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Poetry/Essay: Wherever You May Find It

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Wherever You May Find It”

I lifted the spear 
readied for the hunt 
and went after 
love. 

God stopped me by the gate 
and said, 
“Do not seek it in another.” 

And I replied 
“Then how will I ever have it?” 

And he said, 
“Protect innocence 
wherever you may find it.”

I wrote this short one in 2010 when I used to post as “Apsara” on the Chaikhana Tea House poetry message board.  The last quote, “protect innocence wherever you may find it.” is more than pretty words or a lovely sentiment.  Tis a means of survival.  It’s how we find our way to harmony and balance.  It is how we make sense out of things when things make no fucking sense.  And the world as it is today, makes no fucking sense.  No kidding, no joke.  It’s a mess out there folks and there is no denying it.  What has got me riled up today?  Well, one thing for sure is that I have my own process going on…that is for sure.  I can’t share what it is about.  It has to do with my kids and my ex and I just can’t say more than that.  But I can say it is the kind of thing that makes you wonder where the good in the world is hiding.  Speaking for myself…that is what occurs to me.  It is times like this that make me move towards protecting innocence.

Think of innocence as an energetic, a purity.  It is a hope.  But more than that.  It is a book in a dream that you can still hold in your hands when you wake up and what is written there changes the waking world.  The stuff of dreams becomes real.  Innocence is real.  And what happens…what is happening…what has been happening…makes it really god damn hard to believe innocence is still here, among humanity.

Protecting innocence is so important.  But what I love the most about this phrase is “wherever you may find it”.  Where might you find innocence?  I mean, for real…right now?  Close your lapt0p and go find it.

(10 minutes later)

I hope you found some, somewhere, because the thing about protecting innocence is that we need it.  We need it survive what happens when we don’t have it, or what happens when we can’t see it or feel it.  I always think about Ghandi.  He found it…in other people.  He appealed to their innocence.  He made people ashamed of how they had lost it…but where did he pull his strength from?  He showed them his own innocence.  He laid down before them.  He went on hunger strikes.  He brought forth his innocence, to appeal to the suppressor’s innocence…in order to bring about more for all.  Yes, innocence is inside of you.  But if you can’t find it there…then protect it wherever you MAY find it…wherever you CAN see it.  Start there and it will lead to your own.  But how many of us walk around thinking “I need to protect innocence wherever I may find it?”  It’s hard to do when we have forgotten that innocence is always close at hand, just waiting for us to see again.

The thing about seeing a complete lack of innocence in our world is that powerlessness and hopelessness are snuggled up against it.  Right now we’ve got 9 fricking planets in Pisces.  Tonight is a new moon.  Can you say ‘underworld’?  Feeling frustrated and like you want to throw in the towel is a perfectly acceptable way to feel right about now.  And when you are down in there, what can be done?  It has to be felt.  I am not suggesting a shortcut.  But I am saying that you can be on the bottom of the barrel and still cast about for innocence to protect.  Because believe me, you look around down there…you will find that you are not alone.  And if everyone down in it, started looking out for one another, protecting innocence, things change.

My big challenge today of forgetting about innocence was when I was at my warehouse working and listening to NPR.  There was a show about a new book called Frankenstein’s Cat where they interviewed the author.  You can listen and read all about it HERE.  In essence, it is about animal testing, DNA manipulation, fusing human and animal DNA, mutating animal DNA in grotesque ways to turn them into drone’s for military purposes.  Honestly, it just made me want to do what they are doing.  Hearing what they are blindly and ignorantly doing to animals with justification is so abhorrent that it made me want to care less.  Because when you can’t make them stop, when you can’t make the madness  of the world go away and it is coming from all sides..what can you do?  I think what happens is that you can end up in a place of such shutdown, that yes…you can find a way to justify torturing animals and playing God with life…for profit, for research, for whatever.  But one thing you are not doing is protecting innocence.  And yeah, I have spent my days on Oncology wards.  I have been in pediatric wards where the kids that were there the day before are gone, and not because they got better.  And yes sometimes the medicine’s help them and those medicines were perfected via animal testing.

The thing that bothers me the most is the profit motive behind the rush to switch genetic expression on and off like a plaything.  The other thing is hearing the researchers speak with glee about how they can turn living creatures into mechanical beasts that respond to human commands.  I don’t recall being asked about this.  I don’t hear a huge outcry.  What shocked me the most is that until this show came on I had no Earthly idea that this kind of research was even legal, let alone ongoing and actually quite advanced already.  I thought this kind of genetic manipulation and willful testing was still being blocked by bioethicists and the UN or some such thing.  I thought it was the realm of sci-fi movies and books.  But I’ll be damned if it isn’t already here…now…yesterday…tomorrow.  And if you can listen to this show and not be disgusted or frightened about what humans are doing to animals…I am afraid that I have to draw a line with you.  For no matter how wonderful you are or what good works you do, if you think it is okay to treat animals with such flagrant disregard than you are as blind as they come.

There are times when you cannot directly stop a person from doing something, that if they were in their heart…they would never ever do.  At moments like that it will feel like we can’t do anything.  For me, what I do is I go back to the modicum…protect innocence wherever I may find it.  That means see what can be done about rallying against things like these research labs or any other thing you feel needs correcting.  But it sometimes is true that we also must find an outlet for our cause, that may not directly impact the cause we hold dear.  Protecting innocence is a way to make sure that we have a positive outlet for the love we feel for other living things.  It does make a difference. If we can’t stop what we want to stop…we can still have a positive impact by protecting innocence right in front of us.  Be kind to one another.  But in obvious ways.  Drop subtlety.

Because when people have their innocence protected, they do not find delight in cutting up animals and turning them into machines as playtoys for mankind’s folly.

Fuck!!!

(Breathe Charlie…)  Exhaaaalllleeee…

You see.  I can’t stop them from doing that.  And that bothers me immensely.  But it is bigger than just stopping them.  It is about the evolutionary state of humanity and we simply aren’t there yet.  As a species we haven’t evolved past the “what can we make” phase.  I d0n’t have solid answers.  I just know how to love.  And I know that when I think of things like those labs I feel useless.  But when I move towards supporting someone, a friend, a parent, me, an animal, a stranger…it makes the world make sense again.  When I find innocence and move to protect it, the world regains its lost innocence.

I am going to close with my poem again…

I lifted the spear 
readied for the hunt 
and went after 
love. 

God stopped me by the gate 
and said, 
“Do not seek it in another.” 

And I replied 
“Then how will I ever have it?” 

And he said, 
“Protect innocence 
wherever you may find it.”



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