Make Love Not War

I've been contemplating war lately. It's just such an odd thing. People continuously fighting one another when most everyone will tell you that what they seek is peace. Everyone seems so afraid, constantly on guard that someone will take what is "rightfully" theirs.

How is it that we expect politicians and governments to not fight each other, our leaders to not invade other countries, to not create wars around the globe when here we are, desperately fighting with the ones we love most, right in our our homes? We fight our lovers, our husbands and wives, our kids, our siblings, our parents, our friends, our neighbors. We fight with whose who think differently, behave unusually or want something other that what we want. We are quick to lie and blame others in our attempts to protect ourselves. We are afraid that if you get yours then chances are I won't get mine. We fight with our selves, within our own hearts and minds. Struggling each and every day with out of control thoughts and crazy sad stories of lack and limitation, obsessing over regrets of the past and worries for the future, rarely living in appreciation of the abundance of the moment. How can we ever stop making war until we first stop hurting ourselves and those we love most?

A couple of days ago I was by a pool when a little boy pushed another little boy into the water. His mother told him to not push the child into the water or she would push him into the water. Is that what we are all about, trying to teach each other the lessons of living by our rules and getting what we want by being bullies? If you hurt me then I'll hurt you and I'm bigger and I can hurt you worst so you better watch out?

I took this picture in Union Square on Sunday. It's engraved on the big monument in the center of the square. "War has commenced...proceed at once...and capture or destroy..."

What is it about War?

I watched Zwartboek, The Black Book, tonight. It's directed by Paul Verhoeven, (Basic Instinct and Showgirls) starring Caprice Van Houten, as Rachel Stein, a beautiful singer and Dutch Jew, turned resistance fighter/spy, and Sebastian Koch, (Lives of People) as Muntze, head of the Nazi SS and good guy.

This film made me think of the phrase "Man's inhumanity to man."

Robert Burns poem, Man was made to Mourn (1785)

'Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

Knowing of the despicable potential that each one of us holds inside, the capacity to commit atrocities against other human beings is hard to comprehend and hold. But the opportunity this awareness offers me, to hold steadfastly to my intention to love, to consciously choose kindness and compassion in my interactions with others moment by moment, is a great gift.

Last night we watched "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" an HBO special directed by Yves Simoneau, starring August Schellenberg as Sitting Bull, and Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers, another war movie) as Charles Eastman, a Sioux doctor educated at Dartmouth.

Tatanka Yotanka, Sitting Bull, a Lakota chief.

This was one of those movies made for television that was filled with cliches and a too easy story line. But watching Aidan Quinn playing Henry Dawes, a somewhat well intentioned Senator who tirelessly worked for Indian assimilation, reminded me of human arrogance and the disastrous consequences of following the limited perspective and opinions of our ego. And he was one of the "good guys". With friends like him, the Indians didn't need enemies. The lies told and atrocities inflicted on the Indian people by the so called "Christians" left me feeling sick and in awe of our tendency to make war...be it the United States and Spain in 1898, Nazi Germany, settling the west and finding gold in the sacred Black Hills, or the so called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And on and on...humans make lots of war.

After one part in the story when the soldiers had murdered a bunch of the Indians, one of them was defending their actions, saying "We didn't shoot first, I swear we didn't." One of the chiefs told him not to distress so, that of all the white man's weapons, it was their guns the Indians feared the least.

I think it would behoove each and every one of us to identify our own weapons of mass destruction and the wars we choose to inflict our ourselves and our loved ones on a daily basis.

Here's a little of what Abraham, one of my teachers says about war:

We don't think that it is any of our business to end the war that someone else is choosing. We think if somebody wants a war, they must be allowed the right to have a war. None of us has the right to impose peace on anyone, any more than we have the right to impose war on anyone. What we're saying is -- everyone must be allowed to choose.

There Will Never Be Peace On Your Planet. Our desire is that they are consciously choosing, and that each of them find a way to be connected to Source Energy, because that is what they're fighting for: Freedom. Freedom from resistance, that's what they are all wanting. If we can envision them connected, more of them will find that. There will never be a time upon your planet when there will be peace -- because there will never be a time upon your planet when everyone is in agreement about the way life should be lived.

There are so many well meaning people who see the contrast, give birth to the rocket of desire, feel it powerfully, shout it to the Universe -- and the Universe is answering. And then, they're campaigning against what's wrong and holding themselves apart from the solution. Even though solutions are happening all over the world, they never have access to them, because they are vibrationally so different from the solutions, that even though solutions are happening, they never get to see a glimpse of them.

My intention is be nakedly aware, to focus on solutions and to make love, not war.