{"id":5410,"date":"2026-07-04T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/?p=5410"},"modified":"2026-07-04T06:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T13:07:09","slug":"4th-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/04\/4th-of-july\/","title":{"rendered":"4th of July"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I originally wrote and published this over on my patreon page<\/a>, but I wanted to share it here on my blog as well.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s July 4th and also the United States’ 250th birthday.
It feels like it should be a bigger occasion, celebration, and a more spiritive collective energy in the air as a country but it all just kind of feels like\u2026meh? It’s a sad, pitiful feeling that reminds me of when I walked through a Joanns that’s been completely ravaged and gutted of it’s inventory and identity before officially closing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, there isn’t much to celebrate especially given the current political climate.
And there is so much to not be joyful or celebratory about the United States.
We kind of have a bloody history of being the world’s biggest bully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technically, borders aren’t real and so the entire Earth is my home;
and the entire solar system and Milky Way Galaxy is my home;
and the entire Universe itself is my home;
and whatever our visible Universe may or may not be contained within is my home;
and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This country\u2014this specific piece of land\u2014is also my home, and a home to many of us.
And honestly, no country is perfect or without a dark past or modern day issues.
Despite all of the bad, there is also so much to be proud of and celebrate depending on where you look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think back to all of the little moments of magic experienced and shared between me and others I’ve encountered throughout my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think about all of the amazing, revolutionary, innovative art and culture that’s come from my fellow Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think about WWII and how Black and Native Americans\u2014despite being mistreated, oppressed, and abused by this country\u2014still stepped up to help fight back against the Nazis and fascism knowing that they would never be seen (or treated) as heroes in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m proud of my enslaved Black ancestors and all that they did to find and achieve freedom\u2014not just for themselves but for EVERYONE throughout American history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it’s because it was just PRIDE month that this is coming to mind, but I can remember a time growing up where the LGBTQ+ community were still being openly mocked and demonised. I remember a friend of mine in high school sharing about how one day she hoped that being gay would be the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have made great strides as a country to achieve better treatment, equality, and freedom for our LGBTQ+ family. It still kind of briefly stunlocks me whenever I’m chatting with someone of the younger generation and they are so chill and cool with being queer and the overall concept of queerness and the differing gender and sexual identities people can have.
I remember a time when all of that was meant to be hush-hush and shameful should it be brought to light.
But it’s become accepted and part of the norm, today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we are taking a step back in this current political climate to awful, archaic dark times.
And honestly? The world has always been on fire and bad things have always happened throughout human history no matter where you were. But that doesn’t mean we will never achieve progress and more freedom\u2014whether it be in the United States or as the Human Collective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it’s up to us to care enough to continue doing the work\u2014in the ways in which we can\u2014to fight for\/towards it. Much like those that came before us. And sometimes, that is achieved by simply existing and being our honest and authentic selves.
I really love this quote by Bob the Drag Queen during his time in the Criterion Closet<\/a>, and I hope it inspires some of you.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If you too are American, I hope you can find one thing today to be proud of and celebrate about our history, and use that as inspiration to continue doing the work to make this shared home of ours better for those that will come after us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe with our actions today, tomorrow, and up until our very last breath, America’s 300th, 375th, 400th, and 500th anniversary could look\u2014and feel\u2014a lot more joyful and celebratory for us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I originally wrote and published this over on my patreon page, but I wanted to share it here on my blog as well. It’s July 4th and also the United States’ 250th birthday.It feels like it should be a bigger occasion, celebration, and a more spiritive collective energy in the air as a country but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-5410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brain-dump-2","tag-brain-dump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5410"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5420,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions\/5420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}