3.11.11

For those whose lives experienced a shaking of the foundations by the events now associated with the numerical metaphor 9/11, the nation of Japan, in various degrees of intense challenge and trappings of despair, have 3/11 as their own symbol of the literal terrestrial tremor and immense inundation that visited the northeastern shores of the island of Honshu. The earth-shaking occurrence that made “Miyaki” and “Fukushima” household terms has come to a year’s turn, testifying to the awe and wonder of human resilience that continues to see a people bear their suffering sans rancor, and proceed with the many miracles of disciplined resolve without much taint of arrogance nor conceit.

Volunteers dive the cold waters of the North Pacific in order to locate those still missing so that bodies, if still recoverable, or, at least identifiable, be given to relatives to relieve battered minds and console forsaken souls; they scour the ocean floor on this anniversary day to give the culture’s vaunted communal effort one more try. The symbolic power of the attempt after all, carries a stronger punch on the human spirit than whatever tangible accomplishment it may gain.

Various degrees and forms of 9/11s and 3/11s have come to shake the corporate and individual foundations of our lives of late. A whole economy like that of Greece teeters on the brink of wholesale collapse even as those who hold the purse strings in staid buildings of France, Germany, and the Benelux readjust the numbers in their books to see if the financial processes at play can proceed. The Greeks see a decade-long belt-tightening before they can see the light at the end of a long tunnel. Others in the Eurozone cower in fear that their banking systems are next in line.

The drumbeats of war are getting stronger as gringo machismo reflexively wants to lash at those it perceives to threaten its comfort zone stated as aggression. Syria’s backyard is reportedly stained with the blood of kin in civil discord, while Cairo’s youth and Gaza’s refugees wrap their fists around many stones. Israel brags about keeping the option to go “unilateral” and those opposing Obama’s diplomatic efforts are easy on the language of preemptive offense.

The implications of the Japan disasters on the reality of climate change, the sudden hyperactivity of the tectonic plates and air/ocean currents showing unusual patterns, along with the continuing specter of the nuclear card going rogue or awry, matters than can no longer just be ignored and are in fact still resolvable with our current state of knowledge, are laid on the tables of our rational considerations, and we tremble at the prospects of head of states going postal (with apologies to the USPS) on narrow and less than global context.

As our sense of the global challenges grows more acute, the alarming turn of our individual destinies into the dark shadows of fear and suspicion on one hand, and the hellish reality of corruption and violence on the other, has brought the realities of 9/11 and 3/11s to roost at the doorsteps of our homes, if not into the inner sanctums of where we lay our head to sleep in the night. That, or our media’s choice of reporting the news is too heavily leaning on the side of human depravity. And ignoring the reality of our situation has sent us all flying to the momentary comfort of many forms of La-la-land, failing to see that at the root of the malaise of our time lies the crisis of nothing less than the cowering shrinkage of the human spirit itself.

Lest one thinks I have gone soft on the head, I am not referring to some element here foreign to the common eye, or only the province we officially parcel to the parson and the priest, the rabbi and the imam, the guru and the shaman. I am pointing to that wonderful discovery of consciousness that is the gift of our century and generation, the capacity to transcend our moment while at the same time, being totally and immanently immersed in every aspect of it. Then, while standing on the comprehensive with the longest view for a context, be minutely sensitive to every vibration of every moment and every square inch in the arena of living engagement, we know that where the shadows of death abound, the drive for life abounds much more.

Or, at least, that objectively remains an option for each of us, for while we constantly rehearse the perceived causes that brought us to where we are, often accompanied by a blame game on our reflections of CNMI’s past, and anticipate with much foreboding and doom fare the chances that lie on our path beyond, it is the choices that we make each day that constitutes the final stroke determining the course of our existence.

Nippongos, for all the gory and glory of their past, manage to keep their chin up in a deep sense of self-respect and self-confidence, and by many accounts turn calamities into a limbering of futuric resolves, and while many a year later today still reside in makeshift shelters overlooking the empty spaces left behind by their devastated homes, life flows on like udon on a bowl of seaweed-flavored and jasmine-scented soba, as the Land of the Rising Sun continues to greet a harried world, Ohayoo Gozaimasu!

So, how are we faring with our choices today?