A Spell of Compassion
I’ve been working on another Kitchen Witch book, and I keep struggling with how to address protest in the time of quarantine. Everywhere you look, gatherings of thousands of people are changing the world, and here I sit, recovering from pnuemonia and immunocompromised, and unable to put my feet on the pavement in support of a cause that means so much to me.
Black lives matter. Police brutality endangers us all. Breonna Taylor and so many other valuable American lives have been lost to the bad judgment of those who are sworn to serve and protect. I live in a country where the color of your skin is punishable by death, or rewardable with a free pass. HOW do I help change this? I want to march, but I dare not risk my fragile health.
I’ve been researching the science of compassion. The brain chemistry of how compassion works, inside the human brain, and how it affects those around the compassionate.
Compassion is the acceptance of others’ suffering as your own, in order to lighten their burden. If you’ve ever had to look away from those Sarah McLachlan dogs in cages commercials because it hurt too badly to watch, then you have compassion in you. You have the seed. So why should you water it? Why should you grow it, if it’s going to cause you any pain?
The answer is, because it will actually change the world for the better. First of all, YOU will feel better. How does others’ suffering make you feel better? Simply put, my dears, it’s magic. You take on a bit of their suffering, then it becomes your own… you take some step to decrease your suffering, which also decreases their suffering, and you are both relieved. Maybe you haven’t created world peace in a day, but you’ve taken a step toward it, which is much more powerful than standing in the same old spot, or even cowardly running away. The thing is, you can’t run far enough away from humanity to escape it, entirely. Not without becoming a sociopath. A cowardly, uncool, unfun, unattractive sociopath.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not a coward. Not in the slightest. I know I’m compassionate. So what is my next step? I can listen. I can offer my platform to amplify voices. I can donate money to BLM or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood or other charities that help bear the burden of suffering in this country. For the sake of my children, who need their mother, I should not endanger my life by exposing myself to a deadly virus for which there is no cure, and no vaccine. I can lend my voice, though. I can lend my platform. I can amplify my friends’ voices. I can give money. It’s not a windfall of money, but it’s something. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not running away.
I’m writing a book about having the Quarantime of my Life…it’s a little sarcastic, that working title, because obviously quarantine isn’t great fun at times. It just feels so silly to even work on that project when there are important civil rights movements going on. Like, how does staying healthy matter, when others aren’t even allowed to live?
Well, staying healthy does matter. When I see those George Floyd posters that say, “I can’t breathe,” I know that no one with compassion would wish me to die of Covid-19. No one who mourns for countless American deaths at the hands of police would want me to leave my children motherless and my husband a widower. Of course my health matters. Of course my life matters.
I will keep working on my book, and I will support BLM because I am brave enough to work a spell for compassion.
