Peace Through Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is an act of creation.  You can choose from many ways to do it.  You can forgive for now, forgive til then, forgive til next time, forgive but give no more chances, it's a whole new game if there is another incident.  You can give one more chance, give several more chances, give many chances, give chances only if.  You can forgive part, all of half of the offense.  You can devise a blanket of forgiveness.  You decide." 
 Clarissa Pinkola Estes

It is time…  Time for what you might ask.  Time to move on with our lives.  We marked the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 this past week.  The day was filled with nostalgic longing for the lives we lived in illusion before that fateful day.  Like every generation before us touched with unspeakable evil, our hearts were broken, our spirit wounded, our psyche ever watchful, our bodies burdened with the load of carrying the collective anger and fear we all have held onto since then.  We are not the first to experience times such as these. In my generation, my parents faced the evil of Hitler and Pearl Harbor. My grandparents had World War I with the horrors of mustard gas killing and maiming our sons and fathers and grandfathers.  Times such as these are not new to the human race.  Evil touching our human life stretches back through millennia.  What touches one of our brothers and sisters touches each of us.  We are one great ocean of human existence with each wave directly and indirectly  influencing every other wave in this ocean of humanity.  Like every generation before us, we are now at a point where we must make the important decision of whether we will continue to hold onto the bitterness and fear infesting our lives or do we acknowledge the bravery of many of our brothers and sisters on that fateful day and allow forgiveness to enter into our being.

It is the natural human tendency to hold on to our wounds.  Our collective wound , meaning one of great magnitude touching all our lives such as the one we as Americans suffered that fateful morning of 9/11, continues to be deep and fresh all these years later.  For our safety, we are surrounded with triggers and reminders that we are not safe simply because we live in America.  The illusion that we were safe because we were surrounded by protective oceans from the rest of the world was shattered.  The fundamental freedoms with which we had become somewhat complacent over were used against us that day resulting in the loss of our feeling safe within our own American community.   If you are old enough, you will remember a time when we ran into the airport thirty minutes before take off surrounded by family sending us off at the gate and carrying our extra large bottle of  Coca Cola for the trip.  This morning, I watched as my disabled daughter’s purse was deemed a possible threat and had to be emptied into a grey container while they searched through her used tissues, strawberry lip gloss, and two handfuls of pennies and quarters lying in the bottom of it.  You would have thought they were searching for Bin Laden himself in her purse with  the thoroughness with which it was searched.  So we are left wondering how do we learn to feel safe and hopeful with life post 9/11.

In my yoga class, we begin with the breath each time we gather.  We focus on breathing in and out, which brings us to awareness of the present moment.  We are reminded to forego the past for these few moments.  We are reminded to put the future into a trustful rest that it will take care of itself.   Our awareness of the present moment does not mean that we forget nor condone our past nor leave our future into the hands of other human beings.  It simply means that we are beginning to trust that all is right within our lives at this time.  We are safe.  We are unburdened.  We are free of distractive thoughts that have the potential to fill our minds and hearts with fear and anger and sorrow, leading us on a perilous journey of a life sans hope and joy.  When we are free within this present moment the Divine can come and make its presence known and felt in our hearts.  We can then bask in the holy, meditative quiet that is the Divine.  We can learn to trust that we are where we are meant to be, this moment. 

It is in this quiet moment within our practice, within our lives that we can find hope and forgiveness.  Forgiveness does not mean that we condone what happened to those innocent people in the Towers, the Pentagon, nor the airplanes on 9/11.  It does not mean that we are saying in anyway that what happened was good and from God and we deserved what we got that day.  Forgiveness does not mean we will look away and leave ourselves vulnerable for future attacks.  Forgiveness quite simply means that we will let go of our resentment that had things happened differently, our past would have been different as well the morning of 9/11.  Forgiveness means that we make a conscious choice to focus on today with the lessons we have learned from the past to keep us safe, but also to not dwell in our wound from what happened to our brothers and sisters on 9/11.  It means that we will remember with loving kindness our brothers and sisters who were faced with immeasurable evil on 9/11 and who fought the battle for each of us.  For part of our fear is the knowledge that any of us could have been walking the path that day that led to the horrendous ending of so many innocent lives.  We can forgive ourselves, also, if in our hearts we are harboring any thoughts of “thank God it was not me, my mother, my father, my son, my daughter….”  Through forgiveness of what happened to us, we can come to a place of healing within our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts, and our spirit.

Some of us might think that forgiveness means that we now lie in the bed with the terrorists and become their friends.  No!  Simply put, forgiveness does not mean what they did was alright and we are now friends.  Through forgiveness of 9/11, we are acknowledging our wound and blessing it.  We are moving on in hope and trust for a better tomorrow based in the reality of our connectedness with one another, rather than illusion that we are separate from our global brothers and sisters. 

The Buddha was once visiting a village.  There was a townsman in the village who did not recognize the Buddha and treated Buddha very badly insisting that he move on and not rest in his town.  Later, the townsman realized his mistake and ran out of the village to find Buddha.  When he finally caught up to him it was the next day.   “I am so sorry for how I treated you!” exclaimed the townsman.  “When?” asked the Buddha.  “Why yesterday, of course.”  Exclaimed the townsman.  The Buddha sat for a moment and then quietly responded, “I have no yesterday nor tomorrow.  Only today.”  And so it is for each of us in this crossroads.  We can make the conscious choice to maintain present to what is happening to us in this moment, living our lives fully verses reliving a past we cannot change.

Bono, of U2 fame, sings in Sunday Bloody Sunday,   “How long must we sing this song? How long?  Tonight we can be as one.”  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ&ob=av2n) So at this anniversary, the tenth, of 9/11 and all that was to come before and after, we are left with this same question.  How long is long enough to sing the song of  anger and fear at 19 misinformed, angry young men who were filled with such evil and violence that they did the unspeakable at the urging of their supporters?  How long will we hold anger and hate and fear in our hearts?  Can we come to that place in this present moment of conscious choice for forgiveness of what happened, not condoning, but allowing our being to be filled with hope for the future rather than grief for a past we cannot change.  “Have you found what you were looking for”  filled with anger, sorrow, shame, fear (U2.  I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1XXs7e7ac).  Are you  ready to forgive and move forward in this moment?  Can you learn to control the reminders and triggers so that you can create a life that is filled with hope and joy in this present moment.  It does not mean that we forget our loved ones that were lost that day.  It means we share a celebration of the lives that they lived, while allowing ourselves to heal and move forward.  In this healing, we begin to live a life not in illusion of our separateness, but in awareness and care for the greatest and least of our global brothers and sisters.  We sing a new song of today, this present moment.  It is time for us to "sing a new song." (U2. War http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9I9H2Y_lQA).  The heroes of 9/11 would not want us ton continue to be filled with anger, fear, sorrow.  This is not the legacy they would want to leave us.  They were brave and filled with love and longing for those they were leaving behind.  They helped one another in the most difficult of situations to pass over with dignity.  They would tell us to look towards life with an open heart, calm mind, loving spirit, and healed body.  In filling our lives with love and hope and joy and care for the least of our brothers and sisters, we can fulfill the legacy that they left for us.  It is not something we have to do alone, the Divine is with us each step.  Forgiveness is not something that is all or none.  We can forgive however and in whatever way is right for each  through our conscious choosing as to what each of our paths to forgiveness takes.  As each of us begins that path, we bring healing not only to ourselves, but to all in the ocean of humanity.  One wave at a time.

I will step onto this path of healing forgiveness for what happened ten years ago on 9/11. I will honor those who perished by living a life of hope and joy and love, rather than fear and anger and shame.


May you find peace and gratitude and forgiveness in every moment.
Namaste,
Joan

      

The Wounded Healer

"Imagine if you will, it is just before dawn and the sun is about to rise on the beach.  Some people have awakened early to see the predawn light.  The rest of the people are still sleeping on the beach.  Those who woke up early have a 'sacred responsibility' to help the other people as they begin to wake up to come to know what 'sunrise' is all about. "  Yacqui Shaman

"There's a gift in every wound.,
A blessing in every crisis,
A light in every darkness,
A love in every emotion."  Martin Lass

On November 1, 1977, a comet-like planetoid, named Chiron, was discovered by Charles T Kowel.  Chiron orbits between Saturn and Uranus, taking 50.8 years to revolve around the sun.  In astrology, Saturn represents the past as the task master.  While Uranus represents breakthroughs in the future.  Chiron lies between these two as the present moment teaching us to fulfull our ultimate potential
through healing and relationships.  In modern astology, Chiron profoundly stands for the deep wounds we each have in this life which we must heal in order to be able to help others heal.

In Greek mythology, Chiron was the son of Kronus (Saturn) a Greek god and a beautiful nymph, Philyna.  He was conceived in  a violent rape encounter in which Philyna had transformed into a mare and Kronus had pursued her as a stallion.  When Philyna is impregnated and bears Chiron, he is born as a centaur, a creature with the torso, arms, and head of a human and with the body and legs of a horse.  Philyna is disgusted and appalled that she has born a centaur as a son and abandons Chiron.  Chiron is later adopted by Apollo, the god of music, prophecy, poetry, and healing; who teaches Chiron all that he knows.  Overcoming his childhood wounds of parental abandonment and shame of his own body, Chiron becomes a mentor to sons of kings and Greek heroes as a wise teacher, healer, and prophet.  He later becomes wounded in trying to stop a raucous between a group of centaurs by being accientally shot by Hercules in the knee with an arrow that was coated with the blood of the monster Hydra.  Hydra's blood was known to create a wound that could never heal.  Since Chiron was an immortal, he was doomed to suffer the pain of this wound throughout all eternity.  Although a gifted and respected healer, Chiron could not bring healing to his own body.   He simply longed to die to end his pain.  After much suffering, Chiron agreed to trade places with Prometheus who had been punished by being chained to a large rock for giving the enlightening flame of fire from the gods to mere humans.  In agreeing to take Prometheus' place, Chiron was able to surrendar his immortality and die, ending his torment and suffering.  He was cast into the heavens, into the constellation of Sagittarius.  Thus, both Prometheus and Chiron were released.  Prometheus with his freedom and Chiron from his suffering through his death.  We can learn the key to healing through the myth of Chiron:  surrendar, acceptance, and release. 

Suffering, wounds come to each of us throughout our lives.  None of us are immune to fate.  We cannot chose the wounds that happen to us, they come.  However, we can chose our response to our wounds and suffering.  The Wounded Healer, like Chiron, is a person who has experienced their suffering whether great or small, gained the inner wisdom that such experiences teach us, and transformed this suffering into a healing power and inspiration for others.  The journey of our woundedness can lead us to a path of service to others.  Chiron might have sat around as the adopted son of Apollo repeating his abandonment story to any and all who might listen.  He could have worn his wound on his sleeve so to speak, disparaging his body, which did not look the way he thought it should.  He was a centaur, neither a model man nor a stallion.  Instead, Chiron learned what he could from Apollo and began to empathize with the suffering around him offering his healing skills to others.   Each of us have a similar path to travel.  We must chose whether to take our wounds and be a victim looking for the power that our wounds give us in terms of sympathy and attention from others.  We might chose the less traveled path of experiencing our wounds and learning what we must about ourselves to empower ourselves so that we might help others become self-empowered as well to trust that they can experience their own suffering regardless how painful and fearful that path may be for them.  As the great Helen Keller states, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.  Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." 

Chiron had a wound from the poison-tipped arrow which could never heal.  This wound caused tremendous torment and suffering for Chiron.  Despite all that he knew of the healing arts, he could not heal his own wounded body which had stood him well until this point.  Many of us can relate to Chiron's wounding.  There is terrible evil in this world and horrible things happen to many of us.  With a world filled with war, crime, poverty, rape, abuse and molestation of our most innocent youth, mothers in Haiti feeding "dirt cakes" to their children,  the stoning of men and women as "punishment" for alleged adultory in the Middle East...  As the Haitian proverb says, "A stone in the water does not know the suffering of a stone in the sun."  Neither can we know the depth of suffering which any one of our brothers and sisters must endure.  The term Chiron Wounding has come to mean that injury to our instinctual nature, a wounding of trust.  Often, this type of wound is the result of stupid, carelessness, a thoughtless accident or words spoken by someone we trusted.  It may be the result of great evil which unfortunately lives in the depths of humanity.  Regardless as to how this wound originated, this is a wound that never heals completely for the sufferer.  However, each of us has the ability to perservere and to work beyond our issues and not let our suffering define us.  We are more than our wounds.  We can resolve our sorrows and suffering of the past if we commit to staying awake and not allowing ourselves to dull or distract what we are experiencing with drugs, alcohol, overwork, compulsive shopping and sex... "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming of it."  (Helen Keller)   To overcome the evil and suffering in our lives. we must surrendar to it, accepting that it is a part of our past and therefore a part of our personal story.  Then we must consciously release the wound refusing to find power through it.  In this way, we become a healing beacon to our brothers and sisters in our family, our community, our world.  As a Wounded Healer, we begin to function in the world as a whole person out of wellness rather than woundedness.  We are able to empathize with the suffering of others and lead them to the path of releasing their own suffering so that they might join us in the joyful dance of life.  As Yoko Ono is quoted as saying, "Healing yourself is connected with the healing of others."

"The wounded healer knows that healing ourselves comes from our ability to empower our bodies, hearts, minds, souls, and spirits once more."  (Gabrielle Roth)  May each of us step into the world with bodies, hearts, minds, souls, and spirits empowered with love and wholeness so that we might help the least among us to find their path towards healing.

May you find gratitude and peace in every moment,
Namaste, Joan

Wounded Healer Quotes
If you wear black, then kindly; irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.  They are right.  It does.  However much you beg it to stop.  Alan Moore

We are called to offer to others the comfort we received from God.  2 Corinthians 1

Love is infectious and the greates healing energy.  Sai Baba

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. 
Leo Buscaglia

The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion.  The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well being.  14th Dali Lama

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.  Buddha

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature.  A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.  Harry Crews

You don't have a soul.  You are soul.  You have a body.  CS Lewis

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philophies.  Frederic Nietzche

Have patience with all things but chiefly have patience with yourself.  Do not lose courage in  considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them-everyday begin the task anew.  St Frances de Sales

A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life.  It is the tear from the injury of the oyster.   The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life.  If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we would not produce the pearl of our life.  Stephen Hoeller

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,  but sometimes your smile is the source of your joy.  Thich Nhat Hanh