pursuing beauty to its lair

back home briefly after india
spring dense with birdsong
punctuated with snow flurries
today i walk the pajarito trail
to remember my body and put my thoughts straight
after a week of demanding work on the new book:
Being with Dying: A Guide to the Great Matter,
a project long needing to be finished

this week i have also sat with issues of free will and causality
in the light of the tragic shootings in virginia
difficult to wrap the mind around what happened in that classroom
have tried to imagine being a young woman going to french class
then encountering my death there
what kind of society nourishes such suffering?
our kind.............

it is not only up to congress but up to everyone
of us to hold our leaders accountable
for this war
and it is also we who are responsible

grateful to codepink for their brave and wild work on behalf of peace
to dennis kucinich as well
and to many others
and there will be more........

this made sense to my heart:

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To
 never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity
 of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue
 beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or
 complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above
all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And
 never, never, to forget."
    ~ Arundhati Roy”

i return to this quote often: never to look away. and never, never, to forget.........