My Dear Red

I have seen you in many shades, in valentine cards, in dangling earrings, in a silk scarf, a bouquet of flowers or just an old half used pencil. I always loved how you made me feel, alive and kicking…as if emerging from a womb. You were no doubt my favorite. Only time I didn't want to see you was through a wound, mine or others.

You are symbolic of both Love and War, isn't it? And why not…both offer us the adrenalin rush. How is it that Love and War are on two extremes and yet you my dear Red, you represent both. Is it the passion that engulfs both that yields them your seal? And if so, then this passion that is present in both, doesn't that make Love and War bonded to each other, like siblings?

But War has insecurities of its own and likes to defend for no reason, Love has learned endurance and it knows the art of listening. But if passion is their common gene, isn't War a distorted expression, birthed out of the same womb? Can its mutated passion be redirected in some way? The sibling's help has often been disregarded. Will he learn to love itself enough to not self destruct? Will he ever turn around to rest and reflect? Can we infuse in him a different shade of Red? One that is not sullied with pain and helplessness.

I wonder if it will be accepted. The Red of War is turning into Black. A Black hole it can become in the end, if we let its darkness remain unchallenged. I have felt its tiny weeds growing in my own heart's backyard. I pull them out every now and then. Its a task not easy, but its a matter of practice. The smell of violence growing in my mind, doesn't make me feel good. I feel as if I have drank cheap alcohol and I will puke any minute.

The Red in me wavers from pure passion of expression to unhinged destruction. In mind it plays all and yet its painful to witness, those are not the memories I wish to build with my Lego blocks of time perception.

Red, you could just be bright and flowing life blood, but you are not. The unconscious Black exists and it cannot be stopped from its ebb and flow. When will these waves of Black settle down? Do you call Black to come and test your life giving vital force in the hope that it will transform into something else? Do you do that my dear Red?

Is it for a purpose then? And must it happen that way and no other recourse, whose master is Black and whose slave? I am yet to see what lies beyond this play of passions, the drama of polarizations. Sometimes Love is also blinding, is that where it all begins? War is Love gone blind?

So you were teaching this all the time, right? How to Love, and the lessons were misunderstood? Is that what happened Red? Your precious vitality has been wasted for centuries and maybe beyond we can count…and you still offer your life force to all who can contain it. I can see your compassion and empathy now, its appears to be a refined form of The Great Passion, we call existence!

When will this waste called war come to an end, and will it be composted to nourish the planets new cycle of beings? I await, little exhausted but knowing that its not yet over. As long as you are there my dear Red, I know something new can be birthed, whether its in my own heart or in the lap of mother earth. I trust you, now that I have understood you a little better...my dear Red!