…

Today, living in Denmark, they call the Arab, the Muslim, the “European nigger” for the type of racism and discrimination they must endure. These invectives sound most powerful when spoken/yelled by the downtrodden (like when poor whites attack poor blacks), but they are not hurled merely by them, but people in high places: police, politicians, Governmental leaders.

It is a full time job (staying cons.) and I sometimes I am “out to lunch” such that something awful flies out of my mouth, and I have to go wash it out, forgive myself for having lost my awareness. I am getting better at it, but it requires vigilance….”

I appreciate the truth-telling in people's stories. Not everyone can or wishes to do so. Thank you for this.

dr.e

perfect practices dear spirasol. Life-sparing even in face of despair/ disrepair. continuan.

dr.e

dr.e

Through the uniquely equipped medium of poetry, Smith-Ferri delivers hard-earned insights and reflections that broaden our emotional framework for understanding Iraq, and lend heart-wrenching individuality to an otherwise undifferentiated mass of “irrational people / masked terrorist tribes, hands around throat s.”

It's 1999, and after nearly a decade of military and economic warfare, the nation is in bad shape. Sanctions have decimated Iraq's ability to provide clean water and a functioning medical system. Children are dying by the tens or hundreds of thousands from diarrhea and easily curable diseases. Smith-Ferri and his co-workers drift through pediatric wards that seem more like preludes to morgues than centers of healing. As the same contaminated waters that gurgle in the rivers outside pour from the faucets of hospital sinks, Smith-Ferri pauses to take stock of the situation in meditations that blur the genre lines between field notes and elegy:

Daily, like a sorcerer, the sun warms Iraq's sewage-laden rivers,
conjuring cholera and typhoid and E. coli
that are killing children in this hospital ward,
slowly draining juice from their tiny bodies.
Here lies the desiccated fruit of a generation.

Smith-Ferri and his delegation wander through a malignant landscape where bombings more routine than rain have stolen countless limbs, and fields of depleted uranium have created “nuclear children … slowly roasting, / leukemia a fire in their bones and blood.” Leaning over the deathbeds of these victims, Smith-Ferri and his fellow activists ask an Iraqi doctor – “a grim, tour-weary guide” – what he does to try to provide hope for the patients' parents. The doctor, helplessly flanked by his empty medicine cabinets, responds plainly, “like a metronome,” as if bolstered by the authority of his incapacity, “There is no hope. This child will die … That child will die … They're all going to die.”

Before I was conscious, I was not quite able to catch myself, sometimes gleefully, (no longer) making fun of blacks and homosexuals, sometimes with real hostility. It was 45 years ago, I was in my late teens/early 20's, and I repeated what was said around me, secure in my herd.

Today, living in Denmark, they call the Arab, the Muslim, the “European nigger” for the type of racism and discrimination they must endure. These invectives sound most powerful when spoken/yelled by the downtrodden, but they are not hurled merely by them, but people in high places: police, politicians, Governmental leaders. It is a full time job and I sometimes I am “out to lunch” such that something awful flies out of my mouth, and I have to go wash it out, forgive myself for having lost my awareness. I am getting better at it, but it requires vigilance.

The whole western world is at war with the Middle East and a war is not fought by its foot soldiers and high tech bombardiers alone, but also by politicians, lawyers, cartoonists, Generals, actors, editors, commentators, etc, etc, and they all have a stake and the war is perpetual. There is front page war: Iraq vs USA and their is back page war: White on black/Men on Women or vice/versa depending on your point of view. There are elevated holocausts (Jewish) and denied holocausts (Rwanda). There are even fake or “light” wars like the war on drugs/poverty.

I cannot say if all the generosity in my heart would be drained were I an Iraqi, but I suspect so. Imagine a society and all its history and remnants turned upside down and shaken senseless, the bodies of my raped and tortured relatives dumped in ditches, and still it is necessary to shame them time and again. There are few stories of leaders who emerged from decades of imprisonment without bitterness BUT they did not survive Guantanamo.

It is also psychologically protective to hate so fully, that one can justify the taking of another's life. Apparently we, as humans suffer greatly when we do that, so, in order to do that, we have to train (brainwash) our young soldiers as to why it is necessary to kill that fellow over there. Of coarse none of it holds together. The American soldier today is coming home psychologically damaged, deeply injured in the soul. The hatred they were taught to spew in word and deed in Iraq has now been turned inward. They are killing themselves in large numbers. The shame and guilt and hostility all coming home to roost. What they did, what they saw done, and their inability to muster anything but helpless concordance.

It's all coming and going around. The blacks of Africa, in certain countries are chasing out the white farmers, burning down their homes, sometimes killing who is there.

It is very dark out there and sometimes in here, but I pray, I meditate, I read, all that I can do to stay in touch with the light.

In my suddenly many decades on earth (it seems, the 'suddenly' part, that is…lol), i think often, that the cultural metaphors of light winning over darkness, might be frail… that rather it be trying to balance the overage of dead-dark with something that strives for far more consciousness…and Life.

re your comment about soul, or lack of… I'd just mention many of the grandmothers in my father's family were what some nowadays would call 'folk healers'… just old women who had come from small villages and ministered to all persons' bodies, minds and hearts for decades They were convinced that some are born without that radiant guidance system some would call soul; that when one looks at the center of the body of such a one, it is dark instead of illumined

As a shrink who has worked in federal and state prisons, I would say that that phenom is sometimes a reality– an ungovernable (even by the person his or herself) hunger to destroy, dismember, crow over kills… a dark ho9le where there ought be a golden sun. The desire to murder the psychological, soulful, or physical is unrelenting, no matter what is said/done. It is truly arresting to behold.

And yet, as GreenDreams points out, the ratios for people of conscience versus those who have none, are strong and good. We have a fighting chance. And usually it seems to me, by the time a person is 20 years on earth, the scar tissue to prove it. By 50, 60, 70 and 80 and 90, enough scar tissue to hold you up even if you momentarily sag inside. lol

dr.e

dr.e

There is another ancient story that carries a similar theme as the Native story but goes deeper. . . know you could piece it together much deeper than i can Dr. E. but i sense some glimpses in the Indian Ramayan epic. . .hope i remember it correctly. . .

. . .It is the story of Rama (good King) and Ravana (demon=bad tendencies). . . Ravana cannot be killed because his soul has been removed from his body and kept in a glass container. . .and this is the reason no one can kill him. . .After endless battles Ravana continues to escape for he has many heads and arms and every time one is taken in battle another grows back. . .Finally Ravana's own brother comes forth and reveals his brother's weak spot. . .He tells Rama his brother cannot be killed by a blow to the head, heart, or neck or elswhere but can only be killed if Rama can hit the exact spot of the umbilicus. . .for then the life sustaining nectar would spill and Ravana would die. . .The next day Rama is able to bring the death to Ravana. . .then in the wonderful way of Eastern philosophy. . .Ravana is remembered for good deeds as well as his bad deeds. . .He is honored for his knowledge of scriptures and vedas. . .as as he dies he is passing rich knowledge of politics, statesmanship, sociology, and diplomacy for the betterment of others. . . I am not for sure the significance of the umbilical here. . .but wonder if it means Ravana was severed from what feeding the bad tendencies. . and also when he was severed from the umbilical cord then perhaps like a baby this is when the soul could take the first breath?. . . i think the ones throwing fire are infants that have not gathered first breath yet. . .and perhaps healing is not possible until they are severed from that which is feeding them?. . .Dr. isn't there a really scary character in Mexico that is called the Great Night, and he eats others souls because he does not have one himself?. . Sometimes when i experience energy like this i ask is it possible for a person to be without soul?. . .I hope not. . . .

Sometimes Dr. E. i wonder about the collective unconscious in all of this. . .the one Tolle calls the pain body. . . could terrorism be the wounded masculine counterpart of what occurred in the 1980's and the RA phenomena that occurred in the psyche's of many Western women. . . the masculine with the tendency to act things out towards others rather than taking the journey inward?. . .maybe at some level all of this we see with terrorism is dark side of masculine wounding from the spirit of domination from the accumulated centuries?. . . I am sure there are people that would see me as crazy for saying this. . .but i know our collective history is within us. . . a number of years ago i delved into my own bi-racial innerness. . . for about seven years. . . ancient years of the oppression of the feminine soul, the eradication of the Native, and degradation of Mother Earth. . .It was all there. . .Tolle says we should not go into the pain body. . .but some do not have a choice, i believe. . . Maybe enough have to go into it in order for it to be released for the greater good?. . . if there is any validity about this in part being connected to the pain body. . .then i have profound hope. . . Maybe as horrible as the fire throwers. . . perhaps they are like dark angels that help others reach deeper for goodness by allowing us to see how ugly. . .ugly is. . .how very destructive and how unnecessary. . . . if the greater good can survive the transition then a gentler. . .kinder. . .sweeter world can and will come forth. . . .This i trust. . .and know you place your entire heart, mind and soul in the work of that which is greater and i thank you Dr. E. . . .

Maybe as those who choose to heal take over from those who fan the flames of hatred, division, and tribalism in its many forms, we can advance the journey away from fear and hatred toward more loving, understanding and knowing.