Imbolc

Erik Jampa Andersson sent out an interesting piece about this transition time between Winter and Spring. He talks of a time of quickening, that is also a liminal time. The use of the work "quickening" is interesting as the Grandfather Oak (AKA King Oak) said, "It's time to wake up!" I hear it in the increasing birdsong and see it in the leaves of the honeysuckle.

But perhaps what I most appreciated in this article was a section on rage:

[R]age that is rooted in hatred is quite different from rage that is rooted in love. The former is hard, bitter, and admittedly somewhat easier to process somatically. Anger is intrinsically active, and can even feel cathartic and empowering, effectively displacing more difficult and introspective feelings like sadness. But for righteous rage to emerge out of love, we need to open up to the highly unpleasant experience of grief.

I think this is very wise. Because we seek to evade grief, which is unpleasant and vulnerable, we allow the rage that we feel to arise from hatred, from the sense that the other is wicked and morally bankrupt, rather than acknowledging their human frailties or focusing on the sadness we feel at the harms they cause.

In fact, I think this is one of the most important lessons: to feel anger not through a sense of moral righteousness and hatred and superiority, but by allowing oneself to attend to the pain of those suffering.

In the end, it is less about being right than preventing or alleviating pain, damage, destruction. It is not about attacking the wrong-doer but protecting and healing or honouring the victim.

Nonviolence is, for me, an attitude of mind as much as a statement of what actions one will or will not engage in. The violence of language and of hatred are as much to be avoided as the violence of action.