(Poem) This Time by Melissa La Flamme

“To passively accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” —Martin Luther King

This time, we resist
the reflex
to normalize
what dehumanizes,
corrupts
the core
of the soul
of a nation
in distress.

This time, we will not
get comfortable
with the illusory luxury
of looking away.

This time, we resist
intellectualizing
outrage
and sanitizing
anger,
dressing it up
to be socially acceptable.

This time, we will not
gloss-over corrupted power’s
parasitic presence,
the madness
in the way
it wears us down,
makes us pliable,
susceptible
to the twisted notion
that we can metabolize
poison
by contorting our soul,
“while Rome burns.”

This time, we will not feed that fire.
This time, we are the fire.

This time, we will not
minimize the gravity
by fueling the fantasy
that someone—
anyone—
will save us.

This time, we will save ourselves
and each other.

This time, we will not wait
for history to repeat
the violations
of our ratified,
rarified
natural-born
freedoms,
our rights
to live
unmolested
by hatred.

This time, we let
our broken hearts
open our eyes
and confirm our action,
radically with purpose
in good faith with the whole.

This time, we refuse
the privilege
of the refuge of cynicism.

This time, we will not feed that fire.
This time, we are the fire.

This time, we refuse
greed and racism
a place at the table,
lest we are prepared
to sign
Freedom’s
death
certificate.

This time, we resist
the reflex to hide
our privileged heads
in the quicksands of
American-born
comfort.

This time, we resist
normalizing
hatred
dressed expensively
as abuse
in the form of danger
disguised
as leaders
wielding staggering power,
weapons of mass
seduction
in sweaty palms
ready
to f#ck with the lives
of billions
of souls on and
of the earth.

This time, we will not feed that fire.
This time, we are the fire.

This time, fierce compassion
burns away the hate.

This time, courage
fuels the embers of our resilience.

This time, resistance
stokes our hope.

This time, open eyes
and awakened hearts
march up and over
the glowing threshold
of our tremulous
rising.

..

Image: The American flag depicted in an upside down position symbolizes the nation in distress; it is not a sign of rejection of the republic or its people. On the contrary, it is a call into the arms and the heart of the people. A call to stir peaceful and powerful action. A call to awaken us from the warm bed of American comfort.

Note: Through a multi-focal Jungian/Depth-psychological and a shamanic lens, we have entered the dark depths of the unconscious psyche at a collective level, the Underworld, of which the Shadow is one aspect. If enough individual (psyches) do not wake up enough to do their own shadow work, reclaim their own unconscious undermining thoughts and behaviors, the collective Shadow will consume us. Perhaps it already has. And when the Shadow consumes the psyche, and all goes Dark, that’s when Jung said, the real soul work begins. This Work is never to be done alone. Its likelihood of ushering in true madness is very high. Thus, solidarity is critical. Our words and language and the imagery we conjure and share on every level, one to one and one to many, is vital. The work is to repair the soul of an entire culture. We will not come out unscathed. No transformation happens without great sacrifice. The more we are united, and willing to courageously resist, be unpopular with family and “friends” and true friends, the more we will save, repair and cultivate the collective soul.

© Melissa La Flamme

Read (Meet Mago Contributor) Melissa LaFlamme