Yesterday I was irritated and desperate for space, feeling as though I would snap, or attack if anyone came too close. Neighbourhood sounds seemed very intrusive, (or maybe I was using energy I normally use in keeping the sounds out to hold myself together). It was Hiroshima Day, the Croats were marching jubilantly into Krajina. The day before, on TV, I had seen shots of the police holding back members of the public as they surged towards the car carrying the killer of 7 year old Sophie, to and from the court at Llandudno. This morning a flotilla of small ships with an escort from the New Zealand navy, is sailing towards Mururoa Atoll, attempting to disrupt the French nuclear testing.
Robin Hanbury Tenison (founder of Survival International), speaking on Radio 4's On Your Farm.. .which I listen to when I'm awake early on Sunday mornings....said he thought we might JUST manage to save the planet from destruction, if we worked hard enough at it.
I noticed my thoughts and feelings when witnessing each of these news or media items. In the end I felt baffled and almost paralysed and in touch with a part of me that says "Stop thinking about all these tragedies, and the end of the world, or you won't be able to carry on, you'll just want to lie down and die". Thats when I retreat into irritation and control/attack mode. I wondered if I could give myself a break from the news for a while, so that I could get my feet back on my path and get on with being alive and doing my work, which in better moments I believe does make a difference. (Being a psychotherapist is my way of attempting to understand love and hate , these polarities which tear us apart).
I remember writing about the Reivers a couple of months ago, and the root of the word bereavement. The Krajina, Serb against Serb conflict seems very much a "reiving" type of conflict . I'm aware, as I catch myself thinking thoughts like "Oh, for Gods sake just leave them alone to slaughter each other, another humanitarian crisis....well what do you expect"! This is the reiver in me. I understand that my irritation and desire for revenge (part of me admits to feeling a moment of glee that the Serbs are getting bashed for a change, television presentation makes it possible not to experience the pain), is only a different place on the same love hate continuum. I have those same destructive impulses. "There (to Krajina, to Hiroshima, to wherever the violence is) but for the grace of god, go I".
So, as I begin this written investigation of the reiver in me, I start to move from a cut off, hostile state, where I can make other beings into objects and dehumanise them, to a realisation of what's going on underneath. I find permission within myself to grieve and to start to flow again; coming back into subjective relationship with myself and hence with others.
Could we forgive ourselves if we knew now that we had irrevocably damaged the planet? Can we forgive the premeditated instantaneous destruction of more than 100,000 people with one bomb? Any people with any bombs? Can we forgive anyone who murders or assaults children or who tortures prisoners of war i? What's the point of attempting to? Can I forgive myself for my own callousness?
Radio 4 again. One recent speaker on Thought for the Day made the point that it maybe incorrect to think of Jesus as having forgiven those who were crucifying him. What he actually said was "FATHER forgive them". Maybe, this speaker said, Jesus knew that he wasn't capable in that moment, of forgiving, but "God" could.
At times like yesterday, I feel as though I am "logged on" to the collective, in a way which makes it hard to function, so that I want to shut it out and the beauty and joy of life gets shut out with it. I wish that I could pray or meditate, and increasingly I use writing as my way of returning to flow, to a sense of actually being able to exist in this world....of keeping myself sane perhaps. This is how I explore my way of forgiveness, (Interlink at this point????). It's not about forgiving the acts, because I don't, none of them, it's about allowing myself to move from a fixed position and let go of trying to control. The world isn't as I want it to be. In this process I allow a softening and yielding to something which is wider than my mind trying to control and understand, or my heart trying to encompass it all. Perhaps it's the collective heart, the part of each sentient being where we are not separate, just as we are not when we hate.
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