Dear Friends, As you well know by now, unknown assailants blew up the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon. Planes were hijacked in Boston, Washington and New York and then cruely flown in to the buildings. An unbelievable act of violence with losses unlike any we have experience in current history. Being a witness to such an event and so close to all that unnecessary violence prevents me from doing my usual round of small mundane acitivies today.ÊInsteadÊI can only sit and introspectively wonder. This isÊchillingly likeÊmy experience when Kennedy was shot so many years ago: life seems to be going on around me in a normal fashion, but there is this little electronic box telling me that our lives will now be changed forever... But how will our lives be changed? For the greater good? I fear the military consequences as I hear Punishment falling from too many lips. The sky as I sit here is clear blue and the breeze is cool, yet the energy dynamic is decidedly hostile. I feel it so strongly mixing in with my own petty fears. Whatever false sense of security we carried with us prior has suddenly been ripped away. People in other parts of the world live with this sort of thing on a daily basis, but who would have everÊthought that our sacrosanct shores would be so harshly violated by a desecration few of us dared to imagine. So now what? This is a spiritual test and I fear we will fail, yet I have been taught that there are no mistakes. I suppose one can only hold tight to faith, protect that tiny flame of the heart, and shine it into the impending darkness looking for answers. IÊpray that this disaster will bring about a wave of personal reevaluation as to what is really important in our lives. The fact that centers of money and warfare were chosen to be destroyed is to me no mere accident of terrorism. Taking the human loss out of it for a moment, what has been attacked here is Greed and Hate. There is no denying that there are deep elements of them intrinsic in all commercial and military activity. Is this what was really attacked I wonder? From a spiritual perspective, if we can bear to look at the deeper meaning so early in this terrible event, can we begin to see the inherent lesson being presented to us? As I see it, maybe it is time to look at how these two elements of greed and hate are at large in our own lives. We need to look very critically at how commercial greed and militaristic intolerance are tearing the spiritual unity of our world apart. What is money on a profit taking level, what are the human consequences of global ecomony, what are guns and war and killing.......but harsh elements of human nature that continually tear apart the fabric of our society and our world. No need to catalog the consequences associated with these concepts at this point. I think all we have to do is turn on the tv to know. But can we as a society hope to see or understand this? Can we somehow read a deeper meaning into this terrifyingÊgesture? Can we look and see the truth of ourselves in this mirror of horrors? That is what I wonder today. And I now can only pray that somewhere, somehow, in all this ugliness, a tiny wisp of wisdom will sparkle through. If only we could see through all the media hype and our ownÊselfish clinging and begin to understand the true meaning of a disaster like this. Because unless we try, unless we start, there will be no heroic victors, there will be no winners. We will be destinedÊto experience the lesson again and againÊwith increasing severity just as all humankind has. Each generation has witnessed ever increasing violent reminders to look in our hearts and not inÊour pockets and certainly not inÊour holsters for answers to situations like this. I pray to the Universe and dear God that we find enlightenment from the ashes of this sad sobering event and each of us begin to put our own small precious measure of love and unity back into the world to heal this terrible wound we have a witnessed today. With love to you all and to those who are so deeply suffering now, Stephanie