Again and Again Is Now!

Never again did we want to smoke, drink too much alcohol or let ourselves be humiliated. Never again did we want to lash out, sow discord, cheat, steal. Never to hurt our children so badly that they still suffer the consequences as adults. No more lies, no more violence, no more self-sabotage!

So far, so well-intentioned.
None of this is impossible if one persistently walks the path of self-knowledge and does not shrink back even from unpleasant discoveries, honestly admits one’s addictions and longings and begins to search for their causes.

When do I use drug-induced states of intoxication to veil a feeling of emptiness, of existential insecurity?
Why do I feel so worthless and guilty that I keep landing in self-destructive situations?
How is it that I feel better when I treat other people with contempt or torment them?

The search for clues usually leads us into early childhood, into conflict-ridden or even violent situations, into dark family secrets, transgenerational traumas, prenatal circumstances.
Some people even set out on an even further journey, exploring karmic entanglements from earlier incarnations.

The aim of all these reflections: to illuminate causes, understand connections, discover patterns, and then: to transform what one wishes to change. To accept what cannot be changed. To integrate what wants to be seen. To heal.

Here we may recognize: there are individual traumas, such as parents who died early, abuse or poverty, that shape us, or collective traumas, such as war, displacement, environmental disasters, that affect entire peoples, regions or countries. But also such traumas as find their way in an “epigenetic” manner into our mental-physical-spiritual fabric, without our having been directly affected.

And collective fates too, with which we identify, to which we “dock” and which then work within us, can be a burden, even though we do not suffer directly under them: past or currently ongoing crimes that have to do with the suppression of the feminine principle, with slavery or the extermination of indigenous cultures, with patriarchal violence or religious delusion.
Here – and this is decisive – both the perpetrator role and the victim role can torment us with rage, guilt and shame.

If dishonesty now creeps into the process of self-knowledge, if we become sluggish, fearful and sloppy in our “reckoning,” if we let ourselves be told where we may look and where we had better not point the spotlight, if monetary or ideological interests hinder our inquiries, if we encounter taboos and let ourselves be intimidated by them …

What happens then?
Can we transform what we do not know, accept what we blank out, heal where we do not feel the pain?
How do we overcome compulsive behaviors and destructive patterns that go hand in hand with greed, fear, anger or despair, if we absolutely do not (want to) feel greedy, fearful, angry or despairing?
Or ascribe these qualities only to our counterpart, to the Other.
Or recognize these qualities in ourselves, but classify them as justified, because they are without doubt provoked by an “outside” to which we are “merely” reacting.

Never again war and destruction, we have vowed countless times.
Never again!

Let us look around: the trouble spots are absurdly numerous, and the kinds of mutual mistreatment range from open violence, torture and war to subtle forms of manipulation and tyranny.

As if in a frenzy we erect firewalls against supposed perpetrators – and in doing so become violent perpetrators ourselves and at the same time victims of our conditioning.
As if in a frenzy we show solidarity with supposed victims whose own perpetration we make taboo, which in turn makes us accomplices.
Who here is the aggressor, who the resistance fighter, who the terrorist, who the oppressor, who the criminal, who is defending themselves, who is innocent, and: who decides that?
At the expense of genuine reckoning and self-knowledge, attributions are desperately cemented that distort our experience of reality ever more glaringly and cause massive feelings of disturbance.

The account is of course drawn up without reckoning with the “universal laws” that operate in perfect serenity – or rather in the soul-turmoil of us all – whether it suits the ladies and gentlemen of the propaganda department or not.
There are laws of polarity, of attraction, of interaction.
There are swings of the pendulum and feedback loops. Systematic, thorough and consistent processes on the biochemical, energetic level, which do not disappear just because we do not perceive them or do not want to acknowledge them.

Even if in the meantime it looks like chaos or like supposed “victories” or “defeats”: the alchemy of the universe operates according to laws that know neither “good” nor “evil,” but follow an inner logic that we can intuit if we are sincerely willing to see through our programming.
How can we even make decisions (“Never again this or that”) if we have no access to the code that determines OUR inner logic?
Or, loosely after Tom-Oliver Regenauer: If you have no plan, you become part of someone else’s plan!

Which agenda of preserving power and profiteering we submissively subordinate ourselves to when we slaughter one another for all eternity shall not be discussed here.
But one need not first invoke the great geopolitical connections to establish: the “Other,” in whose plan we play a role, is first and foremost the automatism within our own being that forces us to reel off stimulus-response behaviors incessantly. Without an autonomous choice or expression of will having intervened beforehand, we reproduce the ever-same.

I am not against repetition per se – we may imagine Sisyphus as a happy man! (loosely after Albert Camus)
But we should indeed ask ourselves which principle we wish to serve.
What does the stone stand for that I roll up the mountain anew every day?
For retribution, revenge, demarcation, violence, fear, malice, delusion, or for joy in life, gratitude, dignity, compassion, integrity, truth, wisdom?
Only if we make clear decisions here and conscientiously strive for an autonomy in thought and action that courageously confronts the power of habit can we be a little freer, a little more peaceful each day.

And then we formulate our intentions once more, make resolutions that we can implement, because we have seen through our true motives and are now able to act instead of react.
And above all: let us formulate our aim positively, for we are not good at following negative instructions (“Do not touch the hot stove plate”).

Again and again is now

Here you can buy the album “Voices for Gaza”:
Protestnoten
or download it:
Voices for Gaza

The poem set to music, „Immer wieder ist jetzt“, can be found on the first part of the album.