The Law of Peace

In a State of rage

[note to readers: This is the eighth installment of a twelve part series on the training of the Octagon Society, Order of Spiritual Alchemy. Previously we have discussed the three preliminary laws, blame, shame and guilt, to get at and excise the detritus of trauma etc in preparation for the preliminary laws, and three of the primary laws, Acceptance, Happiness and Joy, to get about the work of intentionally building the life you want, of strengthening the self and opening up and expanding consciousness. Links to the previous installments can be found at the end.]

In America, peace is like a commodity, or clip art, something to be purchased, consumed, to make you feel calmer. There’s drugs for that, especially if you have insurance. Phizer/Moderna are surely looking to buy a company that makes a vaccine to facilitate peace. Lots of kids I hear are on melatonin to sleep, to fix their body not generating enough melatonin for some reason. I hear opioids are great for feeling peace, until they aren’t. The Science used to give people labotomies.

If peace were something you could buy we would all be listening to the Grateful Dead, or maybe Bob Marley, just don’t read too much into that bit about shooting the sheriff. Get it, there would be peace if we could just effectively outlaw the other political party. Surely keeping the people from voting for Trump will make for peace. Go on another retreat and talk about Buddhism. For peace in the workplace you will go through this struggle session. Mindfulness, so that you can do this sociopathic corporate thing without feeling any cognitive dissonance about it.

America wouldn’t know peace if Jesus came back and started making loaves and fishes again. The right would probably mistake him as a communist, the left would condemn him for being a Jew, or white male savior. America is a business, chaos and anger sell better than meditation. Peace is for hermits living off grid in the wilderness.

Or you might bring your anger and rage to the wilderness, burn up frustrated in your isolation. In fact it’s harder to hide from what haunts you, out there in the emptiness, none of the things available to us we usually use to cover up and distract from our root problems.

Most people don’t have much or any peace because they are so angry, and whatever they are angry about in any given moment is probably not the root of that anger.

A personal anecdote: My mom likes to make chex mix for Christmas. I happened to try one of the pretzels she put in the batch she was just getting started with. It was stale as stale gets. I checked the bag, exp date, Mar 2019. Wow, before covid. I had just been to the grocery store that afternoon. She had given me a list. I was just about to sit down to practice the guitar. Now I’m driving to a gas station to buy pretzels. I got angry about it. Had a hard time shaking it. Do you think it was actually my elderly mother and her Christmas chex mix that made me angry? Earlier that day I learned my state of Minnesota has a new flag, which was made by democrats who are so lacking in self-awareness that they made a symbol of a one-party blue state, which is in turn my anger about rising authoritarianism and censorship in America, which at the root is a sense of helplessness.

Just as we learned with Joy, the way to experience more joy is to get at and excise your fear. With happiness it is sadness. Most of us don’t know peace because we haven’t done anything about our anger and rage. There is no shortage of things to be angry about, there seems more of that every day. It is probably not advisable to become more angry, in 2024. That won’t generate anything good, necessarily. The point of course is not to not feel anger, that is not possible nor advisable. The point is to feel the anger, to feel the rage, then let it pass, so that something constructive can be done perhaps, about that thing you are angry about. The point is not to dwell in the anger and continually feed it until it burns you up and eventually there is nothing left, after a lifetime being angry. Be conscious about your anger and rage or your anger and rage controls you.

To do something about your anger is to get at the root of anger. As is standard in this training, that starts with Dad.

• List the things your father did to you that made you feel angry

• List the things your mother did to you that made you feel angry

• List the things your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins did to you that made you feel angry

• List the things your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors did to you that made you feel angry

• List the things your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees did to you that made you feel angry

• List the things your enemies and antagonists did to you to make you feel angry

• List the things all other persons whatsoever did to you that made you feel angry

• List all the other things in your life that make you feel angry

1. Step One is to list the things your father did to you that made you feel angry. Make this list as complete as possible. This is the first task and it can be completed in the same manner as you approached the First Law, the Law of Acceptance.

The second task is to consciously decide how you’ll handle these same situations in the future regardless of the people, places and things concerned. Your decision is not specific to your father but general to all other situations similar to the events you’ve listed in regard to your father. The decision is how to remain peaceful in many situations that previously caused you to feel angry. Once you’ve completed both tasks to your satisfaction, move on to the second and succeeding steps.

A lot of anger, or the lack of peace, is a feeling of helplessness or hopelessness, unable to do anything about that thing you are superficially angry about: Trump, Biden, border policy, censorship, etc. You can do something about the root of your anger, so that you don’t feel so angry about the things you can’t do much of anything about.

2024 is going to be all about rage. Dems are going to be hammered 24/7 about all the nazis hiding behind every hasta, orange hitler-dictator is gonna execute people, THE END OF DEMOCRACY!!!! etc, yadda yadda. Conservatives are going to be provoked every way through Sunday: racist, bigot, transphobe, NAZI!.

I highly recommend not getting caught up in that flood, or rather, that conflagration. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel that fire, it means a fire inside burns steady to maintain peace of body and mind, it’s called sometimes the soul, or spirit, take charge of that fire and sustain it in a way that generates creativity in the midst of a country tearing itself apart.

Peace is what you will find if you do the work to clear your rage and anger. Godspeed in that work.

For reference: The Law of Peace

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It is the winter Solstice today. The real New Year, not that fake arbitrary one in a week or so. The most sacred day of days, in my estimation. I have much love for you, I hope you and yours are well and at peace. Thank you for subscribing to my Substack.

Introduction

Preliminary Lessons:

The Law of Blame

The Law of Shame

The Law of Guilt

Primary Laws:

0/8 The Law of Acceptance

1/8 The Law of Happiness

2/8 The Law of Joy