On Another Note

I found someone on the internet a few days ago.  Someone I wasn’t looking for.  His name is Wayne William Snellgrove, and our communication was mainly of a spiritual nature.  My brain has been buzzing since, and I have been motivated to sit down and write stuff.  But something else has been brought up.  Wayne defines himself as a Genocide Survivor.  When I read those words, I felt the familiar sensation of something in me closing.  A few years ago I read ‘Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions’, with a similar excitement at the spiritual content, that was dampened throughout the book when I read about the horrors committed against these people (and the land). 

We seem infinitely capable of committing atrocities against each other, ourselves, and the world in which we live.  It seems instinctive, almost, as we are quick to react.  Acts of love, caring, and nurturing don’t seem quite as easy, for some reason (with some exceptions such as a mother’s love). 

I now live in a peaceful country with lots of wild land, untampered by humans (yet).  I have everything I could possibly want.  I don’t just say that, I am in awe at how lucky I am to literally want nothing else.  That doesn’t mean I am always happy.  There is an unhappiness in me, but because I want for nothing, I know that the answer to my healing and key to my happiness lie within. 

As some of you know, I grew up in a war-torn country, and many of you who shared my childhood are still there (mostly by choice).  I lived in my own little bubble as a kid, more so because of the immediate society in which I grew up, rather than some large-scale political situation.  But on one level or another we are all aware, and I grew up believing that peace is an impossibility.  That eventually developed into a total lack of interest in politics, and when I get that heavy feeling at the face of humans wronging others, my heart sinks but my head says ‘not me, I’m not an activist’.

Even as a child I would say people should get themselves a good dose of therapy, sort out their shit, maybe then they wouldn’t be so hell bent on blowing up everyone and everything.  I don’t know if I believe in therapy all that much anymore.  (Then again, define therapy).  But I still believe that truly happy people don’t spend their precious time here plotting ways to hurt others.  (Or, in fact, hurting each other unconsciously).  So, after decades of life experience, I am back at the same place I was as a child, truly believing that if there is any chance for a kinder world, it needs to start from within each and every one of us.  This experiment in happiness is directly about that.  That is why I believe it is important, and that is why I value the participation and/or feedback of pretty much anyone who is part of the human race.  Because like it or not, one way or another, we are all in it together.

​And one more thing:
There is a lady I know and love.  She is the most gentle person I know.  To me she always came across as shy and withdrawn.  Who would have thought she would become the activist I see today.  I think that when we become activists we step out and take responsibility for whatever cause we support.  To be an activist we must inevitably connect with the very things we feel most strongly against.  My heart cannot encompass all the pain I perceive in the world around me.  For me, working with a world that holds and manifests so much misery is unbearable.  So I have found myself a paradise, and have surrounded myself with all that I love.  (And in the process, I am learning that there is nowhere to hide, life will keep coming at you, and the answer is not in getting away but in coming towards).  You are a brave woman and I have immense respect for you.