Not With the Mind
We cannot Think our way to Peace.
Peace cannot be waged
Until Every voice is heard.
Until every person who needs to speak,
can
who needs to be understood
is.
Until the stories of pain are heard
and understood,
peace will have no soil in which to sink its roots.
Until the Grief and agony and heartbreak are heard
and understood,
this peace will only know floods of desperation
Until the Rage and betrayal and disenfranchisement are heard
and understood
peace will have no shelter from hot, blowing winds
Until the Fear and worries and doubts are heard
and understood
peace will find nothing but compression and darkness
Peace is not waged with the Mind
Nor is it waged with Thought
or even with Hope
Peace is not waged by intent
nor by promises or strong words
nor by careful planning
Peace is not waged by waving flags
nor diligent prayers
nor generous funding
Peace breathes only the air of compassion
Peace is only resuscitated by Understanding
It is born
Of hearing Every voice
Of hearing Every story
Of Listening.
No matter its form
however ugly
however gruesome
however violent
however beautiful
Every action carries with it a message
Every message has a story
Every story has a teller
Not with the Mind do we wage Peace.
But with our Ears first
And then our Hearts
And then our Arms.
We cannot Think our way to Peace.
It is not the Mind that will save us
But those parts of us which are most vulnerable
Joy Over the Expression/release of Rage
So this is an issue that has come up between friends and those sharing blogs lately. To some, watching others take "joy" in the release and expression of rage is very, very worrisome to say the least.
Let's make some very,
very important distinctions here:
1) Joy in response to someone or something being hurt, damaged or destroyed vs Joy in response to the release of the emotion itself
2) Unrest vs. Violence
3) Rage vs. Hate
For starters,
yes, I feel excitement, relief and a feeling of rushing up release when I see rage come out; by that I mean people taking to the streets, pounding drums, yelling out chants, giving impassioned speeches. Why? Because at the very basic level, I believe that rage is
not outside of Love. I don't believe that it is in opposition to love, that it negates love nor that it resists love. I believe that rage wants love. It wants light. It wants understanding.. Rage results from unmet needs.
I don't believe that expressing rage is immature, juvenile or dangerous. Quite the contrary. The expression of emotion is where we are at our most vulnerable and our most human. Resisting emotions doesn't make someone more "adult" or more "mature." But many people have an embedded judgement within them that the head is more wise than the emotions and that we should follow our heads. Thee is an embedded judgement that being emotional is being immature. I don't think there's anything I can do to counter the intensity of this judgement, so widely held by so many people in this society. I don't know if I can or even want to try and tackle it, but it's at least important to point it out and suggest that it be challenged.
Rage is one of the most frightening emotions for most people, next to terror. Rage, because of its destructive power can feel volatile and life-threatening. People are afraid to see the merit in rage because they think they might be condoning destruction and violence.
Rage is not synonymous with violence, destruction or hate. It is an emotion and the prior are actions. You can have emotion without the action and it is important to distinguish between the emotion and the action. I would say, to be plain here, "It is bad to be violent towards the self, towards anyone. It is
not bad to be enraged."
I've used this analogy before and I'll use it again. Compression.. say, the compression of a pressure cooker. The heat is turned up, the compression builds and builds.. it has to go somewhere. It is a natural force for something which is compressed to need to release. When people are compressed.. or Oppressed.. they can sometimes burst. It can be a great relief full of realizations when they do... just like when you're holding tears back for so long and finally let yourself cry... and suddenly, ahhhhh, the compression is gone.. the pressure is gone.. and light can come in and help you sort it out.
I shared excitement watching people exercise their freedom of assembly, their freedom of dissent because I believe we have to get honest with ourselves. It feels like relief to me to hear someone say, "Yes.. I am
angry! I'm enraged!!" There is
so much judgement against strong emotion in this society. Much more than most societies that make more room for passion. We are mostly a society stuck in our heads. We tend to discount emotion. We would rather get the emotions to quiet down so we can think. This is a fundamental problem that denies the way we are built. It denies our humanity.
Once again, as I've said before, rage, to me, is our sense of knowing when to stick up for ourselves, knowing when we are in danger and the natural instincts built into our psyche that know when to say, Enough is enough. Or sometimes rage is where the self can no longer be without what it needs. The compression of holding back is too much.
Since this is all coming up in response to the Portland, Oregon protests, I will say that I myself participated in none of the vandalism. I shouted, though. I shouted and yelled and jumped up and down. I was "unruly" perhaps? I demonstrated impassioned emotion and I am proud of it. I give a shit. But I am a person who feels very,
very deeply.
However, I don't applaud vandalism but I understand it and I even empathize with those that feel compelled to do it. I won't go into that now. For many it is hard to imagine being so pissed off that you would want to do that. I know what desperation feels like. But realize that there is a difference between vandalism and violence. Although, if you're looking to talk about violence at protests, what about the police beating and gassing protestors? Isn't that violence? Can someone be okay with police acting violently but not protestors? Is that contradictory? Things to think about.
The other distinction. Rage is not hate. Rage can turn into hate. That is, when it never is given full release. It ferments, it sours, it decays without the presence of understanding and compassion. It doesn't receive any merit or compassion, no light, so it gets darker and darker. Rage, when allowed to move and receive merit, validation and light has much to teach. One can find great compassion for oneself and one's feelings by allowing rage to move, without judging it, without hurting the self or anyone else and can find that on the other side of rage releasing, that has not been judged against, are great understandings, not to mention a pocket of pain that just wants so much to live, to receive love and be heard. I have compassion for rage. I celebrate when it can come out into the open, when people are allowed to feel it w/o feeling like they are in danger of being "bad" or "unloving."
There are large reasons why people choose to vandalize, to be unruly, to turn their rage into action against other people. That's complicated. That's a whole other discussion, partly addressed in my earlier response as to why some people believe that civil disobedience works.
Lastly, what is also so key here, is that it is the judgements we hold against our emotions, that make them feel so uncomfortable. If you judge against your grief, your rage, your fear or your joy, it will
all feel negative and painful to you. If you trust that what is within you is ultimately loving, ultimately wants love, ultimately wants light, understanding, compassion and that your rage isn't a "bad" part of you but a message, the part of you sticking up for yourself, I think you can find healing through it. Remember, rage is not hate. It is not destruction. Emotion is energy. Intelligent and divine energy. Yes, we must be careful how we channel our emotions into action, and each case should be addressed individually.
Why Protesting Works and other responses...
There was a comment online in reference to my essay about the Portland protests:
It’s a sad, sad thing when the cries of protest, civil disobedience and unrest are louder than the message of peace. The vandalism and rage that we experienced last night and the joy that much of the crowd took in the actions, belittled the work so many of us are doing in writing our congress people and speaking out against the administration. If they remember their intentions, their intentions are good. Their message is simply lost in the medium. And that is sad for us all.
There are two things that I want to respond to about these comments:
-The emotional stance being taken to represent the content
-The content
When one has a negative reaction to something but chooses to criticize it by saying, “Isn’t that sad?” it puts across an extremely patronizing, self-righteous stance 1) It dismisses the opposition but in a quiet way that doesn’t reveal too much emotion, doesn’t choose to pick apart the disagreement as if to non-verbally communicate that the person is “above” giving the opposing view the “time of day” 2) it invalidates, and disapproves of their actions and steps away from the situation without wondering why the “opposition” is doing what it’s doing 3) It puts across a feeling of “I’m being generous and compassionate to look down on them with pity”. It has the feeling of taking a superior stance, shaking one’s head in dismay, “Oh, what a pity… how sad.”
Personally, I would rather see “I am sad because…..” or “I’m angry because…” rather than an emotional vibe that seems to say it doesn’t have time to really elaborate, that it’s just a no-brainer, it’s simply just sad. It can be translated as, “Alas, what a pity that these poor, unenlightened people must resort to this, but I can’t blame them because they just don’t know any better….”
What I want to know is how can these protests make one sad? Nothing is lost here because the peace movement barely has anything going for it right now. Are protests going to void the letters that people are writing to Congress and senators? No. Are they getting in the way of public discussions? No. Are they making our politicians write us off? Not any more than any other peace action is.
But more importantly, what is being reacted to here? Is it a news report of the protests or the actual witnessing of the vibe, finding it “sad”? I was there… and even though I might disagree with whether or not vandalism is sad and ruins others efforts, I get frustrated by people reacting to the media’s representation of protests and skipping past the fact that they are reacting to second-hand information and then criticize the people about whom they are hearing second-hand information.
Yes, there was rage that night but not as the motto and certainly not in an explosive way.. the real rage I saw was the fact that people were out there to begin with, not that they felt the need to spray paint concrete. There was empowerment there, .. the basic feeling was a feeling of the people’s powers in numbers to be heard. It was celebration, it was pride, it was hope, it was confidence that we will be heard one way or another. It was a positive vibe with a few extraneous vandalism events.
Also, do people realize how easy it is to get arrested? Just because the news says that x number of people were arrested, does NOT equal a measurement of how unruly and violent and damaging the protests were. It’s more a measure of how much of a power trip the cops were on that night. All they have to do is look at you and decide that they don’t like the way you look and they can arrest you. Don’t listen to the numbers and judge those people. Very, very few of them, usually in numbers you can count on one hand, ever get charged with anything, ever really do anything illegal. And the news loves that stuff. They love to make everything seem really melodramatic and negatively so. They love to shed negative light on protestors. That’s why you hear more about the “bad” ones than the “peaceful” ones. They are hungry for a story. Why didn’t they focus their report the other 99.99% of the crowd that WAS peaceful, that WAS joyous, that WAS doing their thing legally?
What also confuses me is the stance that “cries of the protest, civil disobedience and unrest are louder than the message of peace.” That civil disobedience that I saw happening was and is the message for peace… a demand for peace. Not a “please, could you please stop killing innocent people.. thank you very much, sorry to take up your time!” But STOP NOW!! We are out there protesting because we are shouting the message of peace. I personally don’t think or believe that when we are in such a dire situation, in so much danger and there is so much to be lost, that we can afford to go about this politely. Politeness, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t work with this government as well as loud, insistent, persistent, visual demands. Our government isn’t listening to us. We want them to listen. So we are disruptive.
As much as we would like it to be so, let’s not pretend that our government is more responsible than they are. Let’s not go about having our voices heard in the way we think it should work just because that’s the nice way to do it. This is big for me. We think we should be able to be heard by all these totally peaceful means and so forth, but are we? Are we being heard? Sure, it would be nice if they could hear the message of peace through nice behavior. Is it more important for us to look good to ourselves or be heard? To me, it’s more important to be heard, than look good to my fellow citizens so that they can say, “oh isn’t that nice that Tamara is being so courteous?!”
I’m reacting to having seen so many complaints about the protests- how inconvenient they were, how pointless, how disruptive and the cynical part of me wants to say, “Uh, yeaaahhhh… DUH!”
The whole point of protests is to gain attention, to speak out in a visual way.. a way that can be seen. A way that makes news. A way that spreads. A way that gets under the skin of politicians and the people who influence those politicians. Remember the whole “seen but not heard” thing? It is important to write letters and do things behind the scenes too but that won’t be “seen” by anyone other than the person reading the letter. I think it’s even more important to do things that intentionally draw attention, that intentionally get under the skin of collective consciousness. Yes, we are trying to get on the nerves of that status quo. The fact is, if protests happen politely on the sidewalks with please and thank yous, unfortunately, they are a lot less effective. People go about their usual business. The news doesn’t care and people look out their windows at us and say, “oh isn’t that nice that they can express themselves.”
What’s the whole point of expressing yourself if you’re not going to be heard? If no one is listening? If it doesn’t rattle anything?
Yes, this is about unrest.
I will not be on of those people, sitting at home shaking my head about how bummed I am about this war. Even if that one protest, even if 10,000 protests don’t do it, we’re making the news aren’t we? Bush is hearing about it, isn’t he? It’s pressure. It may not be the one key thing that stops that maniac but it’s part of putting the pressure on. So if my little body added together with 35,000 other Portland bodies added with millions of other bodies across the world can slowly and steadily keep the pressure on Bush and his administration, then it is helping. And it’s not going to get in the way of letter writing, of holding public discussions or whatever it is that is meant by ‘working so hard for peace.”
Protests aren’t meant to be polite. They don’t have to break the law. They don’t even have to contain vandalism, but their point is, YES, to get on the nerves of people who insist on looking the other way. People who refuse to hear our voices. It gets people to feel something about it. Even if it pisses them off, fine. It gets them involved. It keeps them from being apathetic. One could say, “but who’s seeing it? It’s only getting on the nerves of fellow Portlanders.” On the surface, yes. Yes, it is going to inconvenience our citizens when we take over the road they are driving for a gawd awful 15 minutes.. maybe an hour? But stopping traffic makes waves. We’re trying to make waves. We’re trying to rock the boat in our community. In a perfect world, letter writing might do the trick.
For me, this comes down to the survival chakra. Call it survival instinct. When you have a government that will stop at nothing to get what it wants, kill innocent people when they have a choice not to, it causes a feeling of desperation. It causes rage, it causes “I won’t stand for this and you will hear it!” When people act out, it is always because their health and wellbeing is in danger. People act out to get attention. The more things are compressed, the more the survival instinct bursts out and explodes, just like a pressure cooker. Let me tell you, my survival instinct is kicking in. I write letters. I talk to friends about the war, I give money to these causes.. but I have to get my physical body into the streets too.
If someone isn’t listening to you (the government) and you want to get their attention, you mess with them where it hurts. That’s the philosophy of civil disobedience and even vandalism. “No more business as usual!” Our government isn’t listening to us but I sure as heck bet that their ears will perk up if they hear about more and more intense protests. I can’t help but cheer for unrest.
I’m very, very pissed off and scared about this war and not just what the war means but what it means for how our country is going to handle foreign relations from here out. While people are being bombed, while our government is mindlessly shredding Iraq to, supposedly, find one man, it’s totally obtuse and disgusting to me that our lives should go on untouched, business as usual. “Let’s all just nicely do what we can but get on with it.” By looking around, no one would ever even know that we are at war, should they be walking through the streets .. if people weren’t protesting in those very streets. We are so incredibly sheltered in this country. 9-11 was the first experience with what war feels like. That was ONE day of hell in America (and yes, it will haunt us forever). So imagine a lot more days like 9-11 and you have the situation in Iraq.
We have no idea what it is like to have a life constantly under threat, only to be bombed by the Americans again. So what right do we have to criticize our citizens that think that it’s worth getting arrested to make a point? Wouldn’t we want someone in another country to protest on our behalf if we were being slaughtered? Would we still say that protesting should be polite if it were our life on the line? “Oh, no, don’t inconvenience someone on account of my life…”
So if they won’t listen when we’re nice about it, “please don’t do this..” then we start to get louder. Bring it on, I say. Let’s get as loud as it takes.
