Mourning the Fallen

9 dead, 20 wounded



Fifteen members of the 82nd Airborne Unit from Fort Bragg NC have been killed in Iraq this month. Nine of these soldiers died yesterday. Shall we all don camoflauge and honor the fallen in a National Day of Mourning as many, dressed in the orange and maroon, did last Friday for the 32 civilians killed at Va. Tech?

This madness has got to stop! I felt completely non-plussed by last weeks headlines. This isn't to say that I don't feel compassion for the families of the dead. But since the inception of the Iraq war, there are a total of three months that less than 32 American soldiers died. When do they get their National Day of Mourning?

Content vs. Happy

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So, spring is finally here and I am gently poking my head out of the burrow I create for wintering. I DO come out because I HAVE to during the cold months, but it is not my true nature. I was an Indian Summer baby...spring, summer, fall? All pretty darn great for me psychologically, but winter and shadows and darkness are not aspects of nature that I am naturally attuned to. I’m not happy in the winter and I’m here to report that I’m beginning to unplug from the whole fantasy of “happiness” being some ideal that our culture has bought into when in reality, most folks don’t even take the time to question just what happiness would look like if they met it in a dark alley in February or the Fields of Folly amidst swaying sunflowers in August! Me? I’ll settle for contentment. I’ll settle for not depressed, not manic, but simply, content.