It is with heavy heart that I post this bulletin, the day after our national tragedy. My prayers go out to the families and friends of those who perished or are injured. The magnitude of yesterday's events is continuing to unfold but I have a few feelings and thoughts I'd like to share.

My first emotions when I woke up to the news were fear, insecurity and helplessness. How many other planes were hijacked and were my loved ones or I in the path of danger?

My next reaction was anger and outrage at the senselessness of the loss, at being helpless and having no control over the situation.

I was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow as I witnessed on television the pain and shock on the faces of those in the midst of the disaster. My feelings continue to flow - gratitude for my life, my family and friends, fear of the possibility of losing them, anger that it was not prevented, the pain of losing my sense of safety…

It was when I pulled up the internet news and read that Arabs, Muslims and mosques where the targets of threats in the Bay Area that I felt motivated to post this message.

When I wrote the Winter 2000 Newsletter, I spent time reflecting on some of the deeper meanings of the astrological symbols for 2001. I chose to write about Tolerance. Suddenly we have all been touched by the devastating consequences of intolerance, hatred and misunderstanding. How do we respond? How do we deal with our pain, fear and anger?

First of all, it's important that we honor ALL of our feelings. This does not mean taking them out on others or only allowing one or two feelings into our awareness. It means fully feeling the complete range of emotions. Feelings are very fluid. They shift and move and constantly flow from one feeling state to another if we do not repress or block them. If you are stuck in one or two feelings, you can be sure that other feelings are being blocked or ignored. Emotions ebb and flow from fear to anger to gratitude to love to hate then back to fear, grief and on and on until, gradually of it's own, a sense of calm and centeredness emerges. Inner peace emerges on it's own timeline. All we can do is consciously honor the full range of feelings that form the pathway to our own ever-present inner tranquility.

We may not have control over the sequence of our feelings or the actions of others but we do have control over our own actions. We have the ability to connect to our only true source of power and control by allowing our pain to open up our humanity and a deeper connection to each other.

Only after fully connecting and feeling all our emotions, sharing them with each other, expressing our love and gratitude for what we have, and tapping our inner peace, can we think about appropriate actions and responses. If we honestly bring our full feeling selves into that conversation, we can compassionately and wisely choose our course.

Perhaps the most difficult course is to look at what happened and ask ourselves, what could drive a human being to the action of killing himself and thousands of others? Actions like these can only come out of immense pain and despair. Now that we have felt our own pain and despair, we have some understanding of the feelings that prompt extreme actions and the importance of NOT taking actions against others to alleviate our own pain and helplessness.

The people who instigated or rejoice in this act of terrorism are people who feel impotent in their lives, out-of-control and desperate. Terrorism is a futile attempt to regain a sense of power, control and hope. The trap is to villainize these people, to see them as NOT human, to see them as purely evil. They ARE human like us so we CAN understand them. Yes, they have resorted to a course of action to relieve their own pain, which we abhor. As a nation, we need to take a stand against this wrong action and hold the people responsible accountable. If it is done out of vengeance and rage, without deep sadness and remorse, if we rejoice in the pain of others, we will have become like those who have injured us. There is no way we can ever right the wrong that was done. All we can do is find our own light so as not to add to the pain and darkness.

I am reminded of the aftermath of World War I when the allies levied such severe economic restrictions on Germany that the people could barely sustain themselves. This opened the door for Hitler to manipulate a desperate situation, resulting in the atrocities that ensued. After World War II our leaders had the wisdom not to create any more human misery with those same harsh economic sanctions. In the months ahead, individually and as a nation we may have to take a deeper look at how we may have inadvertently contributed to such a tragic situation. We may have to ask ourselves in each and every action, what God am I serving? Is it the God of money, of pride, of comfortability? Or are my choices based on higher ideals? Drawing the honesty card in our own lives is a Herculean task.

We in this country have so much. With so much abundance and power comes responsibility. We are destined to be not just a financially wealthy nation, but a spiritually wealthy nation. We each must find spiritual leadership within ourselves so that our nation can creatively use our revolutionary ideals and love of freedom for the benefit of the global community. We no longer have the option of reacting in the same old ways. I see this as a wake-up call for all of us to revolutionize our lives and to re-dedicate our lives to whatever we feel our spiritual mission may be. This truly must be a grass roots movement. Our leaders need the people to lead because many of them have lost their own inner compass of integrity and wisdom.

It is the most simple and heroic of acts, to turn off the television, sit quietly and humbly, and ask for inner guidance in bearing our own pain, and to alleviate the pain of those around us. Ultimately it is the only weapon we have against terrorism.