Denial: darkness// violent crimes

Janauary 5th, 2011

I like to deny that there are such things as evil; although, I am firm in my belief that everyone is good at their core. The other day, I was again at odds with this knowing, when I got a hotline call from a disabled survivor of rape. She was assaulted a couple of days before and was experiencing a great deal of fear and physical pain. Apparently, disabled and handicapped survivors of sexual assault and rape are much more common than one might fathom. Indeed, sexual abuse is one of the most widely unacknowledged acts that traumatize individuals and communities throughout life.

Because this blog is about resonating with one, I seek to see how someone like me can do such a terrible act. The belief is that it is not possible. I am too aware of the love that lives inside of me and others. So, perhaps it is that perpetrators of rape and other crimes do such things because they are not aware of the love inside of them.

Perhaps they hate themselves.

Perhaps, the perpetrators are surrounded by violent crimes. They watch it on t.v., see it in movies, in the newspapers, maybe violence for them is the only thing they've learned about how to release their own fears. They release these fears through projection and manipulation onto others, for some sense of control which they lack. They want love but they don't know how to ask without manipulating others.

Perhaps they are experiencing trauma somewhere held in their own bodies. Many perpetrators of sexual assault have been sexually assaulted at some time in there life. Maybe they are ashamed. Perhaps, they are unaware and have difficulty letting feelings pass through them so they act on their urges. They do not know how to deal with felt sensations.

Perhaps it is societal conditioning that influences sex offenders and other perpetrators to act on urge. The imbalance of the masculine and feminine aspects within each of us, which we often deny. We reward logic, sexuality, and reason and dismiss feelings and intuition.

Perhaps there are perpetrators who are conscious of their acts, they plan them out step by step, but like a drug, a tendency, or another "bad" habit, they choose not to feel or look deeply within themselves.

Perhaps perpetrators attract negative energies that, like a parasite, feed and live off of their weakness.

We are all animals, at least partly, acting sometimes on desire and impulses and sometimes not. I can resonate with all these possible "reasons." I see: There are degrees to which we act, just like there are degrees to how balanced we are in any given moment.

I don't really like to make excuses for people acting like animals, doing ugly things to hurt other people; however, I walk with Deer medicine, who teaches that unconditional love is loving both light and dark and that fear does not exist in the presence of love. If we want a solution to end violence, we have to stop denying that we are any different from those who act out in horrible ways. When we deny that we are one, we build on the illusion that we are separate and perpetuate fear out into the world.