We are all incredibly saddened by events in Colorado.
May peace be with those who have passed, their families, and those traumatized by being forced to witness such terrible doings.
As someone who has dealt with PTSD for the whole of my life, I feel for all who must now face finding a voice to grieve with, some way to find faith in life's continuance. Once human beings betray our trust so completely, it's incredibly difficult to even find enough will to reach out...as much as you may desperately want to do exactly that.
To all those who are hurting, who are grieving, I wish for you a sense of safety and peace. Here's hoping there's someone in your life that you love, someone with whom you have solid, existent bonds with that will allow you to feel secure in their arms.
The data on this torrid tragedy will take time to properly assemble. Until then, I will tender no astrological comments.
I will however, note how horribly ironic this shooting really was. The core mythos which is Batman is about a man who when a child, saw his parents murdered. He grows up and out of a desperate but very human desire to feel safety, almost joins the darkness.
But at the critical moment, he can't.
Instead he takes everything that he's learned through watching the ways of evil and tries to turn it to good.
Yet he cannot be an innocent, happy person like his friends are. Not all the money in the world can buy Bruce Wayne peace or human happiness. He lives in a netherworld, probably understanding more about the visceral evil of the 'bad guys' than the innocent of all which is good.
He knows who he is. He also knows - intellectually - who he could have been but will never be because of the cruelty of human beings.
He's not psychotic as some say, he's someone struggling to overcome trauma. He doesn't really know any other life; he grew up being traumatized. No one can tell him to just 'let go of it' because there's nothing to let go of, there's nothing else to be.
I will hope that for those who were in that theater in Aurora there is a 'letting go' of this horror. Since I will guess they were all teenagers or older, there's a better chance for them than some. I hope they get help, I hope they have patient, loving, tolerant friends and family to talk to.
But it will take time. Most of us will have long moved on to other things before they're half way into grappling with this singularly damaging event.
For that, I'm sorry. I know how long it can take.
I truly pray that they give themselves time, that they keep trying - for however long it takes.
I also hope that those around them love them in spite of all their conflicts, their bad nights, their fears. If there's anything worse than the initial cruelty incalculable, its being told that you don't shouldn't cry...That you shouldn't 'hold onto' something you have no way of letting go of...That you're 'not trying' because people around you are 'tired' of a trauma you didn't ask to encounter in the first place.
The truth of this Batman irony is that in a sense, Bruce Wayne has the right idea with his wanting to face the bats which as a child became a symbol of his terror in the time surrounding his parent's murder. Real trauma can never be simply 'forgotten.' At some point you have to face your own valley of darkness.
That 'darkest before the dawn' theory was made for survivors of trauma.
And we each must find our own way.
To all those concerned, my most heartfelt thoughts are with you and yours.
Peace be with you...may peace be with us all.
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