I have been to Le Mont St. Michel in Normandie now a few times – in pilgrimage – and recognise the powerful earth-grounded imagery of the Archangel Michael’s might.  Therein, the Might, lies the clue behind the armour.  “Fight the Good Fight with all thy Might, Lean and his mercy will provide..”  is intrinsic.  Armour and war are indeed related and, whether we like it or not, our ways of being affect the world and the manifestations of war.

That soldiers and military have the protection of the Archangel – whichever side they are on – is profound in their own, single journeys;  if I may learn not to judge the whys and wherefores of war, not to judge the individual combatants, that, in itself, may give peace to the world.

(© 2010 Eileen Baker)

Violence as a word means: “physical force used to inflict injury or damage,” from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. violence, from L. violentia “vehemence, impetuosity,” from violentus “vehement, forcible,” probably related to violare. Weakened sense of “improper treatment” is attested from 1596. (© 2001 Douglas Harper, www.etymonline.com.)

What about a violin? It is interesting to find that there is a relationship between the term ‘violin’ and the Roman Goddess of Exaltation or Victory. Does this mean that there is a link between violin and violence? It is equally amazing to discover that there is an etymological relationship between the stringed instruments and the device used to torture slaves. If exaltation or victory can be good in a peaceful sense, could the world ‘violence’ also have a positive outcome? Could it be a good violence or a bad violence depending on our actions? What about the violence in a storm? Is that good or bad or is it just a result, an effect of underlying causes? After a storm, all is calm and clean and, sometimes, after an outburst of personal anger there is calm because we have let go of the irritant. Why do we relate anger and violence so closely and often only negatively?

Our anger is directed internally and not always at our family and friends in an overt way. In a covert way, however, it might take hold and take charge. Do we lash out at others in a physical way because of the internal festering of anger?

If we have to be constantly ‘nice’ to our family and friends might we have to hide who we really are because who we really are, might have a great deal of anger and hurt so we masquerade our nice side to our nearest and dearest, mostly.

We are never allowed to bring the issues which anger us out into the open with our family and friends unless seeking approval for the same ‘views’ because this is not a ‘nice’ thing to do.

With our family and friends we have been conditioned to be ‘nice’ so, as we equate anger and violence with being ‘not nice’ we can be suppressed.

Our best friends and family can often (unwittingly) keep us in our untruthful state for all of our lives. Why? Because it suits us and them. If we do not have to face ourselves then we will not have to unearth our anger, and then work it out. Equally, therefore everyone is in on the collusion to remain hidden. But we act in ignorance.

We tend to choose ‘friends’ and ‘colleagues’ based on the lies holding our families together; our families continue the ongoing lie through conditioning from birth; we are given the ground rules and we are programmed.

There is enough guilt laid upon any one to stop any ‘untoward’ actions and overt violence within our social groups. To consolidate us, we might also choose our friends who will equally help us continue to live the lie. Why should we choose people as our friends who make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves?

Festering anger which will get worse with guilt about the underlying real way we feel about our family and ourselves, will come out in other ways. Ultimately, these ‘other ways’ will find us our enemies.

Why should this be? Our enemies will give us a reason and a rationale for being violent towards them in a justifiable way. They allow us to be violent (negatively). So we can vent our anger. (Vent is associated with ‘wind’ and wind is usually part of a storm, moving things on, changing the scene.)

Our enemies could be our best friends in disguise, because they have the power to bring out of us what and who we really are. Their views are probably accurate about us, because they have a better perspective of who we are and what we give out.

We are not concerned about hiding anything from them that might be construed as ‘not nice’ to our family and friends. In fact, we can often get our family and friends to join us in this placing of the anger externally, because then they can vent their true feelings too.

So we direct all of our anger externally and create a ‘violent’ result. These violent emotions are directed elsewhere. Internally, in the known groups, we can agree to remain covert and we can pretend that everything is all right.

Yet could violence brought out in the healing atmosphere of love give a beautiful effect? In that the violence played out could become positive, not negative as in physical fighting and armed warfare. So ‘violence’, like ‘effect’, could be positive or negative. Is ‘violence’ the ‘cadence of ourselves? ( Cadence (music), a particular series of intervals or chords that ends a phrase, section, or piece of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence). Our vibrations at every level of our being will be making our music.

How could it become positive? We would have to face our emotions and ourselves. We would have to let these powerful emotions overwhelm us, flow over us and be set free. Like a beautiful raging storm, these powerful emotions will wreak havoc but be set free on their way.

Love is not blind, it is clear sighted. We are blind in our conditioning, we cannot see clearly at all and we are too frightened to start clearing out the rubble because of what we might have to face inside ourselves.

Perhaps we can look at violence as a tool to explain to us what is going on: that this is the music we are creating from our selves, then it would be plausible to learn of the relationship between a beautiful musical instrument, associated with the most sublime music on earth, and ‘violence’, associated with war and hurt.

If we are violins, our strings are being plucked by ourselves, family, friends, enemies and others. The music we create comes from these plucking fingers. Perhaps the cadence of our world today, is through us all being the instruments, (our strings being plucked by each other) and therein lies our delivered violence.

Perhaps violence is just the vibrations that we produce from and to each other; our cadences or our vibrations are the resulting effects which spreads throughout the earth. Violence, therefore could be wholly harmonious and beautiful. Violence is merely our music.

What is the music that we are making on this good earth? What is our score? Note that the association between ‘score’ and settling differences in a ‘violent’ way is known; as is the association between a musical manuscript and ‘score’.

There are so many parallels that I cannot ignore. So I ponder on.(© 2008 Eileen Baker)