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The destruction in New York, Washington DC, & Somerset County PA, has stunned, shocked, and saddened our community. Our community is also saddened by the prejudice and hatred engendered in some people as a reaction to the destruction. We present the following resources both magical and otherwise to aid in building a world of peace, joy and love; beauty, balance, and delight.
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As we are a community of diverse individuals, you will find viewpoints on this page which reflect that diversity. Within our magical community, we are always working to 'agree to disagree' while continuing to support each other as human beings. As the Reclaiming Principles of Unity state, "Each of us embodies the divine. Our ultimate spiritual authority is within, and we need no other person to interpret the sacred to us. We foster the questioning attitude, and honor intellectual, spiritual and creative freedom." We encourage you to read what calls to you. Allow yourself to examine your own predispositions and thoughts. Keep the beliefs that work for you, refine and modify those that do not. This is how we learn. Our goal is always respect--for ourselves and others. |
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The world has changed in the past week. An act of violence and horror has cost the lives of thousands, and shattered all of our plans and expectations for the future.
We who have been working for global justice now face an enormous challenge. Since Seattle, we've built and sustained a movement in spite of continually escalating police violence and attempts by the media to paint us as violent thugs. Genoa did not intimidate us, and momentum was growing for the demonstrations in Washington DC at the end of the month. Public opinion was shifting, and the whole edifice of corporate rule was losing legitimacy.
The terrorist attacks of last Tuesday could undermine all of our work, at least in the short term. They are the perfect excuse for the state to intensify its repression, restrict civil liberties, and for anyone who speaks out against blind retaliation to be demonized.
The mood of the country is potentially ugly. People are scared. They're angry. Their sense of power and invulnerability has been badly shaken, and in the U.S., they're not used to it. They're grasping at anything which can restore their sense of power over their lives, and in a violent society, that means punishment, retaliation, war.
And many of us activists are also scared. I know how easily I can sink into fear and despair right now. I'm scared of the repression that might come, scared of being personally targeted, scared of the loss of our liberties, scared, yes, of further attacks. But most of all I'm scared for the movement, which I believe is crucial to our survival as a species.
And yet I also believe that the current crisis can be a great opportunity, if we can only see how to grasp it. Extraordinary times create extraordinary openings and possibilities. Our usual patterns and ways of thinking are shattered. When structures fall, something new can be built.
To do that, we have to behave in extraordinary ways. We need to acknowledge our fears, but not act out of fear. Fear leads to bad decisions and constricted vision, just when we need to see most clearly.
"Hold on, hold on, hold the vision, that's being born," our cluster chanted in Quebec City.
It may be that the most radical thing we can do right now is to act from our vision, not our fear, and to believe in the possibility of its realization. Every force around us is pushing us to close down, insulate, retreat. Instead, we need to advance, but in a different way. We're called to take a leap into the unknown.
As a movement, we've often been accused of lacking a clear vision of the world we want. I think we do have a vision, that includes diversity and rejects uniform, dogmatic formulations. But within all its varied forms there's a clear common ground: we want a world of liberty and justice for all. It sounds downright patriotic but if you think about its ramifications, they are revolutionary. And we want a world in which no one has to fear violence, which is the ultimate violation of freedom.
There are many voices right now trying to mobilize people around fear, anger and blame. As radicals, tried to mobilize people out of guilt, or shame. This is the moment to reinvent our approach, our strategies and our tactics, to believe in the possibility of moving people to act from hope, to act in the service of what they love. What would this look like? It would mean embodying the world we want to create in our own movement, and in our actions.
Times of grief and anguish can strengthen our bonds. Right now, more than ever, we in the movement need each other as never before, and we need to treat each other well, to cherish and care for and support each other and become the community we like to imagine. Our solidarity must go deeper than we've ever known before. Solidarity means listening to each other with respect, and being willing to protect and support people with whom we may disagree on many levels, or who might simply irritate us. Solidarity means strengthening our practice of direct democracy, our openness and communication with each other, our willingness to bring everyone to the table and give everyone affected by a decision a voice in making it. It means putting aside our usual internal politicking and maneuvering and treating each other with openness and trust. This is not simple to do. But in a moment when the ordinary patterns of life around us have been shattered, shifting our own patterns of behavior may actually be easier. Perspectives change, and the issues that last week seemed so important now seem trivial.
What would this look like tactically, say, in DC two weeks from now?
First, we'd have to deliberately drop our assumptions, whether they are that confrontation is always the strongest action, or that nonviolence is always the most moral action, or that direct action is always our strategy of choice, or that a march and a rally with speakers are the ultimate form of politics, and ask what makes most sense? What is most visionary?
I'd like to see whatever we do involve some kind of process of mutual discussion and education around our visions of alternatives. And I'd like to see us think of ways to take that outside of our own groups and into the community, and to bring in voices from the community to teach us about their issues and concerns. That could be a consulta, a teach-in or maybe a learn-in, where we go out into the community and ask people how issues of power and inequality affect their lives, or what their visions are of the world they want. In a time of fear and despair, calling people to consider their visions could be a powerful form of action.
I also think it's important, symbolically and politically, that we make some kind of strong, visible presence in the streets, that we don't voluntarily relinquish the one political space in which we've been able to have a significant impact. But I also think it's important that what we do in the street be appropriate to the moment. A mourning procession, a vigil or rite of healing might make sense right now: a standard march with shouted slogans and printed signs would be offensive. But it's hard to predict what the mood or situation of the country will be two weeks from now. We could be heading into a full fledged war, and a large march might be a needed and powerful statement.
Direct action is a powerful tool, but like a chainsaw it's not the tool you want in every situation. Direct action points a spotlight on an issue, can directly interfere with an unjust group or situation, and delegitimize an institution or policy. Used at the wrong moment, without a strong base of support, it risks legitimizing the very institutions we seek to undermine.
Many police have just given their lives because they stayed in a dangerous situation helping other people get out. A lot of us in this struggle talk about being willing to die. They just did. Whatever we feel about police as tools of the state, now is not a good moment for a heavy police confrontation. In fact, although generally I'm against negotiating with the police, in this case I'd certainly consider that it might be a wise and even a generous thing to do. As individuals, the police are of a class that doesn't gain from the policies we oppose. Let's not write off the possibility that some of them could be brought to support us.
I want peace, not war. But calling for 'peace' at this moment does not sufficiently address the fear, anger and powerlessness people feel. I'd like to see us call for justice:
Justice for the victims of this week's terrorist attacks.
Justice, not blind vengeance-meaning that we need to know clearly and certainly who carried out the attacks before we retaliate.
Justice for the Arab Americans who live among us. They deserve our support and protection.
Justice for the people of other countries who could soon become our victims.
Justice for the many, many victims of ongoing terror around the world, and recognition of the part we have played in supporting and forging that terror.
Economic and environmental justice.
These are my thoughts at the moment. They could change as the situation changes. But mostly I suggest that we all begin a creative thinking process, that we consciously choose to set aside our fears and our depression. I suggest that before we agree to do anything we've done before, we consider at least three creative new alternatives. I think we should show up in Washington, if not in the numbers and way we expected, then in some other dimension of strength, and hold open the possibility that we can create not just a protest, but moments of public beauty that can transform the world. Finally, I want to say a word about faith. 'Faith' and 'religion' are being thrown around and served up to us in ways that are at the moment rather sickening. Religion of any denomination can motivate the worst acts and be a rationale for hate. And yet it's hard to get through times like these without faith in something.
I don't generally like to inflict my spirituality on people who might not want it. But I feel moved to tell you what's getting me through the night, along with the love and support of my community. It's the faith that there is a great, creative power that works through the living world toward life, diversity, healing and regeneration. That power works in us, in our human love, in our work for justice, in our courage and our visions. We don't need priests or ministers or even Witches to contact that power for us: we each have our own direct line. It exists within us, infinite, unlimited. Ultimately, it is stronger than fear, stronger than violence, stronger than hate. I wish you all deep contact with whatever feeds your soul, and nourishment from whoever and whatever you most love.
Friends,
For two weeks I've been covered with a fine grey ash. It started settling upon me like dust as on TV I watched the Twin Towers burn, horribly burn, and then fall. With each inexhaustible repetition of the awful video clips of the planes striking and exploding, of people leaping to their deaths from flaming windows, with each scene of people (the lucky ones) running in frantic panic just moments ahead of the immense churning clouds of dust and ash, with each poignant picture of the multitude of victims and their grieving families, with the mind-numbing statistics—millions of tons, thousands of lives, hundreds of police and firemen dead--and with each discussion of revenge, retribution, vengeance, the ash has settled on me, thicker and thicker. For two weeks I've been stumbling through the world covered in this ash, my subtle senses choking, clogged, covered and smothered, just as the physical ash and mud covers those heroic relief workers still clearing out the charnel house of lower Manhattan, one chunk of concrete, one smoldering piece of rubble or tattered scrap of paper at a time.
When you study the tarot, you learn that in the broken aftermath of the fall of the Tower (its burning top, falling pieces and plummeting figures so horribly, horribly apropos), sitting in the ruins, you are also surrounded by the abundant raw materials you need to build again. But nobody ever told me what to do with the ash.
Now I know.
Last night as I drifted off to sleep, my bedroom was filled with people. Many, many people, grey, ashen people, standing silently, wordlessly, looking at me with deep eyes of unfathomable expressions. I did not know what they were asking, or what, if anything, they were trying to tell me. Unnerved, I asked them for information: "do you need help to cross, is there a message, is there something I can do?" So many questions, but I realize now that my words were questions of the living, of no use at all to the dead. No answer came, and eventually, as a practical matter of the living, sleep came.
All day today, I had the constant sense of anxious, impatient energy, of needing to get up and move, to do something, to go somewhere, of something left undone, some act I must take. My skin felt alternately too loose and too tight, I was agitated, unsettled, restless. This is a sense I'd had slowly growing in me for days, but it finally peaked this evening.
So tonight, after putting my son to bed, well after dark I went out for a walk in the woods behind our house, in the middle of a heavy rainstorm...and the torrents from the heavens soaked me to my skin and washed all of that psychic ash from my body in rivulets, cleaned my pores and my eyes and my ears. And now I know.
The terrorists who directed their terrible human bombs created the largest single blood sacrifice in recent years. With focused intent, they sacrificed themselves, and thousands of unwilling people, to the god they worship (who is not the god of Islam, any more than the god of Jim Jones and David Koresh is the god of Christians). The terrorists on September 11th created a burnt offering, of a scale and a horrible magnificence such that the most bloodthirsty desert God of fear and revenge could not help but be pleased, and engorged.
Blood magic is very powerful—our ancestors knew this. The Emperor Ch'in had countless scores of people killed and mixed into the foundation for the Great Wall of China, and it stands to this day. I would set my intention that the walls built by the terrorists on September 11, 2001 do not stand even one ten-thousandth so long.
As horrible as it has been, the physical damage done was, compared to other events, other acts of war and major natural disasters, minor. Rwanda, Dresden, Hiroshima, Mexico City—many thousands of times more destructive, with hundreds or thousands of times more dead and wounded. At least 150,000 people die in the world on any normal day, and September 11 was hardly a blip on the chart, which is cold comfort if you have family or friends who lost their lives in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania. What has changed, more than anything else, is our collective perception of the world, and that is significant enough. But, in addition, by their intentional, focused act of violence and hatred, I believe the terrorists opened a rift, a portal, a rent in the fabric of our reality on many levels. Whether you believe in the magic of Blatavsky, or of economics or psychology or cultural anthropology, the truth is the same. There is a wound which needs healing.
In the long term, the only way to create a lasting peace is to address the underlying issues of third-world poverty, hunger, ignorance, repression, and the cycles of violence which feed and nourish the likes of Bin Laden and the bitter god he serves. We must seek true justice, not vengeance, and return hope for hatred. Every act taken in the world comes with consequence, and no nation, particularly the United States, can act (or choose not to act) in isolation. But many have spoken these words far better than I— there is another, short-term, action which I hope you will take, in addition to whatever long-term course you choose.
Alone or in groups, seek out the rift created by the September 11 attacks, and do what you can to close it. It is not hard to find. Each may see it in their own way--I see it as a pulsing, gaping maw, an awful throat for the god the terrorists serve. Create the equal and opposite force, heal and close it in whatever way you feel called and inspired. The blood magic done by a few score of fanatics, using 7000 innocent lives, though powerful, can be undone by the focused intent of enough skilled people of will and dedication. The outpouring of sympathy, the love and compassion shown around the world--these have already smoothed some of the raw edges of the wound. But the continuing bigotry and hatred, the attacks on innocents because of their race or religion, the fear and calls for blanket bombing and destruction upon yet more innocent civilians— these deepen the wound, and open it further. And if we go ahead and in our righteous rage, kill more innocents in Afghanistan and elsewhere, we ourselves feed the very same creature the terrorists serve—the maw will open still wider, and Bin Laden's god will smile. I cannot imagine how terrible that smile will be. I do not want to see it, and I do not want my child to have to gaze upon it.
This past weekend, as part of a group Equinox ritual involving some deep inner work, I and a Sister called upon the Ancient Ones, the Mysterious Ones, those of many names, and those of no names whatsoever. On devoking, I asked them to walk with us if they would, and they have (as if they ever do not). I suggest that in whatever way we are called, that we gather their wisdom to us, and that we act to close the ragged rift, doing what we can to heal, transform, and close the wound, the awful portal opened by the intentional acts of September 11. The terrorists were not madmen. They planned carefully, with intention, and I believe that they knew what they were doing, and why they were doing it. They hope to create a world where their god walks openly, and feasts upon a world filled with hatred, and an endless cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. Let us not see their intentions made manifest. Please. The choice, as always, is ours. Wash the ash from your eyes, your ears, your hearts. Sing, dance, laugh, play, and remember. Do what you can to heal the wound, and create a world in which such acts are not fed by our actions and inactions, whether as individuals, or as nations. Live, love, and build again.
I remember now, with eyes washed clean, that ash is an essential part of healthy fertile soil. In this soil, the seeds of a new world may be planted.
Let their sacrifice not be in vain.
In balance, joy and hope,
--Chelidon
"Whoever killed one innocent human being, it is as if he had killed all mankind. And whoever saved one human life it is as if he saved all of mankind" — Quran
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. For when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." —Nietzsche
After the ruthless attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, something that has struck me again and again is how many people have been able to keep an open heart. I am surprised, over and over, both by those who want blood but not the blood of innocents, and by those who have protested our government's actions for half their lives but are still generous when that government makes a step toward common sense and compassion.
I think of the shrine I read about that sprang up in New York days after the tragedy, covered with both patriotic slogans and prayers for peace, and about the support that people of differing views gave to each other there.
I think of Robin Morgan, a radical feminist and a New Yorker, someone on the opposite side of almost every issue from New York's mayor, praising him for having "risen to this moment with efficiency, compassion, real leadership."1
I think of Robert Dreher, a conservative responding (in the extremely conservative National Review Online) to Jerry Falwell's attack on "pagans and abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians...." Dreher wrote of standing next to his lesbian neighbors at a candlelight vigil and thinking "I am with you, ladies." 2
I think, too, of Falwell apologizing for his words.
And I wonder what to do with this open heart of mine; I wonder what we all will do with these hearts that have been opened against our will. Jerry Falwell's policies are still deplorable; radical Islamists still hate the United States; and it's still true that for fifty year our government has given people in the Middle East plenty of opportunity for hate. How do I keep an open heart and still act in the world? How do I act with conviction and still keep an open heart?
Robin Morgan has advice: "And if we find ourselves wrenched back and forth between choking with rage and thirsting for peace, what if we actually claimed that--claimed our frail, imperfect, human ambivalence as the virtue it is?" 3
Here's one ambivalence I will claim. It shocked me to find the following quote in the letter found in one of the murderers' luggage (particularly given the title I'd chosen for this piece):
Keep a very open mind, keep a very open heart of what you are to face. You will be entering paradise. You will be entering the happiest life, everlasting life. Keep in your mind that if you are plagued with a problem and how to get out of it. A believer is always plagued with problems.... You will never enter paradise if you have not had a major problem. But only those who stood fast through it are the ones who will overcome it. 4
What in world is this? What does it mean that the attackers, ruthless fanatical murderers, were enjoined to keep a very open mind, keep a very open heart? I can't take this in. It baffles me. It angers me. I had started this piece intending to argue, intellectually, that we should not demonize the attackers, that their god was not a god of hate (just as the god of the crew of the Enola Gay was not a god of hate). I wanted to *write* about that; I didn't want to have it rubbed in my face.
With necessary changes to account for cultural differences, that advice might have been given to a spiritual seekers of a hundred traditions. I've heard versions of it myself; I've given versions of it myself. And here it is, sent as spiritual comfort to men who in the morning will get on a plane, slit the throats of a few people to terrorize the rest into submission, and shortly thereafter kill themselves, the rest of the passengers, and thousands of others.
I don't *want* them to have had that good advice, from someone as ruthless as they were. It cheapens the advice. And I do want them to have had it -- even them. Because if they *took* the advice, if just one of them kept an open heart in just the last seconds of his life, what an opening that may have made: what an effect on all the worlds. Perhaps we are seeing the working of that opening even now.
So when I can, I will keep an open mind, an open heart, though murderers are told to do the same. When I can, I will pray that even they may hear the advice. When I can I will act from my convictions, taking my inspiration from all of you, all of you I have seen acting again and again with beauty and courage, with clear eyes and open hearts. 5
Love,
-Yarrow
Footnotes:
1
Robin Morgan's email "Week 1: Ghosts and Echoes"
2
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-dreher091601.shtml
3 Robin Morgan's email "Week 2: Redefining Normal"
4
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37557-2001Sep27
5 The last phrase is from Donald Engstrom.
The Rapid Emergency Shelter Taskforce is a group of people willing to provide emergency shelter to individuals who may be stranded, rendered homeless, living in a threatened zone, or the targets of hate crimes during times of national disaster or conflict. More information is available at http://www.outofthedark.com/REST/
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights maintains a Minority Assault Hotline at 1-800-552-6843.
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