11/05/2023
Itâs almost been a month. On October 7th I was teaching 44 remarkable individuals on a cruise ship in Greece. I was there with my husband and a dear friend who traveled with us. As I was relaxing on the shipâs deck, my friend found me. Her face was white.
She explained that Israel had been attacked . . . and her beautiful, kind, 21 year old nephew (by marriage) who was there at a peace concert, had been killed. There were no words. There are no words.
With spotty internet on the ship it was hard to follow the news.
But when we got back home, I heard from both Jewish friends and Muslim friends here in United States. They were all scared. Very scared.
I heard from people who told me that they were stocking up on survival supplies, in case there was an escalation of the events in the Middle East, they wanted to be prepared.
What do we do in times like this?
I had a dream that personally gave me an answer. In my dream, it was nighttime and I was floating above a city/town. I didnât know where I was and couldnât see the buildings because of the upheaval of whirling red, orange and black waves of energy rushing over and around the buildings. The waves felt like a tsunami of emotions - rage, grief, fear. Each color was a different emotion. The waves surged over and around everything.
Suddenly I found myself being sucked down into it. I felt rip tides of rage and grief yank me in different directions. I could feel the intensity of each emotional current. The emotions were burning my skin. An undertow began to pull me under. I couldnât breathe ... it was horrifying.
Then I remembered Martin Luther Kingâs quoteâŚ. âBe the peace you wish to see in the world.â. In my dream it was hard to Be Peace, amid the intensity and cacophony of the waves. I was drowning.
But deep in my core I found a small point of lightâŚ. a spark of peace and love. I kept breathing into it. It expanded. Soon the light filled me and began to radiate out from me. The darkness around me began to shift and lighten. I could breathe.
At this point I woke up. What a vivid dream! It felt so real. Was I there in Gaza in my astral body? Or was it simply a dream? I donât know.
But what I do know is that this dream made clear to BE the peace we wish to see in the world. My fear, grief and anger about whatâs occurring on our planet, doesnât help the world at large. (Of course, giving to organizations that get food and medical supples to places in need is incredibly valuable.) But what I do know is that on an energy level, finding peace inside of ourselves dramatically contributes to our needful planet. . . more than we may know. There may have never been a more important time to do this than right now. Gandhiâs quote says this so well.
"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.â
~ Mahatma Gandhi
Whenever the chaos and cacophony of the life wobbles me, as it has been recently with the current events of the world, I repeat the St. Francis peace prayer to myself. Iâve been repeating it a lot this last month. I feel a warm radiance of peace roll through me each time as I say it to myself:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
To me this prayer epitomizes grace.. in these tremulous times, and for me it offers refuge.
Sending you grace and love,
Denise Linn