This was originally published at anewgaia.ning.com on April 24, 2013. It gives some sense of how deeply enmeshed I am in this problem:

The news of the Senate’s failure to overcome NRA resistance to extension of gun control measures has been pressing on me for the last week. It is simply absurd that we should, as a matter of public safety, require people to qualify themselves to drive cars on a regular basis, but allow unrestricted access to devices whose only purpose is to kill.

That the parents of New Town were sitting in the gallery added salt to the wound, and I have been carrying them in my heart for the last week. It was further focused on Saturday where, at a rally in support of Senator Feinstein’s work, several gun enthusiasts drove by to flip the bird at us.

One of them in particular managed to shove his ego into me, and I calmly tracked the car visually as it drove away, getting a good fix on him. Saturday night was hard – I had been put into contact with a dark pool of anger and aggression. As always, I simply embraced it, and then reached through to find the people that were cowering in its shadow. Exhaling into that psychological space, I blew the winds of change into the communities dominated by that fear.

Sunday was hard. I went out to Awakening Your Power in Santa Monica, and the frenetic energy, while well-intentioned, was attractive to the powers that I was wrestling with. I spent a fair part of the session sitting aside, calming my interior spaces. It seemed at the time that I would have been better off going to church.

It was only at the end of Resonance that I finally connected to the energies that were waiting for us. Mariane put on Snatam Kaur’s live “Ong Namo”. It starts with an acknowledgement that we were sent here to heal. The words penetrated to the core of me, and I had to hold my breath as the pain washed through me. Then I reached up and began to dance alone to the sacred words. Looking again into that space of fear, I became that larger self that sees the world from outside. Gathering the healing energy of the Divine in my left hand, I pushed it towards America, and blew the winds of peace behind it. Three times, and then I focused on New Town, and staggered under the weight of their sorrow. Gathering myself, I reached back again with my right hand, and blew love into their hearts.

On Monday night I was in the room with a teacher lying protectively on the bodies of her students as the bullets tore through them. I created a space of separation from the terror, doing my best to protect them from the spiritual sickness that had infected the gunman.

I bought Kaur’s “Essentials” on Tuesday, and have been playing its healing lyrics into the space of that sorrow for the last twenty-four hours. Last night, as I laid in bed listening again to “Ong Namo”, I found myself again in the presence of one of their mothers. “Long Time Sun” filled us with images of light. I opened my heart to the heavens, and the energy that had been prepared on Sunday settled on us. Using the pattern of her feeling, it raced outwards seeking the myriad spirits that had lost a child to violence.

Her son came to her, and held her heart in his hands. Witnessing her sorrow, he wordlessly honored her love, and resolved to organize spiritual resources to wash away the evil that had devastated her. I offered my recognition of the honor due to the mother that had nurtured such a spirit.

It hurts. It hurts yet. But there are some wounds that can only be healed by taking them into us.

Bad things happen to good people because their light is needed in the darkness. Shine brightly, spirits of New Town.