Connecting with the infinite
Well, I tried.
As soon as I got home from Kundalini yoga class - we were trying to connect with our infinite being - I dived into social media, and regretted it. Our local news was fairly depressing today, and it will no doubt become more so as the week progresses.
I am thinking about a sixteen-year-old girl who was murdered on her grandmother’s verandah two days ago. Tara Alecia’s story is painful, and I can’t stop turning it around in my head. It is more than a crime story: it is a story of poverty, hopelessness, and a lack of love.
As International Women’s Day approaches, with all its lofty words and “themes” (this year it’s “Investing in Women: Accelerate Progress”) I feel that children (she was still a child) and women of all ages are struggling in a trap of their society’s making. Wherever it is: Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq… and oh yes! I nearly forgot. The dear old USA, where in some respects the walls seem to be closing in on women.
There is no way out. Tara Alecia was trying to find a way out of her own life, in rural Jamaica where jobs are few and far between. She had to drop out of high school because of poverty. There is no mention of parents in her story - only her grandmother, whom she lived with and was unable to support her. She was thrilled to get work as an ice cream waitress in Negril, so that she could stand on her own feet. She was friends with an older man (a “boy” friend) and was allegedly killed by a younger man who lived nearby (an “ex"?) She was seeking support and comfort from the older man, perhaps. Who else might give her that? But of course, she has been criticised for that by the self-righteous, mean little social media commentators. The man was twice her age. How could she? She was going down the wrong path. Blame the victim.
She was a child, a vulnerable young woman who wore lots of makeup and put on a brave smile.
Connecting with the infinite inside my mind and body was not easy today. Although one bright moment was the pink poui tree (a native tree) enjoying its last flourish of flowers.
Such a sad story.