FULL MOON MEMORIAL

June 10, 2006

Dahlin Dears,

Memorial Day has come and gone since I last wrote you a full moon letter.  For most Americans, this holiday meant a long weekend, the chance to  fire up the BBQ, and throw on some hot dogs, burgers, and lounge around. Having such a break is good.  Most of us work so hard that a three-day weekend ought to be mandatory as far as I'm concerned.  

This Memorial found me thinking about Vivi and Jack from "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."  When she lost Jack, her first love, in the Second World War, downed in a plane somewhere over France, Vivi mourned for him, and continued to be connected to him even after she married Shep Walker.  She dreamed of Jack, his face still vivid to her, waking in tears years and years after the telegram arrived announcing his death.

When Siddalee, Little Shep, Lulu, and Baylor were kids, Vivi instilled in them that Memorial Day was a day to be taken seriously.  Not just a day of frolic-- something Sidda didn't understand until she was almost forty years old.  

To Vivi, Memorial Day was a time of devotion to remember all the people who had died in wars, and to consider our troops and their families and children who pray and wait.  The deeper she mourned for Jack, the more her heart opened to the lost lives of others and the heartbreak their deaths wreaked.

Just recently  I happened upon an article that brought back to me memories of the war that the U.S. Administration waged on a small country far away, a country with so many rice fields and heat and insects that the most perfect training ground for grunt troops was at Fort Polk, not twenty-five miles from where I grew up.  The New York Times article stopped me in my tracks and made me think not only of the tens of thousands of American young men who died, but also of the Vietnamese who died, especially civilians, especially the photo of the three young boys suffering from the effects of Agent Orange.

The article is Last Chance - The American War: Harrell Fletcher's Vietnam Photographs at White Columns

I wept at the sight of the pictures, and at the writing, which flowed like water, which was in sync with the photography itself.  I thought back to Big Shep in "Little Altars Everywhere" in the chapter titled "E-Z Boy War." I read that story onstage on the same day the first Bush administration started bombing Baghdad.  I almost could not make it through the reading.  Many people were weeping in the audience.  I could not stop thinking about Baghdad being a large city, and how every large city had so many kindergartens.

Reading the article also brought to mind Baylor's struggle in "Ya-Yas in Bloom" about whether to buy a firearm to protect his family.  That chapter is called "Safety," and I wonder what you, my readers think true safety is.

Sometimes the power of La Luna calls me closer to the fictional characters I have created, and their stories call me deeper into myself, as well as out of myself, creating a wide reach of compassion, and sadness.  It is hard to live in a nation that is waging war.  I think of it daily, as I do the devastation of my homeland by Katrina and Rita.  I think of how La Luna shines her light on all of us -- children suffering from the effects of Agent Orange in Viet Nam, our men and women who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I think of the tears shed all over the world at the loss of their loved ones.  I still, however, find my comfort in the light of the moon.  I know her rays are healing, not just to me, but to all of us, to all of our brothers and sisters.

La Luz de La Luna, guide us toward peace.  Guide us toward love, the highest form of intelligence.  Guide the administration of this country to truly be "Christian," to reach out in peace.  I write during war with an awareness of the world I live in.  So many people terrified.

How can we leave the terror and walk toward security, the security that no one can take away, the safeness that comes from kindness and compassion? How can we let safety into our hearts?

Memorial Day.  A good holiday for reflection.  I adore Halloween, and celebrate it with passion.  But these days Vivi, Jack, Genevieve, Teensy, and Big Shep call me to stop my walk down the lane under La Luna's light.  To stop for a moment to remember, and to re-commit myself to waging peace.

It is good to know and remember history.  It is good to gaze gratefully at La Luna and feel her power.  We need her merciful power right now.  We always need it.  And blessedly, it is always there.

How can we wage peace both in our hearts and in this world which we temporarily inhabit?  I would welcome your ideas.  This is a deep part of sisterhood for me, and I await your thoughts.

84,000 Blessings,

Rebecca   


Copyright © by Rebecca Wells