The Center?!

"The center will hold."

Maybe not. Turns out there really is no "center." The Universe doesn't roll like that. So the murder of a black man, opens up the yawning abyss, reveals the dark heart of our shared hallucination: USA.

Not only the death of a human being, the death of an idea, the death of a shared vision.

It couldn't have come at a worse time. It's never a good time to live in a land where human life is treated so callously, but really, this time is worse. Toxic Clown President. Deadly Global Pandemic. Great Depression-level unemployment.  Deep divisions across the land and the globe. American Nazis on the rise. Entrenched racism, economic inequality, de facto apartheid. Corruption. Dysfunction. Mania.

It's been grim around our place the last few days. Sheltering the storm. Mourning the death of another human being, mourning the death of our optimism and positivity. It feels a bit "out of place" to be optimistic.

An anger & sadness hangs over us. So yes. We are ruled by gravity. It holds us to the ground. We grasp for some "reality" it too is a shared vision. An idea.

We cling to these ideas: Truth, Beauty, Love, Grace, Hope, Kindness, Equality, Justice. We hope they are real, solid, timeless and substantial. But at the same time we know they too are just "shared visions."

What happens when our vision of a "center" vanishes? What happens when all our beautiful ideas appear to be distant, fading chimeras? It gets a bit dark and lonely staring into the abyss.

I fall back on the usual practices: silence, contemplation, patience, cool-headed-ness, reason. I conjure up a center, a sacred place to reside. I imagine all of us, the billions of us on the planet all living in a welcoming center, a garden, peaceably, responsibly, caring for each other, loving and creating new visions that we can all share together.

It's a bit of madness. I know.  A bubble for sure. But it's a bubble worth conjuring up.

The a.m soundtrack - Explosions in the Sky - "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care" (2011). Amazing record. Gorgeous. Usually three electric guitars and a drum-kit. Fabulous. Shimmering. An American band from Austin Texas. No words. All instrumental. A rock band elevated to high art. No pretension. Just superb execution. Recommended.