People are Happy When They're at War

I'm reading Paulo Coehlo's book "The Zahir". As usual with his books, it's given me many things to think about. Last night, Sadie and I talked about a poem that she had memorized when she was a child, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream". It talks about the dream where "the world had all agreed to put an end to war". We watched John Denver sing the song, and it was really pretty. He also recited a poem about peace. It got me thinking about war, about peace, and about love. Then I was reading on the way to work, and I read this passage about life and love and war... his wife was working as a war correspondent, and talking about her experience and opinions after living and working in a war zone...


"Paradoxical though it may seem, people are happy when they're at war. For them, the world has meaning... total power of sacrificing themselves for a cause gives meaning to their lives. They are capable of limitless love, because they no longer have anything to lose. A fatally wounded soldier never asks the medical team: 'Please save me!' His last words are usually: 'Tell my wife and my son that I love them'. At the last moment, they speak of love!"

Would the world even know what it would do without war? Why is it that things that are better are often so much more difficult to achieve? That whole, "the best path is rarely the easiest one" adage... War and fighting, in the name of God, in the name of ownership, in the name of duty, in the name of oil, in the name of fear, in the name of family, in the name of scarcity, in the name of love, in the name of sadness, in the name of revenge, in the name of hunger, in the name of exorbitance, in the name of money... so many names, so many faces, so much lost, so little gained...War and fighting have gone on since the beginning of history as I know it. It used to be that battles were fought between tribes so that no group starved... There was a day when tribes and groups battled over basic needs, not over oil and mineral rights. Little things... A young man would sneak out and steal a horse from the other tribe, knowing full well that one would soon be stolen back, in the name of a rights of passage to manhood. Nothing is lost there, is it? A young man establishes himself, the single horse won't cause either tribe paucity, and nothing else is taken. Maybe there's more to it than that, and I don't know about it, but it seems harmless.

I don't understand war. I know that it's a business; young men and women risk their lives and die defending "freedoms" that equate in the end to oil rights; children are stolen away from their families to become soldiers for a cause; people's homes and lives are destroyed; we get our gas $.04 cheaper than we might have otherwise. I know that that's an oversimplification of it all, but boil it all down, and what do you have? A man that I cared for died fighting in Afghanistan last August, more and more go over, and men and women continue to die in the field every day. Not so that we could have food; not so that someone else doesn't come to take over the country; not so that there's enough food and water to keep everyone alive at home; for oil.

Goodbye Little Bunny

My little bunny Noelle died early this morning.
I don't know what happened.
Her kennel is next to my side of the bed; she sleeps in it at night when we're in bed.
I heard her last night, or early this morning, scratching around.
When I woke up this morning, she was dead.
I couldn't close her eyes; did you know that bunnies have the tiniest little eyelids?
I held her in my hand; her little furry self was cold... I was really sad.

I'll try to bury her in the park near the house maybe.
I don't know what to do with her... maybe bring her to the vet's office...
You never know about health with little baby animals, especially off the farm I guess....
She seemed healthy though...

I'm happy we had the couple of weeks we had with her; she was the cutest sweetest little fuzzy I ever held in my hand. I loved watching her lounge on the floor where it was warm, or sitting in the puppy's dish, eating her food. She loved to nuzzle my nose, or tuck in under my chin when I was laying down.

I already miss her, and it's only been a couple of hours. I'll be sad to go home and not see her hopping all around the house and playing with the dog or getting bathed by the cat...

Hrmph... Baby Bunny... Very Sad.
Shitty.

Coming and Going

This was sitting in my drafts with a couple of other things I'll click on shortly... I have no idea, but I'm irritated with having writing just 'sitting' there, so I'm clicking "Publish"... 2006... wow...
_________________

The last time I said I was going overseas to live and travel, one of my friends was upset, saying that he thought I might never come back again.  Well, I came back, here I am, so don't worry my dear friend, you were wrong.  I've been here for 15 months and a couple of weeks now, and every cell of my being has been screaming for me to get back on the plane, no matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise.  I have driven my friends and loved ones crazy with my inner struggle, allowing it out to play.  I have quietened the argument, solved it by finally listening to my heart, and making my plans to leave again. 

Coming home on someone else's agenda was one problem.  I had been living in Korea, teaching and travelling and some kind of happy, and I came home to do what someone else needed to do.  I remember the sad longing I felt when I walked alone down what had been "my street" for the past 2 1/2 years, for what was to be the last time.  I knew at that time that it wasn't my time to be leaving, but I didn't listen, and I got on the bus, and then the plane back home again.  I dipped my feet into the water of what the rest of my life was going to be like if I stayed my course.  I spent 6 weeks on this amazing trip, and let it be smothered and marred by fear, loneliness and my caged spirit.  I tried on the path of my imagemakers while I was away from home, which I can only think now was the only way to know that I didn't have to choose that path for myself.  I don't regret the experience of it all, and I will spare you with the gory details; save to say that I chose my direction, I chose the color of the walls of the box I allowed myself to become caged within, and I sat within it in my gloomy fog, waiting.  Thankfully for me, the fog cleared, and I moved back into myself; remembered who I had been, who I was, and who I was trying to become.


I have been living in a new city since coming home; I have put myself back together, remembered more about who I am, what I want in my life, and so much more about the things I won't have in my life.  I took a job that gave me some really great experience, and taught me more about ways that I sacrifice my dreams in life without seeing it at the time.  I met some incredible women, and watched many struggle through their own black skies and torments.  I watched others bloom and grow as they came into the knowledge of how strong and incredible they really were, and recognized the force they could become in their own lives.  I knew from listening to my own heart that I had done what I had meant to, and that it was time for me to move on to something more.  I would like to think that I had some positive influence on the system before I left, and that some of it might continue to carry beyond. 


I also found my way into new learnings about how I live my life; the ways I set myself up and knock myself down; the ways I know to make myself shine.  I have learned so much in the past year about being part of something bigger, something incredible and universal.  When I finally got the piece of knowing that *I* am the one thing that has been constant in all things that happened in my life, I was finally able to let go of some of the painful stories I had been carrying around with me.  A wise man told me this summer, that life is not what happens in the minutes, hours and days that pass you by.  Life is how you choose to respond to the things that "happen" every day, and how you interact with the world around you in each moment.  I see now that I choose in every minute how I am going to handle everything that comes to me.  I can fight and stomp, I can smile and laugh, I can scream and cry, I can walk away or I can run toward... it's all up to me.  These things define my life; they define me, who I am, and who I am not.  Sometimes I still choose the more foolish path; sometimes I still cry when I could laugh, I worry in silence when I could talk, I do nothing when I could spark a huge blaze.  But, more often than ever before, I consciously pick up the bat and swing, even if I don't know if I'm going to be able to hit the ball.  It's something, not knowing what I will get in response, but doing it the best I know how to anyway... life is so different when I engage with it as an active experience, as something in which I know that I choose my reality, instead of as something that "happens" to me every day.

I have gotten many gifts in my life since coming home as well, that I might never have found if I didn't end up where I am... but those I'll speak to in another post.  My heart is aching with the loss of a love and light in my life, but I am reticent in starting something in my head that will take more that I want to give at this moment.  So, instead, I'm going to go outside and enjoy the cloudy day, maybe take the puppies to the park or something.  The other, I can write of later.

For now, I am off to enjoy the day!