Fibrillation and Ablation in the collective heart

Fibrillation is an irregular heart rhythm that originates in the muscle’s upper chambers (the atria). Symptoms include fatigue (√), heart palpitations (√), trouble breathing (√), and dizziness (√). Pretty much describes my year so far—exhausting, heartbreaking, breathtaking, and dizzying horror at the regime.

From Mayo Clinic site.

People experience A-fib as a sensation in which there is no “resting” pulse. Their heart is beating 100-175 beats a minute. The upper and lower chambers of the heart are out of synch, as though the muscle itself is in a state of panic. (See Mayo Clinic for a clinical explanation.)

Fortunately, I do not have this actually happening in my chest, but it is happening in my metaphoric heart.  And it’s happening in our collective hearts. A friend referred to this feeling as “having one foot on the brake, one foot on the accelerator, each pressing equally hard, spinning in place.”

from Robert Hubbell blog–he posts daily submitted photos of resistance.

These are heart racing times. Incredible words of wisdom and eyewitness accounts are coming out of cities, communities, and states under siege. I am not currently under siege, but I am ready. I have my whistle, my cell phone, “know your rights” cards in English and Spanish, and a military version letting enlisted know their loyalty is to the Constitution. I attend local protests. I call my Democratic senators and representative. I have a candle lit in my window, joining the movement to “Be the Light,” and send out a flickering (battery operated) glow “every night until America is free.”

My partner, Ann, and I were raised in Minnesota, she in Austin, me in suburban Minneapolis. We have family and friends in the middle of the siege supporting those in most direct threat. They are protesting, driving teachers to and from schools, helping food drives, donating to nonprofits, watching out for neighbors. We are staying in touch, making sure they know the country and wider world is watching, learning from them, and aware of the horrors being perpetrated in their communities.

Instagram photo.

At a weekly circle gathering in my hometown on Whidbey Island. Out of twenty-one people, a third of us have Minnesota ties. The circle opened with a reading of Alison Luterman’s poem, Outpouring. An homage to Minnesotans’ responses to ICE invasion, the poem initiated a heartfelt conversation wondering how best to be engaged, for we believe the slogan: All this stops when enough of us say NO.

We are saying no—but it doesn’t feel like enough. It feels like fibrillating: waiting for the heart of the country to regulate, for enough of us to understand how to move from fight or flight. We know risk is present. We see that death can be dealt out of the most innocuous gesture; a woman saying, “I’m not mad at you, dude…” a man reaching to help a woman pushed to icy ground.

Hubbell’s column-submitted by participants.

It is so obvious that the actions we take today shape the future. We are in a purge: when the white supremacy inherent in our nation’s founding, history, and present pushes us into this test.  The empire is exposed. In a hinge of history, the door can swing either way; we the people are pushing for democracy while the regime is pushing for authoritarianism. (One foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator—how the heart is racing!) And the chambers of our government are out of synch and seemingly frozen. There is no going back from this: and the way forward is uncharted.

We’ve had several dear friends experience A-fib episodes. The heart wears itself down pumping like this. There is potential for blood clot, stroke, heart attack. In the winter of 2026, we are collectively at this stage of chronic fibrillation: hyped, out synch, exhausted by chaos. We carry on with daily lives altered by the state we are in.

Sometimes late night, when I sense the newsfeed slowing and the houses around me are dark, I can find this thready pulse, this deeper breath. I put my hand on my heart whispering to myself, “You can do it, dearie. Have courage without certainty. Love the folks in front of you. Hold your piece of the light: admit your piece of the dark. Move at the pace of guidance. Notice how help comes.” I fall asleep pressing assurance into my sternum.

Sometimes medication helps the heart slow. Sometimes A-fib just stops. For several friends,  the onset and departure of fibrillation episodes are a mystery. Like living in these days. We don’t know where in the Great Turning we are. We are just here. In Minneapolis, a thousand protestors are singing to the ICE agents, “It’s okay to change your mind, show us your courage, leave this behind. It’s okay to change your mind, you can join us, join us any time.”

Instagram.

And sometimes the heart habituates to chaos and to cannot regulate. The treatment of choice is ablation—where tiny catheters are inserted into veins and threaded to the heart. Once there, the surgeon zaps specifically targeted surfaces of the heart muscle with heat or cold to create scar tissue. The scars block the irregular heartbeat.  Rebirth in rhythm. (Again, see Mayo Clinic for clinical explanation.) The people are singing, “Put down your weapons and sing your part, we walk the same ground, we’ve been torn apart. We are here with our bravery, our love for each other will carry us through. Yes, our love for each other will carry us through.

ICE is the chaos disrupting the rhythm of daily life. The protestors are the ablation. The world is watching and learning from Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Minnesota. The protestors are stopping life as usual—a deliberate procedure to restore order—well, to establish a new order. Minnesota will never be the same. The country will never be the same. We will have to find a new rhythm for our lives that includes the scar tissue, and honors the sacrifices being made. Be Pretti. Be Good. And also be: Porter, Dominguez, Diaz, La, Yanez-Cruz, Caceres, Campos—who were killed or died in detention in January 2026.

It’s risky, working on a person’s heart alive in their chest. It’s risky working on our societal denial, but protestors across the country know the collective heart must be called into a new regulation. They choose the risk. They choose to be examples of how to create new social pathways, working with and around the scar tissue of our history. They know it is imperative to correct the rhythmic pulses of collective life. By the tens of thousands, Minnesotans march down frozen streets: Nicollet Mall as Gettysburg. In bitter cold, breaths puffing white clouds, they sing, “No one is getting left behind this time, we get there together or never at all, we get there together, all of us now.”

Instagram.

Minnesota strong.

Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Take care of whatever place you stand. This is going to take a while.

To rouse the heart—play Bruce Springsteen’s, “On the Streets of Minneapolis.”

And to regulate the heart listen to Jacob Collier elicit collective harmony in the Wild Mountain Thyme.