The End of War

Searching my soul for something to say…

I dip my pen in this proverbial inkwell, and low it is no inkwell at all.

I speak, a physical membrane vibrates, perturbations in an acute electromagnetic field result, producing a varied flow of electrons into a vast field of transistors.

These profoundly small switches “hold their state”…

[Mid thought, the accessibility software stops working, I pause to reset, 30 seconds elapsed, I return to the craft… (This happens often.)]

Where was I, oh yes… “Hold their state…” A record is produced in the small device on my desk, it will remain there until it is transferred, deleted, or otherwise decayed… It is not readable to the human eye, absent electricity it may remain invisible forever.

Of course I intend to commit this constructed order of transistors state to other devices held in warehouses and served to luminous arrays, such as yours dear reader, around the globe, and anywhere else their broadcast may be found…

I don’t believe I mean so much to describe a physical process, as to speak out loud the experience of my mind as I come to record these thoughts.

By all means, I mean to convey something worthy not just of these physical processes, the ecosystems, animals, human, and other communities that are colonized, exploited and harmed to make this possible, but also and of course worthy of your attention dear reader.

This is the state of my mind these days. Feeling each moment, each thought, decision, aspiration, inquiry and conclusion as a looking glass of mystery. Like some alien kaleidoscope of the nth dimension, this mind’s eye peers in and what echoes back I find often eludes the construction of words and voice.

In simple human terms, I am here on this often quiet street on the edge of a mesa resting not far from the ocean bounded western edge of San Diego. I’m a member of the complex society that has taken the world by storm over the last 500 years. The roots of this society date back, it might be argued 5000, or perhaps 12,000 years.

Implicit in this personal role in the complex evolutionary dynamic and momentary state, I feel the deep motivation to participate in the outward processes of this socioeconomic collective, and long to do so in a manner that honors something deep and beautiful and vital. I long to honor a flourishing of life, love, and the light of sacred emanation.

So as a gesture of this longing, I dip my pen in this proverbial inkwell and just as the nib breaks tension in that dark black pond of waiting fluid, I hear the cries of countless lives whose journey from birth was ended or otherwise broken to make that moment possible.

Those cries echo through my flesh and my flesh wrestles back, scrambling on uncertain footing to reply with a message of sacred invitation that honors those deaths.

As you see, this field of unfolding echoes like calm before a storm, but will the waves strike this shore? 500 words strong and have I said anything at all?

I might be called to write what is on so many minds, a US election, prospects of a global economy, something heady and esoteric about a frame we few call the metacrisis, or something else… But what is worthy of these countless fixed transistors and these broken lands they have replaced?

What is food for minds and hearts and souls and dear flesh today?

In my notes, I have written “The End of War.” I admit, as I approached a blank page today my eyes did pass over that particular phrase and I did feel the subtle ripples, “that is good.”

A dear friend of mine recently journeyed to Bhutan, intent to admire, appreciate, and bask in the rich tradition of an ethical study often known as enlightenment that has abounded there for many centuries.

On sharing about their experience, this friend called to mind something which may be familiar to you, it certainly is to me. That experience which might be one which Rupert Sheldrake called the conditioning of a morphogenetic field. In particular we are referring to that easy state of mind and body and soul that arises in the presence of one who has mastered a state of lovingkindness, mindfulness, equanimous joy, and compassion.

Put another way, this is just the simple contagion of joy one might find in the presence of a child at play, but in its most mature depth and expansive fullness, a finer quality of radiance like the warmth of the sun compared to the comfort of the bonfire.

The beauty of this sharing from my friend was the conveyance of their experience that the whole land of Bhutan held such a radiance as may otherwise have only been found in the presence of that certain mastery of person. What sweet longing, what joy, what beauty to imagine, let alone behold.

In the circle of friends who listened to the words recounted from the journey, a prayerful soul echoed back, “I’d like to offer a prayer that this whole earth can be like that.”

I think never has the intent of my life been spoken so plainly, the words echoed from the farthest walls of my soul, resounding through the deepest canyons of my joy, and filling the sky of my mind with rainbows of light.

Yes. Thank you. Let’s do that.

With war so stark in the news of the day, so fresh and painful in our lived experience and stories of recent years, decades, centuries, and more, it could be easy to imagine this tragedy to be the natural and unavoidable state of affairs. “World peace” it is often thought, is quaint and unrealistic. Even looking closely at the forest, the ocean, countless species born, consuming, dying again, continents drifting and a subatomic field oscillating from particle to wave and yet receding ever further from true substance, it is easy to imagine that all this colonization, violence, struggle, and yes war, is inherent to this side of the veil…

But there is also love. There is a careful consideration, a gentle gesture of nurturing and support. There is wisdom and skill and the broad embrace of a boundless realized compassion for all of this profound arising of form.

There is a message running through, like a stream into the desert, from countless wellsprings of wisdom tradition, a message of something thrilling, something more. Whole cultures rise and fall on this enterprise of aspiration, religions, lives dedicated to practice, whispers of essential goodness, this stream is in fact an ocean.

As we catch the morning dew drop reflecting the light of dawn’s promise, it is not hard to look through and see those very drops deep underground, high in the sky, falling, flowing, gathering as a vast womb of life. Likewise, these aspirations for peace, these aspirations for our own happiness, the happiness of others, the flourishing of beautiful life, the echoes of laughter, these too are in every drop of being and it is by fixing our whole intent on this essential nature that it comes to flourish through and before us.

Won’t you join me? Fix in your mind this condition of the earth; radiant like the sun, though not with fire, but with the warming, roaring flicker of the tongues of love calling life ever more flourishing into harmonious being with the majesty of an insightful creative force and wisdom that walks holy in beauty.

Let your life organize around this intention. Consider every gesture, every word you might utter, every thought you harbor in your mind on these terms and let that care refine itself through your actions moment to moment, day-to-day, lifetime to lifetime, every gentle flicker of our heart flames in this wildly whirling world.

“Earth?… Oh yes, that marvelous and peaceful place of nourishing love twirling and spiraling like a dervish around that outer arm of such a very special galaxy not far from here…”

We will argue policy. We will argue practicality. We may even argue values, practices, and righteousness of ideology and faith. We will crash into each other like children wired on sugar dashing across the playground.

On August 6, 1945 a deafening boom shook the earth. Countless lives vaporized in an instant, countless eyes more turned, fixed on that certain, sharp point of unspeakable violence. But what did we see? What did you see?

What an awful moment. What a terrible incision. And yet. May that mark the beginning of the end of war.

Our shared choices, tolerances, and practices brought us to craft such an instance. Like those dewdrops that make an ocean, let your choices, your tolerances, your practices emanate not to that again, but to the end of war, the careful fullness of wisdom and compassion, the widest possible flourishing of love for all sentient beings familiar and foreign, near and far, known and unimagined.

In America we are called to vote, or moved not to. There is much fear, anxiety, and concern for outcomes. In this interconnected world, this is not simply a local event, nor have our lives been, very many of us, for many decades, possibly centuries thence, we are the world, we are in this together, let us each end the fighting in our own way, in our own selves. Let us each begin the peace in our own way, in our own selves.