18 September 2001 // The Tower and the Star [i]
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One week after 9-11.
How much can the world change in one week? In one instant?
At some point in this past week I realized something - I'd seen the imagery of the attack before... in the Tower, card number sixteen of the Major Arcana. This card indicates sudden, dramatic, even violent change. It indicates an awakening, a "bolt from the blue"... my notes from the class in February call it a "cosmic 2x4 upside the head". It's a sudden flash of insight, an event that forever changes the way you see things. It's one of the darkest cards in the deck, but there is still light to be seen - in the flash of lightning, in the falling sparks, in the flames... it's a card of destruction, burning away old illusions, tearing us away from our comfort zone.
And it can be terrifying.
However, after the terror of the Tower, the next card in the Major Arcana is the Star. She is a card of meditation, of introspection, of insight, of balance, and perhaps most importantly of hope. With the pipe ceremony on Friday night, I began to move out of the shock, anxiety, and despair of the Tower into the peace of the Star. I think others are, too. I'm starting to hear more talk of forgiveness, of understanding, of compassion, of not answering violence with violence... as if some of the lessons we are given in this are that we are all human, victim and terrorist alike, that we have more in common than we have differences, that every single life is precious, that violence only begets more violence and that the cycle must be broken. A line from Sting's song "Fragile" keeps running through my mind:
Perhaps this final act was meantI walked the Labyrinth Saturday night. I walked it in the spirit of walking a path of initiation, with the intention of dedicating myself to being a peacemaker. My prayer, first voiced last Wednesday at New Life's service, has been for courage. Courage for myself and for all of us. Courage to speak and act out of love instead of fear, courage to pray for those we are told are our enemies, courage to say unpopular things, to speak for peace even when everyone around me is talking war. I carried a candle with me to light the path. As I walked, I recited the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (with one word change ^_^):
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence
and nothing ever could...
Goddess,I called on the four directions and the four elements and asked them for help. I sat in the center of the labyrinth for a long time, focusing my intention as I watched my candle's flame burning strong and true. I carried the light out with me, humming "Let There Be Peace on Earth". After thanking the presences I had invoked, I sat down to braid. There were spools of ribbon on the table in the sanctuary, and a sign saying "Take or Make a Ribbon": red, white, and blue for national solidarity; white for support of the victims and their families. I braided a bracelet of red, blue, and two white ribbons and tied it around my right wrist as a tangible reminder of my purpose, of the path to which I have bound myself. I will wear it... I don't know how long. Until there is Peace on Earth? Forever? Until it falls off, I guess, and if need be I'll braid another one.
make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred,
let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.(Thank you, Myles, for sending me that card!)
Some things are very discouraging, though. Let's call it "Jerry Falwell strikes again", laying the blame for the attack at the feet of those he's been persecuting for years. As I read his comments, I mentally checked off everything that applied to me. Pro-choice, check. Feminist, check. Lesbian, check. Pagan, check. ACLU member, check. There it is, the fundamentalist rhetoric that just turns my stomach. I have a button (and a favorite phrase) that says "The Christian Right is neither." I'm sorry, I'm still cynical about this. I've been cynical about this ever since I was a Youth Advisory Delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1994 and I couldn't understand why people like this felt that the Re-Imagining Conference was the work of the Devil. It's another part of my challenge, to live out of respect for the divinity in other people, to live out of love even if I don't like the person much. *listens to Maaya Sakomoto and Yoko Kanno music to get her mind off the fundamentalists...*
I'm even watching anime from a different perspective now. I appreciate Rurouni Kenshin even more now - I just realized, as I went to check the manga translation for the line I was thinking of, that I was subconsciously quoting Hiko Seijuurou earlier - his line is "Violence begets violence in a vicious circle." (With the implication, in context, that that's a bad thing.) Kenshin's philosophy, his vow never to kill again, the purpose of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, the key to its final technique (no spoilers de gozaru ^_^x) ... all touch my heart.
So~... I've been in very much a "Kenshin" sort of mood for the past couple of days de gozaru... I'm even wearing a pink shirt today. ^_^x
And yes, I refuse to even think of it as "Samurai X". I'm afraid I read the new gamer the riot act about that last time... ^_^x;;;;
Trigun has quite a bit in common with Rurouni Kenshin theme-wise, actually. Maybe I'll go re-watch that series now... that, and the second half of Escaflowne, and the Rurouni Kenshin ova's and movie... and NieA Under 7, just because.
My copy of Daughter of the Shining Isles arrived in the mail yesterday, and I finished it this morning. No, not at 4 a.m. like usual. *grin* I didn't have that far to go to the end, so I read it after I woke up this morning, and finished by 8:30. So now I need to return Isaura's copy to her, and send my copy to Nyx-sama with all the other stuff I have to send to her and Emily... big care package time. ^_^ It's the first book in a trilogy, supposedly... and now I'm hoping the next book comes out soon, and that I'll be able to find it when it does.
I'm trailing off into randomness now... I've been typing this entry on and off all day, guess it's time to actually post it. ^_^;; One more thing, though - remember the Harry Potter Tarot idea I mentioned a few weeks ago, figuring that someone had probably already done it? Well, someone has. Found it while I was looking for tarot references this morning - check it out! *grin* *waves*
recent alterations //
21 November 2002 // I'm not dead yet!
03 October 2002 // Snarling bitch to genki fangirl in 0.8 seconds flat! [i]
27 September 2002 // He's got butterfly wings, not feathery angel wings. Geez, people!
25 September 2002 // The Great Oekaki Contest Begins! [ai]
14 September 2002 // The obsessiveness continues...
