Wounds we carry within ourselves, that resonate with the outer wounds of 9-11, can be healed  -  thereby contributing to the healing of the planet, one person at a time.

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama was asked, "Why didn't you fight back against the Chinese?"

The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile, "Well, war is obsolete you know." Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, "Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you."

From Inspirational & Informative Thoughts after September 11, 2001 by Philip A. Kratzer
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GLOBAL CITIZEN: Living for Afghan Kids and My Own
By Elizabeth Sawi

Here in America it is daytime.

Here my baby mashes banana in her hair and talks about the moon. Moonnna. Mooonnnnaah.

Here my daughter, just home from preschool, holding a purple painting of a tree, pirouettes around the living room in a sunbeam.

Here my husband serves lunch -- warm potatoes with butter, parsley and basil. And the clear sky is blue, the maples are fire red.

On the other side of the earth (remember that single watery jewel against the backdrop of blackness?) it is night, and people are dropping bombs in the name of safety and freedom. In my name, and in yours.

I have been thinking about the mothers in Kabul (or Kandar or Jalalabad) whose babies were born on the same day in July as mine. Are they wiping tears in the dark and patting small, warm backs? Are they humming quietly to distract from the shaking of the ground?

I have been imagining the fathers, who must be trying to fit suitcases, and water jugs, and blankets into cars, or wheelbarrows, or onto the backs of donkeys.

And, I have been thinking about all the four-year-old girls with long, wavy, sleep-tangled hair, like my daughter's, who are awake in the night. I can almost see their eyes -- too wide and not blinking.

I do not believe that the bombs (five-hundred pound gravity bombs, computer guided bombs, tomahawk missiles, and cruise missiles) can avoid hitting all of them -- all the mothers, all the fathers, all the babies, and all the long-haired girls. I believe that some of them will lose their homes, some will be injured, and some will be killed.

Still feeling stunned by the erasing of six thousand American lives on September 11th, it feels so wrong to me that more innocent lives will be added to the count.

But, beyond sensing the injustice, how can I respond?
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From AlterNet October 15, 2001

Responding with anger and violence against violence creates and invites more violence. There are many more healing options.

You can refuse to participate in actions that are unhealing
On August 30, 1990, 22-year-old Marine Corporal Jeff Paterson refused to board a military plane in Hawaii heading to Saudi Arabia. He was the first active-duty military resister in the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. The photo of Jeff sitting on the airstrip, defying orders to go fight in the Gulf War, appeared on TV and in newspapers around the world. Later Jeff edited the Anti-WARrior newsletter of military resistance to the Gulf War. Jeff currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist.


Meditation and contemplation are excellent for healing, as suggested here. They not only offer roads to releasing stresses, but are avenues to transformation as well.

Joel and Michelle Levey, of InnerWork Techologies, Inc., Seattle, observe,
"If we can change ourselves, we can change the world. We are not the victims of the world we see, we are the victims of the way we see the world. This is the essence of Compassionate listening: seeing the person next to you as a part of yourself.

We need to discern the internal conditions which create war: the belief that we have nothing in common with the next person, the next group, or nation. As the Compassionate Listening Project has pointed out, when you approach a moment without judgement and can connect with the sacredness of the agency of each soul, we can transform the moment we can transform war into peace.

It is not too late to create a new world. Through Compassionate Listening we can create moments where we can evolve."

There are outstanding outer-world initiatives for healing.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Ohio, 10th District chairs the Progressive Caucus in Congress and recently introduced legislation to create a Department of Peace to make non-violence an organizing principle in our domestic and foreign policy, and to seek to make war archaic. The legislation is currently supported by 43 members of congress.

When we deal with our hurts, fears and angers in healing ways, we may see the world in a new, healing light.

                           
Next - 9-11 reminds us of others who deserve remembrance