Memorial Day Retrospective

I know what I have written here will not be well-received by some, and that’s okay.  It’s my perspective only…

Yesterday I went to a Memorial Day presentation in music and narrative that was prepared to remind us of ‘heroes’, ‘patriotism’, ‘freedom’,’ liberty’, and ‘fallen servants’ of our country.  And in the middle of the program I began to experience concern, anger, anxiety, and alarm.  Yes, alarm.  For what I heard was the continuing cry to remain in a place of moral, religious, and traditional values that, to my mind, should  no longer serve the best interest of our country.

The narrative, through speeches given by Abraham Lincoln – (how many years ago, now?) – came across to me as defining an emotional place we, as citizens, should stay in with regard to our ‘fallen heroes’.  I ask, would we have ‘fallen heroes’ of war if there was no war? What if we began to think ourselves out of war?  Out of hero worship?  Out of patriotism?

What if there were a memorial to the world’s last dead soldier, or even better, the world’s last soldier, because “soldier” was an extinct job?  I think it’s about time to bring an end to the standards and status quo of ideologies of times past regarding the ways we commemorate our country’s service men and women, and how we think of terms like freedom, patriotism, liberty, justice, etc.  Enough! Enough of the emotionality that is fraught in every ‘memorial’ commemoration and all of the conditioned responses to a dysfunctional way of viewing the world.  We follow like sheep, in this way of remembering

Yesterday we were reminded in this presentation that these heroes died to preserve freedom.  I ask, “What kind of freedom?”   If one just looks at the political scenes transpiring across our country – the legislation by states that place barriers on freedom for various populations – one can see that the heroes are not going to Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other place to fight for freedoms being eroded by our very own ‘leaders’ on our own soil.

What I heard today was the drone of maintaining a status quo – a kind of brain-washing (in a way similar to other ‘leaders’ who have stirred up the emotionality of the masses to do evil things) – that says we must honor those who fell in the service of a country that, in reality, has no intention to end wars.  To do so would cause more collapse of the economic, political, cultural, and power brokering status quo, no?  We are entering a new paradigm and this traditional perspective must and will give way to it – eventually.

I am not saying there is no value at all in tradition.  What I AM saying is that traditional values need to be reevaluated and those that don’t serve in a healthy way need to be released from one’s world view.  We need to think differently – maybe even outside the box about warriors, heroes, patriots, and statesmen – re-creating a vision more in alignment with a better future.  We need to stop being ‘sheep’!

To paraphrase from the biblical quote “Let the dead bury the dead”, let those who are not awake, and who continue to stay in this ‘status quo’ mind set called Memorial Day, bury (and commemorate) the dead.  For me, I must move on.

Here Comes the Future

Picking up the thread from the last post, I found just the right pieces of used furniture from garage sales, and plants from my friend’s backyard, and trees from Trees for Tucson to more or less complete the picture for this new space.  Every day I find such contentment sitting in the cool morning air, with a cup of coffee and an eye on whatever makes its presence known – sometimes a lizard, sometimes a bee, or a bird.  I know I had similar feelings when I was on the road, parked in a beautiful setting with the ‘wild’ all around me.  I’ve come to realize that somehow, as nice as it was, it just wasn’t home for me.

I’ve surprised myself in my involvement with UniteWomen and politics which I didn’t get involved in before, mostly because it’s hard to do when you are from nowhere, and don’t have that proverbial real estate for a residence.  Now that I do have that ‘home base’ – a real brick and mortar place – from which to create, I feel much more comfortable exercising my ‘voice’.  Through facebook I’ve been doing this a lot.  Because I know my energy I opted out of going to the rally in Phoenix.  I couldn’t make myself ride with 60 excited women to be in the heat for four or more hours. I’m not a ‘crowd’ person, preferring to connect one-on-one and in small groups.  I don’t know how it’s going to look from here out, but I do know I will continue to speak out.

I’ve thought about the question of how I can be ‘traveling alchemist’ when I’m no longer on the road; however, I’ve always seen this traveling as not only physical, but also philosophical and spiritual, and maybe shamanic as well.  I’m journeying, wandering about, or meandering through these days.  And through it all, it continues to be about transforming the dark, leaden places in my life into light, golden understanding and love for myself.

My friend went with me to shop for furniture at the garage sales. I know she noticed that I was drawn to a wooden bowl that had a crack in it.  I picked it up and put it back down, an old habit from traveling in a small space – enjoy, but don’t buy – no place to put it!  My friend picked it up and asked me would I like it – I said yes, and she gifted it to me.  It’s been sitting on the dining table, empty, but not empty.  I call it my abundance bowl because it is so big to hold a lot, and it has held a lot, and maybe not so much.  But it has held so much that it cracked from the abundance of the contents, and the abundance of use it received.  It is a metaphor for me.  Each day when I get out of bed, and each night when I go to sleep I am so grateful for all I have received.

So now I’ve pretty much settled in – I have the furniture that is most necessary – the plants and trees are planted so I can sit and enjoy, watch and wait for whatever will come.  Now it’s a matter of refining things, like getting a little more organized, putting some things in better order.  But pretty much the move has been completed and the future, the new beginning, is here.