Winter birds have gathered by the hundreds along the shoreline. Black and grey coots skitter across the sparkling sea preparing to lift into the sky. A long string of Western grebes and ducks are sprinkled among the flickers of light on the surface like pepper on a sugar frosted silver cake. In the midst of all this beauty, my heart turns to the recent killing of twenty first graders in Newtown, Connecticut. To the parents of those children, the families of the heroic teachers and staff who did their best to protect those children. In this season of the winter solstice, this natural darkening time, this unnatural darkness of violence in this country calls for each of us to bring our light into the world. To take care of the babies.
Just over a month ago, I attended the brilliant and inspiring Sister Giant event in Los Angeles, hosted Marianne Williamson, with talks by Jean Houston, Charlene Spretnak, and activists particularly focused on the care of children, and the democracy-threatening Citizens United decision. I was so moved at the time by the dismal statistics of child poverty in this country. Who could have imagined this massacre? Where is the soul of America, her heart? Of course we need sane and reasonable restrictions on what kinds of guns are allowed. Certainly not military weapons. And yes, let’s bolster the treatment of the mentally ill. But let us go deeper than that. Let us address this illness at its core: The masculine ideal of power that glorifies violence. The myth that making war makes a man. Did you see one of the ads for the Bushmaster assault weapon used? “Get your man card reissued.”
When we transform our understanding and use of power, we remake the world. Women must lead the way. In the Cheemah monument pictured above, Osprey Orielle Lake shows a compassionate, dignified woman – the Mother of the Spirit-Fire – holding a fire torch encircled with a ring of colors representing all the people of the world. The magnificent eagle soars with her into the future, celebrating the long view, the dreams of world unity and care for the earth, for the seven generations. This image reaches us in ways that facts and figures cannot. We need all our stories, our dreams, our images, to change our world. To tell new stories, dream new dreams, where the babies will be protected, sheltered, nurtured.
Like the darkness of the womb, like the land of po in Hawaiian cosmology, it is in the dark that creativity rises and worlds are made. The earth is born from this place. The seeds of the future are mammalian eggs, the capacity that women have for conception. It is the seeds of our imaginations, our dreams and holy desires, that we now plant for the New Story. We are fertile with possibility. A five thousand year cycle is ending, a new one beginning. It is a crucial time to rekindle and keep fierce the flames of our own hearts. To be keepers of the light, the living sparks of the soul. To celebrate the mothers and grandmothers, like @Barbara Marx Hubbard, like @Ani DiFranco whose song “Grand Canyon” says “And too, bearing witness, like a woman bears a child, with all her might.”
Be on fire with your love of the world. First of all, take care of the babies.
