The Om in Obama

Oh dear - the media is gorging itself on Obama. The slimier publications have already started to spit him out. No mind, we knew that would happen. In the meantime here are links to a couple of more thoughtful posts on the President Elect: One, gently humorous, from Garrison Keillor:http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/11/12/obama_victory/
And another, wise and warm and moving, from Alice Walker:http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/382904

Life has hurtled on so rapidly and so gloomily in these dark autumn days. Can one be gloomy and still hurtle? As the BBC keeps braying at me: "We are in uncharted territory" so I must assume that anything is possible.
That wonderful early November night is starting to fade into the dusk of this 2008. Just before that night, I found myself tossing restlessly on an angry, unhappy night. The reasons are unimportant. But my instinctive solution made me sit up in bed and smile. Monkey brain was babbling, ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts - had run amok when I said to myself: "I bet Obama wouldn't panic. Obama wouldn't lie in bed with the cat on his stomach, reliving an argument that he's never actually dared to have (Obama not the cat) with that miserable woman in the sub post-office on the Green. Obama wouldn't console himself with two slices of marmite on toast. "
I should have stopped there but it was 2 am and the monkey brain had jumped its leash. The cat shifted on to my chest, purred and stared into my eyes. I stared back but my mind was on Obama - on his self-containment, the sense of an inner calm that he carries within him. I gazed into Blueberry's golden eyes and meditated on the President Elect - the big smile, the big ears - it's all good. I drifted off, my anger evaporated - a middle-aged English woman in an Oxfordshire cottage, pacified by the Om in Obama

Out of Africa - Obama - President-Elect

Sat up til 4am here in London. Still it wasn't definitively called. Eyes popped open at 7- had to turn on BBC Radio to hear that proper English voice announce: "Barack Obama is the new President Elect of the United States of America." Yes, yes, yes. So many wonderful moments, so moving to witness the joy of Afro-Americans, of black people everywhere and to realize that in a world where we have been talking about the ascension of China, of India... Africa was always eclipsed, forgotten and seemed hopeless. And here he is - an African-American (Kenyan/Indonesian/Hawaiian all there in the mix....) man who has the grace, the dignity, the intelligence and the forgiving heart that can start to bring our foolish little planet together. Have gone through a box of Kleenex watching old black men talk of the long, long unimaginably hard road that this has been, and watching young people everywhere get back their hope.

I once lived in Chicago - and to see Grant Park become the temporary centre of the Universe last night was thrilling. Grant Park was one the scene of vicious riots during a long distant Democratic Convention. Who could have imagined? Who could ever have imagined? Most moving moment - watching that old road warrior Jesse Jackson, not always a loveable or laudable man, tears streaming down his face during Barack's acceptance speech. A morning in millions...