I so agree with you, Rob. This atrocity has changed me - especially because our own government - democratic President has supported it. I will NOT be silent!
oops sent too soon...I was going to say that I will not be silenced by accusations of anti semitism, accusations that only encourage militarized zionism’s genocidal campaign in Gaza (and just wait, the West Bank is next). Ive seen with my own eyes the way Palestinians are treated. I know enough about colonization as we in Canada are expected to apologize to indigenous people at every public event and yet to decry the ethnic cleansing going on now against an indigenous people is ONLY anti semitic. theres a lot more to this and I think it has a lot to do with out of control immigration of Muslim populations in Europe.
Keep speaking up, Rob! Thank you for the reminder about being aware of outrage morphing into a fixed idea of the other being evil. Well, we're seeing it constantly, almost everywhere in the media on so many subjects at the moment - but I do sense in myself this time more of a questioning of what is really going on specifically behind Judaism and it's not pattern of thought I want to take further. The pull of divide and rule is so strong and it's as if forces out there will just keep at it from all sorts of different angles until we're all drawn in. Being aware of this and stepping away from it is perhaps the most important things we can do. And it does have this feeling of being a force that is not Nature's force - it's something else.
Yes. I think the trick is to care for and advocate for the victims, but not get pulled into the cycles of hatred. The only thing I find that calms me down and helps me see clearly is time spent out of the human realm in nature. And yes, the impulses driving the carnage in Gaza are not from nature. "It's something else," as you say.
As always, Rob, thank you for your conscientiousness, your talent, and the labor that it takes to express your beautiful heart. I’m not sure, however, that “the more we disconnect from the living world, the less grounded we become, and the more susceptible we are to our human extremes and ideologies.” is accurate. It seems that it ought to be true, but humans in tribes were connected to the earth for a million years. Us and them is part of a world view that holds tribal cultural together. In the catastrophe of Gaza, it’s still this tribalism that determines much of the horror. How to be grounded without the ideology of “us and them” ? I think it’s far easier to practice loving kindness as an individual than it is as a society. Is it that we are all droplets in the ocean, and when enough droplets hold the value that the other is myself the ocean will change? I don’t know. Thank you for your practice.
Thank you, Jeff. You've elegantly raised some important points, especially "I think it's far easier to practice loving kindness as an individual than it is as a society." A lot to think about there, especially when individuals find themselves in the massive, highly technologized societies we have now. And it's easy to romanticize nature, which I tend to do. But I still have this sense that whatever decency and kindness we possess ultimately derives from nature, and as we lose nature we lose that moderating influence. Certainly, the colonizers of the Americas encountered tribes that fought against each other, but that violence was nothing compared to the violence delivered by their Judeo-Christian, human supremacist worldview, a worldview which places nature below the human. I still think the more we disconnect from the more-than-us, the more susceptible we become to derangement. I feel like we're seeing it now on the internet and in Gaza.
Rob, I agree with everything you say. Humans are nature. Kindness and cruelty derive from nature, in humans, an aspect of our frontal lobes—in conjunction with everything else. That humans have developed weapons that can destroy all of us, despite how unnatural they feel, derive from nature. That humans can use those weapons to terrorize whole populations derives from nature. No question the view of massive exploitation has been most practiced and refined in cultures with capitalistic, Bible-based ideologies. Which more and more seem like the seeds of our and many other—collateral damage—species’ extinction. I’m afraid these destructive ideologies and practices also derive from nature. Then again, what doesn’t? Where in this universe is nature not?
I so agree with you, Rob. This atrocity has changed me - especially because our own government - democratic President has supported it. I will NOT be silent!
Thanks, Kathy. Your point about our own government is an important one. I've known few people who are so basically kind as you.
I wont
Thank you, Sharon.
oops sent too soon...I was going to say that I will not be silenced by accusations of anti semitism, accusations that only encourage militarized zionism’s genocidal campaign in Gaza (and just wait, the West Bank is next). Ive seen with my own eyes the way Palestinians are treated. I know enough about colonization as we in Canada are expected to apologize to indigenous people at every public event and yet to decry the ethnic cleansing going on now against an indigenous people is ONLY anti semitic. theres a lot more to this and I think it has a lot to do with out of control immigration of Muslim populations in Europe.
Keep speaking up, Rob! Thank you for the reminder about being aware of outrage morphing into a fixed idea of the other being evil. Well, we're seeing it constantly, almost everywhere in the media on so many subjects at the moment - but I do sense in myself this time more of a questioning of what is really going on specifically behind Judaism and it's not pattern of thought I want to take further. The pull of divide and rule is so strong and it's as if forces out there will just keep at it from all sorts of different angles until we're all drawn in. Being aware of this and stepping away from it is perhaps the most important things we can do. And it does have this feeling of being a force that is not Nature's force - it's something else.
Yes. I think the trick is to care for and advocate for the victims, but not get pulled into the cycles of hatred. The only thing I find that calms me down and helps me see clearly is time spent out of the human realm in nature. And yes, the impulses driving the carnage in Gaza are not from nature. "It's something else," as you say.
As always, Rob, thank you for your conscientiousness, your talent, and the labor that it takes to express your beautiful heart. I’m not sure, however, that “the more we disconnect from the living world, the less grounded we become, and the more susceptible we are to our human extremes and ideologies.” is accurate. It seems that it ought to be true, but humans in tribes were connected to the earth for a million years. Us and them is part of a world view that holds tribal cultural together. In the catastrophe of Gaza, it’s still this tribalism that determines much of the horror. How to be grounded without the ideology of “us and them” ? I think it’s far easier to practice loving kindness as an individual than it is as a society. Is it that we are all droplets in the ocean, and when enough droplets hold the value that the other is myself the ocean will change? I don’t know. Thank you for your practice.
Thank you, Jeff. You've elegantly raised some important points, especially "I think it's far easier to practice loving kindness as an individual than it is as a society." A lot to think about there, especially when individuals find themselves in the massive, highly technologized societies we have now. And it's easy to romanticize nature, which I tend to do. But I still have this sense that whatever decency and kindness we possess ultimately derives from nature, and as we lose nature we lose that moderating influence. Certainly, the colonizers of the Americas encountered tribes that fought against each other, but that violence was nothing compared to the violence delivered by their Judeo-Christian, human supremacist worldview, a worldview which places nature below the human. I still think the more we disconnect from the more-than-us, the more susceptible we become to derangement. I feel like we're seeing it now on the internet and in Gaza.
Rob, I agree with everything you say. Humans are nature. Kindness and cruelty derive from nature, in humans, an aspect of our frontal lobes—in conjunction with everything else. That humans have developed weapons that can destroy all of us, despite how unnatural they feel, derive from nature. That humans can use those weapons to terrorize whole populations derives from nature. No question the view of massive exploitation has been most practiced and refined in cultures with capitalistic, Bible-based ideologies. Which more and more seem like the seeds of our and many other—collateral damage—species’ extinction. I’m afraid these destructive ideologies and practices also derive from nature. Then again, what doesn’t? Where in this universe is nature not?