The Holy Paired Precariously with The Horrible

The Wine: The Rhone You Don’t Know (Northern Rhone Valley, France)

The Winery: Packing House Wine Merchants (Claremont, CA)

The W(H)ine: The Holy Paired Precariously with The Horrible (Vernal Equinox Pondering, on the One Day where we experience Equal Parts Light and Dark)

Putin pressures, pummels, and punishes. For no sane reason, only the maniacally fragile and fractured ego of a malignant narcissist.

Power over a beleaguered people.

What awaits he, and they, is nothing short of revolution, the best kind from the worst circumstances…

The kind where the collective soul awakens, camaraderie arises, and an army of the people, for the people, and by the people proceeds to annihilate ego within and without.

As we watch (from way too far away) the smoldering ashes, the empty strollers, the painful parades to Poland and other safe havens, we wonder what, if any, relevance this has on our present existence, barring World War Three.

Oh, so much.

We humans are not well conditioned for finding the Holy entwined so precariously with the unfolding horror. Yet, undoubtedly, it/He/She/They is/are T(H)ere.

There. Here. So far away yet oh, so damn close.

I visited Ukraine twice, in 2006 and 2008, on two meaningful humanitarian missions to orphanages housed in World War II military barracks deep in the cold, dark Western forests of Rivne, Ukraine, bordering Belarus and within Chernobyl’s lingering radiation effects.

The most vulnerable of all Ukrainian people - their abandoned, impoverished children - tattooed on my heart a permanent visual and deep understanding of the term: Resiliency.

In fact, only 25% of the orphans were “full orphans”, meaning they had NO parent or legal guardian. The majority called the state-run institutions “home” because their parents could not afford to house, feed, or otherwise support them, and at some point, in early childhood, were dropped off at the orphanage doors, parents promising a return, but rarely, if ever, did.

This, the struggle of a people finding renewal on their own terms, freedom’s welcome whisper, after centuries of communistic control by the now (in theory) dominating next-door neighbors: Russia.

After decades of being silenced, while surviving the East’s corrupt governmental influence through iterations of diplomatic efforts, a Holy rumble resonated in the belly of every Ukrainian hungering for Freedom from Fear’s illegitimate Regime and Freedom to Find legitimate Voice.

And now, the previous rumble rises to a very Holy Roar, amidst an equally unholy war. Dualistic, seemingly. But is it now?

Seems the Voice rises FROM the suffering…

An unexpected servant OF the people appears IN THE MIDST OF the disturbing power OVER the people.

The Holy and the Horrible entwined, so closely that the challenge may be distinguishing, which was which, once an outcome settles in.

I am not suggesting a causal effect here, people.

Just that what IS, is a messy mix of dark and light forces both performing epically at this monumental moment in Time, may shine a Truth upon a Universal process we all encounter, but most buck up against, fight or flee from, or in some other maladaptive manner, escape so as NOT to suffer.

AND…in so doing, miss the Message, the Meaning, and the Magick made possible due to an indistinguishable Mix of Holy and Horrible. So close, yet not so far away, eh?

Despite his best, worst efforts, Putin the punisher has already lost, if you will (I will!).

In unlawful retaliation, he set the stage for a Rising, for the building of impenetrable Resilience, for the uniting of a world’s Races, who see through the egoic deception, the bullying brandishing, and the deplorable murdering of precious Freedom Voices.

The silenced souls will NEVER stop speaking.

With each snuffed life, in all who remain, the RUMBLE RISES TO A ROAR…

Within and without. Rendering resilience from the rubble.

Who, without ego, in plain green t-shirts, with borrowed ammunition, while leaving babies behind to tend to the frontline, face the foe in the fullness of human fragility, and in so DOING, willingly SACRIFICE for sake of collective Freedom, knowing that their BEING, their very Existence is worth every exercise in encountering horror head on.

How Holy. How Horrible. How Human.

Here’s to Equal Parts Light and Dark, and Finding Hope in Midst of All that Is.