The heart bleeds, the mind numbs, hands sweat then go cold, faces are shocked, we stand paralyzed with awe. On the street, life is on the ropes in the belly of the beast; this is life and death in the streets of Bellevue, 2 miles from the richest family in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the world.

It was 11 AM when I arrived at our weekly protest outside Bellevue Square, the commercial center of our region. I did a quick TV interview for channel 7 stating our position on the day; we want to see the war contained and not spread. To do this we are calling on the UN to put forth a resolution condemning the war as against International law, we call upon the Arab states to unite against this war using non-violent measures to stop it, and we call upon the European Union to unite against the world in demanding an immediate ceasefire. Dropping radioactive bombs on a country does not free it. Bombing and killing the people does not liberate them.

I joined my fellow protestors on the corner. The response from the people in the cars was stiff this day. People's feelings are understandably high and somewhat raw. We were joined by a protestor who was touting an upside down, burned and painted American flag on a long staff. He stood stiff with pride as he displayed his message of disdain, the symbol of freedom waving in the soft breeze. The protestor accented his message with the robes of a holy minister of the Christian faith brought out of retirement for this auspicious day. The spring sun illumined the message of the upside down flag that our country is in distress; MAY DAY, SOS, rescue us, rescue the world, GOD save us, heaven help us.

The sun was shining warm on our spirits and strengthened our hearts as our pleas for peace were met by the steady stream of anti-protests in the vehicles passing by. However, the protests to our protests were equaled this day with frequent waves of support. Occasionally someone took offense and parked to let us know how they felt nose to nose. The challenge is to actually have a conversation with a human being that is obviously very emotional and upset about our protests against the war. By the end of the day I shook hands with the other point of view, a personal victory. Defending my values and keeping cool in the face of attack, demonstrated to me how strong my beliefs are, a very powerful feeling. Gandhi's Satyagraha is a soul enriching art.

Our signs read, Support Our Humanity - bring us home, Uranium bombs do not free Iraq, STOP MA$$ MURDER! Kucinich for President, Save Our Country, FOR PEACE, Not In Our Name, We Love Our Troops - Bring Them Home etc. These were matched with calls for us to go home, you are traitors, Commie liberal traitors, bomb Saddam, and shame on you!

Our forces were enlarged by several people stopping to join us and thanking us for protesting. At the height of the foray between the two sides a pedestrian, a dentist from San Jose, engaged us in an enlightening conversation. He seemed to know more than most about current events and signaled that he was just saying hello until the light changed when he would continue his journey back to his hotel. But the conversation deepened and he stayed through the light and the next one and the next one while we talked about what he thought was coming down. "The doctors and the dentists", he said, "we are the ones that they will come for first because we know what is going on."

I asked him if he had ever thought of leaving the country, if he had any triggers that would prompt him to do so. This set off a litany of triggers but the most important trigger to him will be when they come for the guns. "After they take away the guns", he said, "they will let us starve and we will become like animals fighting one another". When Kathy asked him what he thought about Brazil he said he had been there and …. And ,,.,…. AND …… his eyes rolled up and back he went stiff as a board, hitting the cement with a hard THUD! He was semi-conscious, gasping for air when the life began to leave his face. The faces of the people watched in shock as the angel of death swooped in on a mission. As the face of death changed colors it stunned, awed, and drove the onlookers into a numbing experience. DEATH IS REAL! It is what we were chanting in our signs, and it is what we got.

I held his hand and watched it turn purple. As the blood and life slowly drifted away the hand grew placid, limp, cold. "Breathe," I shouted, "You can stay here if you want, you can do it, you can do it, breathe, take more breaths, you are still here, just keep breathing."

His breaths grew fewer and fewer until the rescue team came and zapped him with electricity, pounded on his chest and did all they could before whisking him away, his face as purple as my newborn son before his first breath. We prayed to the messenger, connecting with his spirit of the man, blessing it with feelings of love and sending it on its journey.

A messenger? An omen? A sign? Death, think about it, or don't think about it. We spend all our days and nights worrying about the inevitable, doing all in our power to avoid something that is as natural as waking up in the morning, just not as often. Death is something we don't talk about much in our culture, we have little understanding of the journey to the other side and as a result we do not accept death easily. Would it help us to deal with our own deaths more gracefully if we shared our thoughts on death?

Today we had a message, or not, from the Angel of death, or not, on the streets of Bellevue in the belly of the beast. The commercial beast, who belches sales and credit card flames while consuming our souls in short moments of temporary joy; and I cannot help wondering if we are missing the point. What was the messenger saying, or asking us? What is meaningful in our lives?

Is the meaning of life to live to be digested by the consumer machine? Are we to end up as food for profits where our protests are mere burps on the accountant's spreadsheet? Or is life meant to be lived to the fullest, pursuing happiness at every turn, perpetually optimistic, filled with faith that everything we do, everything we feel, everything we see has meaning, everything is for a reason. Is everything here to show us who we are as spirits being human? Then in all this we have a choice to make, are we living to live or are we living to die? The answer is in how we view death? How we look at death is how we look at life.

May mankind choose to live not die, may we choose to honor the courage of life before senseless death and despair. May we choose to appreciate the blessings of life over the paralyzing grip of fear. From this day forth may the light of life spark an interest in human beings to create a new world, a new day, a new way to live: loving, blessing, touching, smelling, hearing, chewing, tasting, LIFE as much as humanly possible.
Om we takwe ahse - to all my relations.