred:
Transformation in Australia
HarperCollins (1995)

NEXT:
Back in Minneapolis

Australian Sojourn – June-July 2025
• Solstice Dawn
• Home to Be With Mum
• This Moment
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• June Vignettes
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• Warumpi Band
• Family Time in Guruk
• Journey to Gulmarrad
• An Australian Spirituality: “A Festival of Light and Rock”

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Gifts of Abundance
• Giving Thanks: A Spiritual Act of Trust
• Grief and Gratitude

Images: Michael J. Bayly and Brendan Bayly.

An Australian Spirituality: “A Festival of Light and Rock”

Following is a second excerpt from David Tacey’s 1995 book Edge of the Sacred: Transformation in Australia. (For the first excerpt, click here.)

Our spiritual way here [in Australia] cannot be, as was said by Hermes Trismegistus and other real or legendary Europeans, an opus contra naturam, a work against nature. There is too much nature in Australia, too much rock, too much prima materia or untransformed matter. If we heroically pitted ourselves against nature here in a bid to transform nature into spirit, we would go mad, breakdown, or be consumed by nature. The entire heroic fantasy about subduing nature, conquering Gaia or controlling Mother Earth is a European fantasy, which can never work in Australia. This country demands a different archetypal style, a style that works with nature rather than against it. The very notion that spirit is opposed to matter cannot take root here. Our spiritual mode will have to be ecological, a work with nature, an opus cum natura.

In this important aspect we must take our cue from the Aboriginal people and not from Western Europe. Herein lies what must be regional, local, or particular about an Australian spirituality. We cannot simply import Judeo-Christianity into this country and think that this will suffice. It won’t work, because it is based solidly on masculine and dualistic notions of spirit and matter that can make little sense here. The Australian Way will have to be ecological, like the Aboriginal people themselves. The new spirituality that arises from Australian experience will, I believe, be precisely the kind of spirituality that will set a timely example to the rest of the world. It will be non-heroic and will not go the way of the now exhausted heroism of Western Europe or North America. It will not be patriarchal, because the Earth Mother is far too strong here.

. . . My own experience in Alice Springs taught me to love and respect the Earth Mother in ways that I could not have achieved while living in Melbourne. It was the Earth Mother and her stony landscape that broke the encasement of my rational ego and drew me into a larger sense of identity, that opened up a dialogue between myself and the archetypal other. Naturally the vast expanses and the sheer weight of all this rock terrified me at times, and one can easily feel crushed by it. But Australian landscape is like the unconscious itself: if you respect it and realise the ego can never hope to assimilate, conquer, or transform it, you are allowed to survive. That is and must be our way, a humble aboriginal way, a shamanic way. Les Murray has said that the sheer space and size of this country is “one of the great, poorly explored spiritual resources of Australia,” since “in the huge spaces of the outback, ordinary souls expand into splendid [forms].” Randolph Stow has pointed out that “when one is alone with [the country], one feels in one way very small, in another gigantic.” The actual ego-personality is dwarfed and made to feel quite small and puny, but the soul leaps out of its human encasement and ecstatically unites with the greater world. “Alone in the bush, with maybe a single crow . . . a phrase like ‘liberation of the spirit’ may begin to sound meaningful.”

. . . I have felt that the rocks and mountain ranges of central Australia were large enough to accommodate many Dreamings: perhaps a different dreaming for everyone who comes into geophysical contact with them. The fact that there could be many Dreamings did not, for me, cancel out the validity or importance of my own or any other dreaming. The landscape itself was plural, ever-changing, a festival of light and rock, always different, and so naturally this complex world would give rise to many stories, to many myths of place. In my heart I realized the priority and respected the major status of the Aboriginal stories that had already accounted for the places that I mooned around as a boy. But I always felt, arrogantly perhaps, that there was still room for my own psychic participation in the land. It had already happened anyway, and it was not something I could call a stop to on political, ideological, racial, or any other grounds.

– David J. Tacey
Excerpted from Edge of the Sacred:
Transformation in Australia
HarperCollins (1995)
pp. 23-26

NEXT:
Last Days in Australia

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Recognising and Honoring Australia’s First Naturalists
• On Sacred Ground (2019)
• In the Land of the Kamilaroi (2019)
• Guruk Seascapes, From Dawn to Dusk (2017)
• Australian Sojourn – May 2016
• Earth Day 2015
• Prayer of the Week – November 14, 2012
• Rock of Ages: Theological Reflections on Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Afternoon
• Boorganna (Part I)
• Boorganna (Part II)
• My “Bone Country” (2009)
• Alva Beach (2006)
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• “Something Sacred Dwells There”

Australian Sojourn – June-July 2025
• Solstice Dawn
• Home to Be With Mum
• This Moment
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• June Vignettes
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• Warumpi Band
• Family Time in Guruk
• Journey to Gulmarrad

Images: Michael J. Bayly (except image 3 which is of Jamie Gulpilil in the 2006 film Ten Canoes, and image 4 which is artwork by Ainslie Roberts).

Journey to Gulmarrad

Yesterday, Brendan and I made a quick trip north to Gulmarrad, just outside of Maclean in Northern Rivers Country. Here we stayed with my dear friends Mike, Bernie, and Collette.

Above and below: With Brendan and Collette at Yamba this morning.

NEXT:
An Australian Spirituality:
“A Festival of Light and Rock”

Australian Sojourn – June-July 2025
• Solstice Dawn
• Home to Be With Mum
• This Moment
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• June Vignettes
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• Warumpi Band
• Family Time in Guruk


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Happy Birthday, Bernie! (2024)
• Mooloolaba (2023)
• In Northern Rivers Country (2019)
• Townsville (2016)
• A Journey to Northern Rivers Country (2015)
• Raph’s Inspiring Journey (2014)
• Raph’s Journey Continues
• A Surprise for Raph! . . . Well, Somewhat
• Return to Oz . . . Sydney to Be Exact!
• Our Sacred Journey Continues: An All Saints and Souls Day Reflection
• Leichhardt (2012)
• A Bushland Wedding (2011)
• The Australian Floods
• Rising Waters
• “Flooded-In But Loving Life”
• In Maclean, an End to the “Siege”
• Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast (2010)
• A Day Roving the Mid North Coast
• Newtown (2008)
• A Fresh Take on Masculinity (2006)
• The Australian Roots of My Progressive Catholicism
• Remnants of a Past Life
• More Remnants of a Life Past

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Andor: “A Magnum Opus of Anti-Imperialist Art”

For more of Andor at The Wild Reed, see:
• The Revolution Will Be Televised
• Andor: The Star Wars Franchise’s “First Piece of Universally Excellent Television”
• The Brilliance of Andor
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• How Empires Are Built and Rebellions Are Born
• Andor Season One Recap
• The Reckoning Is Here
• Andor’s Depiction of the Rise of Fascism: Not Predictive But Reflective


Related Off-site Links:
Andor’s Warning: How Fiction Unmasks Trump’s Fascism – Wajahat Ali (July 23, 2025).
Andor: The Star Wars Show That Knows What Fascism Really Looks Like – Tyler Huckabee (Sojourners, May 6, 2025).
Andor Is Transcendent – Falcon Paladin (May 11, 2025).
The Ghorman Genocide’s Awful Truth: The Metal Doesn’t Matter – EckhartsLadder (May 12, 2025).
How Not to Be Fascist According to Andor (and Jesus) – Bryan Jarrell (Mockingbird, May 20, 2025).
Why Andor Is the Star Wars Show for Grownups – Tracey Minkin (AARP, April 23, 2025).
Andor Review: Season 2 Is a Thrilling, Urgent Tribute to the Rebellion’s Unsung Heroes – Ben Travers (IndieWire, April 21, 2025).
Evil in Andor: The Banality of Evil – The Canvas (November 27, 2024).
Andor Is a Message for the Future – Spaceman (November 21, 2024).
The Poetry, Power, and Philosophy of Andor’s Monologues – Master Samwise (February 21, 2023).
Andor Is Star Wars Perfection – Caprisanh (January 6, 2023).
Andor: A Marxist Allegory Brought to You by Disney – Damien Walter (Science Fiction with Damien Walter, December 8, 2022).
Is Andor Actually THAT Good? (Yes, and Here’s Why) – Ben Arndt (A.M. Cinematics, November 28, 2022).
Why Andor Boldly Goes the Distance While Most High Profile Star Wars Adaptations Fell Short – Melanie McFarland (Salon, November 25, 2022).
Why Andor Is So Important for Star Wars – Kirk Mihelakos (Designed by Kirk, November 23, 2022).
Andor Is the Best Star Wars Has Been in 40 Years – Cleaver Rebooted (November 23, 2022).
Why Andor Feels So Real – Thomas Flight (November 23, 2022).

Family Time in Guruk

I’m currently in my homeland of Australia where I’m spending time with my family – my mum in particular. As some reading this will already know, mum has recently had some health issues.

I noted previously that although she continues to make a good recovery from the stroke she experienced in April (just a day after my return to the U.S. after a month-long visit), mum has moved into the assisted-living hostel that’s part of the retirement village in Port Macquarie that’s been her home since 2013, first with dad and then, after his passing in 2019, on her own.

For the first half of my time here I was by myself at mum’s villa, visiting mum once or twice a day in the assisited-living hostel that’s walking distance from here. My sister-in-law, who lives with my brother about an hour-and-a-half south of Port Macquarie, has been doing a geat job at posting on Facebook Marketplace pictures and descriptions of the bigger items of furnitire that can’t fit in mum’s room at the hostel. I've been meeting people as they come to the villa to collect the items they’ve bought, oftentimes helping them load them into their vechile. The villa needs to be emptied and vacated by the end of July.

I've also been going through my own things that have been stored for years in mum’s garage, and organizing a small storage unit in town in which I’ll pay to have them safely kept moving forward.

As often as I can, I go to Shelly Beach or Town Beach and watch the sunrise. This continues to be a very grounding, very anchoring way to start each day.

I even saved a baby shark one morning! . . . The image at right of a young grey nurse shark at left is not mine; it is, however, a picture of the type of shark I came across on the morning of June 26 after it was stranded at low tide among rocks on Shelly Beach. Lifting and carrying this young shark by its tail, I brought it to the shallows and (as gently as I could) threw it into the sea. I’m happy to say that I soon spied its two fins cutting through the water before disappearing beneath the waves. It was clearly making its way back out to sea. 🦈

Above: Mum and her former neighbor Glynnis – Friday, June 27, 2025.

As I noted previously, I arrived in Guruk (aka Port Macquarie) at around noon on Saturday, June 21. After showering and freshing up at mum’s villa, I decided that before visiting mum in her new home, I would call in on her neighbor Glynnis who lives in the villa next door. I did so to thank her for the crucial role she played back in April in notifying my brother of her concerns about mum, whom she hadn’t seen for a number of days. Thanks to Glyniss, family and paramedics were able to come and get into mum’s villa, find her down and unconscious, and take her to the hospital.

Above: Mum being visited by her neice (my cousin) Sharon and Sharon’s spouse Ross – Friday, June 27, 2025.

Above and below: On the weekend of June 28-29, 2025, my aunt Ruth (mum’s younger sister) travelled by bus to Guruk from our hometown of Gunnedah. It was great to see and spend time with her.

Above and left: My neice, the award-winning author and illustrator Sami Bayly, at her booth at Port Macquarie’s annual ArtWalk, a “galactic night of creativity and wonder” – July 4, 2025.

Above and below: My nephew Brendan, who arrived from the United Kingdom (via China) to Guruk on Saturday, July 5. First thing the next day I took him to watch the sunrise on Shelly Beach.

Brendan’s staying with me at the villa, and together we’ve been going through and sorting stuff, visiting “grandma” everyday, helping make her new place more homey, and taking her out to lunch with her longtime Port Macquarie friends, something she hasn’t done since before her stroke in April.

Opening image and above and below: Family time in Guruk – July 2025.

Brendan’s older brother Ryan soon joined us in the villa with his two young sons, Ramy and Jake – my great-nephews and mum’s great-grandsons. They came all the way from Melbourne.

Above: Brendan and Ramy chattng with Glynnis in the warm winter sun – July 9, 2025.

Above: Jake, preparing what he called “frog soup” for his great-grandma, who, judging from her expression below, didn’t find it very appealing. 🤣

Above: Great-grandma is always a good sport, even to the point of happily posing with her beloved great grandsons and the “frog soup” they made for her.

Above and below: On Tuesday, July 8, Brendan and I took mum/grandma out to lunch with a number of her Port Macquarie friends.

Above: My neice Layne, an accomplished tattoo artist, delights Ramy and Jake with her many beautiful tattoos – Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

Above: Ramy and Jake say goodbye to great-grandma – Thursday, July 10, 2025.


NEXT:
Journey to Gulmarrad

Australian Sojourn – June-July 2025
• Solstice Dawn
• Home to Be With Mum
• This Moment
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• June Vignettes
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• Warumpi Band

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• In Birpai Country
• Last Days in Guruk (April 2025)
• Family Time in Melbourne, Guruk, and Gunnedah (2023)
• Return to Guruk (2019)
• Family Time in Guruk . . . and Glimpses of Somaliland (2019)
• Across the Mountains
• Guruk Seascapes, From Dawn to Dusk
• Port Macquarie Days
• Thanks, Mum!
• Happy Birthday, Mum! – 2024 | 2018 | 2017 | 2014 | 2013 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009
• Congratulations, Mum and Dad! (2009)
• Catholic Rainbow (Australian) Parents (2006)
• Trusting the Flow
• Surrendering in Sacred Trust
• The Guidance of Higher Forces
• A Prayer of Anchoring
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• A New Day
• The Art of Gentle Revolution

Images: Michael J. Bayly.