mildly ECSTATIC - "My Friend Tom"

My Friend Tom

The law, and the truth

Tom, who was killed by hit-and-run driver Miguel four years ago this month, lived three doors up my street. Correction: Tom died when Oliveira hit him—the story has to fit the law and the finding of the court…

There’s no ecstasy in this piece, but there’s hope in the story because of the will-power of Tom’s widow, Kasia, who banded with other victims of street violence to create a support and advocacy group you might not have heard about, Friends and Families for Safe Streets. So tragedy can unite people in a high level of determination and vision, bringing unexpectedly powerful consequences.

Toronto’s prevalent paradigm

As pleasant a city as this is, we have far to go. Paradoxically, the same human scale that feeds our conscious (art/healing) communities makes change painfully slow: Toronto’s a very busy, rich place evolving from the prevalent paradigm of competition—winners and losers. To lots of people, “it ain’t broke.”
But street violence of the kind that kills our neighbours and friends is no accident, it’s what happens when people accept the status quo: the laws that make the pedestrians and cyclists guilty; the intersections, signage, speed limits and rights-of-way that prioritize haste and obscure or constrict the coming and going of two-legged travellers.

When the losers die—as they are in ever-increasing numbers—then the street race becomes a paradigm of death. It’s in the nature of paradigms to be unexamined, taken for granted; for the people in it to accept its consequences. Tom was the 39th victim, felled late in 2012; this year, we passed that count months ago. Toronto Police Services does not have a methodology for measuring street violence perpetrated by drivers. Why would they, when the prevailing paradigm guiding the law and our society place the blame and burden on cyclists and walkers?

“After such knowledge”

So no ecstasy this week, only a bit of advocacy, founded in optimism that New Human City is anti-paradigm. The consciousness we seek is never at rest. The doors we open together will not be shut. The plateaux to which we ascend lead us beyond any paradigm we find, any comfort zone we reach.

To a great extent, the path of consciousness is an individual one. We find encouragement in the knowledge that we’re not alone, but reflection/meditation/inner change calls for delicacy and sensitivity. Stillness in meditation brings revelations that we release to make way for more; we emerge with wonder at the superficiality of much of our (often automatic) behaviour.

Scouts

“Be prepared”. Go carefully among the heavy machinery that surrounds our city blocks with deadly force. Survive and allow your compassion for victims to thrive so you can be aware of the moment that brings you the opportunity to deny the death paradigm with calm certainty.

The conscious community includes the city’s healthiest, sexiest, most persuasive people (let’s flesh this out!) Let’s breathe deeply if we’re threatened, knowing that anger is most often counter-productive. Power shifts. 

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First published by New Human City on November 22nd, 2016