I love you - parts 1 & 2

[Persephone Emerald]

Part 1 (Sept. 25)

   I think sometimes "I love you", then wonder who I'm addressing this sentiment to. I realized one morning that I'm addressing it to my idea of a Deity that's present within all of existence. I'm addressing my Mother Goddess and all of Life around me. I'm not addressing it to a particular person. I'm not addressing it to a God who stands outside of His creation and wants adoration. I'm addressing it to a Deity that I believe created everything out of Itself selflessly, as a pure gift and sacrifice. I'm addressing it to a Deity that loves everyone and everything, because we are It's children

   When I say this She echoes back to me, "I love you too," not to make me feel more special than anyone else, but to remind me that Love is an important part of our existence, to remind me that we are always cared about, even when we feel alone and hurt, to remind me that giving love and care to others is the lesson we're all supposed to learn.

   My image of this Goddess has shown herself to me in dreams in both her Mother and Maiden forms, and as the endless vast Sea of all potential. As the Sea she is both the beginning and the end of all things. As the Maiden she creates everything out of nothing except her own Love and Will. Then She waits for the end of everything and recreates a new Universe when the last one or this one or the next one is done.

   I sometimes feel like our world is beginning to die. We could save it, but there is no certainty that we will. Maybe I'm just projecting my own depression on the world around me though. We've been created out of this Deity, with a similar power to create or destroy nearly anything we can imagine. It's up to us how we use this power.

   It's painful for me to feel love for humanity, yet see how petty and hurtful people often are to each other. I see our potential to be compassionate, wise and loving, yet our pain and fear keeps driving us to hurt each other and ourselves. We're distrustful of each other out of the experience of being hurt. We draw lines to divide people into categories of Ally, Enemy or Stranger. Every stranger is a potential ally or enemy, yet we often expect first that they could hurt us. Our expectations and protections have power too though, because we're all part of the Divine Creator/Destroyer. What we desire or fear we can call into Being.

Part 2 (Oct. 10)

I feel sad sometimes because I know so many people are struggling and hurting, and I don't think our societies help them enough. We're destroying our world with pollution, CO2 emissions, deforestation, overfishing and overpopulation. We're bombing civilians, destroying homes, schools and hospitals in senseless wars. We're letting people starve, drown, and die of curable diseases. The top 10% of our population controls more wealth and resources than they can ever use, while millions of others suffer and die for lack of sufficient help. Many resources are certainly limited, but compassion and kindness don't have to be. When I see people trying to help others - who aren't their immediate family and friends - then I have hope for humanity, but I still fear humanity's self-centered greed, fear and stupidity may be greater than its wisdom and compassion.

I didn't do much to help improve my own life yesterday, but I did at least one good thing for someone else. I was in SL, and the chat opened for one of my groups, Survivors of Suicide (which is really just a peer support group for mental health). A young woman in the group was feeling suicidal. A couple other people talked with her to try to help her feel better. I could have closed the chat window, but I listened to her and tried to be encouraging too. In the end, our joint effort helped her get past feeling like she wanted to shoot herself. I won't recount details of her life and problems, but I told her that her wanting to help people shows she's needed in this world. I also told her what I tell myself, that once she gets though these hard times, her compassion and experience of pain will help her to help others better. I told her that she's in this world for a reason, so she needs to hang on and not give up now.

Being able to talk about her feelings and having others listen to her and try to encourage her helped her feel better. We can't wave a magic wand to make another person's problems go away, but we can show them that they aren't alone and uncared about.

I didn't do much to help improve my own life yesterday, but I helped someone else feel better, and being able to do this makes me feel like I deserve to be in this world too.