Warning: This article contains images of sexuality and violence. It may be hazardous to denial.

Blood on My Hands
Bush, Saddam, Sex, and War...and Deja Vu

    Author's note: This article has been adapted from one originally published by The New Times in March 1991, following the Gulf War that began in mid-January of that year. No facts from the original piece have been altered, including the names. This version of the article was published 12 years later, in March of 2003, again by The New Times.

    Two days before the war began in the Mideast in January, 1991, my moontime was due to begin. Blood flows from my body around the time of the New Moon. It's a time when my body releases the tensions of the previous month and readies itself to receive the light of the next Full Moon, which stimulates ovulation once again. The New Moon of January 1991 was different, though. Something was wrong.

    Two days before the New Moon, on Sunday the 13^th of January, my head felt thick with pressure, as if it was filled with a mass of slowly melting lead. Since I almost never get headaches, I pay special attention to this symptom on the rare occasion that it arises.

     In the last couple of years, I've noticed that this unusual and uncomfortable pressure in my head comes whenever there is "heavy" energy around me in the world–when there is mass confusion, stuckness, or great pain on the collective level.

    In addition to this strange sensation in my head, I also noted that my moontime didn't arrive as expected on Monday the 14^th, when it was due to begin (my cycle has been pretty regular for years). There was no possibility of me being pregnant, since I had a tubal ligation at age 23. Therefore, I knew something else was going on with my body.

    The next day, the 15^th, was George Bush's deadline for Saddam Hussein to meet U.S. demands or be attacked. That day, I noticed a small bit of blood, but that was it. There was no flow. This never happens for me. I always start bleeding and then keep bleeding until the cycle is complete. The next day came, and Hussein did not meet Bush's demands. The world waited to see what Bush would do. I prayed a lot, and again that day, I spotted blood but did not flow.

    By now I knew something was wrong for my body, but I didn't know what. It was hard to think about it, because the situation in the Mideast overshadowed everything. That Wednesday afternoon the 16^th of January, Bush ordered the first attack on Iraq. I was stunned.

    Meanwhile, my body was still spotting blood, but it wouldn't let go. I asked my womb why it wasn't bleeding, and it said clearly, "Because there is too much blood being spilled already!"

    When I heard my womb's reason, I realized that an old pattern had kicked in–a pattern that says it's not okay for me to do well if everyone else isn't doing well. While this "caretaker" pattern may seem altruistic, I think it may actually be triggered by old survival fears.

     That is, when I was a tiny infant, I somehow knew–like all tiny infants know–that if my caregivers were not okay, then they might not be able to take care of me, and I could die. In my case, for various reasons, this primal infancy-level fear became generalized over time to include others–and sometimes the entire world.

    When I was anorexic from 1971 to 1985, this idea really got out of hand: How can I eat when so many go hungry? How can I feel good when there is so much suffering? And ultimately, who am I to live when so many are dying?

    These generalizations aren't necessarily rational. Nonetheless, this kind of thinking persisted long after my anorexia was over. That January of 1991, when my womb refused to bleed because there were so many others bleeding, I knew it was time for some serious reprogramming. So I sat down and had a little talk with my womb. I explained that it was okay for me to bleed and be healthy, even if thousands of people were bleeding in pain.

    I talked to my womb about the idea that I am like one cell–or one organ–in the body of humanity. If the liver is on fire with disease, it doesn't help for the heart to take on illness in sympathy. In the same way, if one part of humanity's "body" is suffering, it makes more sense for all the other parts to rally to the body's defense by being as whole and healthy as possible.

    Something about what I said must have gotten through to my womb, because an hour later, my body let go and the blood flowed freely. Even so, my moontime that January was painful and heavy, a sign that the previous few weeks had been similarly painful and heavy at an emotional level. I may have been able to stay on top of my anguish about the Mideast war at a conscious level, but my womb felt it and expressed it viscerally.

    A fellow therapist and writer, June Gabriel, said that a woman has two hearts: one in her chest and one in her womb. Perhaps that is why women, historically speaking, do not wage war. Of course, there are plenty of pacifist men and plenty of violent women.

     For the most part, however, it is men who wage war. If June Gabriel is correct–and my own experience says she is–then women still have a "second" heart-center in the womb, even if the "upper" heart somehow gets emotionally disconnected. Maybe this second heart helps women stay more conscious of our vulnerability and our obligation to nurture life.

    I sometimes wonder if women do not wage war because we bleed every month. As I cared for my own moontime needs after Bush ordered the attack on Iraq, I looked down at the blood on my hands and thought about how extraordinary it is to have blood be normal in this way, but catastrophic in other ways.

     I thought about all the people in the Mideast–military troops and civilians alike, on both sides. I thought of how different it would feel to have blood on my hands because my leg had just been blown off, or my arm severed, or my belly wounded with shrapnel.

    I wondered if men have historically been the ones who wage war because they do not see blood except in wounding. Could war be some bizarre way for them to connect with their human vulnerability and the visceral realities of life, the way women connect with those things every month through their menstrual cycles? I don't know, but I wonder sometimes.

    The day the war began in Iraq, I saw counseling clients all day. Everyone was stunned. Some clients were enraged. Others were numb. Many couldn't believe it was happening. Most had a lot of fear. My clients wanted to know how to relate to the war, how to make the horrible images on TV real to them.

    In the United States, violence is the norm. People can watch brutal murders and rapes and wars and every imaginable kind of abuse at the flip of a channel, without blinking an eye, while munching happily on their TV snacks. Or they can interact in brutally violent ways with real-looking people created for their decimating pleasure in graphic video games (games!).

    I don't know how people do it, honestly. If I see one three-second image of a woman being raped, even in a movie, it upsets me greatly. Do I know the enacted rape is not real? Yes, consciously. But for my subconscious, which "speaks" in images, the scene is enough to trigger memories of my own childhood sexual abuse, as well as experiences in early adulthood when men tried to force themselves on me.

    The truth is, writers and producers of motion pictures and television are quite aware of the impact of their work. If onscreen images did not impact people, why would anyone watch them?

     Of course, I do my best to avoid onscreen violence, but it's everywhere. Besides, it's not just my own brain I'm concerned about. I'm sad that onscreen violence is a main staple for millions of viewers around the world. What a pathetic waste of a medium powerful enough to help people, instead of hurt them.

    To me, television and movie violence feels plenty real. People are really writing that stuff and really acting it out. On the receiving end–in living rooms across the nation and around the world–people really are filling their brains with violent images. The subconscious brain is powerful beyond comprehension, and it cannot help but be affected by a steady diet of violent images.

     I'm not saying that onscreen violence causes real-life violence, nor am I saying that violence should never be depicted. I'm simply saying that pervasive onscreen violence is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

    Obviously, since the factors that contribute to violence are many and complex, real-life violence can only rarely be directly attributed to some specific onscreen brutality. Instead, the effects of witnessing abundant onscreen violence may contribute to cruel behavior in other, less obvious ways–like the way someone snaps too quickly at a co-worker, ignores another person's "ouch," or says "I'm going to kill you" in the midst of an argument.

     Or maybe the countless thousands of violent images impressed upon some man's brain throughout life resurface later when he blithely says "let's nuke 'em" when talking about flesh-and-blood people in another country far away–as if real people are like figures in a video game that pop up again after being mowed down by machine guns.

    Visual and auditory images are food for the brain–and you know what they say: you are what you eat! Plenty of people will argue that TV violence isn't real and therefore doesn't have a negative impact on viewers. I don't buy it.

     If this kind of violence doesn't have an impact, then why does the military use training videos to desensitize combat troops and "help" them overcome the hard-wired natural human resistance to killing our own kind?

    When clients ask me how they can make the war real, I suggest doing what I do: Make it personal. Imagine the blood of your brother or sister or lover or parents spilling on you as you hold them, dying, after they've been hit by a grenade or sprayed by bullets. Imagine holding your child in your arms–or holding what's left of your child–after her arms and legs and head have all been blown off by a bomb.

    Imagine coming home to your house at night and finding that it is no longer there. All that remains is a pile of rubble, and your entire family is lying dead, their bodies strewn in pieces among the ruins of all the possessions you have–or had–in this world.

     Imagine that you are called to fight on the front lines, then ordered to charge in tanks into a city of civilians who are just like you, so you can destroy them, because their homes and their families are in the path of whatever "military objective" is on the war plan that day.

    Imagine the blood on your hands, literally. Make it real. Look at it. Don't deny it. Feel all of your feelings and don't push them away. Don't avoid them with your favorite addiction, and don't just "turn the channel" in your heart every time you contact something painful or scary.

     Keep your heart open and let it break, because a truly compassionate heart is the best defense you have against treating people as "other" or "the enemy" in order to justify killing them.

    If I could ask you to do something about the situation in Mideast, I would ask you to stay awake to all of your feelings and not deny any of them. If you feel stuck in one emotion such as anger, fear, or grief, consider doing whatever it takes–including getting professional help–to get all your feelings working, so you can feel the whole spectrum of human emotion.

     Only if you can feel all human emotions will you be capable of true compassion, because you must be able to feel your own pain in order to fully "be with"–and respond kindly to–the suffering of others.

    Of course, I encourage you to balance this kind of emotional work with full-out involvement in your everyday life–with a "big-picture" perspective and an active sense of humor, and with plenty of breaks for creative pursuits, introspection, and play. When you go about your other activities, however, remember that it's a privilege to be able to take a break from the onslaught. People in the midst of real horrors do not have that luxury.

    I know it's not easy, but see if you can keep your heart open to "the other" as fully as you keep it open to yourself and those you love. If you can't do it with the big guys (like Bush and Hussein), then start small and open your heart to the "other side's" children who are caught in the crossfire.

     Start with someone you know locally who practices the same religion as "the enemy." Or start with the part of yourself that you believe is too disgusting to be loved and therefore must be annihilated.

    If you can do your best to at least hold the intention to make peace with "the other," then I would ask you next to let your heart lead you to act in whatever way fits for you in regard to the world situation. Whether it's prayer, politics, petitions, peace rallies, or some other personal action, act on your intention.

     Everyone is in this together. We all have blood on our hands. The question is: What am I going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? What are we all going to do about it?

As long as you knock and judge and criticize
anybody, you are responsible for a Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, Viet Nam, Maidanek or an Auschwitz.