We Are Earthlings: Keep Russians in Your Heart
In my previous post, I mentioned that my dreams are often war-related these days. I had yet another symbolic dream that shook me and reminded me how extremely important it is for us to be vigilant at this time, and just how much ordinary Russians need our support right now.
In this dream, I walked into a barn in a countryside with a group of people from the neighboring community. The scene was unbelievable. Animals sat in cages, starving to death. Each of them had some kind of crude device attached to them that limited their movement. One had a short rope attached to its neck that extended out of the cage, and the other end of the rope was tied to a gun. It was choking because of it. Another had food dangling right in front of it’s face, but it was set up so that the animal could never reach it. This was a level of cruelty we hadn’t anticipated. We were all dismayed, wondering, “How did we let this happen right under our noses?” There was palpable fear that we had come to our senses too late.
It doesn’t take much analysis to figure out that this is an allegory for what is happening in Russia right now. Isolating people and starving them of truth. Threatening people with violence for voicing their dissent. Keeping people in line by dangling false hope. And this is all coming from a government claiming they are “de-nazifying” another country. By painting themselves as the opposite of Nazis, they’ve manipulated their citizens into believing that they are doing the virtuous thing. It’s entirely possible that there are already beginnings of concentration camps inside Russia.
Pray for Ukrainians and Russians
I fear for Russians and the foreigners inside the country. Vladimir Putin seems to be acting like a mass shooter who’s determined to kill as many people as possible before turning the gun on himself. He doesn’t seem to care who he kills anymore. While the world’s attention is on Ukraine, people inside Russia could face unimaginable cruelty under the radar. I don’t want to minimize what is happening in Ukraine. Not at all! The attack on the maternity hospital turns my stomach. But I beg you, please pray for the people in Russia along with the people in Ukraine. Please keep vigilant and speak up when you see injustices. My namesake is someone who spent her childhood inside the Japanese internment camp right here in the U.S.A. We have to remember that we’re ALL capable of allowing our biases to cloud our judgement, but we don’t have to let it.
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The song above is something I wrote years ago after a mass shooting. At the time, I didn’t know what to do with it, and only released the lyrics. But now, it feels like the song is really asking to go out into the world. I hope you’ll listen and reaffirm how much we have in common with everyone and everything. We are all citizens of Earth, and we all need each other’s love right now.