I avoid “the news.”

This is a statement from observation.

I notice my attention focuses on what is in front of me: the rain, the trees, the water, the swallows, the ravens.

I notice my recent internet-surfing followed a deep plunge into this body’s memories of darkness. Perhaps I surfed to distract myself from my dark memories? Or to dig deeper into the shadows which are always here (not just the ones in my memory). Perhaps to inspire me to keep courage alive, to stay with the body and to listen.

This writer’s job is to listen. To allow whatever comes to be seen and held. To trust the unfolding of movement; the shifts into pain, the opening of the chasm, the moments of great beauty and emerging life.

To listen to the emergence of our collective experience is a deep act of trust.

After surfing collective experiences captured by the internet, I noticed three stories settled with me:

• the sinking of the people-smuggling ship off the coast of Greece (I noticed I read three or four accounts of people who made clear why their loved one left- the desperation of poverty and lack of opportunity and the promise of a better life in Europe for themselves, their loved ones, their descendants.) I wonder if my own ancestors were operating by similar motivation/intent when they set off to locate themselves from Ireland, from France, from England to North America?

• Hunter Biden: tax evasion and firearms offence. Does it matter I don’t remember the exact details? What I remember is holding Hunter in my noticing and asking for grace, if it’s possible, to move towards him. Perhaps grace will help him to open his heart even as he’s suffering such a public humiliation, being used as a pawn in a great game of chess. Let him begin again. Let him become the person he’s always wanted to be.

• Donald Trump: going to court in Florida on August 14. I have family and dear friends who don’t like Donald Trump but like his policies. I’m confused about loyalty at this point in my life. Loyalty, it seems, should be reserved for the most trustworthy in your life. Loyalty, it seems, should follow from a reciprocal relationship, one where honesty and integrity are evident, are directly experienced.

Human beings, I’ve noticed, follow beliefs down many pathways. I have gone down many a path with untrustworthy others. I have been an untrustworthy leader of others on paths. Perhaps this is the experience we are meant to have in order to let go of our need to grasp and hold what seems to be secure and safe. So much harm has been caused to create safety around a person, a people, a nation, a government, a political party. We have convinced ourselves we must build safety like we build houses and nations. We have convinced ourselves safety is found in a building or a nation or an ideology or a set of beliefs.

Safety has been one of the biggest needs in my life. As a little person I experienced harm from my father, a man who I loved and trusted, a man who I laughed with. My body held the experience of his betrayal in the fascia, the muscles, the blood, the organs, the skin. Sometimes my small self comes to me in my dreams and I cradle her against me and hold her and stroke her forehead, run my hand from the part in her hair to behind the ear, this sweep of love over her head seems to calm her. I tell her, we are safe. we are safe. we are safe.

Decades. I’ve held and comforted my small self for decades.

The experience of betrayal of this magnitude begins a cascade of explosions, a cascade not unlike the factors which trigger a great flood. A great flood which changes the trajectory of the river. A trajectory which destroys life through rocks thrown, through drowning, through sweeping away the soil and the small plants, through destroying the dens and homes of animals, through wiping out so many future possibilities. The experience of a small girl being betrayed by her father shapes the landscape of her life in ways she cannot understand. She ruminates for decades on the importance of being good as a way of being loved again and not-harmed again.

For five decades I’ve lived in various stages of trying to navigate the chasms left in the wake of my father’s betrayal. Some of those stages have included trying to recreate my father’s betrayal, but having a different outcome. Heart-break begins with hope. Discernment begins with clear-seeing.

My father was abused as a young man. This information came out not long ago and in an email to me. Was I the victim of his replaying of the chasms in his life? Did he, drunk and acting on impulses he could not acknowledge in the light of the day, repeat, over and over, versions of what was done to him? Did he end these experiences feeling relieved that the pressure was no longer contained? Was his shadow side allowed to live, where he could not see it or know it?

And when I spoke up– I did speak up– did he begin to tell everyone a story of me which he wanted to believe was true? Dad: She makes things up. She tells stories. If she tells people this story, they will think she is crazy. Dad: You don’t want people to think you’re crazy, do you? You’ll have to go away. Live in a place with crazy people. Bad dreams are bad dreams. Dreams are not real. Dreams are not real. Dreams are not real.

And when I spoke up again as an adult– I did speak up– he suggested I suffered from false memories. Such pain he caused by not being honest.

I’ve noticed the news seems to be a continually reporting of the shadow, the harm. It appears we are both perpetrators and consumers of the shadow, we obsess over the shadow, we carry the shadow thread through our conversations, our negotiations, our precious moments with ones we love, even the smallest among us. Our children grow up with the shadow, whether we acknowledge it or not. What would clear-seeing of the shadow look like?

I’ve noticed sanity lies in the practices of listening to the body. With practice and intention, the body’s sensory receptors seem to be able to notice a shadow and to allow a shadow to come and go. I’m writing these words after being tossed and turned again by the shadow for days now. I’m allowing writing to happen through me, the way I’m learning to allow the shadow to move through me.

Met with the posture of peace, the intent of peace, the response to the shadow can be acceptance with intention to respond.

My intent to be a Warrior for the Human Spirit, a journey I began in response to the pandemic, asks me to take my seat with this vow: I cannot change the way the world is but by opening to the world as it is I may discover that gentleness, decency and bravery are available not only to me but to all human beings. Chogyam Trunpa

Millions and millions of human beings are practicing the peaceful ways of warriorship in this way.

It appears many of them are writers. I notice many of them are my friends.

Writing as a Warrior for the Human Spirit feels like being An Arbornaut: willing to live with an open heart and clear seeing in a space between. In a space between the chasms created by great harm from another. Among the great liars and murderers and the power hungry, is it possible to know gentleness, decency and bravery?

Writers who live in this space may be able to live life-situations of gentleness, decency and bravery. Their words might invite communities of gentle, decent and brave others to gather.

Their actions might be guided by a community of gentle, decent and brave others. All actions might be guided by a community of the gentle, decent and brave.

In my writing today, I notice I am attempting to embody the principles of the gentle, the decent and the brave. I notice I am attempting to acknowledge and see the reality. I notice I will publish this post. This will be my first response today.

I notice the tossing and the turning inside me is calming. I notice I love being alive. I have a reason to be here. I have meaning and purpose. I have loved ones all around me. Cheering me on.

In my darkest hours, it is possible to remember I am safe. I don’t need to take someone else’s land. I don’t need to repeat the harms I’ve suffered on others. I can acknowledge the shadow, the impulse, even the desire for revenge and I can listen, in stillness, to the gentle, decent and brave voice I’ve been tuning into for years now.

This is the possible dream.

This is the possible news stream.

This is the possible way through the river after the flood.

Much Love, Mar’ce