Peace, the silent middle

I don't want to take sides. Despite the fact that you are often expected to.

You cannot say that both sides have losses, that both sides have pain, that both sides have their reasons.

You have to choose whose side you are ‘on’.

It's not that I don't see the injustice: I see what happens. I don't condone it either. Any injustice done to a being, any action against life, I disapprove.

But taking sides, in my experience, actually increases the division among us. And so does the injustice. Because from our 'rightness' we can no longer think in terms of equality.

If I have to choose, then I want to choose for everyone and everything, for equality, for together, for one.

I want to go from duel-ness to unity. I want to be a bridge, a mountain, the calm in the storm. I want to be the vision towards a new way of coexistence: living-together.

However difficult that may be, however unattainable that may seem.

I want to see where each human being comes from, see what wounds each human being carries, to see the humanity in each of us.

But yesterday, I heard hate above all.

And despite being told that hatred comes from not understanding each other, I realised it comes from deeper, much deeper.

Hatred comes from a sense of being overcome. Our ideals overwhelmed and swept away. The idea that "soon we will all be walking around with a headscarf".

Hatred stems from a sense of inequality, not mattering, not being heard.

While every life, of every being, is equally worthy. That's just how Gaia works.

Yet.

In our white, Western society, we have learned otherwise. For centuries, we have seen others as lesser. We snatched them from their lands, sold them into slavery, massacred them...

And we sought "a land without people for people without land."

But there were HUMANS living there.

It is time to settle that debt, set the past straight, to start a future together with new courage.

To do so, we have to SEE:

It is important right now to witness all the turmoil and unfairness in our world. The unfairness from all sides. Not only our pain, but also that which we have done to others, that what others do to each other.

If we do not see where it is crooked, we cannot change it either.

That is why I say to ALL sides: I see you. I see your pain, I cry with you, I cry for you, but also for me.

Because what happens to you also happens to me. What happens to you also has to do with me. With my past, my present and my future.

And for that, I have to open up, open my heart to feel into it. Laying my humanity alongside that of the other. Understand that in each our blood colours red, we breathe the same air, we live on the same earth, we have the same rights and obligations.

I therefore choose humanity. And Gaia. But above all, peace.

Real peace.

Peace is not the same as one wins over the other, we have been able to experience that for centuries: despite that 'peace' being created as a result, all sorts of things continue to rumble beneath the surface, hatred that needs to get out at some point: now.

No...

Real peace is healing, on both sides, with the same amount of commitment and help.

Real peace starts with understanding, from all sides, including putting our own house in order.

Real peace starts with forgiveness, from everyone involved, with the same courage and intention.

Real peace, one has to be first:

Let it be us.

Yesterday I drew this card from Crazy sexy love notes by Kris Carr and Lori Portka:

It says: Kick-start the healing process by surrendering all judgment and hurt. It seemed like a great card to use for this time and as inspiration for this text.

Namaste!

(The sacred in me sees the sacred in you)

Daphne