From the “Dictionary of the Strange, Curious, and Lovely”:

Your word of the month is irenic: promoting peace, conciliatory, peaceful; [from the Greek eirēnē peace] or if you want the Webster’s official: favoring, conducive to, or operating toward peace, moderation, or conciliation

In Greek mythology, Eirene was one of the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons and natural order who in the Iliad are the custodians of the gates of Olympus. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, the Horae were the daughters of Zeus and a Titaness named Themis, and each had a name indicating her function and relation to human life. Eirene (in Greek Eirēnē, meaning “peace”) was the goddess of peace. Her name gave rise to irenic and other peaceable terms including irenics (a theological term for advocacy of Christian unity), and the name Irene.

What do we think of when we consider a move toward peace, or living in such a way that we are constantly striving towards moderation, conciliatory behavior, or striving for a world of working together? It seems like a Herculean task, honestly. We (or perhaps I just mean myself) can tend towards defensive and sometimes offensive behavior when our values, communities, and lives are threatened, and I am often torn between wanting to remain committed to peace, and the understanding that sometimes it is necessary to take a stronger stand to protect others (I even have “the sword doesn’t write poetry and the pen doesn’t win battles” tattooed on my body). But even in that, and thinking of the struggle to stay peaceful I think of the saying ‘fighting for peace, is like fucking for abstinence’. Is that even a saying or did I make it up?

Either way, operating towards peace feels pretty foreign right now, I’m not going to lie. With our country embroiled in a war no one asked for or wanted, and the heartless killing and destruction of another human’s land and people, unlawful imprisonment of human beings, the unchecked and unpunished sexual assault on women and children by people in positions of power, peace seems like a flimsy concept, no more concrete than an ever-changing and quickly dispersing cloud.

So how do we, as single and rather powerless individuals, artists, parents, and conscientious observers work towards a way that embodies an irenic existence?

I’m truly asking.

Because all I can come up with is by keeping our protests strong but peaceful. By not physically harming human life in our quest to find justice (but an unpersoned warehouse of a moral-less, greed-filled capitalist who doesn’t pay their workers a living wage? I didn’t see anyone strike that match, and even if I did, I didn’t). All I can think is that we protect our own, personal peace by staying informed but not being caught up in the mental barrage of over-played and cyclical horrors purposefully fed to us by social media. All I can think is that we cultivate peace, caring, and empathy in our communities and homes. We take care of others, we give our time and resources to those in need, we step away and breathe when anger and ignorance springs up from the comment section. We keep asking ourselves, what’s the good fight? What takes care of the most people? How do we keep the most vulnerable safe and live in such a way that when we step into a room or conversation, any inciting temperature lowers to calm.

How do we do that?

I’m not entirely sure. I guess, by listening, really listening, not just to the words expressed but the feelings that have driven them out into the open. By not taking it as a personal attack, even when it feels that way. (Toddlers lash out the same way a lot of people in comments sections do. If you take those repetitive, brainwashed phrases and replace them with ‘nuh uh’, or ‘my dad could beat up your dad’, you can really see through the façade of righteousness to the insecurity that drives it). By relaying back, “I see that this upsets you, that you are scared and that’s okay. It means you care and there’s something important you fear losing.” Perhaps would open enough space that we could start a conversation. One that cuts through ideologies to the core of our shared humanity. The challenge is in knowing that this proffered olive branch is not always returned by the other side. The idea of rational, thoughtful, genuine empathy is often misconstrued (and brainwashed into the masses) as ‘weakness’.

But we have to try right? I want to believe so. I want to hope that the current, boiling and murky water that we’re treading can be settled and cleared with a commitment to peace. And even if, in our best efforts towards this utopian ideal, we fail, then at least we know we tried…Before we burn it all to the ground and start over.