Wings

I am going to tell you a story; this is not an X-file.  Last night I was standing out on my front porch to decompress as I often do after Ms. Maddow has ended her broadcast.  I felt something fly past my ear, then into it.  Suddenly there was a pounding against my tympanic membrane with the rhythm of fluttering wings and the amplified concussions of several drummers on speed. 

The sensation was paralyzing.  Predictably, I quickly became dizzy then nauseous.  Unable to stand or to hold my head up because any movement caused the trapped winged creature to panic and pound against my ear drum with increased speed and force, I called my husband. 

He came to my aid and promptly realized that there was very little he could do to help, having neither the light source to penetrate the auditory canal nor the willingness to probe blindly into that narrow and heavily vascular space.  So, we called an ambulance. 

I expected to see two, perhaps three, paramedics respond.  Instead, Fire Rescue came.  Within minutes five firemen/first responders were standing in my living room totally focused on what by the standards of their profession was a very minor complaint. 

Realizing that none of them had a pair of tweezers in their kit – I understand that will be corrected today – and after dispatching my Bradley to fetch mine from the medicine cabinet the senior responder began to patiently and gently probe my auditory canal within a breath of the easily ruptured tympanic membrane.  After what seemed a day or more he retrieved a tiny moth which he passed to a colleague who carefully carried it to the front door and released it back into the night.

I would remind you that these five men are representative of the people who ran into the crumbling Trade Towers and charged the Pentagon on 9/11.  At the same time our esteemed leaders in Washington and elsewhere were looking for someplace to hide.  Ironically, it is some of the same political hacks who today advocate relegating these people to the dustbin in the name of fiscal responsibility.  Realizing that the firemen in my home last night brought the same focus, care and concern to what was merely an interesting call as they would bring to a ten car pileup on the interstate or to a mass shooting it is time that we took a page out of the Conservative playbook and examined the value we are getting for our taxpayer dollars.  Wouldn’t it be wiser to insist that before a single firefighter/first responder is rendered unemployed that those who have spent most of their tenure doing nothing but helping their coconspirators at the federal level undermine a president and interfering with the rights of women be paid nothing for their trouble?

Pagans believe that the dust on the wings of a moth is wisdom.  I believe therefore that the uncomfortable and irritating experience of last night served to grace my thinking with a little insight.  This morning it came to me in a flash that amid the terror of world events this week, Romney’s insistence upon returning to the blustering and bullying policies of the Bush administration is once again a display of that fastest-gun-in-the-West, cowboy diplomacy and tone deafness with regard to the message he is sending to the rest of the world.  It is worth noting that from Wes Hardin to Doctor John Holliday no gunman of the Old West ever rode into a town, walked down a dusty street or passed through the swinging doors of a saloon without the certain knowledge that within arm’s reach one or more people would gladly kill them for the dubious privilege of being the fastest of fast guns.  They had no peace.  They were not peace makers; they were killers.  To the extent that we embrace their blood soaked legacy of fear and death we too will have no peace.  Thus, from the Soul of the Goddess to my ear came a bit of wisdom on the wings of a tiny moth.