Transcendent Drumming

It has been a few months since I was perched on top of the temple steps of a monastery, squaring this picture of a larger-than-life Buddha statue that watches over Kathmandu Valley. Yet again, I marvel at the experiences that have illuminated my path between this memory and this evening typing in the comfort of my Brisbane flat.

Tonight I attended the fourth lecture of my Ethics & Human Rights course taught by an amazing soul that encourages one of those things I've most come to appreciate-- out-of-box living that coaxes our human existence to greater heights. Professor Bleiker took the lecture time to inspire us in the world of writing, to make it part of our daily routine, to make it our friend in a sense... to find our own voices. Recently I haven't found it as easy to journal and I feel the principal cause is the overabundance of others' words that have been flowing along those pathways from the eyes to the brain. No one ever said that making sense life was easy. The only route to relieve this stifling and encarcerating clog is to start poking at it, bit by bit.

Two of the recent readings for our course on Modern Peacekeeping were concerning war economies. I sat for hours in different locations in and around the new deluxe Queensland state library shaking my head in disbelief as I read. Several times, as my blood pressure pumped up, I looked to the people around me hoping someone would see the frustration in my eyes and lend a sympathetic ear and reassuring word. In our complex, high-paced technologically toned societies, the chance of this would correlate to that of pigs flying, I suppose. Cada cabeza es un mundo, every head is its own world.

That afternoon, my world was making sense of the connections between greed, natural resources, weapons, indifference to life and suffering. And it was realizing that studying UN peacekeeping missions will be uncomfortable-- a process of discovering the difficult reality that the powerful countries authorizing UN entry into these troubled spots have been complicit in making those situations what they are today.

Heartening is that in all I saw in Nepal and am understanding through my studies, there are shining examples of individuals and groups that refuse to buy into the pressure to prioritize material accumulation over the well-being of other people or our natural environment. There are those who have quieted enough to hear a trascendent drum. Well, we all have at one time or another...