Item: September 11, 2001: Full-scale disaster. Hijacked passenger planes topple the two World Trade Center towers, killing thousands. A third plane plows into the Pentagon, a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania. Fingers point to Afghan- harbored Muslim extremists as the culprits. Calls for war and pleas for peace mix with expressions of shock and grief. Events commence that for the foreseeable future will throw the country into varying degrees of chaos, crisis, and turmoil. Everyone and everything is affected in some way by this Day That Changed Everything. It appears that the Apocalypse and/or World War III may finally have arrived--that the worst nightmare scenarios of Y2K may yet become manifest, just not quite on schedule.
I first learn about the unfolding events on the East Coast from a fellow community member in the Lost Valley kitchen on this Tuesday morning. I have awoken uncharacteristically early--almost exactly at the time of first impact, 8:48 am Eastern time (5:48 am Pacific)--but without knowing why. Whether or not the timing is a "coincidence" seems inconsequential, because what's certain is that many of my basic assumptions about life and the world have been shaken if not entirely destroyed.
Growing up on the outskirts of New York City, I once believed that nothing like this could ever happen to me or to my home. The city used to seem like a somewhat crazy but basically safe, familiar place--harboring individual dangers but also possessing a certain predictability and solidness, a "strength in numbers," a protection from harm on a massive scale. Two decades after leaving my New York home, I still feel strong ties from my first couple decades of life, and from my family's ongoing involvement with New York. My brother and his wife--thankfully, away from the city on this day--still live in Brooklyn. Even though I've become very disconnected from--even alienated by--many of the values and activities the Twin Towers have come to represent, the attack on them feels like a blow to my gut.
I am forced to grapple with the realities of violence in our world. "Civilian casualties" has been almost a toss-off phrase, usually read or heard in news reports about a war in some distant land. I have never grasped the nature of civilian casualties on such a personal, deep level as when those civilian casualties occur in the belly of my home Big City, to people I could well have known--people so unaccustomed to the thought of being the victims of war-like hostilities on their own turf that the disbelief and horror they and we all experience became even more unimaginable, and yet remain just as terribly real.
Until today, I've thought of terrorism as an activity conducted on a small scale, affecting a certain number of innocent individuals but never huge groups of people at once. Now, terrorism starts to look like war. And, conversely, war starts to look like terrorism. Either one is the taking of life from people who have done nothing to deserve such a fate. Finally, this terrible act has happened to us. So this is what it feels like to be the victim of someone else's self-righteous, single-minded determination to assert power or make a statement by any means necessary. I hope that we will forever remember this feeling, and never again be complicit in our government's causing it to happen to someone else, whatever higher cause is cited to justify the "collateral damage."
I can't help but wonder: How many people, when they hear that the Pentagon has also been hit by a plane this morning, think to themselves or even say to someone else, "The chickens have come home to roost"? Is this truly an unpatriotic thing to say? Or does it reveal an even deeper love of country than that displayed by unquestioning allegiance to a militaristic mindset?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Where has the violence unleashed on America today come from? Was it from an "evil" source "out there"--maybe some troublemakers in the desert somewhere who just can't leave us alone, as we enjoy our American Standard of Living and bless the rest of the world with our prodigious ecological-social-political-economic-military footprint? Have we ever committed similar atrocities against other equally innocent civilians, even if it was harder to notice because they weren't working in skyscrapers? Are we still doing such things?
What happens when we blame and demonize? What happens when we project our own fears, and the fearful aspects of our own selves, onto others? How many "holy wars" have been fought? Did any of them stamp out evil? Did any of them fail to embody the very evil they were fighting? And wasn't each of them, seen with compassion, just a tragic, self-delusive mistake? Is this "evil" as purely "evil" as we imagine it to be? Can we love ourselves enough to love people whose views of the world and of what is right seem to be diametrically opposed to ours?
Does anyone or anything benefit from the spread of misery? Isn't the most "evil" tyrant simply a scared, scarred human being gone terribly wrong? Can the kind of pain that results in mass murder be healed or eliminated through vengeance or hatred, or do those attitudes compound the problem? How can we forgive someone else who's done something unforgivable? How can we forgive someone we don't love? How can we love someone, despite what they've done? How can we see ourselves in someone else? And how can we love ourselves enough to love and forgive others?
How can we forgive someone we don't love? How can we love someone, despite what they've done?
How do we respond to the world's diversity: with wonder or with fear? How do we respond to the world's bounty: with appreciation or with grasping? Do we want to share what we find around us, or amass it to ourselves? Do we feel ourselves members of a larger human and earth community, part of everything that is, or do we see ourselves as separate, alone, and in need of infinite fortifications and supplies to protect us from a hostile world? What "holy war" has truly been guided by compassion and love, instead of by ideologies and fears? Can we wage, instead, a "holy war" within ourselves, and declare an immediate cease-fire, leading to lasting peace? Is it possible that we'll be harder to pick a fight with if we're not looking for a fight? Is it possible others will have fewer grievances with us if we are good neighbors and friends with them, instead of seeming like spoiled, aloof brats or scared, self-aggrandizing bullies?
Can we see beyond appearances, and allow others to see beyond appearances? Can we define ourselves by our hearts, and act from our hearts, instead of being trapped in the roles and mindsets that have us thinking and acting as if we are separate and fundamentally different? Can we drop everything that doesn't matter, and recognize life for the wonder, mystery, and gift that it is? And can we respect that every living being born into this world has the right to experience that gift? Can we let the madness fall away? Can we be guided by love instead?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
On this morning of September 11, we at Lost Valley gather in a circle and start to deal, individually and collectively, with our shock, fear, and distress at the unfolding events. We decide to proceed with most of our day as planned, since we see our work as a living alternative to the destruction embodied in the terrorist attacks. I spend the morning weeding in the garden and harvesting vegetables for community meals, talking with others there as the waves of news and feelings hit us. I phone my parents, who are as stunned and upset as I. Suddenly reminded of one another's mortality, we exchange many "I love you's." Tuesday afternoon the garden and land team meets to plan next year's programs, then joins another community-wide prayer circle. Throughout these exchanges, I feel engaged, connected, and supported.
On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, however, as some of the initial shock wears off, my distress intensifies. I start to imagine that others in my daily life are not experiencing the sense of loss that I, as a native New Yorker, am feeling--since no one else is talking about it to the degree I am feeling it. A growing sense of apocalyptic angst sets in--a heightened awareness of how fragile our whole civilization is. And when my first, somewhat ill-timed attempts to articulate this in Wednesday morning's community circle do not seem to find a universally accepting audience (admittedly, I am "off-topic," speculating about the end of civilization or at least demise of the entire East Coast when the group is trying to share visions of peace), my story of being an outsider ("different," "misunderstood," "oversensitive," etc.) kicks in.
But many people approach me as the circle ends to tell me that they share (but haven't felt able to say) what I have attempted to put into words, and that they have often also shared my feeling of separateness and aloneness when met with apparent rejection or dismissal by others. I start to realize that I am no more an outsider than anyone else is. Despite my initial impulse to retreat, I decide to try to continue to be part of the group this day, testing the hypothesis that I do not need to be alone with pain.
What happens next could not be better timed. Immediately following that circle, we start our annual group Visioning process with a "clearing" session, intended to help us work together more effectively as we plan and implement the coming year's programs. Each of us in the community spends three minutes with every other person, speaking (one-way) about any unexpressed resentments, unclarity, pain, anger, or other obstacles or difficulties we have found in moving closer to the other person. We have a chance to say anything we haven't (or have) said about what we each find difficult in our relationship. After the first go-round with everyone, we go around again, with the second person speaking.
Previously, I would have been apprehensive about such a process. My ego would have felt a need to defend itself against potential criticism and would also have been anxious about the effect of anything apparently negative I myself might say. However, in comparison to the end of human life as we know it (which I am fully able to imagine this morning as I contemplate other possible terrorist/war scenarios), worrying about protecting myself from, of all things, honesty, seems amazingly trivial and silly. In my open, receptive state, I have no resistance to hearing and taking in whatever anyone wants to say, even the relatively "hard" things--nor to saying whatever I see interfering with my relationships with others.
By the end of this morning, I feel a connection with every single individual in the room, and see that we all truly care about and love one another, including our imperfections and idiosyncrasies as well as our obvious strengths. I realize that apparent obstacles in our relationships also seem to be conduits to understanding and appreciation, as if they are two sides of the same coin. Viewed in this light, there are no absolutely "bad" personality traits, just qualities in our characters that have not yet found their most life-supporting expressions. By letting others know how they affect us, we allow them to see themselves and give them the chance to change in positive ways.
The "hard things" are easy for me both to hear and to say, when I remember that we are here to love one another, and that the alternative (fear of self and others) is what leads, ultimately, to division, terror, and war. I would like every hurting person, everyone wanting to inflict violence on another, to have the opportunity to engage in an exercise like the one I have experienced this morning. To listen, and to be listened to--to care, to receive caring--to see oneself in another--to know that we are all share similar needs and experiences, beneath our wounds and our layers of armor--to marvel also at diversity, at the uniqueness of each individual within the many layers of wholeness that we are part of--to see that we are born innocent and that we can return to wonder, love, and innocence, with one another's help...
This is what healing is made of. In such a world, hatred, violence, and war are unthinkable.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The weeks go by, my computer is flooded by emails containing wise words, and, miraculously it seems, the US government is exercising restraint, evidently recognizing that dropping bombs on innocent civilians is not an appropriate response to acts of terrorism--that waging war would only add to the cycles of the violence and retribution. My initial fears about our country's response to the attacks turn into hope: perhaps we are learning and maturing after all. Perhaps September 11 is the last day that senseless violence will seem acceptable to anyone in our world. Instead of starting World War III, perhaps those terrorists inadvertently prevented it.
I scrap my previous post-September 11 article, "What I Learned on 9-11," and replace it with a new one, "The Strangest Dream," in which I postulate that the terrorists may have saved us from Apocalypse by performing an act so profoundly shocking and outrageous that it has awakened the entire world to the horrors of war, violence, hatred, and uncompromising ideology. Eyes and hearts have been opened, comfortable assumptions and false illusions of security demolished, naiveté and self-absorption replaced among Americans by a massive self-education on world history, politics, and their role in global affairs. Barriers between people have been removed, an outpouring of communication, compassion, creativity, and curiosity unleashed.
On October 7 (one day after the completion of my optimistic "Dream" article), the other shoe drops. The US commences air strikes in Afghanistan. My world becomes once again one of extreme contrasts: deeply troubling events involving more vengeful acts and loss of innocent life, as reported every day by the news media--standing in surrealistic, stark relief against the deep sense of connection and appreciation I feel in the events of my own daily life. I can no longer follow the news: I think I know the story now, and it compounds itself and would drag me down with it if I accepted its assumptions (including its assumption of preeminent importance), if I let it define my own reality. Instead, when I do read about current events, it's in emailed articles from the alternative press, containing yet more wise words urging peace and illuminating the larger issues.
Even these articles could absorb all of my time, however, if I let them, and it seems to me that my "homework"--my role in creating a peaceful world--is at home, in my local and extended community. I will in no way contribute to the war, but I won't be defeated or consumed by it either, since striving to live an alternative to war is a more-than-full-time activity in itself.
Two out of the first three evenings of the bombings, Bob Dylan is performing in Oregon. I find myself within twenty feet of the stage each time, listening and singing along with timeless songs about what matters in a healthy culture: self-expression, love, mystery, honesty, humor, beauty, summer days, the river's flow, and freedom from limited definitions (including of what a song is "about")...not bombs. "Masters of War" and "Blowin' in the Wind" have never been more relevant, but equally powerful are the raw celebrations of life in all its dimensions that Dylan and his band share with such skill, poetry, and passion. The second concert, held in a "cow palace" in Medford, is, I believe, the best I have ever attended, by anyone. "Bob Dylan for President," someone shouts, and judging from the universal love that I and others in the crowd seem to be experiencing in the presence of this eternally-young-spirited elder (he's 60), I think it's an idea worth considering. His intelligence and message seem a vastly superior alternative to what most people are likely absorbing through the mainstream media; the contrast is as surreal as "Visions of Johanna." At last, after years of not being sure, I have the strong feeling that Bob Dylan knows that he is loved, and accepts that love, from himself and others.
Perhaps he's mirroring my own growing sense of peace with myself. And certainly, my connections with other audience members at both concerts are exponentially more substantial and satisfying than those I experienced three years ago at my last Dylan show, which I attended alone. This time, the concerts are also occasions to get to know both friends and strangers better. I end up reflecting in various conversations on large portions of my life (which has spanned the same years as Dylan's recording career), and learning a lot about others' lives and selves too.
The following weeks are filled with many more unforgettable experiences, including Lost Valley's most-productive-ever Board meeting, a talk/flower-toss led by our gardening mentor Alan Kapuler, and a trip to the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA--an event where our extended "evolving ecological culture" shares its incredible diversity and beauty, this year more powerfully than ever before. Personal and community connections have kept me and others I know hopeful and energized, not frightened or demoralized, during these difficult times.
I wish, more than anything, that those locked into seemingly irresolvable conflict, and perpetuating the cycles of violence in our world, could experience some of what I've experienced over the last two months. Accomplished on a shoestring budget, this kind of life seems richer and more healing than anything money could buy. It depends on community, on people, on relationship with the earth, on sharing, on our ability to mature into inner and outer peace. It entails the courage to be honest and to face ourselves and one another. It asks us to open ourselves to love, and to see the potential for love to be expressed in every situation. It is a good alternative to Apocalypse.
Chris Roth edits Talking Leaves.
©2001 Talking Leaves
Winter 2002
Volume 11, Number 3
Diversity, Wholeness, and Healing