On Raising Warriors...
Tehran on Israel, Israel on Lebanon, oilmen in the presidency of the U.S. controlling financial interests throughout the world, african boys holding AK 47s instead of school books or their sisters' hand on the way to school, Canadian/european descendant governments over aboriginal peoples, etc....
A world based in "abundant scarcity", shaped by men of history, who raise boys through modeling behavior and in the prevailing attitudes, values, and beliefs that sustain a competition based economy that demands, as its result, that some lose and some win - a finite practice, blind to infinite possibility...where the protection of "things" (goods, possessions, etc...) becomes more important that the people who help produce them or use them...
In all of this, where is the capacity to love and to be loved? Are my brethren able, or even willing to consider the notion of a love based in true respect and compassion for self and of others???
I wonder what would become possible if "our world leaders" would negociate policies and have politics based in a long and properous future, rather than those based in a "traumatic and violent past" and lead to protectionism.
Who is it that we men have to become in order to change the fulcrum on which we "rationalize" or balance the so-called "good" with the "bad", and come up with a result that is unacceptable to us on a humanistic scale? What will it take for we men to notice that the account in which we are depositing our hard earned "pay" over time, will not allow us to cash out with nearly as much interest as investing in another "bank"! The Board of Warriors who preside over the bank of power, control, fear, hatred, hurt, oppression, repression, and competition will not ever allow us to cash out a bill of fulfillment, joy, peace, spiritual splendor, and ease...the "interest" grown in that bank will only create more of what has shaped it.
Every time I hear a news story of bombings, war, violence, regimes, etc...I wonder, now, what it is in the present day context and environment that allows for this to continue and yes, even worsen.
The growing intensity I feel around me, with the kinds of crime, and tense relations reported, even in local news and rumours, and workplaces has me wondering if our being at a loss to create the change we feel has to happen, is catching up with us in a way where what seemed to be unacceptable behaviour in public, becomes all that's left for us to try!?
Of course, I know differently. I know that for me, it is about creating choices, about expanding our line of sight to allow for what might feel weird, or seem too different, to become possible, reachable, undeniably available as one of a multitude of choices that are laid before us at every moment.
The increased tensions in the world, as in our lives, seem to have for effect, our tightening, our closing down, and clasping our own hands and arms rather than allowing for the possibility that comes from open and outstretched arms and fingers! How can we grab hold of something new, when our hands are full of what we already have?
My belief about it is that up to and until we men of the world learn to release those beliefs, values, and attitudes that "define" us as "men", to consider which of these allow us to claim our "humanness", we will be bound to the narrowest of standards for our existance, and who we can become while on this earth.
I, for one, am not satisfied with the results I see, about who I became, about who I was making my son out to be, and about all those "buddies" and other acquaintances in my life who acted out there parts so well!
To move to a place inside where different is not wrong, just different...where truth is undeniably present and where courage is seen as the expression of that truth no matter what...will create different results....I think when "running with the pack" becomes the safest way to be, in the minds of those who take part in it, and indeed the only way to be for many of my brethren, then the results can only be a watered down version of who it is possible for us to become.
I wonder what it will take for me to move beyond the historical version of my self as a "man/boy", and move into who it is I really want to become as a human being?
I think raising any one other than warriors in this world will only come about when men start to claim their inherent humanity, rather than protecting and promoting their male-ness.
creating at the rhythm of my breath,
RAY