Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Suffering of Others

There's a lot of noise on the internet these last few days. I don't feel much like adding to the debate over mental health treatment, gun control, or the masculinity crisis. I wrote this poem several years ago. It's the only response I have.

The Suffering of Others

You can protect yourself from the negative 
energy of a crowd by envisioning white 
light surrounding 
your entire body. Imagine this light 
enveloping, protecting you. 
Imagine this light 
filtering out  the suffering of others, the pain 
your body is prone to absorb as its own. 
Imagine this light 
as your shield, your womb, your favored skin, 
your dearest armor, 
your police dog, your invisible 
fence, your power word, your safe house. 
Imagine this light 
filling you, traveling 
from the soles of your feet into 
your spine, through your
core, and when grief 

howls in with a vengeance, when you are 
bowled over, in fact
bewildered, by the failure of this light,
after the blow 
of betrayal, you might well say, 
you might  well understand, 
that it was never Them at all.
It was never feasible: no skin no light 
no prayers save us for we have, 
all of us, swallowed 
ourselves, and contain 
only one another.


--Kristen McHenry


2 comments:

Frankly Curious said...

Wow. I like that final image. It also seems very much the way I see the universe. I could provide an audio metaphor, but I will spare you.

In general, I find all that white light and energy stuff total nonsense. But I was working for a client who created this system for disassociating emotions from memories. So I tried it. It was filled with all this white light and energy nonsense. But here's the thing: it worked. It is kind of creepy, really. I had this one memory from when I was a kid. It was something I felt really bad about--all my life. And now, I just can't connect those feelings to the memory. Now it all seems to silly: I was just a kid!

Anyway... I think it comes back to that old saying, "Sticks and stones will break our bones but words will break our hearts." I fear that we need the white light, even if it doesn't exist.

Kristen McHenry said...

"Anyway... I think it comes back to that old saying, "Sticks and stones will break our bones but words will break our hearts." I fear that we need the white light, even if it doesn't exist."

Yes, I think that's crux of it right there. Thank you for responding so thoughtfully. I'm glad that you were able to let go of that guilt from childhood, whatever tool it was that got you there.

I've had some white light experiences in my life, but none that come anywhere near resembling what most New Age-y books and articles describe it as.