Somewhere, there is a line drawn in the sand. The sand is not owned by someone, the line is not owned by anyone, but it is there. That line, a marker of some inevitable boundary, a symbol of some limit of safe and excess, showing to all who would observe, that 'this is all that can be allowed'. A single and simple thing, a line drawn in the sand, that represents so much to so many, that we can easily be confused on it's original intent or reason for being. And simply looking at this line, we wonder why is it there and not here, how did this become so close to us, and most importantly, who drew it out so?
We look around and find many things that we think to be normal, to be inevitable, to be okay and accept them without question, … until that is, we see that line in the sand. Some of us see beyond the thin veils of selfishness and illusions of egos. Some see through deception in motion, covering hidden actions against the majority of observers. Those people were targeted first, removed from play in a game so engrossingly enormous that even fewer realize that they play a part in it all. But there it is, still drawing our attention to it, beckoning us to see it and recognize it, that line in the sand. Did we draw it? When did it appear? Why hadn’t we noticed it before?
Boundaries have always been a part of our world, allowing us to separate land, property, and people. Boundaries show us where it is safe to be, where we are allowed to be, and keep danger and harm safely away. Boundaries allow us to see the group and the individual, selecting for us areas of understanding or understood information and conceptual ideas. These all exist, and have existed, and yet are changed by consensus and definition often. But by who hand did those lines become drawn? And is this just another boundary that can be moved, this line in the sand?
Maybe ignorance is bliss for it is blind to these things. As the Fool card in the Tarot teaches us, for the Fool walks blindly forward unaware of the dangers, yet not falling to the harm nor heading any perceived warning. Maybe that is why many do not see these things and have grown accustomed to the illusion of safety and secure passage in life. But why do some of us see these things? Are we questioning the realities of our world, do we challenge things that do not make sense to us? Is there some hint at 'wrongness' that awakens our instincts of survival? Maybe. Maybe that is why there is that line drawn in the sand. Maybe that is how it came to be.
If we ponder too long on the why's and the how's and the who's, we loos sight of the simple fact that it is there, and it represents, if nothing else, a limit, a safe factor, a boundary. We know that we must defend it, for it is the marker of our safety. We come to understand that like so many other lines that have been drawn out, this one too was done as a consensus, and for reason. We know, instinctively, that this limit is ours, of where we must not be pressed beyond, where we would find not just harm, but find damages beyond our own ability to repair. This simple line in the sand.
So we stand here, claiming all that is on and in our side of that line, and stand, and stand. Yet we have given so much without notice, that once we look down, we see that the line has been pushed to it's extreme elasticity of almost breaking. Now we understand, and are shocked that this has happened, while we were standing guard over it. How could this be? When did this happen? We question and begin anew by observing what we once thought of as clear information, yet now see illusions fade and false pretense fall. This is our line, and it falters, as we stand in it's defense. The pressure pushed into and against that line is great on both sides, yet we can see no relief either way. What happens when it is breached? Who's side will give first?
Somewhere, there is that simple line drawn in the sand, and we are just the grains that give it definition and purpose.
- In Solidarity, Sean Bigham
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