There is War in Europe

Unimaginable cruelty, destruction, suffering

As the ordinary and the Beautiful fall victims to the machinations of the powerful who are addicted to greed and control.

I ask, as we all must ask;

I am not a warrior.

I am not willing to kill or be killed to serve a man's illusions of grandeur and insatiable appetite for power.

No, I am more like a Frodo on his lonely quest while great battles rage around and below him.

Dogged, thwarted, challenged and even served by his shadow, with his faithful companion ever at his side.

His battle is the most fierce, one that even the great and powerful refuse to fight or succumb to.

His battle is within,

Facing his fears and vulnerability to the seductions of power.

He is triumphant, and in his triumph, an old world passes as a new one begins.

My story differs from Frodo’s in some ways.

My quest is not to the top of the mountain.

My quest is always to the Center, where wholeness and Beauty reside.

I am as the musicians who played while Sarajevo was bombed,

And when the Titanic went down.

Carrying and sowing seeds of Beauty to sprout and flourish in the new world.

Separation is an illusion.

Beauty is a healing balm

and the Center of my Universe.

I will continue to carry and spread her seeds on my heroine’s journey to the Center.