Reimagining a bright and vibrant future for all, March 2022 newsletter
Here at BeCompassionateNL, on a bright sunny day, we acknowledge with great sadness the suffering caused by President Vladimir Putin’s tragic decision to invade Ukraine. We have never felt the need for our compassion cultivation work to be stronger. We are working to manage our shadow selves, by systematically working to convert our fears into creativity, our anger into courage, and our grief into compassion. We believe that acknowledging and transforming our individual and collective shadow selves and setting the intention to “be peace” through meditation and prayer will stop this terrible war and reduce the prevalence of war and violence everywhere.
We are heartened by and loved the global response of outrage and resistance to President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a Blitzkrieg on Ukraine. We love the courage, resilience and fierce compassion demonstrated by President Volodymyr Zelensky, his wife Olena, and the wonderful Ukrainian people. We watch in awe as incredibly altruistic and brave Russian dissidents and peace activists speak out against this war and in doing so put their own liberty and lives, on the line. We call on all Canadian decision-makers to do all in their power to encourage, protect and support Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Georgian, and Russian Federation climate change and peace activists.
We especially call on Canadian and Western decision-makers to counter the influence of climate change deniers and trauma-blind war hawks on our news and social media channels. At BeCompassionateNL, we know that peace is always possible. We know that peace is an action verb. We know that we need to embody peace. We also know that war is an abomination created by human beings, who have not yet learned, how to channel their rage into courage and commitment. Instead, these traumatized people blinded by rage, lash out and create hell realms to manifest on our beautiful earth. We see their insatiable desire to draw all of us into the hells they create. Calmly and consciously, we refuse to be lured by their dystopian bait.
Instead, we focus on cultivating our natural and normal human capacities for peace and joy.
At BeCompassionateNL, we love that the Ukrainian military along with extraordinary civilians and brave foreign allies and volunteers are resolutely fighting off this totally barbaric, immoral, and unprovoked attack. We love that leaders, ordinary people, and grassroots movements everywhere are working to declaw, defang and defund President Vladimir Putin
and his generals. We love every effort big and small to save lives and bring a swift end to this terrible war. We love that business leaders and politicians are working to cut their ties with President Vladimir Putin and other Russian oligarchs.
We hope that the needs of Russian positive changemakers and dissidents are considered in these decision-making processes. We send out love to the brave women and men, volunteering to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine. We send out love to the armies of volunteers working to evacuate vulnerable babies, children, women, and foreign students from Ukraine. We love that the Ukrainian diaspora, their allies, and people everywhere are stepping up to do everything possible to save lives and protect pregnant women, babies, and children. We love that so many people living in Ukraine and in surrounding countries love their pet animals and try to save them.
At BeCompassionateNL, we absolutely love the speech given by Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations in response to the brutal invasion of Ukraine. This extraordinarily wise and uplifting speech is in our view worth listening to and watching again and again. We are deeply moved by Ambassador Martin Kimani and his fellow Kenyan’s call to respect border sovereignty and especially to carefully move past the painfully destructive legacy of aggressive empire-building and collapse. We strongly recommend that you gift yourself the time to watch this wonderfully uplifting speech.
In the rush to help, we see the best of our common humanity. In contrast, this brutal, catastrophic, immoral, and senseless invasion exemplifies how our collective human shadow can emerge and manifest. We seek to light all the candles and lightbulbs needed to light pathways to a totally new and much brighter future for all of us. At BeCompassionateNL, we stress that cultivating self-compassion is important. Self-compassion calls us to cut back on the time we devote to watching gut-wrenching scenes on social media and news channels. Self-compassion calls us to gift ourselves as much time to rest, relax in nature and be with loved ones, as possible.
We are responding to this crisis by opening our Zoom Room at 07.00 AM each morning for a thirty-minute meditation focused on peace. These sessions are free. Drop-ins are most welcome. To join, please visit the BeCompassionateNL website, join our free mighty network and send an RSVP to share that you will be attending a session. Meditators from all traditions are most welcome. People who prefer to pray using words and chants are equally welcome. We will set the intention to meditate, pray, and sow seeds for peace, healing, reconciliation, and joy.
Our focus is not only to contribute to the desperately needed cease-fire, peace, and healing between Ukraine and Russia, we are also meditating and praying for peace, wherever peace is needed. We wish to cultivate peace in our hearts, families, and communities. We are aware that criminality, violence, suffering, pain hurt, and harm overwhelms many members of our massive and very unruly human family. Chaos, and division act as accelerating fuels for violence and war. These lead to both intended and unintended hurt and harm. Chaos hurts and harms people, animals, birds, fish, trees, deserts, lakes, mountains, and rivers in many regions of our precious rare, and living planet.
At BeCompassionateNL, we are aware of the well-established links between domestic and community violence, oppression with senseless chaos, and the hell of war. We rejoice that people everywhere practice forms of meditation and prayer, which sow seeds of peace and healing. We love diversity and inclusion. We know that all human Wisdom Traditions, spiritual practices, and religions value compassion, kindness, and peace. We believe the evidence shows that meditation and prayer help to foster healing and peace. As with all connections in our complex and interconnected world, the links may not always be obvious nor appear immediately.
How often have we been forced to witness acts of horrendous violence directed at our sisters and brothers meeting to celebrate, mourn or simply pray in churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples? At these times, it is especially difficult to hold fast to our intentions to co-create societies founded on consensus building, open democracy, diversity, freedom, and unity. At BeCompassionateNL we never claim to have the answers to the many challenges we face as individuals, families, communities, and nations. We are non-partisan and centrist. We applaud all our courageous family members, friends, and neighbors, who choose to enter public life.
We acknowledge that we in our fledgling community are a tiny drop in the Great Ocean of Life. We believe that every drop counts and that peace and joy are always possible. We believe that even tiny efforts are helpful in sowing seeds of peace and joy. We accept that these beautiful seeds may not sprout immediately. We are a trauma-aware, trauma-sensitive, and healing-focused community. At BeCompassionateNL, we strongly support the amazing work of Thomas Hübbl and The Pocket Project. We agree with Thomas that unaddressed trauma caused by centuries and even millennia of violent conflict and war is a massive source of domestic violence, grief, illness, and even more destruction and war.
We love how Thomas has been working for over a decade to heal intergenerational wounds between the German-speaking peoples, Jewish people, and the people of Israel. We agree with
Thomas that the Holodomor, the Shoah, and numerous other horrific genocides and massacres
combined with the catastrophic and senseless loss of life in both World Wars I and II have unleashed tsunamis of suffering. We seek to support the work of Thomas and his team as they work to heal unhealed traumas. We believe that varying degrees of unhealed trauma affect almost all of us. We also love the work of our own Hungarian Canadian trauma healing leader, Dr.Gabor Maté. We feel that too few of us are trained to be trauma aware and trauma-sensitive. We believe we all benefit from encouragement, support, and training to learn how best to grow in resilience, heal trauma at every level, work towards post-traumatic growth and become trauma-informed leaders.
At Be CompassionateBL.inc, we also seek ways to support Svitlana Krakovska, Ukraine’s top Climate Change Scientist, and all her colleagues. Svitlana is now sheltering from President Vladimir Putin’s Blitzkrieg on Kyiv with her four children. As the bombs fall, she and her fellow activists are calling on all of us, to support her efforts to tackle climate change by investing in renewables. We feel that it may not be coincidental that President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, In late February 2022, just as thousands of scientists were reporting on the most concerning report ever provided to the United Nations on our climate emergency.
At BeCompassionateNL we are saddened and shocked to learn that clean coal, oil, or gas do not exist. Clean coal, oil, and gas are an urban myth. Who knew? In the 1950s duped physicians shared disease-causing cigarettes with their patients. It is easy to be duped by unethical profit-motivated individuals. Most of us have believed the self-interested messaging from massive Fossil Fuel Corporations. The amount of money they receive from our banks and governments is staggering. A decade or more ago, we thought that finding large deposits of oil off our coastline was wonderful news. We were excited and hoped that by investing in fossil fuel production, we would bring much-longed-for prosperity. We have wonderful family members and friends working in the fossil fuel industry.
We are now truly gob-smacked to learn that we have been all been duped. We now need to urgently move all our investments into renewable energy sources. Who knew? We enjoy learning from our Indigenous Elders and Land Protectors and non-governmental agencies like 350.org, Amnesty International, The Council for Canadians, The Sierra Club, and the St. John’s Social Justice Co-operative. We are committed to working with our community members and leaders towards a renewed global effort focused on endless diplomacy, détente, and peace.
We support calls for a fair and inclusive Just Transition and Green New Deal for our First Nation’s communities, for everyone living in Newfoundland and Labrador, and for all blessed to
live in Canada. We identify with all, who love life and wish to save life on our rare and precious living planet. We look for guidance and inspiration from our talented creatives, Indigenous Elders, bundle-keepers, knowledge-keepers, politicians, scientists, and spiritual leaders. Together we hope that we will find the courage to confront our individual and collective human shadow and to open all the doorways to Truth and Reconciliation.
We now call on all of us to envision what an ecological civilization will look like ? How can we learn to promote fractal flourishing? How can we imagine a beautiful future here for the Seventh Generation? How can human and non-human life flourish together? We welcome your recommendations, suggestions, and thoughts.
We look forward to e-meeting some of you some mornings at 07.00 AM, NLT.
We seek your support to raise awareness about our 8-week Compassion Cultivation Training Meditation course starting April 21. We will donate 50 % of any money raised to the new Pocket Project Ukraine project. Together we are setting our intention to find quiet coves and safe-havens.
