Calling all Dreamers

We are reeling from the news of the brutal massacre in Newtown, CT., home to so many friends.  Everyone here, around the country and the world is stunned.  

Early this week, I began reading Dr. Raymond Moody's book, "Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones"  and did one of those nose dive's into a good book. Thursday morning, I walked to the computer still reading Moody’s description of the practice and history of mirror gazing, the ancient scrying art used to contact the departed.   At the computer, I opened Facebook; first post on my feed, Robert Moss: The Science of Mirrors.

http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-science-of-mirrors.html

After commenting to Robert about the syncro, I turned back to Moody's book.  Later, Thursday, I got to the part where he describes setting up his "modern day psychomanteum" - a temenos/sacred space for communication with our beloved departed, as practiced in ancient Greece.  As he tells the story of finding and equipping his sanctuary laboratory, I remember the wonderful post my friend Trish MacGregor posted on her blog last month about this very passage in Moody's life.  I love the story she tells, which he doesn't include in the book.  The two accounts are a wonderful compliment to each other. http://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=12817

So Friday, Friday the unimaginable happens in a neighboring town and we're again shocked by senseless, cruel, twisted violence, made more shocking because this time, it happens in our home state.  It's excruciating not just for its cold brutality and loss of innocent life, but for it's place in a stream of such events that have occurred over the last few years in our country.

I liken the impact of a tragedy such as this to the concentric circles on the surface of water when a stone falls in.  I stand in an outer circle because I don't have close ties to anyone who suffered this horror today, except the ties of community and caring. From this circle, as a resident of this state and country,  I join my voice to a growing community outcry:  Mr. President and all elected officials, control easy access to guns, especially automatic weapons.  We see over and over again, how one desperate, deluded individual can reek havoc.  Help public welfare trump corporate interests in arms dealing for profit.  Times of crisis are opportunities to do things differently, to transform our grief and rage to healing.  It doesn’t work to put profits ahead of humanity. Private citizens need automatic weapons?  Really?  

I heard the news of this massacre while sitting at our art gallery in Woodbury, CT.  A gentleman customer got off the phone after getting the news from his wife.  He said; “This must be terrorism”.   But, apparently, as in the past, it’s not the enemy without but the one within that attacks, often wearing the face of a lost boy acting out a private rage.  What can we do to stem the tide of violence that sweeps up some of our youth?  

Experts like, Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Dr. James Garbarino, both authors of fabulous books on the subject,  have been telling us how to help for years.  I hope we'll all turn our minds and hearts to finding creative, daring, bold and working solutions to the violence, greed, small mindedness, lack of love and lack of soul that's plaguing us.  I dream a future where we all contribute creatively to our children's education and well being. We put their needs ahead of institutionalized rules, and design education around experience and incentive, not testing and categorizing.  

For those of us right now in this outer ring of the catastrophe, who are not understandably consumed with grief, we might ask ourselves; What can we do?  What can we do to alleviate the suffering of those who have remained and of those who have crossed over?   What can we do to ensure that this never happens again?