I AM BECOME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
Robert J. Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagahad Gita, at first detonation of the atomic bomb.
I had a dream last night of wading knee-deep in water, endless streams of rushing water that kept trying to push me down. I can't remember where I was going, who I was looking for-just the sensation of water violently streaming around. This morning I could not make sense of it...but now, I am starting to see. Is the water all of these images-terrified men in uniforms, welding guns, the masses with arms upraised calling for justice, all of the gruesome horrendous atrocities that lie hidden deep within us-of everything that has been, of everything that is, of everything that will be-only now are they beginning to emerge from our collective unconcious. Or...have they always been omnipresent and we have just chosen to ignore their relentless requests for justice, their cries of agony and pain, an their last dying gasp of life. All of it is swirling around my feet, threatening to submerge me under its tremulous grasp. Still, I choose to wade through it-timidly clutching onto my bag of hope and the assertion that "life is beautiful".
"I have no answers, and feel as though most of the time I don't even have questions. The questions I do have so often seem simple avoidances of what I feel, and of what I am afraid to feel underneath." (Derrick Jensen)
I must ask myself, "Is life beautiful to the Afghani mother whose children have died from 'civilian blasts', deaths that the United States government "deeply regrets"-as if that's even an apology. Is life beautiful for the thousands of Pakistanis and Sri Lankans who must flee their homes because of war? Is it beautiful for the countless others (and, yes, I regret that word deeply-for the countless HUMANS-living, breathing, beautiful and utterly complex beings) that are starving, sick, mentally ill, homeless, poor, disabled, barely making ends meet-all for the reason that we prefer military machines over living seeds, over education, over LIFE?"
As I write these words, the crows huddle around my table shrieking. Do they want food...or something more? Indians here believe that crows are their ancestors. I try to talk to them-"what are you searching for? What do you want?" What are they trying to tell us? I can't help but think of how some Native American cosmologies' view crows-that they are here as carriers of warning.
Again, the rushing tide swarm around me as crows vy for my attention-still, I wade through. One step in front of the other. Pushing, pushing, pushing while trying to hold onto some sort of sanity. Should I let go and allow myself to be engulfed by this endless stream of misery that seems to have saturated all of our existence? Or should I keep pushing-wading and clutching to my sorry bag of hopes and innumerable disillusionments?
