So soon is it after Veteran’s Day, so many are in a rush to go to war.

I know the feeling. We all do. We’re human. We bear in ourselves the ancient blood of the killer apes that walked  upright on the African plains so  long, long  ago. We are not so far removed from them we don’t feel the pull of it. It is instinct. The hated Other challenges us, and we long to sink our teeth into them. To defend  the Tribe. To protect our young. And because killing is an ancient pleasure handed down to us from the long ages of Earth.  It’s the one that won’t admit that you should fear, because those ancient terrible lusts  might one day take them by surprise. And in an instant, the human identity is shed.

We are more than that. The killer lives within us, but we are human, we are civilization builders, artists, and dreamers, and we don’t have to listen to the killer ape. Let us think before we act. Please.

There’s a poem…The Old Astronomer…I’m sure every astronomer knows it for these beautiful lines…

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

It’s in my will that my ashes are to be scattered in my beloved California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific near the Garrett family lands. So I will have no tombstone, but if I did I would want those words engraved on it.  

To the people who planned and instigated this killing…to the people now rejoicing in it, calling for war and more war…war against the infidel, war against the hated Other, war just for the pure pleasure of war…all I can say is, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry you’ve lost your memory  of what it is to be human. I’m sorry the killer ape has taken your soul away from you.  I’m sorry that hate has emptied everything from within you that could have been decent and kind and noble. There are worse things that can happen to a person than to die. I see them in you now. I wish you could see them too, but you have fallen into a pit I’ve seen very few  claw their way back out of. I’m sorry you are lost.

But you need to understand something. We have seen the Pillars of Creation. We have watched the stars being born, and dying, and hurling  their flesh back into the universe to began the dance all over again. We have seen the horizons of other worlds.  We have harvested light from the first galaxies. And we are not fearful of the night.