Memorial Day: The reality

By Tova Gabrielle
Online Journal Contributing Writer


May 29, 2006, 01:12


What meaning can I make of Memorial Day, this year? Today I remember those who died and who continue to die for no reason.

I need no special day, however, to recognize and grieve this reality. How can I ever forget? I feel it all the time: the insanity of it all. The feeling of my country being taken over by what can only be described as evil: the tricks of our Capitalist government and its crony crooks who are systematically destroying our country and the middle east.

How to fight this ominous and pervasive war machine, this awful sickening consciousness which emanates from our so called leadership? And where to flee to from the horror of the last 5 years and dread of our future?

I told a friend this morning, that as much evil as there is in the world there is far more beauty. I find the sweet spring air blasting me in the face when I step into the natural world, screaming to me in birdsong and blossom, that THIS is reality.

So what is the corporate war machine doing in MY gorgeous world, anyhow?

I awake daily into this weird science fiction movie and yes I feel powerless, that it's all too much for me. I see my aunt going to play Bridge daily with her girl gang and it's no different from me sculpting or drawing until 3 am. I'm just trying to connect and feel better and maybe offer a different vision, a different state of being.

Playfulness. Love. Joy. Connectedness. These are words that never leave our leaders' lips, but realities we all crave, nonetheless: to love and to be happy.

But what can I write about vets today and another world within this world in which I live, that is against every fiber of my intuitive being? The enemy is invading: it is a lethargy that wants to stop me from writing or being with others.

Sometimes I think of the Native Americans who stopped running from and stood up to the white men even though it meant their lives. Or the lone wolf who bears it's jugular to it's enemy and in so doing causes the enemy to loose its aggression. What can we do? I really don't want to hide my head in the sand.

It is easy sometimes to have a death wish, we all have both life and death urges. But it's not courageous to want to die, it's an act of fatigue and it's letting them win. But if I continue to choose life, then where do I get refueled so that I can stand up for life and for what is good?

Ghandi said to be the change you wish to see in the world. By doing it just by being creative, by being it by connecting with others, even when I don't think I have anything to offer. By keeping on and going through this eye of the needle.

I have never known an abuser to not self destruct in the end and so how can the greedy phantom not eventually come to it's own end, if not simply by being so out of touch with reality and being so full of hubris. That was what finally destroyed Hitler: he overestimated his power and lost track of what was happening and when the invasion of Normandy occurred, he failed to protect his troops.

So are we just living through the fall of an empire? If the system is to topple, it would not do so QUIETLY.

The greed gods of the world are terrified of us little people and our potential to foil their grandiose plans to colonize the world and space. This is why they must want to track and spy on us. They must have so much to hide, including their complicity in 911. They scramble for smokescreens and mirrors.

Are they the Wizard of Oz about to be humiliated in front of the world? Can they become an impotent laughing stock? Can love and reality and truth win? I wonder: how can it not?

My personal sphere of life is a microcosm of the larger world. In this sphere of personal experience I have found that there is no way to eventually avoid this emergence of reality, and our true natures. What else is there?

Tova Gabrielle's articles, short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous publications. She also has worked as a psychotherapist and substance abuse counselor. Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal



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