I Remember… 25 Years Later

Centerpoint’s Mission is to support Community through the Arts, Spirituality, and Healthy Lifestyles. A strong focus is on finding positive ways to support our individual journeys, as well as that of our communities. This emphasis also involves dealing with Life’s questions of war, poverty, greed, suffering. For many of us, these existential concerns came together in a generation-changing few hours on September 11, 2011. Almost everyone, over the age of 40, can vividly recollect where they were on that fateful morning. Something so horrific for us all became game-changing to me personally. The following is a poem I recently composed for a poetry event in the Berkshires that (briefly) encapsulated that day for me. I had just attended an Iranian film festival at a local arts cinema in Westchester NY the previous evening, and awoke with an intestinal fury I have only ever felt with food poisoning…only it was not that, but my psychic reaction to the violence that was to occur just a few short hours later. 

“I Remember…25 years Later”, by John Krysko

“Two AM. 

Hell began at 2 AM.

September 11, 2011.

Mountains of last night’s Persian feast and fellowship…

A celebration of all that is good from the land of Rumi, Hafez and Khayyam

Vanished in violent eruptions from every available orifice.

Urgently. Painfully. Voiding.

Nothing left but agony.

Was I poisoned? 

No. 

Calls much later confirmed I alone was suffering from something that had not yet occurred.

Memories of the Iranian film festival from the previous night and the food fest that followed vanished into a phantasmagoric liminal space of a personal Duzakh (my own Persian hell).

Demonic subterranean beasts feasted at my gut…relentlessly, for hours.

8:45 AM…I called work to say I could not come.

Quietly, in a disembodied voice, my secretary simply said: “Turn on your tv”.

By 9 AM I watched with the rest of the world as hell broke into our world.

Moments later, in time surreal, the second plane struck. A death blow to all sense of our security. 

9 Days. I stayed alone, transfixed as I recovered from my own misery…knowing life never the same would be. 

25 years. Exactly 1/3 of my life ago. 

I woke today at 2 AM. A different hell is unfolding…

Something from the darkest pit of our national, (and global) unconsciousness. 

From the shadows I see a Horse. 

Is it Red? Is it Black? Is it Pale? 

I Pray.”

I wrote this poem, not to remember something so unforgettable, but to remind myself of the personal nature of the horrors of war. It also served to remind me of how I, as an individual, am susceptible to the deepest levels of empathy. I cannot change that, but I have learned how to use it as a tool for self-growth. There have been far too many opportunities over the ensuing decades, post-911, to deal with my own response mechanisms, but I have learned some lessons worth sharing.

The first is to honor your feelings. This does not mean to elevate them to a godly status, but simply to acknowledge them. This approach is equally effective for those of us constructed to minimize feelings. A lack of (apparent) emotional empathy is not necessarily a sign of a psychopathology. It just means there is a difference in how we process events with emotional content. As always, self-acceptance in the healthiest Path forward. 

Once we accept how we process emotions, we can begin to assess events in a clearer light of Truth, Understanding, and even Love. When we are so tied up with our own emotional reactions, we are limiting our ability to respond in the healthiest way. It becomes more about us. The goal here is not to eliminate emotions, (which is not really possible), but to separate out our own emotional histories from outer events. We may still feel a reaction, but we are no longer completely controlled by them.

Further, this healthy separation allows our deeper intuition and higher mind opportunities to provide us with avenues of approach that are most beneficial. Clarity emerges when emotions no longer control. 

Twenty-five years ago I had the opportunity of separating out my emotions from a monumentally challenging world event. What I learned about myself, and the world, has helped shape my response mechanisms. Each of us can do the same, without requiring a world-changing episode. Now try remembering  one of your life-changing moments. How did you react then?  Be honest. Now get into your feeling state/mind….can you recall how you felt? Focus on the feelings- anger, fear, joy, surprise…no editing. Allow yourself, to your capabilities to get inside the feelings. Breathe with that experience. Imagine yourself as an observer watching you re-experience that event. Staying with process, transfer your thoughts and feelings to a happy moment in your life. Begin to notice the tensions dissipate and the feelings of joy return. Somehow, since that event, you have survived and have felt joy and love. When we can both remember the truly challenging times, while simultaneously allowing ourselves to (vividly) remembering the Good Times, we have passed a most important milestone in human development. We have achieved a measure of perspective that leads to true growth and the true inner peace of HeartMind.