I am tired of remembering those who gave their lives for their country. It is exhausting. It is heartbreaking. And most of all it is screamingly frustrating because all too often, we can’t even explain why exactly they needed to die. Looking back at Viet Nam, can we even remember the reasons we were given for being there or name something that was gained from all those deaths?
And now we are fighting a war on “terror”. Which is so much easier than fighting a war on a country or a people because it sounds so much more noble but yet less personal. It is so much easier to refer to the dead as the “enemy” than as civilian Afghanis or Iraqis. We send our soldiers, our loved ones, to fight without a clearly defined mission and place the blame for atrocities committed along the way on low-ranking soldiers such as Lynddie England and Steven Green when clearly the orders came from the top. We send them to fight with inadequate armor and bring them home to woefully lacking support services and try to invisibiize their suffering and deaths.
And most especially, we invisibiize the deaths of those who die in the path of our destruction. We will never know how many Iraqis or Afghanis died because we chose to attack their countries in the name of “terror”. Deaths not only from toxic weaponry, but from malnutrition, bombed hospitals, honor killings that have become epidemic, women who set themselves on fire rather than continue to live their lives in unspeakable conditions.
And here is a staggering comparison: 679 soldiers have died thus far in the fighting in Afghanistan. And according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were an estimated 26,000 maternal deaths in Afghanistan, which has the 2nd worst maternal mortality rate in the world, in 2005. But those deaths are not remembered today, instead we value killing over givng life, authorizing $96.7 billion more for war, with only a pittance going to end maternal mortality.
Janie Rezner offers a Memorial Day contemplation that speaks with wisdom to the pain of our memories. She writes,
As I read about Obama and his war plans, I am outraged that the war machine continues unabated. I am horrified that there are men successfully lobbying our congress to not do what needs to be done to slow down global warming, – - - that Obama’s denies the consideration of single-payer health care – - that he sanctions blowing off mountain tops, and tribunals – - and hiding torture information. The list seems endless, and all extremely important issues.
Today I stopped in at the Mendocino Art Center where there was a wonderful collection of paintings by a man from Mexico, Ernesto Olmas . . . a large wall was covered with a brillant and colorful painting, depicting the ancient fertility myth of their male gods. “The earth was barren, and the two gods fought each other with whips until the blood from their wounds made the ground fertile again” Something to that effect. I compared it in my mind to the story in “Iroquois Woman, the Gantowisas” by Dr. Barbara A. Mann, p. 215. (Gantowisas refers to the female official.)
“The bond between the gantowisis and Mother Earth was part of the deeply spiritual bond among all women, forged largely through their ability to bring life into being. Just as women created new life in their own wombs, they had the sacred right to bring forth new life from the Womb of Mother Earth–i.e. to farm. The fertility of Mother Earth was thus seen as one of a thread with that of the gantowisas. It was especially invoked on nights of a full moon, when Grandmother Moon smiled down from space upon the reclining form of her beloved daughter, the Earth. Then would the women go out between midnight and dawn, dragging their cloaks on the ground behind them, walking among the planting mounds, singing to The Three Sisters. I believe the cloaks trailing behind the gantowisas symbolize the power of fertility they shared with mother earth by shape-shifing into tuber strings. (The Three Sisters were Sister Corn, Sister Bean, and Sister Squash.)”
Such vastly different ways to invoke the powers of the Earth . . . . one with violence and the other with sacred intention and gratitude . . .
If there was ever a time for our Mother to move mountains, it is NOW!
This Memorial Day, let our memories and our sorrow be the foundation of our intention to stop the destruction and the pain before it is too late.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.