Let’s do all that we can, each of us on our own individual level, to make this a world where it is safe for us to love each other.

—Louise Hay

Dreaming Violence into Oblivion

By Cat Saunders

It’s too close now. It’s finally happened to one of my best friends.

I’m not talking about AIDS or cancer, although I’ve lost friends to both. I’m talking about violence. In particular, I’m talking about male violence toward women.

Yes, I know women hurt men, and women hurt women, too. But right now I want to talk about men who hurt women. In general, for whatever reasons, you just don’t hear about many women pulling men into the bushes at knifepoint and threatening them with rape, dismemberment, and death. That’s what happened to my friend, Leah (not her real name).

It’s not that I go around being paranoid about violent men. I don’t. Most of the men I know are truly peaceful beings. Yet I live in a culture where I think carefully about walking alone at night. Most of my women friends say the same thing. Some never go out at night at all.

My friend’s attack didn’t even happen at night. It happened in broad daylight, on a public running path. Leah has been a runner for years, and she was out for her daily run. She told me later that she had noticed something peculiar about the sound of someone approaching her from behind. But before she could do anything, she found herself in a head-hold with a straightedge knife in front of her face. “Struggle or scream and I’ll kill you,” he said.

I’ll tell you now, so you can relax, that Leah is alive and well. She had the guts to kick her attacker in the balls, scream loudly, and run away. Besides being a runner, Leah is a therapist who has sometimes worked with violent clients. She knew how to get out of a head-hold, and she knew how to deal with strong male bodies trying to overpower her.

Not all women know as much as my friend does about how to defend themselves. Frankly, I wish we didn't need to know. I know this may sound naive, but I wish safety was a given for everyone, everywhere.

In the days after I found out about Leah's attack, I was in a state of shock alternating with passionate feelings. I was full of rage and terror and grief. It’s not that I don’t understand that there are complicated issues involved in acts of "random" violence—or any kind of violence, for that matter.

I realize that a million factors may contribute to acts of random violence—factors that can be quantified as well as factors that are ultimately mysterious.

I also understand that every human being is capable of horrific acts—and that those who don't think so are either deluded or arrogant or unwilling to acknowledge the privilege of having a brain that works well enough to give them the capacity to actually choose how they act under stress.

Knowing right from wrong is only part of the equation. Being able to choose is also an essential brain function in preventing violence, and not every brain is capable of choice.

This doesn't mean that violent people are excused from responsibility for their acts; they're not. It simply means that human violence is a complicated issue, and anyone who adopts a "holier-than-thou" attitude in the face of violence could probably use a reality check.

At another level of the violence puzzle, Leah told me that for years, she'd had nightmares about the very thing that happened to her that day in the park. There are those who would say that Leah "attracted" the attack, although I think such a perspective lacks compassion, at best, and indicates serious levels of arrogance and ignorance, at worst.

No matter what you or I or anyone might think about the cause of Leah's assault, I knew it was important for me to face and feel my own feelings about it. Many of these emotions weren’t very pretty.

When I gave myself full permission to feel everything without judgment, I discovered a whole palette of violent feelings inside me. I discovered extreme rage and a desire for revenge. I also realized that if I'd been with Leah when she was attacked, I would have defended her—even if I had to kill the guy in order to save her.

Once I got to the realization that I, too, could kill, the whole game changed. In the midst of my anger, a deeper part of me stepped in and said, “Forgive him.”

But I wasn’t quite ready for that yet, so I told the forgiving part of me it would have to wait. First I needed to beat up the heavy bag and scream my rage toward Leah's attacker. I needed to write long letters of hate to him and then destroy the letters.

Of course, I tried to be responsible with my anger work in various ways, making sure no one else was around (including animals) when I did it. I also put other "safety" boundaries in place, both physically and metaphysically, to honor the fact that I was doing this work to help myself heal, as opposed to wanting my rageful energy to actually hurt anyone or anything.

It was a good process for me. It was also another lesson in the poignancy of my own humanity, in terms of seeing—for the millionth time—that the seeds of violence live in my heart, too.

A while back, I read a news story about a congressman in California who was pushing for prison reform in a very unusual way—by pushing for reform in the way we birth babies.

According to this man, there are reputable studies which show that people who commit the most violent crimes typically had very violent births. He suggests that it would probably take less time to change our birthing methods than to change our penal system. It’s an intriguing idea, and I think he's onto something.

In the same vein, The I Ching (the Chinese Book of Changes) says that more effective progress can be made toward the good by working energetically in its direction, instead of trying to combat negative energies directly.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn’t deal head-on with violence when it shows up. Nor does it mean that we should ignore the people who are already incarcerated for violent acts. There is dire need for appropriate and compassionate action on all fronts.

My personal way of contributing to an environment of safety encompasses many different milieus—personal and professional, private and political, interpersonal and global, practical and metaphysical.

For this article, I want to tell you about an idea to help dream violence into oblivion. Walt Disney is famous for saying, "If you can dream it, you can do it."

If Disney is right, then I say, let's all dream of a pervasive environment of safety on Planet Earth!

That may sound corny or naive to some people, but hey, I'm a dreamer! And judging from the size of the late John Lennon's fan base, I'm not the only one.

To practice dreaming a safe world into existence, I imagine it as vividly as possible and bring all my senses into it. What would a safe planet feel like? How would it sound? What would I see in a world where every nook and cranny is devoid of human violence? Can I event taste safety? Can I smell safety in the cool night air as I see myself walking alone anytime, anywhere, without fear?

I also have another wild idea about this process of conscious dreaming. Actually, it was more like the idea “came” to me in the days after I learned of Leah’s attack. In my meditation one day, I suddenly "got" that I was supposed to write an article about what happened.

In addition, I was supposed to organize some kind of regular meditation in honor of safety, so others could join me in dreaming violence into oblivion. I was even given a specific set of words to say or chant or hold quietly in my heart during this regular meditation time. It's like a mantra for safety, if you will.

My sense is that this particular set of words (see below) is intended to have a balancing effect in a very specific way. In the last two thousand years of “Father-Son-Holy Ghost" vernacular—not to mention a few thousand years of patriarchal cultural conditioning before that—I think a lot of people have gotten out of balance by favoring a primarily male concept of divinity.

The words of the chant I was given could be used as a counterbalancing force to bring more archetypal female energy back into the concept of a holy trinity.

I'm not saying we should obliterate the male polarity. That would not only be impossible, it would also be folly. Instead, I'm suggesting that we add female energy back into the mix, until the two polarities come into a better balance.

Below is the chant. It’s very simple:

Mother Daughter Holy Spirit
Safety on the Planet Earth!

You can use these words silently or out loud. You can use them as a chant or a mantra. You can use them in meditation, in walking, in breathing, in drumming, in dreaming, in just thinking about a planet where all beings are safe from the threat of human violence.

To honor my own guidance about this, my commitment is to set aside a time of meditation once a month to “sit for safety.” I’ve chosen the tenth of the month for this meditation, because ten is the number of transformation.

Perhaps you'd like to join me on the tenth of the month, or you could choose another time that works better for you. Feel free to spread the word and maybe even invite friends to join you in person or in spirit.

Whether you "sit for safety" alone or with friends—and whether you do it once or twice or regularly each month—I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you experience when you "sit for safety." Every contribution counts!

The more people who dream consciously of safety—while also working diligently to ameliorate violence in their own hearts and in the world—the sooner the dream will come true. If we can dream it, we can do it!

    This article was updated in 2011 from a piece originally published in Spiritual Women's Times (Winter 1987).