Sunday, August 21, 2005

SURVIVING Toxic SOUP


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Yesterday my gentle brother-in-law Rick was driving along country roads when his car careened off the road into a corn field, and he died. I still can't quite take it in; feels as if I'm living inside a TV set or something.

And I'm wondering -- was it suicide? A supremely sensitive guy, Rick not only failed to find work in this wretched bushNightmare we're suffering through, he was also living with unrelenting physical pain.

According to Suicide and Mental Health Association International , suicide is a "worldwide epidemic." How do we rationalize our shocking suicide rates? Most of us, I suspect, blame the victim. "He was weak," we opine.

What a copout. The fault isn't theirs, it's ours. Increasingly, our most sensitive earth-mates are incapable of surviving the toxic soup we now blithely accept as our physical and cultural environment. For Goddess' sake, the emperor has no clothes! Why can't we see this? Why can't we see that our way of life is deeply cracked? That how we live is grotesquely and irredeemably flawed? Why aren't we turning the house upside down to ferret out and fix the flaws?!?

And deep inside us all boils the wellspring of the muck (in the Western world, at least): that ubiquitous, barbaric male warrior deity. That self-proclaimed "jealous" god, that "Father" who so deeply despises his children that he seals them up in underground chambers to torture them there til the end of time.

Let's face it: When it comes to unconditional love, father gods run on empty. Bless their hearts, they can't help it, it's all they're capable of. They love on condition that you make the football team and the honor roll. They love on condition that you are the prettiest, the handsomest, the wealthiest, the winner, the one who can wrest the best valley from the others. They can't help it, but we need to axe them. It's just plain suicidal to ask them to continue a job they're botching so badly, a job they weren't ever designed to do in the first place.

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Thnx to u8mealive for the foto

5 comments:

Morgaine said...

Oh, Athana, I'm so sorry. Bless his heart, he's at peace and out of pain. How is his family?

I'm around if you need to talk.

You are right - this world is becoming too toxic for those of us with finer sensibilities. The war god has got to go, so we can have real lives.

Andygrrl said...

I'm so sorry Athana! My condolences to your family.

Inanna said...

I'm so very sorry for your loss.

Blessings to you and your family.

Athana said...

Thank you, thank you, everyone! Your wonderful, empathetic posts mean more than you may be able to imagine. I'm doing okay. I'm hoping my sister will pull through all this, though. She, too, like her husband, is one of those senstive and gentle souls who seem to be knocked around twice as hard as everyone else by the same set of rocks. I'm going to keep a close eye on her, though, so hopefully all will be reasonably well -- in time, at least.

Morgaine said...

She'll be in my prayers, and so will you.