Blog for Peace 2020 ~ Perfect Vision

When I first sat down to write a post for this year's event... words left me. There was no room for them. All the space inside me was taken up with emotion.

This has been an exceptionally emotional year on a global level. We started with devastating fires in Australia (how we worried for friends and family over there!) and went straight on into Covid19 with its assorted political chaos, worldwide protests and then even more climate disasters. We have been inside a storm, not for days but for months. All of us. Everyone. No one is untouched by this year's events.

Canberra, Orroral Valley, January 28, 2020. New research suggests the recent record-breaking heat in Australia, which is linked to climate change, helped increase the region’s fire risk by at least 30 percent.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/australia-wildfires-climate-change Nick-D/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

All of this has taken its toll. I'm seeing more angry people than ever before. Because fear makes people angry, it's a natural survival mechanism. Fear makes us feel out of control - rage gives back the feeling of control. Rage helped us fight off the predatory beasts when we were a young species still throwing rocks and sticks.

Anger can be very useful as it gives us the courage to face our demons, but it has to be wielded with calm and a clear mind. Thoughtless anger is chaos. It's the mob burning innocent women as witches and the person refusing to wear a mask during Covid19 because they are secretly, deeply, afraid. Terrified that the virus really exists, so they pretend it's a hoax. Terrified that if it is a hoax some secret and even worse harm is being done to them, such as taking away their personal power and freedoms.

Terrified.

Just as you have to turn and face the wolves on the path, you have to face what you fear. You cannot fix the problem, or slay the demon, without first understanding the fear beneath your anger.

For me, it's been the realisation that I get most angry when I see people being irrational. Why? Because I fear they might do/say things they will regret once they've calmed down enough to see the truth. My rage is based on my fear of them doing terrible harm: to me or to others, to themselves and to their countries or our planet. But to find that truth I had to step back and see with my heart.

What secret fear drives your anger? 

Turn around and face it.

Find the truth in your heart.

Then take that truth and reclaim your power.

The phrase "2020 vision" means to have perfect eyesight; to see with utter clarity. Could there be a better wish for this 2020 year than that? To see clearly, from the heart? 

This is my hope and my prayer...

 

If being separated from each other during Covid19 has only one positive result it should be this: that in being forced apart we finally realised we are all in this together. One planet and one humanity. 

Dona Nobis Pacem... in 2020 vision.