Nineteen children this time dead We are not at war We’re just having a normal day sending our kids to school Something is terribly wrong when nineteen children don’t come home and are shot to pieces instead So what the fuck do you think that is? It’s not mental illness It’s not that we don’t love our children It’s about making money and preserving power What will it take for us to realize that we really can be a loving and compassionate people? How to turn from the direction we are heading? What medicine cures the sickness now afflicting our politics? How to make politicians realize it’s in their interest to do whatever works to prevent further mass murder of children? It sickens me even to ask these questions. The answers cannot be to sell or buy more guns We are not going to ask that teachers be armed because no one else is standing up to protect our children. Nor can it be just offering thoughts and prayers There were 78 incidents of gun violence in our schools this year The answers are really quite easy We know what works to limit gun violence but it means electing politicians who think that controlling gun violence is worth the effort. Difficult to imagine that this would be a challenge for them or that it would not be worth doing WHATEVER IT TAKES! But there it is.
Author Archives: Carol Capper
Another Day of Murder
Filed under Prose and Poetry
We Are Little People
After all the seeming of our trying In an effort to make ourselves big and more important, more powerful more of whatever is more than what we have or what we are now We are still little people who are mortal. Every effort to compare and judge, each time we throw ourselves into competition with another, whatever we think we've won We are still little people who are mortal. When we objectify others, when we engage in war on them, when we rape, torture or kill We become even smaller, less significant and still very mortal. Want to know what makes us bigger? Basically Compassion and Insight are the tools that work best Compassion because it enlarges our Heart-Mind to include all other beings Insight because it grows our perception and understanding of how to be in relation with ourselves, all other beings and the Earth And that I believe is how we may change from always showing up as little people And sets us each on the path to become a Bigger Person though we still be mortal.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
But the Children…
A Ukrainian child died tonight. An abrupt shattering of a young life We should all mourn this sweet soul But before tears fall for this one innocent Look again - There's another shot and killed, one who has starved to death, another raped and murdered. And more. Sadly many more. How many you ask. More than enough One is too many and none can be explained away. How to explain the Corrupt Power that causes this to happen? What kind of hate kills children? I want to ask the Russian soldiers - What do you get from killing children? What is your reward? Do you really believe these are child Nazis? Do you have children of your own? I was a child during the Cold War times We hid under our desks in school during drills preparing us for a nuclear attack. I recall thinking if I could just talk to Khrushchev I might make him understand such a war should never be A child's fantasy Now in this time of Hot War I see that Corrupt Power does not listen to children Corrupt Power does not listen to anyone Corrupt Power hears only the hollow echo of its own voice. A Ukrainian child died tonight.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
The Intensity of Resolve
I can feel the energy of the words as I write this title as well as the weight they carry It's the energy of life and living from a place of intention It's the way I wake up every morning It's what I lay aside every night It's having a purpose even when I'm not certain what that is It's the solid ground within where seeds are sprouting It's even the doubting middle of the night voice that must be hushed back to sleep It's what my heart knows to be true even when my mind says otherwise And I love that I get to be all these parts of me driven by the intensity of resolve in living this fearsome and amazing life. Don't you?
Filed under Prose and Poetry
Speaking in Flowers
Soon enough I will be speaking in flowers Temperatures are shifting and I've seen the stems of daffodils poking through Won't be long now But there is no war happening here I can sleep undisturbed by Death dropping from the sky I can walk the streets and not fear vehicles of war blocking my way I don't need to seek shelter underground And God help me I don't have to take up arms to defend my country Yet my friends in Ukraine must do just that They be brave in ways you can't imagine I know they are a strong and passionate people I think of the woman offering sunflower seeds to the Russian soldiers She urges them to put the seeds in their pockets At least Sunflowers will grow when they all lie down here Then they are the ones who will be speaking in flowers And what will they say? Sorry for invading your country Sorry for bringing war to your doorstep Sorry we were just doing our job Sorry that what you have left are these flowers.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
Ground Work
Rememberings of this year past carry some weight and make it difficult to leap into the new year Does it help that we assign these demarcations dividing our lives into segments? Does it ease our path going forward or is it simply about giving ourselves another chance to make things right? Do we get to wipe the slate clean and write a new story Or are there other ways to bring the Past into the Present? I’d like to think the Past provides some ground work - In an almost literal way Living necessitates that we process what’s past so that it becomes fertile soil for regeneration Life isn’t the linear path we expected It does, thankfully, offer us a richness of opportunities to work the soil while we play in the dirt.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
Deep Time
In the time before Time when Earth was raw and Life was beginning… Can you imagine that far back? It might be good for your perspective to try It might help reduce the angst that you feel in your body You know what I’m talking about. A science teacher once told me that if you stand with you arms outstretched And consider the timeline of earth’s formation this way - Say the birth of our planet happens at the tip of the middle finger of your left hand and all the eons of growing and developing occur along the timeline of your outstretched arms; then the life of humans on Earth from the dawn of us until now, on that same timeline, would occupy just the tip of the fingernail of the middle finger of your right hand. All that history has preceded us, and Earth will survive with or without us. There are no guarantees. But we have evolved in the way that Earth’s energy has of moving life forward We are an extension of and dependent on this world around us That’s it. That’s all there is. And you can absorb that in a way that makes you feel small and insignificant, Or you can revel in the beauty of it - being connected to and dependent on such an awesome planet. The choice is up to you.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
Posture and Presence
How I hold myself is never simply a matter of body and bones and muscle It is also subject to what’s happening in my mind and what I’m feeling in my heart How am I being present to myself? Am I grounded and centered or caught up in some mind story? Am I feeling the heat of emotion pulling at my heart? Do I feel my feet on the ground? Am I focused on difficulties and challenges that lead me to “I can’t?” Or can I simply be present to what is and trust that I am really at home in this body And then settle into myself in a way that expresses the knowing that posture arises out of presence. Because the possibility of being truly present is what we have each moment of every day and every tomorrow as well.
Filed under Prose and Poetry
How We Heal
Ever really notice how the body heals itself? A cut or bruise or broken bones over time will be made whole And even when the healing results in a body that feels less than whole and we sense the loss of what used to be We can choose to move forward This body knows what to do If we allow it And while we may complain about how long this healing takes We can also trust that it will somehow do the best it can So what I wonder is why we often fail to trust the healing of wounds to our heart Or the list of damages our mind holds onto sometimes year after year Why not trust our heart-mind to make us whole or move us forward toward a place of equanimity? But always and only if we allow it
Filed under Prose and Poetry
Life is Just This
Somewhere between this is me and that is mine I fear we have lost our way We take possession of people and things carving out some personal space then build a wall around it Our connection to each other and all sentient beings diminishes Setting us adrift in our separate silos How do we reclaim what we’ve lost unless we can name it Until we can imagine beyond the complaints and disturbances of lives lived this way To step into a new story of who we are and how we are To seek our true relationship to one another To see our face before we were born Then sharing a glimpse of the richness that a well lived life can be Perhaps that day will signal a new way of seeing Our World and become the story we choose to live by
Filed under Prose and Poetry