PHOSPHORIMENTAL

Sadly, half as many more U.S. servicemen and women were killed on our own soil during the Civil War as were killed in World War II. I am certain in retrospect that not one loss of a single life in any war effected a change that wasn’t in some way deeply regretted. This regret ripples and amplifies through time. With little heed to it’s lesson. The biggest conflict in world history is that which teeters on the thin edge of our individual consciousness…balancing between what is in our hearts and minds and the power of the masses armed with bullets and bayonets … It is the political ideology of winning that makes the loss of life most easily accepted – we will forever lose the war – so long as a battle is won.

tis nothing if not heard

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“we so often lose sight of the truth through our fears…. so much so that our fears begin to create the truth for others. Your ultimate responsibility to the world is to be fearless… do this for me and my children and I will do it for you and yours.”

I wrote this in my mind as I listened to conversations among strangers, lamenting and wallowing in doubt and desperation over the economy, the environment, the socio-political state of the world. Not one action considered except to duck and cover…this fear is a contagious form of compulsion to do…nothing. Even when there is little to do, the willful choice to do nothing, to submit, is far worse. The fearless few need only undertake a little to embolden the masses to do more; even if it’s just a vote, a word of encouragement, or a Facebook post. The world is a chorus temporarily out of key….a few beautiful voices with a little more volume and the willful harmony of others will go a long way. Some just say, “QUIT YER BITCHIN!”

A friend accurately cautioned, that “…we need to be fearless for the right reasons. To be fearless for the wrong reasons can be unconscionable & sometimes outright dangerous. Embracing equality in my opinion is key. Awareness of when, why & how should be taken into consideration…”

And I thought a bit more…

I thought, “were the terrorists that flew jets filled with people into buildings filled with people, fearless.” Some might say they exhibited fearless “behavior,” but even if so, I think they were completely filled with fear…and not of dying. From early in their lives, they “feared” encroachment upon their inner values, they feared leaders, they feared the choices they faced between their moral values and those of others, who also feared. Sound minds, ill morals, and fearful to the point of being incapable of anything but loathsome reprehensible behavior – ironically carried out “fearlessly.” It is a personal, internal, moral, fundamental, and native choice within ourselves to be “fearless.” (aside from those with psychosis, who are fearless!) And I should have been more clear on that. My fear has brought me to many fearless choices…one made to take up arms against a foreign nation and culture that, albeit never visited, became representative of all my learned fears. The precise opposite of fear is fearless… and if the opposite of fear is love (which I choose to believe for myself), then love is fearless. And maybe that is the better message…

tis nothing if not heard

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Trust is the blend of belief and action…belief in motion, motion believed. It is not just given to another, but also earned and accepted with both emotional and intellectual acknowledgment. If trust were just a voice, it would mean little without ears to hear it. There are many forms of trust and each requires “self-awareness” before the “awareness of other.” Trust is a sphere, an ethereal world between two people with their own latitudes and longitudes of permitted change. A world, where secrets, promises and contracts are merely contrived words that approximate trust, but there is something immeasurable and beyond the bond. An indescribable glow in a snow framed window of a cold dark night; whenever you go there, no matter what, you just know they’ll be there too – you need not ask. To be entrusted BY another, you must show your true self to them and you must open your eyes to how they value themselves, their beliefs, their feelings – this is the real estate of their existence – with it’s gardens and shelters. It is the turning up of ones cards first – the boxer who first drops his gloves when the bell ends the round…they trust you, they can be trusted. It is not the revelation of a vulnerability with expected protection, but the demonstration of strength and capacity to protect. The seal of trust marks the gates of love…and even when love has run out between two people, trust is willing to remain. But, once out side the gate – love is lost, unremembered, unhonored.

tis nothing if not heard

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