Musings: Antidote to Ugh

Awoke in darkness unsettled by dreams of another 9-11 type event, planes flying into buildings, not that it was even happening where I was, but reports of it were enough to send people around me into fear, panic, pandemonium, chaos.

Ugh....

Made the mistake of lying in bed and looking at Yahoo news headlines on my I-phone, so much of it tales of war, threats of war, Netanyahu beating the drums for war. And in the midst of it all was Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warning us to expect more turmoil in the Middle East, more conflict in Asia that could embroil the U.S. 

But don't worry, because we're telling them to solve their problems peacefully, not that we ever have, so just in case, we're building up militarily, we'll be ready with our guns and bombs, with the Osprey helicopters that Oahu and Kauai folks don't want, the Okinawans don't want, but we'll be getting them, anyway.

Ugh....

Down to the beach, seeking an antidote in sun shimmer and shifting sand, and then clouds blew in, and raindrops fell, well-spaced, but hard, bouncing off the still sea, thrilling me, and also soaking me, though I didn't care, because I was going in anyway, and when the sun came out again, I did, moving through and over the patterns formed by shafts of light penetrating clear water.

Pranayama, performed sitting on wet rocks steaming in the building heat, pushed the ugh factor down, but not completely out, and I was aware of a small grrrr remaining in me as the dogs and I piled back into the car, headed down the highway. I flipped on the radio, hoping it was time for New Dimensions, and thankfully, it was, with Barbara Marx Hubbard saying, as I rifled through my backpack for paper and pen, “We are at a place where we are aware of evolution and can affect it by our actions.”

So what will those actions be? War, or peace? Hate, or love? Evolution or extinction?

“Nature selects for species that can cooperate and adapt,” she adds, and I'm wondering if enough of us can, and are.

“While some people are getting reactive,” she says, “other people are wanting to connect.”

I sense this, I feel this, but it still seems fragmented, distant.

“The community of the awakening heart is connecting very rapidly on the Internet,” she says, and I want to believe, because the opposite is more hate, more violence, more ugh.

“The folks who are going to do this are not the president and vice president, but us,” she continues, and I know that to be true, because, as she goes on to say, “the farther up you are in the old pyramid system, the harder it is for you to effect change.”

Then she quotes a proverb: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

And as the grrr dissipates, I see, like the shimmering path cast by sun on sea, a vision of cooperation, respect, harmony, love for the mother, peace.