In my spiritual practice today, I sent healing prayers to
the survivors and descendants of the Nazi Holocaust. Our new understanding of the science of
epigenetics has sobering information on how traumas can shift gene expression,
allowing the trauma to be transmitted to succeeding generations in the form of
lowered immune system activity and other effects. Reiki healing helps.
We can start, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, with
remembering all 11 million victims. It
always pains me when Jewish writers and speakers talk about 6 million, instead
of 11 million. Others quote that
erroneous 6 million figure all the time.
But talking about 6 million Jews and ignoring the equally-tragic 5
million others is the worst kind of racism.
Those people were murdered once, and now the world is erasing their
memory – as if their lives didn’t matter and their deaths aren’t tragedies. Let’s stop it. 11 million.
The Roma people (aka gypsies) were almost exterminated, a percentage
that exceeds any other targeted group by a huge margin.
What also helps is staying vigilant about pain and suffering
today. As people become emotionally
overwhelmed, their empathy drops. We
have to avoid becoming overwhelmed, without unplugging completely. So do Reiki, meditate, exercise, take
creative arts time-outs, to renew and replenish yourselves for the long fight.
It might also be pertinent to consider what could be coming
tomorrow. Commentators in the USA and
elsewhere have noted not only the appalling spectacle of white supremacists in
the White House, but a worldwide rise in dictatorship-under-guise-of-democracy
from Erdogan in Turkey and Putin in Russia, to possible (unimaginable) election
of a fascist thug in France.
In the 1930’s, people who noticed the rise of fascist
dictators who made the trains run on time and got people back to work weren’t
called “negative” of course, but that’s the response to “Uh, people, there’s a
pattern here…” today. Doing the “don’t
worry, just mind your own life” dance, as far too many million Americans are
doing, worries me. This problem isn’t
going to go away by prayer, or raising the vibrational energy of the room. Our grandparents didn’t pay attention until
it was too late. I hope that we, with
their example to learn from, will wake up and take action sooner.
Our species has much more DNA devoted to cooperation than
competition. Cooperation in early social
groups – food sharing, with everyone who had a bad collecting day – is what
propelled our lineage into planetary dominance.
Empathy is an advanced trait of primates and the most intelligent
mammals, like elephants and cetaceans.
On Nazi Holocaust Remembrance Day, let’s celebrate the good people of 70
years ago, many of whom died, all of whom risked their lives, to save or try to
save the targeted people from death. We are
good people, most of us. We can call on
the better angels of our nature to stay on the path of courage as our own time
of testing is upon us. Who in your city
or community needs saving? Take action.
