Hunger for the Light
What quickens the hunger for the light again?
The recipe for love of life has many myriad layers:
When Earth becomes home and Nature awakens awe.
Our peoples connect cognition with caring.
Respect for all life lies at the foundation of belief…
…when suffering is unnatural and reverence overrides ignorance,
when all creatures and peoples are fascinating not frustrating.
when woman and man and child and animal and land co-create,
explore, learn, design, produce and preserve good,
when they garden their planet.
Matured minds see the dimensions of color…with expanded sensing
that goes beyond the child’s need for right and wrong…
seeing subtleties with wise eyes that believe in finding a way through.
They teach hope through ideas on how we may reclaim,
and possess, sometimes for the first time, some sort of strength or loveliness that will not fail us.
Good can prevail if it is not dirtied by abandonment.
But, denigrate a woman — and her greatest labor is killed.
Her love is replaced with a half-death; good is abandoned.
Her children are neglected and have little of life.
The family is a farce and the suffering starts.
Good can prevail if it is not dirtied by poverty.
But, ignore a man and his building power is destroyed.
His drive is replaced with self-pity; good is abandoned.
His work is ill-defined and offers little to life.
The family receives his impotent rage and the suffering starts.
A woman kept safe and nourished in her home.
Her man protecting and his work providing.
They make heir marriage intimate best friends.
Babies and youths laughing and learning.
Families for fun and fostering at home and with neighbors.
A man empowered with the bravery for respectful honesty.
His woman smiling and partnering at his side.
They make their marriage intimate best friends.
Leading his young into adventure and mastery.
Showing the zest and humor which elevate his service.
Neighborhoods combine for cooperation and building.
The tribes share cooking, talking and walking.
Learning is held as life’s common language for young and old.
Lands are cultivated for food and fruit and flowers.
Vibrant cities bustle with productivity providing abundant supplies.
Such goodnesses bely black and white by their infinite hues:
Fear foments failure vs forgiveness when minimizing a friend’s fault.
Fathers and mothers tend to tykes and teens in the ultimate travail.
Buddies debate causes and bear differences and foibles.
Partners correct course as one and extend progress because they are united.
There’s no need to seek the hunger for the light
when the family is a caring system and
when good cheer and purpose suffuse daily routine.
Because adults continue to parent children at all ages
Motivating and teaching each step of the way to maturity.
Trauma…when counter-will is relentless and
when defensive rage explodes or implodes,
we know that desecration of the good has been perpetrated
and harm beyond bearing has been done.
In the traumatized there is no willingness until the wound is healed,
the violation is resolved, the terror is quieted or
the damage is acknowledged by restitution and a return to respect.
Only then, can the suffering stop
so that humanity may return to the light of sympathy and civility.
by Heather Carlile
Dallas, Texas July 2016
Next: Part III. Making Sacred the Cycle
Is this all there is?