Less than 24 hours ago an psychopathic lunatic decided to unleash bullets are rapid pace on innocent, unsuspecting people simply out having a good time at a country music festival. I find myself absolutely drained as this point in the day from all the new and social media surrounding the tragic events.
This isn’t something that just affected the people at the festival or their friends and family. It affects all of us. It once again makes us feel like we aren’t safe anywhere we go. Every time someone commits a horrible act of violence in a place that should be safe, where you should be able to simply enjoy yourself and life your life, we’re once again reminded that it seems the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
When I think about all the times I’ve been in huge crowds at music festival, street fairs, full movie theaters, and simply walking through major cities I can’t think of a time I ever felt unsafe. But that seems to changing. No I actually do sometimes find myself questioning if it’s smart to go certain places or do certain things because you never know what might happen. And today it seems more and more likely that something bad could happen.
The only thing I could do today was donate to the Las Vegas Victims Go Fund Me and send my $20 off with a prayer and hope that we can all be safe from tragedy as those who were wounded heal and that the dead find peace.
Originally I was going to sit down and write a spell or ritual for dealing with loss and grief, specifically loss and grief like the things we’re experiencing right now…the shooting in Las Vegas, the hurricanes, the terrorist attacks in Europe, Donald Trump seemingly bringing us closer and closer to annihilation…things that may not directly affect us but that ultimately affect all of us.
But then I got stuck.
I had a rare moment of witch’s writer’s block.
As I sat here wondering what the deal was and why I couldn’t come up with anything it occurred to me that this doesn’t need a spell or a ritual. It needs magick of the mind and the soul. OK, yes all magick is magick of the mind and soul, but I guess I mean to say it didn’t need ritual magick.
If that’s what you need then by all means find a way to do that. But what I want to do is just share some words of wisdom and some thoughts that might help you move through the grief and the weight on the world right now.
Feel how you feel. It’s OK. Grieve if you need to grieve. Cry if you need to cry. Scream if you need to scream. It’s OK.
When you don’t allow yourself to feel your emotions and let them go they just build up and start to overtake other parts of your life, even having a negative effect on your physical health, not to mention what it does to your mental health.
So first and foremost, feel. But then, send love.
Send love to victims, send love to people who cause these tragedies, send love to the earth and nature, send love to yourself. You need love in a time like this too so don’t forget yourself and don’t let feelings of selfishness or guilt get in the way. Everyone deserves healing, even you.
The world only changes when we change ourselves and our hearts. When you are focused on changing your heart and radiating love into the world, others feel that and the ripple of healing begins.
Practice meditation.
I would specifically recommend metta meditation. This loving kindness practices helps us to look past the grief and the tragedy and helps us realize the most important thing of all; if we don’t put love out into the world in a time when love is lacking, we can’t expect love to grow.
The most important thing to remember during times like this is that it take love to heal, hate only makes the pain run deeper. But it can be hard to find that love through the layers of grief. That’s all the more reason why you need to feel your feelings of loss and let them go first. Then you make way for the floodgate of love to come through and do the healing.
It’s all about moving the energy and then remembering that if you want to see change in the world it has to start with you from inside your own heart and your little corner of the world.
Sometimes the magick is simply a matter of how you view the world.
Let’s not view these things as reasons to retreat into sadness but all the more reason to move past that and focus on love for all everywhere in the world because only love and deal with hate.
Kat says
Love this, Jess! Thank you!!