Ceremony of innocence

For no particular reason, I just felt like my (late) 4th of July post should include William Butler Yeats Poem, The Second Coming:

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It is easy to understand why this is one of the most anthologized poems in the English Language.  I just revisited this after reading a short story that quoted the line “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned”  I don’t know that I ever really appreciated the power of that phrase.  I don’t mean to harp on Iran, but I have never seen something like a revolution unfold.  And its facinating to me how social networking tools on the internet have brought the revolution to my family room.  I watched a clip of the moment a woman died.  It didn’t show the fatal injury happening, just the woman lying on the street and you saw the moment her eyes went from living to dead.  Dying is one of the most sacred moments, so out of respect I don’t want to link that video.  But I felt so privilaged to see that, and I understood I think more after seeing it the trauma in the words of Yeats in the aftermath of WWI, how it could easily feel that a blood-dimmed tide was drowning the ceremony of innocence.  I love writing that gets me to feel emotions, even if they are dark ones.  Especially if those dark emotions give me a glimpse of what it is to be caught up in the historical momentum of the “widening gyre” of freedom, peace, apathy, war, freedom.  Why doesn’t the center ever hold?  And why is it that war is always so awful, we assume it must be signaling the second coming?

I remember so many years ago when the first Iraq war broke out hearing people talk about the inevitability of the Second Coming.  And look what else has happened since then.  Men have shot at innocent women and children trying to get food.  People flew airplanes full of innocent men women and children into the world trade center.  A war is being conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight.  The financial structure of this country is co lapsing on itself.  Things can get a lot worse.  There are many more ways for the ceremony of innocence to drown…

So I guess the point of bringing all this up is that… its been almost 100 years since Yeats wrote that poem.  I probably don’t understand it, but it feels like someone in shock from a horror to me.  But I think that innocence is reborn every day.  It has not been one long show of bloodshed and dispair for 100 years.  And yet, I think every era in-between can relate to this poem.  So I guess the beauty of it is that we can come back from the horror of seeing death come over innocense.  We can come out every July 4th and watch the wonder in our children’s eyes as they watch the colorful lights flash in the firework displays.  There is something that makes this all worth it.  There is something that makes us all keep going.  And there must be something that makes a soldier keep on fighting.  People keep signing up for it every day.  Not just the military, but parenthood.  Marriage.  Building famlies.  All these things that push humanity forward.  When I think about th 4th of July, I think about the contrast of overcoming horror and the beauty of rebirth.  The idea that things could get a lot worse does not thrill me.  But I’m not going to allow myself to be horrified either.  Every night brings the dawn.  If things get worse, than at some point the rising of the Son will be all the brighter.

Happy Belated July 4th, to everyone who appreciates freedom.

I believe that the freedom is a gift from the Almighty

In the third presidential debate with John Kerry, President Bush said the words “I believe that freedom is a gift from the Almighty” and I got chills.  I think it was one of the most powerful things President Bush ever said.  And he said it with authority.  Lately all things political annoy me too much to try to care about.  I’m just keeping my head down because I thought maybe it doesn’t really matter in the end.  But then I started reading about the protests in Iran and I remembered why it matters.  Freedom is a gift from the Almighty.  And people have always recognized that.  People have always fought for freedom and died for freedom.  Why is that?  What makes freedom so important to people across all religious and political lines?

In case you are hiding under a rock, the jist of the Iranian conflict is: An election was held and last Friday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, a lot of Iranians are crying fowl.  From the Los Angeles Times

Days after Khamenei blessed the election of Ahmadinejad and urged Iranians to rally behind the president, the spokesman of the Guardian Council urged Mousavi’s supporters to wait for the “final results” of Friday’s election until after the fraud investigation, which will begin today.

For some reason the people of Iran have lost faith in the political process, for some reason, a lot of Iranians do not believe that a rigged election can be fixed through any kind of “fraud investigation”.  Hmm.  So, despite being threatened with beatings or worse a million people took to the streets (from the same article)

Monday’s crowd — estimates of which ranged to more than 1 million — defied Interior Ministry warnings broadcast on state television and radio that anyone showing up would be beaten or worse, and even ignored Mousavi’s last-minute call to cancel the event.

The protesters found out about the rally despite a media clampdown that brought the shuttering of numerous opposition websites, including those linked to Mousavi, the jamming of satellite news channels and the shutdown of text messaging systems.

In an attempt to help keep information flowing, a Twitter co-founder wrote in a blog Monday that the company had delayed an important maintenance operation.

Yeah, seems to me that if a government is threatening violence to its own people for speaking out–they probably aren’t going to take a fraud investigation very seriously.  So all kinds of people came out.  They came out to Azadi [Freedom] Square.  To quote some of the folks quoted in the LAT article,

“I am fed up with the rigging of votes,” said Nargess Hassanpour, a 24-year-old architect. “I had never voted until last Friday. I am here and I march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square as far as I can reach, and let come what may.”

and

“If I died today it would be perfect,” said Hossein, a 60-year-old retired schoolteacher in the crowd who didn’t want to be further identified. “The nation of Iran has woken up.”

and (this is a chant, not a direct quote, but still)

As night fell, people ascended to their rooftops and chanted “God is Great!” in what is becoming a nightly ritual of protest against Ahmadinejad’s reelection.

And this is what it looks like:

I don’t know why freedom and blood go hand in hand.  I guess it is because our blood is the most precious commodity we have.  Exchanging blood for the concept of freedom, of a free election, of personal freedom is the most powerful way to say that freedom is indeed a gift from God.  And anyone who tries to come between that gift and people who recongize its worth will eventually be defeated.  I believe that.  There is a lot of evil in this world.  And for the purpose of this article I’m defining evil as any power that seeks to take away liberty.  It happens all over the world in many different ways.  I have no doubt that eventually freedom will prevail.  Until then I will always be inspired by those who stand up and give everything they have to make it happen.

Some Pictures

My crew walking to the cemetary on Memorial day

Asher planting a flag

Hila

Gabe looking pained

Hannah being a cutie.

All the kids at the zoo.

Tali-Ho!

Fun sea lioin playing with us.

Me and Hannie on the tram.

First There

The best special forces.  The perfect combination of hardcore and intelligence.

The value of blood

We will spend part of Memorial day following a tradition I started when I was in High school.  Ever since I was 16 I have decorated the graves of the men who have served in the armed forces during a war.  Its not much, just a little flag, and just a little token.  And in the cemetery that I have adopted, I’m not sure any of those people actually died in a war.  But its about teaching my children to respect something that I have somehow come to respect.  The value of blood.  Of putting one’s life on the line in the service of our country.

I can’t say exactly how this became so important to me.  My dad was in the military.  My grandfather was in Vietnam.  I suppose growing up with that legacy made me respect the proud history of the United States military.  Right now I have a renewed awe for service men and women.  I read Mark Bowden’s book about the 1993 battle in Mogadishu.  The description was thorough, Bowden spends dozens of pages describing moments of the battle.  My dad knew two of the men who were there.  Air Force PJ (elite medic) Tim Wilkinson and Combat Controller Dan Schilling.  After I read Bowden’s book, I saw on Amazon that there was a book of first-hand accounts that included the accounts of Wilkinson and Schilling. (The Battle of Mogaishu: First Hand Accounts of Task Force Ranger)  Wilkinson was in a team that fast-roped in to help the first downed Black Hawk.  He was among the 99 men who were pinned down over night.  Wilkinson risked his life three times running into heavy fire to retrieve medical supplies to treat the wounded.  Schilling was part of the “lost convoy” who drove around in the hostile city getting shot up until there were more wounded than not.  The convoy made it back to the UN base, unloaded the wounded and dead and then immediately rearmed and prepared to go back out.  One of the comments that Wilkinson made in his account was that its easy to get a man to go into combat the first time.  But the real heroes are those who have gone the first time and then willingly go back in again.  He talked about how in the World Wars, those soldiers were in combat for months on end.  It wasn’t just one night for them, but a droning hellish reality.

I don’t think we can comprehend what that is, even after a hundred books on the subject. These men don’t feel like heroes.  And in fact, in the mind bending brutality of war, there are wounds that don’t ever heal.  There are things that can’t be spoken of.  There are things that defy description.  Men that come back from war, even without shedding blood–they’ve paid in their blood.  You can’t know and see things without it becoming a part of your body.  The trauma is fed minute by minute, day after day with precious, nourishing blood.  I believe our stories lie dormant in our blood.  As attributed to Plato at the beginning of the movie Black Hawk Down, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

So every Memorial day, I take my children to a cemetary that is just down the road from the house I grew up in.  Nobody I know is burried there.  Nobody even distanly related to me is burried there.  But you can see on the grave markers to symbol, a cross in a circle.  And most have the war they fought in inscribed on their stones.  I pay respect to these men.  They are only men in our cemetary.  It is symbolic.  In paying respect in that place, I am teaching my children the value of blood.  We won’t know the end of war in our lifetime.  We’re not even close.  But I believe, if we could just try to comprehend the sacrifices.  If we could multiply them millions of times over.  If we could even try to comprehend the enormity of what has been done in the name of freedom… if we could comprehend the pain and sorrow of mothers and of wives whose loved ones paid in blood… I’d like to believe we might get closer to seeing the end of war.  That could take a lifetime.  Maybe it always has.

Lithium and water

When I got married, nearly 12 years ago, I somehow lucked out and married the perfect man for me.  I’m saying its luck, but it probably has more to do with divine intervention or what some people might say the right alignment of stars.  I am serious. Ever noticed how knowing people makes you better aware of yourself?  Have you ever tried to map out the relationships you’ve had with other people and how they formed you, how the changed you or how they completely burned you out?

This idea came to me in the form of chemistry.   I don’t know how I’m not a chemist.  But, that is what people call it.  Chemistry.  The way we blend in to one another, the way we react to one another.  Sometimes its volatile, sometimes its a subtle poisoning.  Sometimes is a flash burn.  Sometimes its a slow burn.  But if you are lucky, like me–the elements are mutually respectful and tend to enhance and preserve one another.  Every single male I was ever interested in before I met my husband was the same.  Very artistic.  I am artistic, so it makes sense.  But I think the effect of two artistic people coming together is like lithium in water.  Immediate fireworks, followed by a slow burn-down.  Its easy to see why that is exciting and wonderful.  How one could get hooked on the chemical reaction.  But it doesn’t last.  It can’t last.  Just think about it.  Can you think of one artist-artist couple who survived?  I can’t.  In our society, we’re attracted to the flame. Its what we think love is, because that is how its been translated.  Even at 19, I saw the value of arranged marriages.  Of putting elements (man and woman) together in a way harmonious with the stars, instead of letting them attract each other and watch the reaction.  Just look how unsuccessful this is, usually.  Most of the time, really.

When I met my husband, something moved inside my soul.  I didn’t recognize it as love.  Because loving–to me–always meant fireworks.  With my husband it was something cool and penetrating.  I am water.  When he settled into my mind, my thoughts, it moved me.  The way that a stone dropping into water moves water.  Not steam and fire, just concentric circles radiating outward to the shore.  The energy was gentle, I didn’t understand it at first.  Now I do, and I’m so grateful.  I’m grateful for the powers that moved us together.  I’m grateful that I knew–even without knowing.  We lie together warming and cooling with the earth and its as it should be.  Beautiful, sustainable, lovely…eternal.

Lately, I’ve been brought out of the literal world.  Into a litterary world.  I’m seeing things that I would have missed before, just because I am sensative to powers that are invisible.  Ideas, emotions, the stars, attraction.  Languages of blood and electricity.  There is an explanation for everything, I’ve learned.  The answers are not as exciting as the questions, if you know what I mean.

Thanks, Melin, now its in my head too.

Weezer: Island in the Sun: Spike Jonze

This is why Tom Waits shouldn’t sing Tom Waits’ songs

I’m sorry, I just don’t get why people are so loyal.  His voice is creepy, homicidal creepy.  It has always made me think of a cross between a slobbering bulldog and cookie monster.  This works.  I get his music this way:

Jai Ho!

I’m not going to justify myself.  I’m just saying… it was so worth it.  I’d see it again.  I will see it again.

Easter Pics

Hannie saying “Cheese!” in her easter dress

Easter Dresses

Easter Basket discovery

Handsome Gabe

Kids in their Easter clothes

Hannie will tell your fortune!

Hannie hunting eggs in her princess dress

Me and Hannie hunting eggs

Hila’s favorite thing from her basket–a rat.

The kids after hunting eggs at Mema’s