State of the Union

My president will be speaking tonight, delivering a "State of the Union" address to a joint session of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate meet together in the House Assembly Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.) There is a lot of pomp and circumstance surrounding these speeches. There's a lot of posturing and campaigning that goes on at these events. When a Republican president speaks, the Democrats tend to remain seated and the Republicans tend to give standing ovations, whenever major points are expressed. The reverse is generally true when a Democrat inhabits the White House. Most of the time, we learn more about the content and intention of the speech when we listen to the commentators and pundits discuss and debate the event after the fact. I have lived in Washington. I have experienced a joint session of Congress, live and in the flesh. I have watched the State of the Union address on television many, many times. I have listened to what the opposition has to say in response to the speech and I have listened to countless commentators reflect and ruminate on the implications and consequences and next steps. That is not my plan for this evening. After reading the very informative blog posts by Darshan, Happiness, Tigana, and others, I realized that I was draining my energy by absorbing a lot of negativity (I'm not ascribing negativity to the people who have blogged, I was ascribing negativity to the information that my mind and body were taking in) and I came to a realization that I needed to stop doing that to myself. Tonight, when I return home from work, I will draw myself a hot bath and take a good long soak in the tub. I will relax my body and my mind. I will take long, deep breaths. I will attempt to create in my physical and mental and emotional body, a vessel of love. I hope to hold Love within me. I hope to emanate Love outside of me. I hope to radiate and direct Love directly to Washington, D.C., to the hallowed hall that will contain all the Honorable Representatives and Senators from all the States and Territories for all the United States of America, and to the President and Vice-President of these United States. I hope that the Love I send to them will be received by them in the depths and recesses of their hearts, illuminating the fears and thereby eradicating their shadows. I don't envision any radical change in policy or opinion by my simple act this evening. What I do hope for, is to cast my pebble upon the water, and, in the words of Robert F. Kennedy, send forth "a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Whether or not you watch(ed) the State of the Union address, what ripple of hope are you carrying within you right now?