Dreaming the World

Earlier I went out for a stroll in my disability scooter. The sky was a dramartic blend of Mediterranean blue and cloud. Now overcast has spread across the sky, and the breeze moves the tree branches slowly from side to side.

Ever so slowly the chlorophyl drains away, and the foliage shows more red and yellow; a leaf changes here, and another there. The starlings move from tree to tree; sometimes we are treated to a murmuration. The murmurations thus far have been brief and almost impossible to photograph. Before they lift, the starlings chatter among the leaves, and I am reminded of these lines from T.S. Eliot:. Eliot:

And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.

TS Eliot, Burnt Norton

I am at a loss for words in the face of the growing insanity playing out amongst us. How sadly human to kill because someone teaches hate or another love. How useless to believe that murder somehow silences ideology. 

I often think about Pema Chodron’s famous response when asked what she would have done had she met Hitler: “I would have killed him.” Looking back to the rise of the Nazis in Germany, her position makes sense, but retrospection tends to make things suspiciously clear, or to lead to dangerous generalizations. Perhaps timing matters.

Perhaps violence most often simply creates more violence. I suspect that the forms of political violence we are witnessing serve only to increase repression and are more likely to yield Norther Irelands than to bring sanity. 

Sadly, we in the U.S., trend, collectively, to forget, and/or erase history. I saw John Kennedy less than an hour before the  was killed; I spent weekends working locally for Robert Kennedy’s campaign and was awakened in the wee hours with the news of his murder; I looked up to Dr King. The list is ever so long.

Political murder is much more the norm than we might like to admit. Perhaps our Native prophies are spinning out as they must, and things will become progressively more dire until we collectively come to terms with our history of slavery and genocide. It seems that every now and again we come close to acknowledging what must be faced, only to turn away yet one more time.

We humans like to believe that we are acting from personal power, but shamanic experience tells us that very often what we think is free will is simply the enactment of the agendas of spirit beings much more powerful than we can imagine. What we imagine is vengeance is simply food for the beasts. The irony may be that the best way to move out of their influence is to have a deeply held sense of one’s own insignificance and frailty, compassion for self and others, and a desire to be kind.

I hope that all of us may experience moments of love, peace, play, and creativity this weekend. Please be safe.