theguardian.com
I don't remember when my unshakable conviction that the transformation of human consciousness would definitely happen In Time began to tremble on its foundation. Watching image after image on the daily/nightly news of people being mowed down, not on the battlefield, but in shopping malls, schools and the cinema, must be when it started to become clear that, while most of us fervently long for a peaceful world in which to live, there are mad, deluded, hollow-souled people out there with crazed eyes, ideologies and kalashnikovs, whose consciousness is incapable of changing. I don't know when the latest Breaking News was met with a resigned weary sadness instead of shock and horror - it has been just too many times. Bombs fall on towns, buildings crumble, people die, people somewhere else die in retaliation, the world must escalate its Response To Terror. The ideology of Us and Them continues, against the very real fact that when we are shot or stabbed, our blood runs the same colour. What mother doesn't want a peaceful world for her child to grow up in? My response to terror is the crumbling of my formerly unwavering belief that peace will ever be possible on this planet. Will weary resignation replace Wild Woman's dream of peace?
The shouts and screams of the dying
the tears of those who gather to mourn ~
when will we ever learn
when will we ever learn
peace will never be achieved with bombs and guns?
posted for Karin's prompt at Real Toads : to write a poem based on our free-write, whatever comes on the page after "I remember" or "I don't remember". Great prompt, Karin. Thanks, I needed that!
Indeed.. it all seemed to go the right way, and now the world is crumbling... I just wonder this time, it's so much larger than anything i have seen in this part of the world... and so many who are out to destroy...
ReplyDeleteHey Sherry--I am with you. I tend not to favor retaliation as I am very much a pacifist, but I don't know what the answer is. We certainly don't seem to have it. Thanks for your direct and heartfelt piece, and your always impassioned voice. k.
ReplyDeleteThere have been acts of war since the beginning of time. I don't know that we can change it. We can alter our feelings but the remainder of people do the same thing and on it goes.
ReplyDeleteI always loved the saying, Walk softly and carry a big stick.
This captures exactly how I feel, too.
ReplyDeleteNo m'dear weary perhaps - but Wild Woman - looking at the lights around the world lit in solidarity with Paris - reading stories of those who rushed while gunfire still rained to help others and call for assistance - Wild Woman albeit weary who realizes that if the world were not truly on a path to peace we would long have completely annihilated each other - Wild Woman weary now but not reigned recognizing that it there is but a cosmic handful of those empty-eyed-hollow souled individuals who are anti-life - Wild Woman who realizes with growing strength and conviction that humans as all wild things live with an irrepressible desire to thrive, to bear young to protect and to enjoy their environment. Wild Woman standing strong and confident that the 'news' repeating in an endless loop is still a tiny proportion of all the good that continues each and every day in every corner of this planet and that we are on a path by recognizing that there are some who are specie-specific anomalies and who are right now as Wild Woman regains her strength beginning to vanish as all their predecessors who walked this spinning blue marble in past ages and have now been hurled into oblivion survived by those who live to love life and peace and the wildness that is the light of the spirit and source within. Rest, relax, recover your strength - stand and howl at the moon in grief, in strength in hope at belief in the promise of the true possibility of peace ...coming...
ReplyDeleteWhile I believe with Dr. Pearl that a few rotten apples can spoil an entire bushel, I too find the latest violence daunting. It is everywhere! But war will never be the solution. Gandhi was right--not perfect--but right. And when we are all out there in horror for the people of Paris but not for those in Baghdad, you know racism is on tap too--no matter how we deny it. I'm trying to decide, I'm waiting for the answer, because it is people like me who have to sit down and say NO even if it kills us. Like in India, this refusal to move and refusal to fight will kill a good many--but not as many as during war. That is true for undoing white supremacy in the USA too--only willingness to die and refusal to kill will change anything. People like me have to act, the ones who always play it safe and critique everyone else. The time is coming, Sherry. I feel it. New youth will lead and peace will be.
ReplyDeleteIt is too much and too often~ I so, agree...with you~
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that there won't be a solution, Sherry. At least not in our time. It will happen similar to the way the Soviet Union came about.
ReplyDeleteI had heard of Kalashnikov before but hadn't remembered him or his guns after reading. Thank you.
..
Hard questions. But then that's what humankind is. Keep living your answer.
ReplyDeleteSo hard to see the dark threads that make up our human limitations--patterns of behavior that hardly seem rational, and it takes forever to understand that this is the eternal fight against good and evil, and that it can't be won, only fought with every fiber. A sharp and on point piece, Sherry, if indeed, tragic.
ReplyDeleteTrue words straight from your soul Sherry. I think many of us feel the same. I couldn't even get myself to write anything. I'm rather numb.
ReplyDeleteThe world is on fire and too many speak the fuel to keep it burning. Don't give up hope. If we can create peace, give peace to our souls, then perhaps we can be the stone in the lake that sends ripples.
ReplyDeleteThere is a feeling of dread that is creeping into my psyche. The only solution for me is to attempt to remain a positive force in my community, in my daily life and love with all my heart and soul.
ReplyDeleteYes, when will we ever learn? In our lifetimes? I somehow doubt...
ReplyDeleteThank you for this, Sherry. I tend to want to retreat myself, and that doesn't feel consistent with who I am. Very challenging times. That is a ridiculous understatement. I appreciate your words here.
ReplyDeleteI share your sentiment. It is so hard to hold on to optimism sometimes in the face of such sadness.
ReplyDelete