Adam’s Peace

The events at Virginia Tech yesterday are a sad reminder that even in places where we feel safe, we are not truly secure. The person who killed thirty two people before taking his own life did not seem to have a political agenda, but after watching the news reports yesterday, and the memorial service today, it seems that political squabbling was inevitable. My heart goes out to those who were affected by the brutal execution of the thirty people in the classroom, and the two in the dorms. Wishes for a renewed chance at life go out to those who were hospitalized, to those who still cling to life in the intensive care units, to those who are in stable condition, and to those who have already been discharged. My heart breaks for those who have had to watch the horrible events unfold first hand, who have had to retrieve the bodies from that classroom, and who have known the people who were killed and wounded yesterday.

I wish that there was more that could be done for those who were affected by this tragedy. It is not easy to sit by and watch such a large group of people united together in grief. If I could, I would take the collective grief upon myself, so that these people could get on with their lives, continue to learn, to teach, and to be the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters that they are.

Perhaps I have seen too much tragedy in my life already, and I am becoming numb to events like this. I have had a friend go to jail, losing his job as a police man forever, because he was involved in an accident that was not his fault. The politics that the media created behind the event ensured that a good man went to prison. I have had a close friend die in a car accident, simply because someone failed to notice that a tire was dangerously worn. I have seen injustices done to others, and injustices have been done to myself, either from malice or from negligence. Yesterday, though, I found it hard to cry, as I’ve done so often in the past when a major injustice has occurred.

That is, I found it hard to cry until I saw the eyes of the ROTC cadets who posted the colors.

There were six future officers on Color Guard detail for the memorial ceremony today. They were kids, younger than I was when I performed my first funeral detail… They were just starting their military career, have probably given their oath of service only once, and were already bearing the flags that presided over the memorials of their friends. They executed the drill and ceremony perfectly. The observant, though, would find it easy to recognize the looks on their faces. It is an expression that has been seen all too often by members and veterans of the military and their families. It is the look of someone who wants to cry, but can’t because duty prohibits it. It is the look of a uniformed soldier at a funeral, and it breaks my heart every time that I see it.

Whatever those six men go on to do in the future, their lives are changed forever. That is the nature of the military. When a person raises their right hand and swears to defend and uphold The Constitution of the United States of America, they are voluntarily sacrificing their life for something that they believe is greater than the individual. Whether that sacrifice includes that person’s death or not, the change is permanent, and the life that they had before can never be regained. A lot of people talk about the price of freedom, and at least mention that freedom is not free. The price of freedom is not blood. The thirty two who were murdered yesterday did not purchase any freedom for anyone else. The price of freedom is not war. The Axis powers during WWII certainly weren’t working to make the world free. The price of freedom isn’t even service to your country.

The price of freedom is nothing more than responsibility. Some people pay that price on the battlefield, and while they’re paying it, also give their lives. Some people pay that price at home, teaching children how to be adults. Some people depend on others to pay this price for them, using the responsibility of others to get what they want.

I have heard people say that freedom takes eternal vigilance. I tend to agree. We have all seen how two hours of irresponsibility on the part of school administrators and two hours of malice from one individual can change the lives of thousands. Fortunately, being responsible isn’t a sacrifice. Being responsible brings long term joy, peace, and freedom. The largest ’sacrifice’ that responsibility asks is for a few moments of discomfort as you push beyond what feels ‘acceptable’ and do what you know is right.

Security is what people seek when they are not being responsible. Security is the opposite of freedom and the enemy of democracy. When you say that you want someone to protect your life, no matter what the cost, you are giving up your responsibility. With the loss of responsibility, the price of freedom is no longer being paid, and that freedom is lost.

Today, six cadets paid the price for freedom with their innocence by being responsible. They gave their innocence freely, in the name of duty and honor, in order to respect the dead and injured. Please, join these six cadets in paying for your freedom and honoring the dead by being responsible. It is a price that I willingly paid several times over, and I hope that others will join me in securing the liberty of all people through non-violent, responsible actions, even if that act is as simple as teaching a child to love.

Each of my consistent readers know that my purpose is to bring peace to everybody. (Yes, Adam. We know already. Quit bringing it up so much.) They also know, since I bring it up so very often, that this blog is a direct application of this purpose…

Well, bringing peace to everybody is a pretty daunting task. I could go around door to door, leaving fliers that describe what inner peace is and explaining a method of how to find it. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do that in my lifetime, and I don’t have enough power to have others do this for me. Also, most people would simply discard the flier, and not learn anything from it, because it would necessarily challenge their current way of thinking. I could also simply talk about peace on this blog, and quietly wait for people to visit, but as anyone who has chased links realizes, this takes quite a bit of time. Also, I wouldn’t be fulfilling the purpose simply by blogging, because the majority of people in the world can not read English and do not have access to the Internet… Remember that I put the word “everybody” in my purpose.

Because of these limitations, I can’t possibly fulfill my purpose in my lifetime. Also, I don’t really want to. Inner peace requires people to learn what it is like to be conflicted, so suffering is an essential element. I’m not supporting suffering, simply giving it a nod as a respected adversary. I recognize its place, and how easy it is for even the best intentioned actions to cause unbelievable amounts of suffering. Fighting suffering causes more suffering, unless it is fought patiently, maturely, and respectfully. I simply can’t bring peace to everybody by force, because that would only increase the suffering around me, and that peace would be a fragile illusion.

My blog is targeted towards other bloggers, and people who are interested in blogging. The purpose of this blog is to be a blogger’s blog, to encourage others to discuss inner peace in any field that they choose.

If you write a blog on finances, discuss the way that managing your finances and taking responsibility has helped to bring you peace. If you write on spiritual matters, take a moment to discuss how your spiritual growth has led you to peace. If you write about blogging, then you can mention how being at a state of peace helps you to change your abstract thoughts into the posts that you write.

I’ll be starting a tag soon, about inner peace and blogging, but I am still working on the wording of the question. My goal with the tag is to learn how others bring peace into their own lives, and help those who respond to be aware of the peace that they already have.

As I transition to a blogger’s blog, I’ll still continue the series on the Tarot, but I’d also like to write essays on blogging in general, and blogging on peace specifically. Fortunately, I can write a page about each tarot card in about half an hour, and set them to automatically post once per day. I won’t restart that series until the weekend, though, but along side that series, I’ll have a secondary series on tarot cards that apply directly to blogging, plus my standard posts again.

I would like to encourage everyone who doesn’t already have a blog to go ahead and start their own blog, on whatever topic you choose, and I’ll be here to give pointers and such.

I just wrote about my spiritual history, and the cusps that have lead me to where I am now. I’ve been on the move for most of my life, searching for something outside of myself, in the past and future. I have finally found what I have been looking for. Inner peace is here and now.

The post that I wrote two days ago, on how I could not find that sense of peace, nor a sense of anything else, was indeed the calm before the storm… and the storm is only beginning. It prompted me to travel my past, to understand why I came to where I am now. It prompted me to travel my future, to understand what I am doing now. These last two days, I have retraced the steps around the world that I have made as a soldier.

I know guilt and sin. I am not a perfect person. I know peace and forgiveness. I am whole.

After writing on how I didn’t have a sense of peace two days ago, at how vague the whole experience was, I was strongly compelled to write to Slade and Jeff to ask them for help. The email that I sent each was short and simple, explaining that I didn’t know what to do next… They gave two different replies, and individually, they do not equal what they had both come up with together.

I had the energy… Slade provided me with the method to use that energy… Jeff provided me with the direction to apply the energy. I realize that this seems a bit vague and ambiguous, but I’ll explain shortly.

My life purpose is to bring peace to everybody… Since taking on that purpose, I have started this blog in the hopes that I could bring peace, so that I could find peace myself. I realize that I had it backwards, and I knew at the beginning that it was backwards as well… Peace is not found outside of yourself. However, the clues to finding peace could indeed be external.

Take care of your body, for it is your vehicle to finding these clues.

Take care of your mind, for it is there to find the riddles behind the clues.

Take care of your environment, for it is the tool through which you experiment, to work through these clues.

Take care of your spirit, for it holds the key to unlocking peace.

Without your body, mind, environment, and spirit, you can not find the door within yourself that leads to peace… If one is lacking, then peace can not be obtained.

Take care of your body the same way that you would make a sword… Give it good ingredients, or the foundation will be corrupt. Stretch it, beat it, and strain it, but also let it rest… If you do not apply enough stress, it will be weak and soft. If you do not let it rest, it will be brittle, easy to break. Eat healthy food and exercise often, but do not push past your limits.

Take care of your mind the same way that you take care of your body… Give your mind good information and challenge it with puzzles. Avoid the bad, such as uninformative television and fear-based propaganda. Read books, write, and pick up a hobby that makes you think, such as the currently popular Soduko puzzles. If you are addicted to TV, and don’t want to give it up, watch trivia game shows and informative documentaries, such as those found on The Science Channel. Play as well… Letting your mind rest helps it to sort things out. Of course, also get enough sleep is important as well, but too much sleep can cause just as much trouble as not enough.

Take care of your environment by keeping it clean and orderly, and by maintaining and strengthening your relationships. Don’t be afraid to cut off relationships that are harmful or abusive, but don’t be afraid of gaining new relationships either. Manage your relationships judiciously as well… Don’t take responsibility for other people’s thoughts, since you can’t control what goes on in their head, but do recognize how their thoughts and resulting actions affect you. There are many, many self-help books out there that are devoted to finding equilibrium with your environment, whether it be financially, romantically, or organizational.

Take care of your spirit… There’s a tricky one. More than anything else, spirituality is subjective. There is no single right answer for everybody… but at the same time, there is no wrong answer either. The best advice that I can give everybody is to simply pay attention. Just like you can’t not communicate, and you can’t not practice, you can’t not grow spiritually. You can, however, slow down to the point where it seems like you’re standing still.

Taking care of the mind and body may seem to be concentrating on opposites… Taking care of the physical and spiritual may seem to be exclusive as well… but it is only when they are all together that you can find peace. Just as many depictions of the tarot card Temperance show fire being mixed with water, it is through combining the earthliness of our environment, the fieriness of our spirits, the airiness of our thoughts and the watery needs of our bodies that we arrive at a whole being… (I’ve heard it described before, by a computer engineer explaining a diet plan he hacked together, of all sources, that in its most simple terms, the human body is simply a highly inefficient water pump. Appropriately, the tagline on the diet plan is “How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition.”)

Now, I’m a big fan of cycles… but dwelling on them really hertz… (Please, pardon my puns.) If I do finally write the piece of fiction which has been stuck in my head, it will contain 21 books, of seven stories retold three times from the same person, as his past present and future. The world is made up of cycles, from the changes of tides every six hours, the day/night cycle, the lunar cycles, and even the yearly wheel, cut into quarters with spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Even the sun has a cycle, with its magnetic field being twisted and bent every eleven years, finally settling into a new equilibrium. There is a 20,000 year cycle of ice ages and warm periods, and even our view of the heavens have a cycle, as constellations move over hundreds of thousands of years.

Fortunately, these cycles serve as a good way of dealing with the different elements of ourselves. A full moon can remind us to accept the bounty before us, and a new moon can remind us to be more giving. If you can’t run, then learning how to walk might be more appropriate… If you can’t combine the spiritual with the worldly, or the mental with the physical, then you could work on them in cycles, shortening the length of each cycle until they overlap.

Having all of the pieces together doesn’t guarantee inner peace, though… It only makes it easier to find, and easier to maintain. That is what I realized yesterday, with the help of Jeff and Slade. Having your body, mind, environment, and spirit in tune gives you the energy to push forward into a state of peace, but without knowing how to apply the peace, or having a direction for your energy to go, peace eludes you.

Slade’s response was that I act in the present only. I can plan for the future and remember the past, but I can only act now… I can only be at peace now. (What he wrote was much longer than what I’m putting in here… but the parts that weren’t specifically saying to live in the now were specific to my situation.)

Jeff used divination to find his part of the message… He pulled three cards, The Hermit, The Sun, and The Hierophant, and aligned them as he did in a recent spread… The Hermit was on the bottom left, the Sun was in the top middle, and the Hierophant was on the bottom right… I was represented by both the Hermit and Hierophant, with the Hermit being myself now, and the Hierophant being who I’ll be when I’ve reached my goal.

That gave me the means to work, and the direction to work towards. I realize that the Hierophant has made a pretty bad name for himself… Thoughts of persecution at the hands of the Inquisition spring immediately to mind, but the Hierophant has another side to him, especially when you leave out the prejudice that both those dealing with him, as well as the Hierophant himself, seem to enjoy.

The purpose of the Hierophant is to bring spirituality to the world at large in practical terms… The Hermit simply explains things whenever you are lucky enough to find him, but you don’t need to be lucky to find the Hierophant when you’re looking for him, since you always know that he’s firmly entrenched within his palace of gold spartan cloister.

Just as with the Hermit, I’ve been wandering around searching for knowledge, and I have been trading answers in exchange for questions to ponder over… I have helped many people, on an individual basis, but I wouldn’t stick around to see the results, or to offer any follow-up help. I was hard to find, and it was often random fate which allowed me to find the people to help.

Now it seems that my direction is to become the Hierophant, however the role plays itself out. I’ve got my golden palace spartan cloister here in the form of this web site, with a contact form that is well guarded from spam, and public message boards in the form of comments; as well as a couple of back doors in the form of instant messengers and forum private messages, for those who know where to find them. (The keys to those back doors are not on this website… That should be enough of a clue for those who have followed me so far.)

So, what is the role of the Hierophant? To be an easy to find source of inspiration, who takes complex or spiritual ideas and simplifies them into worldly knowledge, and who can be a stubborn jerk at times. I promise that I’ll only be stubborn when it really matters.

Oh, and the Astrological basis for the Hierophant is Taurus… mooo.

The one thing about a Hierophant is that he attracts acolytes. I don’t want acolytes, I want people to go out and spread their own message. The best way to help me is to not be a “yes man,” but to go out and use your own words… Argue with me and point out what I’m doing wrong… Be my friend, not what you think I want in a friend. If you haven’t already, go out and make your own blog and write about what you feel is important. Stop waiting and just do it. Yes, you. Go, make a blog. Now!

Since finding the role, the means to fit within it, and gaining the energy and discipline to follow through, I’ve found a measure of peace far greater than I’ve felt before. Welcome, everyone, to Adam’s Peace. It isn’t a place, it is every place. It isn’t a time, it is every time.