No More War

Art: NO MORE WAR by Sally Anderson-barwell

The horror and the helplessness of war is unfathomable. Here we sit in our safe houses scrolling through terror and tyrannical spite spliced disquietingly between our regular programming. It is bewildering and beyond sense or reason. Our world gone mad - again - as the revolution is televised in real time and on sickening repeat.

War remains the hideous hallmark of humanity, another blood red thread that links all human history. This particular blood mystery, its spilling rather than its shedding, is attributed mainly to men not women. Men who hold power in their ruby grip and heroically send their kin to fight their battles for them, who then die trying. Men who spare no thought for the awful cost to life and love, euphemising the collateral damage and the stained trail of destruction. Men who have weaponised their wounds against life. These men are not brave. They are bloodied cowards that live comfortably in fortresses and bunkers; who will die they way they lived, by the merciless sword.

Historically and generally women go to war to save something or protect what is precious. Not all men go to war to pillage and plunder, reaping what they have sown. This has been the way of things under patriarchy, which devours all its children. This is empire in action. War dog eats dog. These remain the tenets of the awfully modern world, witnessed again in excruiciating horror. We still live under it. Spin and spittle. Divide and conquer. Destroy the competition. Claim your spoils. Let that be a lesson to all who follow. Repeat until death.

The only way this changes is to unspool patriarchy's poison thread from within you. This is the shadow work of these burning times, no matter what lies between your legs, your heart or your head. That is why you are here, now, bearing wild eyed witness as you wonder what lies beyond this insanity. Work it out, quickly now, or the stench will linger.

The only world you can change is yours. The one you can hold in your tears and prayers is yours too, but its screaming bulk may not shift at your bidding. And there isn't anything you can do about that, except stand up and show your soul.

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Always look at the people, not at the mass. A face, not the crowd. Look at the world, not at the ground. Every little detail you see is a victory.
~ Vic James, Gilded Cage

Words c. Kerrie Basha 2022