Dear Friend,

We experienced another shooting recently, this one a doozy. I saw a map on Facebook showing a red dot for all the shootings that have happened since Newtown. I couldn’t get over how many red dots there were, and they were clustered close to the coasts, with the East Coast line extending almost down a vertical line from the Great Lakes. Amazing there have been so many just since 2012, which isn’t that many years ago.

What struck me about this shooting was 2 things: 1) the shooter(s) in most if not all cases targeted those who really aren’t conforming to the deep cultural beliefs that have been held for so long and 2) everyone’s up in arms, once again, demanding “someone do something!” about gun violence, but there’s not a whole heck of a lot of people stating that it’s time we all got serious and took a deep hard look within ourselves to see where we harbor violence.

Regarding the first point and looking at the macro level – those targeted for the shootings have been folks who are “doing things differently”. Folks who decided to help those in need, folks not conforming to gender and sexual societal norms, folks who still get to decide if they buy into the culture whole-heartedly (read: those under 10), people who fall into the “indy” crowd, etc. We never hear about a shooting of “old white men in suits”, those who are running companies and by and large the country, whether we like to admit it or not. When I think about this, it makes sense to me given the universal energies coming down into the Earth grids now. The Feminine is coming back, and strongly, after a long absence, and so it’s not surprising to me to see those who fall outside the narrow band of “acceptable” to the patriarchal culture becoming targets. The latest shooting, in Orlando, really struck close to home, so to speak, in the LGBT community – in the heart of a safe place for that community. It’s so important that we not fall into ourselves, that we not lose heart and just give up on “doing things differently” though. It’s by virtue of doing so and staying true to our hearts that we change the world.

And this leads me to my second point, in addition to staying true to our hearts; I really feel that to affect gun violence, to get it to reduce, it’s time for us collectively to start to admit to ourselves some uncomfortable truths. Things like – we all harbor violence in our own hearts and bodies. We truly cannot change things and this world without starting to hold onto ourselves and admitting that we are part of the problem. I don’t think people really understand that it’s not about BEING SOMETHING or DOING SOMETHING (i.e., launch a foundation, organize a rally, etc.), instead it’s about BEING HONEST to yourself – we are all racist, sexist, phobic, manic, etc. We are but a microcosm of what the world is and therefore it’s ALL within ourselves. The best way to address gun violence is to get comfortable (sitting, standing, laying down, etc.), get still (within ourselves) and get clear where we hold violence within ourselves. Is it in our own self-talk? Is it in our thoughts about our family? Is it in how we react to change? Is it in our reaction to these types of events (he should be put to death!)? Where is it?

The hardest part is the last part – one has to have a strong enough sense of self to be able to handle these uncomfortable truths. This is not for those emotionally equivalent to 9 year olds, who forget their dolls! It’s not enough to just figure out where it is – once we know where we are harboring violence; we need to then do the work to shift those areas to love. Such an easy thing to say – a simple sentence to write really – and sometimes, when one is ready to shift, it really is very easy. But for the rest of us, it can be much like recovering from a bad cold, a degree at a time.

From one goddess…