Syria, Syria

We did not know the young doctor and his wife.

We were sailing down the Nile and having dinner together on the upper deck twenty-two years ago. There was a warm breeze and an atmosphere of relaxed pleasure. Falucas in the distance glowed from the sun setting over their bows.

We had spent the day at Edfu with the God Horus in his temple.

Today as Syria is disintegrating, ordinary people are being bombed, raped and murdered. I think about the young doctor and his wife with whom we had dinner low those many years ago. Are they alive? Are they all right? Where are their children? She had been pregnant on that trip down the Nile.

We enjoyed one another’s company, dining together, socializing, just being. He was a good man.

In the Tomb of the Kings he was responsible for saving the life of an old man in near cardiac arrest, an old Jew.

We all played together, enriching one another’s lives taking pleasure in each other’s company for days. These were European Jews, Israelis originally from Yugoslavia, France, Italia and other countries, Jewish children, refugees of WWII and the Holocaust.

Two young Americans, two Syrians and about 6-8 old Israelis hanging out on a boat going down the Nile visiting the ancients.

Not long after awaking the next morning our boat sank. We were hung up in a series of locks while navigating a dam. When we finally pushed through, there was a gaping hole in the hull, the boat filling up with water very quickly. We were rescued by the Egyptian Navy and never saw each other again.

But I think of them today. I know that most if not all of the Israelis are gone. Then I think of the doctor as his country is in ruins. I wonder if he is alive – does he practice medicine today?

Is he an enemy of the state or a part of Bashar al Assad’s inner circle? I am sad when I think of him and his family. He gives to Syria a very real face of war in a way that the nightly news cannot do.

Two years now and 70,000 dead. Stirring and poignant headlines daily:

The Guardian: Syria: Bashar al Assad interview to be broadcast – live updates.
Milwaukee (AP): Parents talk about journalist kidnapped in Syria.
India Today: Armed and Courageous: Meet Syria’s women rebels.
Philadelphia Enquirer: The hopes and fears of secular Syrians.
USA Today: Obama warns of extremist threat in Syria.

Two years into the war and 70,000 dead. War again taking its toll on a people on its children. One man destroying an entire country, greed and power at the core of his soul.

Many have become refugees on the borders of neighboring countries, living in squalid conditions with some but little water and food.

Some have left bombed out homes and towns taking refuge in ancient forsaken cities that look bombed out themselves. They live underground in caves with dank air and little food.

They took with them remnants of their possessions; a torn blanket, a doll without her left foot, one large bent aluminum pot, a fork and spoon, glass jars and two pillows.
What will become of these people? Will the massive and significant government armed forces intent upon their destruction destroy them?

I think of the doctor, is he still alive? What side is he on? Sadness fills me yet again. Tears fall yet again for another war.

Syria, Syria another war, another loss.

This poem is posted at dVerse

Disgorged Words

What is it that I am putting off?
Surely I have examined the issue for a long enough period of time.

Dear reader are you doing what you are meant to do?
What have you put off doing that you should be doing?

First, I don’t call myself a writer, I don’t really call myself anything.
I have dabbled in numerous arts including poetry.

It never occurred to me to “get published.”
I have really never had the desire and yet that is meant to be the goal, isn’t it.

So, back to the “what have you not done that you ought be doing?”
That is my way of putting it on you, giving myself more time, procrastinating a bit more.

My life has been one of learning lessons.
Not just learning lessons as they come, but purposefully seeking out the lessons to learn.

There was a time when twenty-nine that I wished to pursue further spiritual growth.
But God said: If that is so, you will need to stop smoking.” Bummer.

But I did quit because I was more interested at that point in reaching my goal.
So what am I putting off now, today?

I am old now and still learning so why is it so hard to begin this task?
There are so many excuses, I don’t know how, I don’t have time, I don’t want to.

I have done the healing, done the forgiving, gone back, way back in time.
I have the answers. I know why she was the way she was.

So who am I supposed to write about? My mother is dead. My father is dead.
And I know nothing about memoir.

There you have it. How and where do I begin?
Isn’t it a bit presumptuous of me to wish to put this all down on paper?

OK, the computer?
I really, truly do not know.

Now playing at dVerse OpenLinkNight

Occupy Blogosphere, Thursday September 27th 2012 – Willingness

Political season comes along and any discord within me seems to bubble up to the surface all aimed as hatred at the Republican Party and their candidates.

I have very eloquently and articulately insulted half the United States in the past month or two with snide comments upon Face book. So apparently I have used the heart for purposes of hate rather than love.

I believe it to be sinful to use your heart for hatred. Some of those people, at whom I aimed my political ire are people who have been constant here in my life. Constant. That means that they have been caring, loyal and never wavering. So, I have hurled insults and hatred into the faces of people who have cared about me. I am sorry for having done that. I have had a slight shift in thinking of late. Gratefully that shift in thinking came to me about 10 days ago, so that I could stop my political nonsense and use the heart for what it was meant for, a tool of love.

This is one of those times for me to refocus and move my focus one millionth of an inch to the right or left, up or down in order to see more clearly and to think differently. It is time for me to change or to shape shift as it is known in indigenous cultures. It is time to take control, time to take back my power, time to view the world through a loving lens instead of a hateful one. And believe it or not it is easier than you might think. One simply needs to be willing. Just one millionth of an inch … that is how long willingness is. Being willing to change is half the battle. Being willing is an act of one’s will. The change you desire to make will follow by the grace of spirit.

This post joyfully shared with Soul Dipper’s Occupy Blogosphere Thursday