Rising from the Ashes
In the past week, we have all been muted, dumbfounded with powerlessness and terror at the unmitigated violence unleashed upon innocent citizens doing service on this planet in their own quiet way. There is nothing that can be said to soften the blow of this tragedy; it is simply horrible. For a while, as the world careened into madness, we wondered for the first time in nearly a century if our nation would stand.Suddenly, we understand better the world our parents and grandparents grew up in, experiencing the World Wars, fearing for the lives of their sons and daughters, wondering if they’ll come home broken or come home at all.
We have all been “put in our place”, a place of vulnerability which is the reality behind the illusion that we are beyond harm in the United States (or wherever we are). It has made us aware of our mortality.
If it has brought fear, it has also made us appreciate life more. Suddenly, we want to live life more fully, more considerately with others. We appreciate the good qualities in the partner whose negative qualities filled our eyes a week ago. We thank God/dess (plug in your own term here, you know what I mean) we are alive, that others we know are unharmed, but of course, some of you who are reading this are not unscathed. In fact, we are all touched; we all at least know someone who knew someone, in this six-degrees-of-separation world. And for those whose lives are directly affected, no words can console—only faith, love, and time can bring healing.
Within this context, perhaps it is too soon to see the good in what has happened; but if we don’t it has gotten the best of us. The terrorists would have achieved what they wanted. So it is with both joy and sadness that I point to the good that is already emerging from the rubble.
For many years now I have felt concern, sadness, and powerlessness as I have watched the social deterioration of our melting-pot culture. This is something that has spanned all subcultures and ethnic categories in the U.S., although individuals of every group have been notably immune to the process. This is the growth of a preoccupation with material comforts—with financial wealth. It has eroded our value system terribly, and it has created a careless disregard for the lives and livelihood of others. I have seen it in the ads and commercials, in the programming on TV. I have seen it in the emptiness expressed by teens who have nothing to live for but a new lipstick or the latest hot pair of shoes. I have seen it in the driving patterns of fully 1/3 of the drivers on the roads here in southern California, where SUVs are the latest instrument of traffic terror and display of wealth. I have seen it in the deaths of so many young people driving without care for the lives they hold in their hands. It had become very competitive; there was no reason to hold together, to find power in unity with the masses. The masses were something in the way—in the way on the road during the long commutes to work; in the way to getting the job that guarantees wealth and so must surely bring happiness; in the way to get the top slots at the college campuses; and in the way at the shopping malls where we scramble to spend the money we don’t quite yet have. Worse yet, our elections have become popularity contests, and the winners are almost always the ones who bombard us with the most advertising, as if we are automaton zombies going mindlessly to the polls. And worse than that is the fact that so many of us don’t vote at all.
Now, in the blink of an eye, all that has changed. The first thing I noticed, in my relatively cosseted position in southern California, was that everyone was quieter, more polite. People became more civilized. It’s as if we didn’t want to be associated with anything uncivilized, as well as that we were all looking inward, coping with our own shocked sense of humanity. Even now, a week later, while some people have gone back to their road rage and other bad behaviors, I think most of us still have our priorities straight, and even those whom I have seen in blatant displays of ego get back on track, I hope, after observing the effects of their tantrums on the world around them.
The current pattern of centered altruism may not last long, but I hope it does. I believe firmly that it exists at the core of every human heart, no matter how jaded the previous behavior. I don’t think this is a purely American quality, and I hope it is not. In fact, I think that every world citizen is currently united in his (or her) horror of this senseless violence and the desire to affirm life.
Many people have remarked to me on the similarity of the image of the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks and that of the Tower card in the Tarot. Just as the images strike a chord of resonance, so too should the lesson and universal law associated with the card. It is also the lesson of Hexagram 51 of the I Ching, “Thunder”. Each of these sources of spiritual guidance teaches that shock is instructive, indeed essential, in our spiritual growth process. (While we do not seek shock and the Universe does not seek to provide it for our growth, it does occur and so we can—cannot help but—grow from it.) With the Tower, the shock comes from the revelation of truth, which this certainly was. The I Ching provides a slightly different context for the same lesson. In its view, awareness of the truth is what we all seek and already exists within our hearts. Our task is to uncover it and live by it, with the help of the Sage and the Higher Power. What prevents us from knowing and living the truth is the ego, which attempts to sit at the throne of the Self, feeling that it has our best interests at heart. Carol Kay Anthony, in A Guide to the I Ching, interprets the original text to say, “Shock is good!” This is because, when we experience shock, the ego is (temporarily) unseated from the throne of the Self, and the True Self gets its chance to rule our actions without mask or scheme. When this occurs, we are in our center (in the tao). It tells us that this is essential to spiritual growth: Each time we are shocked, the ego is unseated a little more easily, and the True Self assumes the throne for a little longer, until eventually it takes very little to shock the ego away, and the True Self is essentially in control.
This is what I believe I have seen in the aftermath of this tragedy. People on the streets of New York giving away food, or shoes to women in high heels who (thankfully) had to walk home. Rescuers working to beyond exhaustion; and everyone who can, praying that this stops. It has led us to cling to the truth, to each other, and to our own version of the Higher Power, which is the place where true existence and true safety lies.
I have found particular comfort in the words of Anna Quindlen in this week’s Newsweek (Sept. 24, 2001):
“Amazing, isn’t it, the sort of plotting and scheming and careful planning that the blazing belief in violence to underscore demagoguery can produce? Amazing, isn’t it, that without any plotting or planning at all the notion that we are essentially alike leads human beings to rise up and, even stumbling about in the darkness of horror, do what is necessary. Blood donations, bags of sandwiches, secondhand clothes, e-mail messages, casseroles, prayers, embraces. Evil requires careful machinations. Good does not.”
I pray that these words do not fall amiss for those who happen upon them, and I affirm that good will prevail.
