By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Fires and floods and wars, oh my. We live in anxious times. ‘News’ agencies that embellish their delivery with talking heads and looped commentary do little to inform us, and next to nothing to sooth us. If we dare agree this is infotainment, not news, it can rightly be categorized as a “horror” format these days, delivering dread, dismay and nasty shocks with a smile and a wink. Yes, fires and floods and murders and frauds and don’t-expect-help-anytime-soon, political gridlock, oh my.
Watching clips of the raging waters in Colorado and the Seaside Park inferno in New Jersey I was reminded how immediate life has become these days. I doubt that those caught in the adrenal overload of flood or fire today care what’s going on in the Middle East or even about the stonewall in a belligerent Congress (at least until it votes on withholding FEMA funding or shuts down government, as it threatens to do next week.) The reality of those caught in emergency is very personal, and their future, if viewed through the lens of similar disasters we’ve been tracking for over a decade, consists of one long slog through the red-tape of insurance carriers, disaster relief and political SNAFU.
Thanks to our computers and 24/7 cable channels, we can live their heartbreak in every painful detail even as it occurs. Thank you, intertubes, you have changed our lives forever. The good old days of “film in the can” on its way to our newspapers and newscasters for tomorrow’s headlines appear as antiquated as oil lamps and corsets. Only time will tell if supercharging our ability to know what’s going on in the world has been for the better. What we know for sure is that it’s certainly been hell on our collective nervous system.
It’s impossible to avoid the correlation between the glut of information and the use of psychotropic drugs, the dissolution of government systems and the disillusionment of the population at large, but what’s to do? Anything that scares the bejeezus out of us, that shakes our confidence in our ability to cope, is going to create anxiety.
We know what to do in the long-term: activism, community involvement, factual education and awareness of issues. We must support only those things that support our good, boycott what doesn’t, and take care of ourselves physically and emotionally, but the daily assaults on our peace of mind take a toll. Is there a short-term remedy, besides ignoring televised news and substantive websites? Pulling the covers over our heads isn’t a workable plan.
I doubt that anyone reading this has not sustained some kind of personal challenge or life-changing event in the last few years. If you’re out of your teens, you may remember when life wasn’t coming at us this quickly, when chaotic energy wasn’t the norm and there was time between challenging events, not only to deal with all the details but also to recoup a bit of energy for whatever came next.
These days, it’s about prioritizing those things we can deal with and letting the rest go until we can get to them, reducing existence to a kind of personalized short-hand. We’ve become first responders for our own lives and those of the ones we love and care for, and if that’s not enough, when we look out the window to see what’s happening in the world, we see fully as much emergency around us.
For instance, the recent breakthrough in international cooperation between Syria as championed by Putin and America as facilitated by Kerry is both welcome and increasingly fragile. According to the United Nations report, both Assad’s army and some of the rebel factions that oppose them are guilty of torture and atrocities, hence, war crimes. When I read about the UN report in Mother Jones I thought about Assad’s insistence (to Charlie Rose) that those opposing his regime are terrorists, essentially deserving of their fate.
Then I thought of the hell I caught back in 2001 when I wrote that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Here in America, turns out one man’s whistleblower is also another man’s terrorist, not to mention tree huggers, animal and environmental activists and peaceful protesters. Perhaps it’s time to redefine the word itself and rethink our relationship to it. While we’re at it, let’s review “right” and “wrong” in a world shifting its priorities.
Still, no amount of even-handed analysis is going to make Syria a probable vacation spot for the family. In that Mother Jones article, a blogger-response reminded me of a quote from former CIA agent, Bob Baer, who said: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear – never to see them again – you send them to Egypt.”
Torture, these days, is in the eye of the beholder. Here in the US of A, if you’re in favor of serious interrogation, you applaud stop-and-frisk, support multi-billion- dollar, unconstitutional surveillance techniques and approve the end of habeas corpus. If you want torture, you ignore unfair foreclosure practices that put people out on the street to live in their car and then refuse them emergency assistance and food stamps because they have no permanent address, then report them to the cops who taze them for being hysterical in public. If you want them to disappear, you make sure they get that third strike that permanently reduces them to a number and delivers them into the churning bowels of the prison-industrial complex.
The remarkable part of all this is that there is a percentage of Americans who not only helped put that reality in place but fight to keep it there, and that’s just the hegemony here at home; our poor treatment of nationals in their own countries is infamous. This nation is also capable of doing good in the world and often does, although saying so at the moment can get you into a fist fight, but frankly, almost anything can. Indeed, the energies this week seemed configured to give us a continuing tutorial in combat and warfare.
Everyone I spoke to had a disquieting personal story to tell, some event that put them at sword-point with another and that knocked them off balance by the depth of their emotions. Welcome to the immersion of Venus in the intense waters of Scorpio, where we can experience the throb of our deepest emotions and sensitized nature all the way down to our toenails and fingertips. In dialogue, the challenge is to make sure we’re offering an open hand and not a closed fist, even as we are seemingly met with disagreement and threat, but only if you want to step off the merry-go-round.
We are able to stand up for ourselves without battle stance when we remember our common humanity and spiritual intent. At our most sane moment we are not railing against all we deem wrong or pounding the table in favor of all we consider right, but are instead seeking to find that thing that WORKS for the whole of us, that resolves our situation with dignity and compassion. The relief we all felt last weekend when the Syrian crisis seemed to find possible resolution is a prime example of how good it feels to release our need to throw rocks at one another.
Unfortunately, several days into that process the main players continue to gather rocks, quietly piling them up them behind them, even as we continue to hope for a positive outcome. Kerry and his Russian counterpart cannot agree on the particulars, although Kerry has called the continuing talks “productive.” Meanwhile, Assad’s operatives are accused of scrambling to disperse their chemical stores to as many as fifty separate sites, making discovery and disposal all the more difficult, while Assad himself refuses to cooperate unless the U.S. stops arming his enemies. And naturally, the CIA is making sure the rebels have their share of weapons even as the Russians continue to supply the Syrian government.
The rock piles grow higher, the rhetoric grows sharper, and the elephant in the room is, as usual, Israel, who wouldn’t give up their white phosphorous or their unacknowledged nukes on a bet, and Iran, who has no intention to stop working toward the same nuclear energy other countries enjoy. Clearly, our workable solution can only occur if we really WANT it to work.
The larger truth hangs over our heads, unspoken. It’s time to get rid of ALL such weapons: ours, theirs, everybody’s nightmare developed in think tanks and laboratories that can no longer plead — as they did in the 1940s — naivety about the consequence of their use. A Course in Miracles asserts that humans have no capacity to make accurate judgments, lacking the larger picture. As with suicide, weapons can make a disaster of a temporary situation. History proves it so.
As Eric points out, this is a critical time in our becoming, a historical moment we will look back on with awe, and for all of us, it hasn’t been easy to find respite from our cynicism or discouragement. My advice to those who have brought me their stories of anxiety or attack this week has been to stay in the moment as best they can, to get back to their center as quickly as possible. We are all tap dancing as fast as we can and we need to stay sharp.
Most of us have some ritual that comforts us and reminds us that we are more than simply humans sharing a planet. Whatever our religious belief or spiritual practice, we are accustomed to entering that space through some trigger mechanism we’ve developed over time. This is the moment to create a short-cut to that feeling, if you haven’t already. Each of us must determine how to do that, how to get back into balance quickly. To recreate our emotional stability, we must begin to do that several times a day.
The world is very present with us now, the politics very brittle, our patience stretched and resources thinned. We need to find what works for each of us, what brings us back into sanity and peace and possibility with the snap of our fingers. We can be knocked over by the depth of our emotions, by harsh words and projections, by unwelcome circumstances that impact us on physical as well as ethereal levels. We need to refine our ability to get our act together in an eye-blink, renew our point of peace, and establish our ability to respond thoughtfully to our circumstances rather than simply react.
What brings us to that point of balance may be a mantra, a prayer, an affirmation or some ritualized movement like a mudra. It might include incense, music, dance or meditation. It might be a scent or sentence. The point is that whatever works to bring us into balance is not something to do only in the morning before we face the world or at night before we enter sleep; it’s something we would be wise to streamline because we will need it several times a day.
We need to keep reminding ourselves that not only do we know what to do next, but that we’re capable of doing it without harming ourselves or others. We have the capacity to shake off the toxins of other people’s belief systems, neutralize the fears they spread and trigger within us. We can, essentially, master our humanity while remembering our divinity — walking and chewing gum at the same time — and that is a powerful gift to those we deal with on a daily basis, as well as the vibration of the entire planet. This week, find that thing that works to bring you back into your core self, your spiritual balance.
Practice finding that sweet spot quickly and effortlessly. In some quarters this is called being in the world but not of it. ACIM tells us that we can be right or we can be happy. When we find that place that works for us and everyone else, that place where we’re happy and even happier not to have to hold up our rightness, we’ve changed not only our own magnetic resonance but the world’s. The more we live from that centered place of peace, the easier you, I and the planet can breathe.
Thank you, Judith, for confronting me with material to which i need to attend. I suspect it has something to do with the maternal ancestral line and the way we, especially as girls, are taught ‘not to see’ certain things which to our innocent eyes seem quite obvious. As well as being taught to ‘not see’ i think we are also often encouraged to ‘not say’. ‘Seeing’ as not good, and ‘seeing and saying’ as very much worse. You are not my mother, and when we heal we are not healed alone. (And ‘Xena’ is from the wild and untamed nature).
nilou
For there to be healing, first there must be the recognition that healing is needed.
Denial is not healing.
Things cannot be hidden in plain sight.
Only denied.
Everyone (that i’ve ever met) has ancestral baggage that needs to be healed until they choose to do something about it.
“we are seeking to find that thing that WORKS for the whole of us, that resolves our situation with dignity and compassion”
– for the whole of us, so each one may be whole and all may be whole, together
– for all of us together
– all of us, us together, all of us, all together, for us all
– with dignity, with understanding, with compassion, with humility
“As Eric mentioned regarding Syria’s chart, this is a badass spot on the map. From a Karmic point of view, the places on the globe that have hosted humankind the longest — with the Mideast and Africa the cradles of civilization — have the most energy to burn off, the most density to clear. It is not an anomaly that modernity has such difficulty establishing itself in this region, steeped in layers of centuries-old guilt, tribal loyalties and vows of vengeance. All that’s happened “since the beginning” has imprinted itself into the skin of Mother and relief from seeds of violence watered with lifetimes of blood and suffering does not come easily.”
Excellent, yeti, that you’ve found means to make music again — a meditative form for you as well as all who receive your gift. Powerful!
As for falling between the cracks, there is much thought here in the Pea Patch that is provincial to the point of tears but the business of survival is refreshingly open-ended. People barter work for basics. The young man next door trades yard work for well-dues, and part of any “hired hand” job assignment includes a decent lunch. Those with the most money here, interestingly, are the retired — with stellar insurance and pensions, both endangered at this point — the very babies born into the generation that survived, and was marked by, the Great Depression. They came up with the understanding that circumstances can turn on a dime. Perhaps that’s why they seem convincingly neutral about issues of “grid” and whatnot.
There are too many people to count that have fallen into those cracks — getting out of them is amazingly difficult, so I also understand that woman’s argument. But it supposes that one WANTS to climb out of the crack on the side of established norms; not everyone does, nor needs to. Both sides of that chasm hold creative possibilities for re-thinking “work” and what serves the whole of us. I think American’s will have to let go of a lot more cultural absolutes before we can have serious conversation about that topic, but we’re getting there … and the more jobs become obsolete, the more necessary it becomes.
Thank you for the link, Lizzy — a wonderful way to begin a Sunday morning! And thanks for the reminder that what we seldom consider when we think about assistance to refugee’s is their grace and dignity. They often end up our teachers, our service on their behalf is service to our understanding of our human condition and the communal Self.
“we are seeking to find that thing that WORKS for the whole of us, that resolves our situation with dignity and compassion”
– for the whole of us, so each one may be whole and all may be whole, together
– for all of us together
– all of us, us together, all of us, all together, for us all
– with dignity, with understanding, with compassion, with humility
“As Eric mentioned regarding Syria’s chart, this is a badass spot on the map. From a Karmic point of view, the places on the globe that have hosted humankind the longest — with the Mideast and Africa the cradles of civilization — have the most energy to burn off, the most density to clear. It is not an anomaly that modernity has such difficulty establishing itself in this region, steeped in layers of centuries-old guilt, tribal loyalties and vows of vengeance. All that’s happened “since the beginning” has imprinted itself into the skin of Mother and relief from seeds of violence watered with lifetimes of blood and suffering does not come easily.”
Just heard this exquisite piece on the radio, which seemed to go so beautifully with the words here (the wonderful Vaughan Williams again), The lark ascending:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHqWVDPoUrE
Thanks for another wonderful piece Jude, and for the meditation link. Meditation has been my source of comfort, strength and self-investigation for many years now.
“Many of the employed are only a paycheck or two from falling through the cracks”. too true, wandering_yet, too true – I always think, there but for the grace of God…. Talking of refugees, a friend of mine is working with Sudanese refugess at the moment and is amazed bytheir strength, dignity and resourcefulness.
I hadn’t quite realized how I used guitar to center myself until I broke my old one catching its neck on a low hanging tree branch. My Tai Ji teacher just happened to have one he wasn’t using so I’m back in practice, but that was a weird few days. It’s sometimes easy for my righteous indignation triggers to be flipped when someone gives me shit for wanting to trade work for food and drink instead of money and work or just money. “People without money just fall through the cracks” she said, as though it’s just the way things are and not how people make it with their choices.
With a guitar at the ready I’d just go and play it and earn my keep that way, but without it…well at least I got to feel some things that were still itching that I was using the guitar to keep out of sight, out of mind. It brought me to an important (as I see it anyway) realization about the fear a lot of us have being projected onto folks without money. As we look down on the poor we’re really using our derision to protect ourselves from facing the fact that there’s countless ways a human can go from a citizen to a refugee on this planet. Many of the employed are only a paycheck or two from falling through the cracks.
I agree with your take on the flooding and fire as a process, be — I view the fire in Yosemite as a natural process, for instance, even though it hurts my feelings deeply. It’s the natural way and I support the Forest Service allowing it to burn, so long as life and property is protected … although some of that property has encroached where it has no business being. Humankind tempts fate living deep in the forest.
I lived in those CA Sierra’s (backside of Yosemite) for a few pivotal years and remember one huge fire that never came close enough to burn in our area but colored the sky caramel and stopped all natural noise — birds, squirrels, crickets — in deadly quiet that seemed to last for days. With so few exits and entrances to these mountain places, and with fire jumping tree-top to tree-top, these events are quite intimidating.
Still, for some of us, the danger is worth it. My kids have been directed to scatter my ashes among the big trees in this area, the place where I was the happiest — where I learned that snowflakes can be as big as pie plates, where the air never smells more benevolent than when scented with pine and cedar incense, where the quiet of a starry night makes you hold your breath to hear its silent rhythm!
The process you speak of is as natural and on an even grander scale, of course — a Shiva dance of destruction, creating a void space of renewal and balancing the cosmic scales. Thanks for your comments, be; always so relevant and appreciated.
And THANKS as well for clarifying that, gumbybug! It wouldn’t leave my head until I made some sense of it and your illustration was perfect.
Yes, animals — mustn’t forget the critters. And astrology, be, of course. All things that center us and open us to heart-Light. Nature, critters, astrological patterns … so much a part of me I failed to mention them.
Years ago, I read that the human body renews its cellular structure every 7 years; some organs sooner, others later, but an entire re-building of cells on the 7. That made absolute astrological sense to me when applied, for instance, to the geometry of a Saturn cycle that squares, opposes, squares and then conjuncts on the 7-cycle — covering the entirety of our structural issues and giving us a shift of view, a re-new-al, with each new cycle.
What we focus on, what we embrace, we BECOME. Nature, the critters, the astrology is all second-nature, solid as bone after awhile. I remember when George Bush won [sic] a second term, my grief was that the ideology would become part of us on the 7 (and returned to some sense of balance, I trust, on 14!)
Sorry Judith about not being very clear about the “happy or kind” version.
I think I find it different in that when one can choose to be kind, then they are free to perhaps choose an “action” that is kind: say a person absolutely believes that a broken flower pot with large holes is perfectly capable of not leaking all over the porch after being watered (and this person may have even witnessed water pouring forth after being watered). I might choose to place a saucer under the pot to stem the tide of water as a kind gesture, and can still choose being happy versus being right at same time. Didn’t mean to make that so convoluted!
I feel the more ways we can find compassion and empathy, the better!
To add to your thoughts about getting centered, I find the first thing I do is check my breathing, both rate and depth. Depending on circumstances, then ask internally “my stuff or someone else’s?”
And yes, trees, plants, and animals always play in the mix along with the quiet time you mentioned.
Great stuff here and many thanks!
“Walking and chewing gum at the same time” Great visual Jude, and I hope everyone who doesn’t already have a way of centering themselves emotionally, psychologically and physically will profit from your suggestions on proven methods that can achieve that end. Fe’s practices also, turning to nature and art for answers, are universal balm for the fractured psyche. For me, astrology always provides a big enough picture to see how the crisis of the moment fits in. Something my cramped vantage point (in the world) doesn’t.
Take for example, the flooding in Colorado and the fire in the already embattled New Jersey. Horrific as it appears, it is a means for achieving a kind of healing; part of a planned process we are unable to conceive of on a mere-mortal conscious level. Yet, just remembering that the outer planets Neptune, Uranus and Pluto do not operate on a personal emotional level; they are really not malefic (even though it appears they are out to get us), and that can begin to restore some balance between our personal experience of life and the planetary changes. Unless of course it’s your fire or your flood. That will need some deeper individual and societal exploration.
The 3rd house of a chart would be where to find (the glut of) information clue. Transiting Neptune is in the U.S. Sibly chart fanning the emotions of communication as he trines the U.S. Venus in the 7th house of partners. U.S. Venus, currently conjunct transiting Hades (unpleasant business needing to be dealt with) rules the 10th house of government. Transiting Saturn (associated with government) is moving through the 11th house of the U.S. Sibly chart where changes are instigated regarding 10th house structures. Transiting Saturn was trine transiting Neptune as recently as the June summer solstice, and also trine the transiting Solstice Sun who was beginning his conjunctions to the U.S. Sibly Venus (ruler of 10th and 6th houses of US Sibly), Jupiter (ruler of Sibly chart), Sun (ruler of Sibly 8th house) and Mercury (ruler of Sibly 7th house of partners) in Cancer. Connecting the dots gives me a sense of order in the universe, if not under my own roof.
We are “seeking to find that thing that WORKS for the whole of us” is a thought to bear in mind as we tap dancing as fast as we can. Today Terpsichore (at 1 Aquarius) does this very thing as she trines the powerfully magnetic Super Galactic Center (SGC) but opposes Mercury at 1 Leo) and squares Orpheus (irresistible music) at 1 Taurus As she pivots and twirls, she’s holding space for the return of retrograde Juno when she will station direct on September 24th. On that day the Moon in Gemini will square Neptune (confusion) in Pisces and Askalaphus (whistle blower) in Virgo, but she will also trine Juno (equal partners) in Aquarius, AND. . Moon will do it all at the same time. Maybe then we will be able to readjust (trans. Juno is quincunx U.S Sibly Venus) our thinking processes as trans. Mercury begins his brief square with the U.S. Sibly Mercury. Terpsichore will have continued to tap dance in place, still at 1 Aquarius and still trine the SGC in Libra, and still square trans. Orpheus’ sweet music from 1 Taurus, but who now moves retrograde. We will have a new (Libra) Equinox chart to work with then and see what the Universe has planned for the next three months. The beat goes on.
Thank you for being there for us Jude.
be
Well, bless us all real good, as they say here in the Ozarks! John Kerry managed to put this one on the books!
GENEVA — After days of intense negotiations, the United States and Russia reached agreement Saturday on a framework to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 and impose U.N. penalties if the Assad government fails to comply.
The deal, announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, includes what Kerry called “a shared assessment” of the weapons stockpile, and a timetable and measures for Syrian President Bashar Assad to follow so that the full inventory can be identified and seized.
The U.S. and Russia agreed to immediately press for a U.N. Security Council resolution that enshrines the chemical weapons agreement under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which can authorize both the use of force and nonmilitary measures…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/14/us-russia-agree-deal-o_n_3925636.html
Nature and art, absolutely Fe — organic reflections of source, around and within us. I’m a literal tree-hugger, known to chat with the plant deva’s while neighbors shake their heads because I wander in the yard, talking to myself. If they only knew! There is so much to find when we LOOK!
Light and temperature collided this morning to present Fall’s first peek into 2013 — with each season change there is a moment of First Light: this is ours. The Patch is newly beautiful. I’m so glad I didn’t miss it!
Yes, as fragile as is this prospect for peaceful surrender of weapons, we must try — and all the world is watching that experiment, some with fresh eyes toward a process of cooperation. An entire generation of children have been born into war — that’s what they know to do. I think it was Edgar Cayce that said it’s the TRY that counts toward collective good, not the conclusion. Our hearts are doing the heavy lifting here, if not our intellect: I trust THAT.
My goodness, gumbybug, I hope that doesn’t mean happiness and kindness are mutually exclusive. Kindness is the natural consequence of love of self and others. I’ll have to ponder that awhile, I seem to be missing something. Perhaps this is an and/or?
I’d be most interested, readers, in what you find helpful to get centered. When I was studying at the spiritualist chapel in Tucson twenty and more years ago, I was urged to find that short-cut to home-base because I would “need it.” Truer words seldom spoken, so they say. So for me, this practice is very quick. I can grab just about any book on my shelves and open to some word of wisdom that pulls me out of my head and back into my heart. When my library isn’t handy, just about any positive I AM statement begins to fill me up but I’ve been at this a long time.
Others of us may need a bit of quiet time to make the internal connection. My daughter likes to put on the following YouTube as background when she walks in the door, stressed. There are WONDERFUL YouTube’s out there to sample.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS5QpPRFdbg
And generally speaking, nothing works to clear the ethers of negativity faster than a bit of sage. When someone toxifies our space … or when we do … we can release it quickly with a sage-wand (grow your own in the garden or window to dry and burn.) Think of it as an aid to rebirthing your sanity by dropping the baggage of old interaction, coming back to neutral, natural space.
“We can, essentially, master our humanity while remembering our divinity.”
Love this Judith!
I also heard another a version of the “we can be right or be happy” this week on the radio: “We can be happy or we can be kind” which to me is quite similar, yet somehow different.
Your words are, once again, timely and so appreciated in their gentle reminders to take care of ourself as best we can and how that flows into taking care of others and the collective.
Lovely, Judith. The way the world has been stretched and polarized these last ten years since the Iraq War II alone its remarkable we still have a semblance of sanity. Maybe because we’ve seen it all before that we refuse to go through it again. The polarized world we see now includes both new transparency and opacity, even with the Internet. Who has he truth in this era?
I look to nature and art for answers. When something, someone, some place, some system is disrupted, how does it re-generate and evolve back into balance? How do we influence a pull back from the brink on a personal and ultimately political level? What can we do minute by minute, day by day to recreate the world to our liking?
It’s not certain that the diplomatic means will work, but we’ve got to try, trust it or not. The tension out there is forging interesting bedfellows here at home. The Syrian situation has made temporary allies of Libertarian Rand Paul and the only congressperson who voted against the Iraq War AUMF, my Congresswoman Barbara Lee. An isolated instance? Or a catalyst for deeper change?