When I sat at my altar two nights ago with candles burning and heartfelt, sacred music softly filling the room, I began thinking about the families and friends of those killed in recent shootings in the US. Their pained hearts become my own as I imagine the grief, the collapse, the punch to the gut that is this news in their lives. The circle of awareness widens somehow and I'm considering the shooter now and how he expresses the worst in us and what a tragedy that is. Images come like a wave, of past shootings and I imagine how those families and friends are likely triggered into their loss each subsequent killing spree. Thankfully I can cry and let the wave move through me.
They weep.
I weep.
I weep for them and with them.
Their loss could have been my own (and could be someday.)
I know this. You know this.
Widening still, the circle encompasses communities of hatred across this country as we are bearing witness to the uprising of terrorist acts by our (mostly) white brothers. They express what is the worst in us. And what a tragedy that is.
Then flowing into my thoughts are the NRA and prior campaign contributions that require payback by members of congress. We are living the consequences of those deals and that debt and we are dying because of it.
I weep.
I weep for the blatant show of greed among those who mask their deep fear in a cloak of power and control mongering and still have the nerve to sleep at night.
I weep for their fear and for the fact that they are ignorant of it.
I weep for myself and for all of us who know what is possible in our collective life here and how tragically far away from that we are.
I weep, really, for humanity's diminishing soul.
The candles burn and I weep.
The music comes into me and I drop into this place, crying for humanity.
I cry until I, every part of me, is done and I have no more, for now.
It is my gift and my burden to hold, feel and transmute these events and the subsequent feelings that arise.
I accept both.
I settle. I begin to sing. I feel my bhakti self and I land in this deeper place that is my home. I am soothed in this moment, thankfully.
I wonder who I would be if I didn't have the ability or freedom within me to cry like this and to sing like I do. Crying, singing and sitting with my altar save me from endless days of despair at the state of things.
What started with weeping, ended, for now, with gratitude and silence. This is the rhythm I traverse. It is my road, of sorts, and I walk it in reverence with my beloved in my heart.