The horror happening in Ukraine is heavy heavy heavy.
I’m not sure that the news, 24/7 is such a good thing. Seeing the same images of genocide over and over again sandwiched between “the slap heard ’round the world” and the crap way Republicans disingenuously questioned now-confirmed Judge Jackson and Ivanka and Jared testifying before the January 6 Committee and Clarence Thomas refusing to recuse himself and Trump and nothing happening to rectify any of the bullshit just news news news . . . . and try this tooth whitener car insurance diabetes pill . . . and another crap thing and here’s another crap thing and here’s who outraged and here’s why and and and . . . there’s no resolution . . . humans basically suck . . . we are doomed . . . somehow dehumanizes all of the actual suffering and loss.
I mean, holy crap, Ukraine is being attacked and the whole world is hesitating to to help . . . and once again, oil plays a big part in the hesitation.
My mom and my aunt, they watch the news all the time. It’s all flashes and soundbytes and my aunt cries everyday for Ukraine – which is part of the “old country” where my ancestors are from. And the energy in the room feels like wet cement, quicksand, up to our necks. And I wanna scream, “Come on! Move! Move! I don’t know where to go, but we must live! We must not drown!” And I love them. And I feel helpless.
I feel helpless. I feel like all I can do is to keep making art, keep making music, keep trying my best to be loving, to be love. Stay healthy. If I had money to give, I’d give it. Send love. Find peace in myself for a few minutes a day. Connect. Reach out. Breathe. Dance. Stay in my body.
So much happens in 24 hours, and yet, the constant groove, the samskaras that are pressed upon us, would tell us the same five things are happening over and over again.
How to get off the wheel?
My heart fuckin’ aches.
My friend Patrick wrote this today:
when a country is invaded and bombed, a neighbourhood, a street, or farm road and farmhouse, a city block, a townhouse, an apartment building, a kindergarten! a maternity hospital! a children’s cancer hospital! an eldercare center! an art school, a theatre, a library, a college dormitory, – when it’s your friends and family who are daily, nightly, hourly every day, being kidnapped, beaten, tortured, raped, murdered, . . . . what do you do?
I’ve always regarded myself as a planetary resident and citizen. I have had little or no sense of “patriotism” or “nationalism” in any way that could be willingly and consciously exploited militarily, violently, aggressively. as a personal identity, in contradiction to being a moral agent who out of compassion and unity assumes universal moral culpability, response-ability, complicity.But I feel great admiration and solidarity with the besieged people of Ukraine and their experience of being forced into taking up violent means to stop violence to themselves perpetrated by the invading Russian killer-criminals.
And I think it is indeed “war crimes” (a repulsively redundant concept and term) and certainly “immoral mass murder” (all murder is immoral on some level!) and yes, unspeakable incomprehensible genocide, these past 6 weeks and RIGHT NOW being perpetrated by Putin’s Russian soldiers in Ukraine against the Ukrainian humans – entire city populations, an entire nation’s people, being mass murdered just for being Ukrainian human beings.
And of course many of the brave Ukrainians being murdered speak Russian as their native first language, many are half Russian by parentage, many are married to Russians or Russian Ukrainians, many have half Russian children. So that makes the genocide even farther and further from any possible explicable false justification, but no more or less horrific. A human is a human.
A person is a person. A child is a child, an invalid is an invalid, an elder is an elder, a pregnant mother is a pregnant mother, a woman is a woman, a man is man, a civilian is a civilian, a conscript (draftee) is an unwilling soldier, a volunteer soldier is a voluntary willing actor in the “legalized (potential or actual) murder” of other human beings, while he or she is thus engaged either in attacking another nation-state or country or one’s own . . . OR engaged in defending oneself, one’s loved ones, one’s country against such a murderous / genocidal attack / crime against humanity. Against nature, against love, against the Divine. Against the interwoven web of Being.
So. . . while their individual and collective defensive actions also may and often do also involve killing, I totally understand and honor the brave Ukrainians who are impelled / compelled out of compassion and love to risk their own life to defend and protect their loved ones, their fellow Ukrainians now being murdered en mass by the Russian soldiers.
My heart breaks day after day.
As one witness said a few days ago, you do not have enough tears for what your response will be once you see the as yet unshown majority of the scenes of what has been done to the slaughtered residents of Mariupol. And of course also for all of invaded and attacked Ukraine and its people.
But along with daily heartbreak and many, many tears, I find great inspiration and yes joy in the heroism and love of the Ukrainian people and their Territorial Defense Force and their military and all who are helping protect and defend and care for their fellow human beings who are being attacked.
Indeed, we are all Ukrainians.
Remember humanity. Remember love. Remember that you are love!
How are you doing?
I love you!
Holly
April 8, 2022
Elizaville, NY
holly troy ~ sacred folly 
It’s so hard to watch, and yet our TV is on 24/7 too – my husband’s obsession. I decided to take a different tact and have joined several aid organizations looking for ways that we can help. And we are housing a mother and her children, displaced because of the war.
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VJ – I am so grateful you are able to help. Oh my gosh. What a blessing.
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Wish I could do so much more. It’s heartbreaking.
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❤
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