Word of the Month: Irenic

Posted on by sereichert

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.

Finding Sanctuary in Times of Change

Posted on by sereichert

Photo by Andrew Beatson on Pexels.com

Times of transition are like hurricanes. Confusing, loud, messy and intense. There is uncertainty and a sense of powerlessness that directly affects our peace and sanctuary. Some of us deal with the changes with decidedly more grace than others. Some are rocked off their foundations, never to be the same again.

The point is that no one is safe from change. And why the hell would you want to be?

Change is the great motivator. It is the one unequivocal trait of the progression of human life. Without it we are stagnant lumps. Change breeds invention and new ideas, it sparks, hopefully, encompassing understanding and empathy. Compassion even.

What happens though, when we have too much change? When we are in a constant state of upheaval. When everything in life is a transition?

It is proven that children who suffer chronic instability (experiencing transitions so often that instability becomes their norm) can suffer from toxic stress.  

Toxic stress increases the risks of several physical and social problems including but not limited to increased risk for cancer and diabetes, heart, lung, and liver disease, increased risk for smoking, drug abuse, suicide, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, domestic violence and depression.

While a normal amount of stress can be good (it stimulates healthy growth, promotes resilience, and helps us to learn coping mechanisms), constant stress and insecurity in our lives actually causes the body great physical and psychological harm.

The effects are more pronounced in children but adults are not immune. Just ask the millions of people living with high blood pressure, depression, cardiac disease etc. We are in over our heads.

So how do we balance the change and transition? How do we grow and push our boundaries without breaking apart our safety net?

Balance seems a cop-out idea. Of course balance (*eye roll*). That’s like asking “how do I write a novel” and some smart ass saying “Just sit down and write”.

True…but too general. Writing, like balance, is not a one size fits all idea. What is balanced for me is way too much for someone else. One woman’s six, 50,000 word romances a year is another’s one 38,0000 word novel every seven.

How do we find our balance? How do we find the right amount of change? I think the answer lies in retaining sanctuary in our lives. Now I’m not talking humpy-backed bell swingers walled up inside the cathedral, sanctuary. I’m speaking of it on a more personal and sometimes mental level.

Are you safe in your own mind? Do you have a place to go, in your brain, where you can let go, remember to breathe, where your shoulders can drop away from your ears and you can feel at peace? Or is it all hell-fire and disaster, 24/7 from the moment you wake from stress-induced nightmares to the moment you’re knocking yourself out with Melatonin just to escape?

We all need peace. We all need change. How much of each is dependent on who you are.

One person may be content taking 15 credit hours, while raising a family of six and working part time for the PTA. Another may be perfectly happy chiming into an online forum on bee-keeping once a week and counting her reading in hours not minutes. One person may be at home living from a suitcase, jet-setting to all parts of the world for a story and a perspective never gleaned. Another may never leave their childhood hometown and yet still maintain contentment in the smaller world around them.

I’m not here to tell you how much change to accept. I’m here to tell you to accept some change. Pursue some change. But if you find that all you do is change, and you can’t recognize yourself or the people you love anymore, then it’s time to come back home.

Use that one word…what is it? Shoot, I’m not very good at this word, though I’m learning to let my lips form it’s simple monosyllabic music…it’s… NO. The word is NO. If you’re genteel you may even tack on a “Thank You” at the end.

NO is a great place to start. No I do not want to go to that party. No, I do not want to volunteer sixteen hours a week when I’m barely getting my chapters written. No I don’t have time to bake seventy-two cupcakes for the basket-weaving club…would you take a donation instead?

Conversely…don’t forget your YES button in the gleeful mania of refusing. Yes, I would love to meet you for coffee, it’s been too long! YES I would love to take a weekend class in basket weaving. YES, it would be an honor to help out for five hours a week. YES, I’ll go to Italy with you, tall-dark-and-handsome stranger…(*guffaw* still waiting for that one to come around).

You know you best. If you aren’t sleeping. if you’ve bitten your nails to the nubs and can feel the bonds of your family life deteriorating. If you’ve sacrificed what you’ve loved to do what you “should” for too long, then its time to take a long hard look at your hurricane and find a graceful exit from the storm.

If you’re still in a dead end job because you’re too afraid to throw caution to the winds of the hurricane blowing outside, do yourself and everyone who loves you a favor and chase that storm. Live a little for goodness sake. We only go get so much time! Don’t waste it wishing for something better, when you are perfectly capable of hunting down the something better and taking it back to your sanctuary.