{"id":282489,"date":"2024-12-16T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=282489"},"modified":"2024-12-13T06:02:21","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T06:02:21","slug":"let-yourself-be-shattered-by-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/let-yourself-be-shattered-by-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Yourself Be Shattered by Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Featured image via Hibr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Dec 2024 – These last 14 months have shattered me. Shattered me beyond the power of recollection. But sometimes it\u2019s good to be shattered.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the suburbs they live with animals in their homes
\nwho they treat like people and love like children
\nwhile ignoring real children in Gaza.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll take a baby dog away from its mother
\nand hack its ancient canine conditioning
\nto mistake a western nuclear family for its wolf pack
\nin order to fill the void in their hearts
\nwhich yearns for unconditional love,
\nall while hoarding their own love
\nso far deep in their chest caves
\nthat they cannot feel anything for a Palestinian burn victim
\nin a bombed-out hospital
\nwho is screaming because there\u2019s no painkiller.<\/p>\n

We have so far isolated ourselves from nature
\nthat we need to fill our homes with potted plants
\nand docile, domesticated animals
\njust to feel whole.<\/p>\n

We drink our wine and chuckle at memes
\nand talk to our dogs like we talk to babies
\nwhile the world turns to fire
\nand feral dogs feast on corpses in Gaza.<\/p>\n

These last 14 months have shattered me.
\nShattered me beyond the power of recollection.<\/p>\n

But sometimes it\u2019s good to be shattered.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s good to be dashed to the floor
\nand cracked wide open
\nso that life can get a word in.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the heart must be broken
\nto smash through the calluses and cataracts
\nwhich accumulate on its surface
\nand return us to our original tenderness.<\/p>\n

This world will break your heart
\nand then pour plant medicine into the cracks.<\/p>\n

It will show you a dead Palestinian child,
\nand then show you a white kite in the sky.<\/p>\n

It will drop you to your knees screaming in anguish,
\ncursing a God you don\u2019t even believe in,
\nbawling your eyes out,
\nonly to open them and stare in wonder
\nat a dandelion growing through the cracks in the concrete.<\/p>\n

It will annihilate everything you believed about humanity
\nin a blazing holocaust,
\nand then leave you blinking and bewildered
\nin a mysterious universe of unfathomable beauty,
\nthe rusted chains of preconception
\nincinerated from your eyes.<\/p>\n

Again and again and again
\nwe are shattered to dust and scattered to the wind
\nby the cruelty of this world,
\nslowly learning that,
\nif we can fully surrender to the shattering,
\nit will return us to that primordial clarity
\nwe abandoned long ago
\nwhen we set out to create this mess
\nin the first place.<\/p>\n

Let yourself be shattered
\nby heartbreak, by loss, and by Gaza.<\/p>\n

Let your whole universe
\nbe reduced to ashes.<\/p>\n

Let it all die away,
\nand then stand up,
\nand rejoin the fight,
\neyes no longer clouded
\nby anything that could be destroyed
\nby truth.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper<\/em>. Contact: <\/em>admin@caitlinjohnstone.com<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – caitlinjohnstone.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Dec 2024 – These last 14 months have shattered me. Shattered me beyond the power of recollection. But sometimes it\u2019s good to be shattered.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":282491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[87,865,868],"class_list":["post-282489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-format","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282492,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282489\/revisions\/282492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}