Mourning and Retribution >>>
Reflecting back on this and other tragedies in the recent past, it seems to me that what most of us ultimately desire in these cases is mourning and retribution. Mourning allows us to experience the grief of the tragedy (if we allow ourselves to), to give our respects, and express the depth of love we’ve felt for those harmed or killed. This life in us that is the beautiful energy of mourning bubbles up and shines through us, requesting of us only a supportive space and empathic presence.
Retribution, I dare to say, does not ever actually accommodate this life-serving energy of our mourning, certainly anyway not in the ways we misinterpret it does. Revenge, redemption, punishment: all punitive measures of this kind are actually unconscious attempts to serve other needs than our mourning. They may be needs for meaning and understanding, or attention to how much we want to share with and from others the respect and love that we feel for those lost.
However, not only do they regularly fail to meet these needs in us with fullness, they are further meant only to satisfy our needs, rather than the needs of all involved.
(I’m completely unaware of anyone who has actually experienced true fulfillment, along with the ability to effectively move on in the course of their lives, by investing in themselves the punishment of those deemed responsible for a tragedy. This is why even in historical accounts, the decision for revenge takes the form of an act of duty or “justice” rather than a move to serve one’s own or the community’s needs around their loss.)
Punishment strategies alienate “us” (the “good guys”) from “them” (the “bad guys”) by resorting to the (usually unsuccessful) attempt to satisfy our needs at the expense of others’. They are life-alienating in how they separate the humanity in ourselves from the humanity in others.
Why would anyone ever choose to do anything life-alienating? Perhaps one reason is because a common and recycled belief in our global culture assures us that “our” needs “deserve” to be acknowledged and served, while “theirs” (the “enemies’ “) do not.
Another common reason is a fear that comes up for many of us stemming from the belief that without demonstrating threat of punishment, some or perhaps all people would have no motivation to serve each other’s needs or those of their communities. Worse: that they might “take advantage” of others by only attempting to serve their needs at the expense of others’. Oddly enough, this is the sort of behavior society already condones by promoting this dichotomy of “us-versus-them” and using force by advantage of a majority to get a minority of privileged people’s needs met.
Maybe the most tragic aspect of all in this is that it is precisely from a place of one’s needs being severely under-served, of one’s soul being malnourished, due to the direct or indirect results of “us-versus-them” thinking, that anyone might want to harm or destroy the lives of others in desperation of getting them met.
Nice to have you reflecting on life and order. Just remember that all aspects of life and universe have some chaos within them. No matter how orderly our ideas are, the application of the meets resistance and fails in its total reach, yet each thing we do to improve the world moves the chaos a little further from the mainstream.
I have spent my life trying to speak and educate about the environment, but every single day without exception brings news of earthly destruction, of humans destroying their own nests, removing precious water and air from its healthy and usable state and sacrificing lifeforms without remorse.
In the end, like you, we can only speak for the truth, try to get people to realize what they are doing by letting them reflect. We can educate, we can seek change, and most importantly we can be true to our own moral compass and know that we may have a positive influence beyond what we can ever observe.
Keep thinking and writing.
Hey, Mike! So happy to hear from you.
I really appreciate your concern of what expectations I might be holding of myself or my work in what I’m writing. It means a lot to me coming from someone I know has spent so much time and life energy doing what he believes in.
Fortunately, I feel no greater inclination in me to speak for any truth but my truth, i.e., what is true for me. My guess is that the people in whom my words most resonate (or trigger friction at the other extreme) will respond from a truth of their own that speaks in them, and oddly enough emerges from the same basic universal humanity we share. I wish to be open to that humanity more than defend the truth in me I might hold at a time. It means as much to me to be open to my own truth changing as to want to share it with others. My current belief around this is that it is this openness to the vulnerability of change in what is true for me (even more than to whatever truth it is at the time) that offers the greatest hope for beneficial change in us as a species.
So, in a way, by reaching out to the universal humanity we share — underneath the opinions or truths we may wish to defend or try to have others see — I am investing myself in the chaos that I believe you’re speaking of, the inevitable change of emerging truths through their descendants. Order it seems to me can too easily be the mistaken guise of control, and the force behind this control is precisely the violent act that I wish to help shine light on through my words.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this, and for being such an important part of the mentorship in my life!
There’s hardly a day, when I am out in the community, that I am not asked
‘how are Kelsey, Keenan, and Jon?’ The life paths that the 3 of you have
chosen set strong examples of your beliefs and character. Perhaps, as
Mike says above, “we can each be true to our own moral compass”, is the
best way to promote the mind-set you speak of. And, as he also says,
“keep thinking and writing”. Someone will not just listen, but actually hear you.
I highly doubt that we are asked about in that order ^_^ I am blown away by my brothers’ achievements, and am mostly only aware of my own. But perhaps that’s pretty common for many people?
I will indeed continue to write. It means the world to me to have your and others’ support! There’s so much I would never have realized or chosen to dedicate my life to (in writing or otherwise) if it hadn’t been for how you raised us. Love you immensely.
Good Kelsey. I was in a conversation with a few folks days after the tragedy talking about the health benefits of good tea when somewhere along the line, which I missed somehow, the conversation went to angry expressions about the bombing to which I responded similarly, “What could make someone so angry they wanted to randomly hurt people they don’t even know?” Being good friends they paused to contemplate that in stead of reacting negatively and the conversation soon moved on. I think the vitriolic reactions folks have experienced have much to do with the tension between authoritarian patriarchal values, the unfortunate water we swim in, and the nurturing matrifocal values, expressed by those of us seeking a world of peace. Women are often more sensitive to such so it is good to listen carefully as we seek to create our egalitarian future. It is time the Great Mother archetype be returned to her honored sacred place in the human psyche.
Hey, Howard!
How nice to have witnessed the effect you shared here of a simple but empathetically expressed response to the same stimulus that most normally does trigger violent reactions in us. Like you said, it seems to just irrigate the stream of energy into a new direction, or at least helps us move through it less violently.
I’m planning on dedicating a number of posts to some extremely common (and even mundane) tendencies in communication and behavior that I believe spark antipathetic or apathetic reactivity in us, and some ways we can sit with both the tragedy of the event (whatever it may be) and the tragedy of regretted reactions (ours or others’) in a way that brings fulfillment through the pain instead of promoting scarcity through suffering.
Part of me is actually very careful about assuming anything about men and women themselves. (I even actually prefer Riane Eisler’s vocabulary of “andro-” (e.g, “androcratic”) and “gyl-” (“gylanic”) over “patri-” and “matri-.” Both sets relate to sexually discriminatory structure values, but instead of basing the history or existence of those values (or of the structure itself) on the differences between the sexes, the former set (particularly in the way Eisler uses them) I believe refers to the symptomatic effects of such discriminatory structuring, that biases certain un-sex-related modes of being or modes of culture. It’s maybe just semantics, but somehow they land very differently in me. Most basically, androcracy refers to the historical constituents of domination structures and gylany to that of partnership structures without a necessary cause for concern in who (which sex) is “responsible” for it.) I honestly doubt that women have a greater capacity than men to feel or sense the underlying humanity we all carry. I do suspect, however, that generations of man-oriented rule and culture-formation has subdued men’s general ability to recognize their emotions (an ability that a man within a lifetime can change for themselves and master); meanwhile women have raised each other (in response to man-rule) with an endowed ignorance of their basic needs — and thus often find themselves concerned instead entirely with the needs of others over their own.
Neither extreme appears balanced to me, but what I do have confidence in is how each side of that stereotypical pair can serve to remind the other of the wholeness of the humanity that we all embody (and have the potential to experience). I wouldn’t any more want a woman-dominated world than the current man-dominated structure. I see humans of both sexes having more capacity and potential ability in an orientation toward universal (or unisexual) needs for humanitarian fulfillment than any one-sex-rule structure. Does this by any chance seem true to you, too?
Hope the debating tone (an old habit of mine) doesn’t stimulate frustration in you. I’m actually rejoicing in how much we both seem to desire a clearer consciousness and an alternative way of being in the world (with hopes of it being realized over time). Thank you so much for sharing — your words are so important to me! Love and peace to you.
The idea of a society dominated by women, with men valued only for their reproductive services, is something that never has and never will exist. The idea came out of the imagination of men, a reversal of roles, but it is a total fabrication of the patriarchy. This is why I used the term matrifocal, not matriarchal. Current intact native cultures are matrifocal, which denotes the egalitarian culture Diane refers to as partnership. I assume she uses that term to avoid the extreme misunderstanding of the term matrifocal, a common error. The difference is in what is worshiped as sacred, the male sky god or the female earth goddess. It is this archetype, the Great Mother, representing the nurturing Earth, that has been repressed for thousands of years causing serious damage to the human psyche and planet. An estimated 6 million women were burned at the stake in an effort to stamp out the sacred feminine which was being worshiped in the form of the Black Madonna, which was Isis imported from Egypt, despite the dominance of Christianity. The middle-middle ages were marked by a prosperous matrifocal, egalitarian, society. The amazing prosperity, they ate 1000 calories than we on average so were very tall, was due to the demurrage currencies that were used, a common feature of matrifocal (partnership) cultures, which was due to the dynamics of Net Present Value calculations encouraging long term thinking and investment. This is the period in which all those great cathedrals were built to attract pilgrims for hundreds of years hence. They were thinking of their children’s children’s children and then some. All of the cathedrals were dedicated to women. In fact the word cathedral comes from the word cathedra, the chair or throne, the seat of her power also represented in the crown of Isis. Our history, our language, our psyche, the planet, have been severely damaged by the patriarchy and we are now entering the time to recognize the balancing influence of the sacred feminine. We should consider that the scale tips to the other side as it seeks its balance. No fear. Lao Tzu wrote, “When yin and yang are combined all things achieve harmony”