The Direction of Intention

It snowed last night. The temperatures have plummeted so this morning we are writing from the raft buried deep beneath a warming quilt. Dogga is fast asleep at our feet. These days he groans when he moves. His old bones, like mine, are not fond of the freeze.

Emotionally, this winter seems colder than most.

When I turned out the light on election night, knowing the result, my last thought before sleeping was, “The nation is now officially rend in two.” Even unplugged from the news and most of social media I am daily reminded of the reasons for the rupture. Today, responding to the terrible fires in L.A. someone out there – on the other side of the split – commented that, “They have no one but themselves to blame. They were warned what could happen if they didn’t rake their forests…” Cold heart, vacant mind. Empty soul.

A dear one recently suggested that it is time to focus on healing. She is wise and yet, each day I ask myself where we might begin to bridge the crevasse when a fortress of nonsense voids even the most basic compassion within those standing on the other side of the line.

Breck, our sweet aspen tree, serves as a hope-giver. She came home with us from Colorado and lived comfortably in a pot for the first few years of her life in Wisconsin. After we planted her she almost died. In fact, I thought she was already gone. After a replanting and a wish and a prayer, she pulled a Lazarus and managed to bud on her lower limbs. Now, a few years later, she is healthy and happy and growing like a weed.

We are without doubt moving into and through a national wasteland. As mythology instructs, the more we try to fix it, the worse it will become. It is beyond fixing. Shattering the facade is, in fact, a necessary part of leaving the wasteland behind. I suspect that we are now seeing what has always been there and there is not a bandage big enough or medicine potent enough to deal with the infection. It must burn itself out. It might very well kill the nation-body.

Absent of fixing, what remains is choosing. Each day, faced with yet-another-example of heartless-hogwash, I become more clear on what I value, more certain of what I believe. Perhaps the healing my friend suggests is in the act of choosing. In clarity, we each choose who we want to be.

Here’s what I know: if fire took the home and life possessions of that taunting-someone-out-there, I would reach, I would choose to help them. I would not choose to taunt them or blame them. I would not withhold aid from them. I would not politicize their pain. I would reach. And, I hope, when the hot fire of the incoming malfeasance burns through their fortress of nonsense, when bereft, they will recover their senses and regain their compassion. Perhaps their hearts will start beating again. Perhaps their minds will re-engage. Perhaps.

Perhaps then they will be capable of reaching back and the nation, like Breck, will take root in better soil, pull a Lazarus – and live to see another -healthier – day.

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, compassion, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disease, divide, healing, health, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, L.A. Fires, Lazarus, metaphor, mythology, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »