It seems a long hot summer has begun. In the national news another school shooting has occurred. All of the cable TV news channels that had previously been covering the war in Ukraine have switched to non-stop coverage of the shooting and its aftermath. I have followed the various story lines sporadically turning it off when it began to repeat itself or when I started to feel overwhelming sadness and anger.
Many people I know advocate for not following “mainstream” media. They find it more beneficial to concentrate on their own lives. I have tried this approach a couple of times. Some times I was simply too busy and at other times chose to focus my attention on things that are under my control.
I remember writing about my feelings after the Columbine shooting in 1999. I felt an immense sadness then just as I have in the past week. Why do these continue to happen? In 1999 I think I believed that this would surely be taken care of, that our society would collectively say “Never again”. Instead, in the past twenty-three years everything has become more polarized. The level of anger and frustration has only grown and these shootings seem to repeat themselves.
During one of the times of turning off the TV because I needed to refocus I began the mandala below. I wanted to use colors that denoted hot anger. I mixed in black for the darkness of feeling that was spreading with the news about the shooting. I felt frustration reflected in the fact that I was coloring with a very heavy hand and breaking the pencil lead more frequently than usual.
There is a quote attributed to Einstein that says something like you can not solve a problem on the level that created it. Using this logic, I have to conclude that there is some higher understanding that can be reached so that one side is not defeated by the other. Why do there have to be winners and loosers and why does everything have to be a battle?
The word compromise has become a dirty word for many people. My idea would be less compromise and more finding ways to be together that honor all. In my mandala, the colors could be in jarring contrast but it is also possible that they come together in ways that mutually support. Often I think of the center of the mandala as a place of calm and of calm flowing outward. In this one the center is filled with chaos but this chaos resolves to order at a higher level.