See the Smoke, Exit the Wheel

Let's create peace together

A brazen murder — a health insurance CEO shot in the back, in the light of morning, while he walks to an investor conference at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Shock.

Condemnation.

Celebration.

Confusion.

Outrage.

Arguments about violence — the materiality of it, the immateriality of it, what actually qualifies as violence, what doesn’t.

Round and round we go.

I say enough.

Photo by Thomas Stephan on Unsplash

We’re not hamsters, folks.

So why do we keep choosing to re-commit ourselves to lifetimes full of running in place on these wheels?

Sure, we’re getting some exercise.

And we might feel like we’re accomplishing something.

But do we really want to be going nowhere?

Let’s bust out of these wheels!

Let’s stop these repetitive cycles...

… where harm... begets harm… begets more harm… begets yet more harm… and we suffer and suffer and suffer some more.

If we’re going to step off these wheels, we need to raise our heads up and look around us — to see beyond the myopic view we’ve had, while we’ve just been focused on not-tripping, while we forever run-in-place.

Let’s not be dense.

Let’s not act like the only form of violence is a material shove, or a punch, or a swipe or stab of a knife, or a shot of a bullet.

We know better.

We know that violence is far more than that.

We’ve all experienced immaterial violence.

What has it looked like for you?

In my experience, a material manifestation of violence is usually the last step — one following countless immaterial ones before it.

Before something can be visible to our human eyes, it has to first exist in a reality that our pupils can’t focus on, one we can’t touch.

Systemic realities are those that we can’t see, unless we’re actively looking for them — the invisible strands that weave human to human, group to group, determining how we relate to one another, who encounters who, who gets allowed through which gate, who doesn’t, and so on.

The systemic, thus, is spiritual.

Spiritual?

People mean many things when they use that word… but when I use it, within the context of this publication, I’m referring to energy and how it moves.

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The Energy of Violence and How It Moves

A CEO was shot and killed.

All of those who loved and relied upon him are now feeling pain.

At the same time, I can so clearly see how linked that pain and suffering is to the pain and suffering of our neighbors elsewhere.

People who shoot others are humans too. Some kind of pain and/or suffering is driving them to this behavior.

We know this, because killing another human is not a natural impulse, when we first arrive here as children.

The world as it is drives us to these acts, as we live in it and are harmed by it.

People who attack other people are inflicting their pain and suffering — realities that were inflicted on them, at some point — on others.

The cycle continues…

… and continues…

… where harm... begets harm… begets more harm… begets yet more harm… and we suffer and suffer and suffer some more.

As long as we’re still accepting the fictional story that we are individual humans, completely separate from every other human, this cycle will continue.

As long as we keep believing the lie that we can harm someone else without harming ourself and those we love, this cycle will continue.

As long as we don’t see the truth of the interconnected whole we’re a part of, this cycle will continue… and the wheels will keep spinning.

We can’t change the reality of continuous, cyclical, passed-on suffering, without addressing the well-being of the whole.

As long as suffering exists somewhere in our communities, it will continue to be passed on.

We are all connected.

We will all continue to suffer.

And remember: you might not initially be able to see that suffering.

Suffering will not always be visible.

And remember: violence does not just exist in a person-to-person format.

Violence will often not be visible.

When people experience systemic violence — like living in a community that makes it impossible for them to find and sustain safe housing, or to make enough money to support themselves and their families without stressing that the bottom might fall out at any moment, or to access food that is nourishing and healthy fuel for their bodies, or to access the healthcare that they and their loved ones need to stay alive and well — that is profoundly jarring to their sense of well-being, as any form of violence is.

They lose any sense of safety or peace. And they will respond like almost any human who experiences violence will: by passing it on.

Violence begets violence.

Hurt people hurt people.

Humans can’t live in peace when seeds of violence are the only ones being scattered around them.

So if we want to live safe and peaceful lives in this world, we need to grow equitable, well-integrated, well-resourced communities committed to the well-being of every single human living in them.

That is how we grow peace.

That is how we end violence.

That is how we all stay safe.

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Finding Peace, Safety

Safety has next-to-nothing to do with policing.

Or guns.

Or other weapons.

Most of our “solutions” to violence only perpetuate violence…

… and the wheels keep spinning.

Let’s exit the wheels we’re on, friends.

Let’s start to see and acknowledge smoke — that signal of a burning fire that can so easily disappear into the air before we’ve perceived it.

Let’s not be so dense that we believe only in a material, tangible reality… and completely ignore the immaterial ones.

Wood (solidly material)… starts a fire (less material)… which gives off smoke (even less material still). But all of these elements are part-and-parcel to the fire.

We stay on our hamster wheels when we don’t see or acknowledge the smoke…so the fires can just keep burning.

Let’s see the smoke, dear ones — so we can throw the waters of love, care, and interconnectedness in community on the fires.

Let’s exit the wheels we’re on.

Let’s stop running in place.

Let’s extinguish the fires, the cycles of violence.

Let’s find peace.

Together.

With Love,

Cecelia 💗