Peace, not piece, of mind

So far we seem to have survived Halloween and the loss of Daylight Savings Time. Next comes election day on Tuesday, November 7, followed by Veterans Day, and then some breathing room until Thanksgiving, at which point we’re well into the Christmas season. Something for which I’ll be thankful this month, yet ask Santa for more of come Christmas, is peace of mind. I’m slowly learning that giving others a piece of my mind is usually contrary to enjoying my own peace of mind. Unfortunately, many, many, aspects of life are easier said than done. Practicing “live and let live” does not come easily to me after many years of acting to the contrary.

peaceful November dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

Getting through the next year, until the next election and thereafter, is likely to be a trying time for many of US. So have many past years been painful and stressful. My hope is that this time things will feel bad enough for enough of US that we’ll engage in real transformational change rather than taking two aspirin and putting a band-aid on, as if we only had an “owie." The world’s leading democracy has come frighteningly close to becoming a political autocracy as well as a corporate oligarchy. I doubt very much that wall to wall high-speed internet, augmented by Artificial Intelligence creating and distributing mis and disinformation will help.

If we look at our evolutionary history, it’s clear that, for the most part, the rate and quantity of change to which we’ve had to adapt has been much less for most of our history than that which we’ve been facing for the last century or so. I have real doubts that we’re genetically equipped to catch up. To get a better feel regarding the basis of my concerns, please go read about the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Think about how few of US are truly masters of anything, beginning with ourselves.

There are signs about which we can be hopeful: the dams on the Klamath River are coming out; the Biden administration is beginning to get serious about economic development and rural development. Now, if we can get them to support and promote the Green New Deal, things will look much better, but first we have to unelect Republicans and repair their damage. That’s what a lot of the next twelve to sixty months are about.

Making Peace

By Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,

             ‘The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.’

                                   But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

can’t be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

                                       A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

                                              A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses . . .

                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light—facets

of the forming crystal.

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