Like most people, I remember where I was 12 years ago today: I worked in an office where the big boss hurriedly announced we could turn to CNN on our computers. After a few minutes, he said we could go home. We popped up from our cubicles in shock; eye contact with no words.
I walked to the conference room where I could see the plume of smoke from lower Manhattan: it was really happening. I drove through tears to pick up my daughter early from day care. As our children played in a circle, I sat opposite a stunned father who said to me “I just don’t want to believe this”.
Later in our courtyard, all the small children ran around in delight at their early freedom. I sat with other parents under that cruelly blue sky- a perfect day. We live under flight paths, so the strange stillness in the sky screamed. Yet our children played.
Some people chose to let their children watch the images on television. I preferred to insulate and protect my 3 year old from the barrage of sadness and terror as best I could. Horribly, many children had to be told because their loved one would never come home.
Of course, my daughter like all her generation have grown up in a very different world than prior to 9.11.2001. I had the luxury of choosing not to put her directly into a fearful reality. Every day the news reminds me that not all parents have that choice.
When I walk downtown now, I still feel the tug of sadness. Yet the beauty of the waterside park and the graceful buildings that soar from the site is a reminder that life does go on, even though sometimes it limps. Twelve years is a Jupiter cycle– which is how long it takes to return to a point in space. Therefore, Jupiter has been back to where it was when the towers fell. Jupiter is said to be the Great Benefic; the planet which symbolizes luck and good fortune. This seems strange to contemplate when considering 9.11.2001.
At a conference in FL a month later, I tried to describe what the cityscape was like without the WTC. “It’s like there’s a mountain outside your window and suddenly it’s gone”. There was no getting around the fact my world had changed. I looked up to orient myself, and I’d be disoriented. That was the continual physical reminder for so many New Yorkers, whether they lost a loved one or not; the missing towers were like a phantom limb.
The horoscope of the Trade Center Disaster has Jupiter as the highest planet in the sky. The disaster certainly seemed to have worked well for the terrorists who arranged it. For those who lost people, health, business or hope, it is hard to imagine how the results could have been worse than they were. Yet Jupiter is also about knowledge and wisdom and this would shine on the survivors. Jupiter is and was in the sign of Cancer- connecting wisdom and fortune to home, family and country.
Our world leaders seem to stumble through decision-making as the stakes get higher and higher and power slips. What have we learned in these 12 years that was triggered on 9.11.2001?
Oddly, I think I’ve learned to smile more, to look strangers in the eye and not to take anything for granted… and when I think of my love of family and roots, I do know that mine are only truly secure if that is the case for everyone on the planet. Clearly, we’ve got a ways to go.
I send you blessings and love on this day of remembrance, and most especially if sadness and loss is yours, I wish you peace. ©Cucinell 2013-all rights reserved
Makes one wonder what will happen next…
I shall think today about how I’ve changed since then; it hadn’t crossed my mind to do so until I read this. :)
Bright blessings to you!
Pip
many thanks, Pip
So many of us are remembering 9/11 today. I like how our voices add together, especially from different perspectives. Wonder where we’ll be at the next Jupiter… I related to your image of the mountain being gone, because here in the Seattle area we are very attached to our Mt. Rainier (which is visible some of the time – and other times just “gone” in the clouds!) We’d be devastated if Mt. Rainier were suddenly gone for good. To remembrance this day.
Judy Stone-Goldman
Where the Personal and Professional Meet
http://judystonegoldman.com/bringing-together-september-11-and-yom-kippur-as-times-of-remembrance/
Ah, good point, Judy… yes, the mountain reference came up because I was talking with people not from an area as urban as mine. Hopefully by the time Jupiter cycles back in 12 years we will have met the challenges placed in our hands for the welfare of our entire planet and its people. Blessings to you!
I find it so amazing how the planets are aligned during certain times. I don’t understand it so I appreciate when people that do explain it well. Thanks for this post, very enlightening!
glad you found it helpful, Laura. many thanks for taking the time to post.
Pamela, I read your comment on my blog before I read this. I have chills when I see how our experiences overlap. My fellow New Yorker, we also had a child in preschool, we protected her from the images and stories as much as possible (we also saw how other kids were not from the stories and pictures they talked about and drew). I also felt that scar, that void with the towers missing from the skyline. That took a long time to get used to. I remember that emptiness looking down 6th Avenue in the Village or coming up the stairs from the 1 train. And of course the way this terrible event brought us together in a way that only a tragedy can. Thank you for sharing and for your wish of peace.
Thank you too, Gloria and for your memories.
I too have been thinking a lot about the astrology of this as we reached the Jupiter return. Of course at 11 degrees it was very connected with the Pluto/Uranus square and to me this has been represented by the sudden shift of opinion in the country as to how we deal with the Syria issue and the sudden turn around by the President – not that I’m a mundane astrologer so I won’t delve too far into prediction. Just interesting to look what’s happening right now.
“Mundane” astrology is the astrology of countries, cities, events, etc. for those unfamiliar with the term. Predictions aside, I optimistically look to our potential for spiritual evolution. Thanks for your thoughts, Louise.
I wonder if we’ll ever forget exactly where we were when 9/11 happened. I was in a hotel room in Toronto, thinking how odd it was that the morning news show had been replaced by an action movie. And then later that morning, sitting in a boardroom, watching jets circle around and around while officials waited to announce where the in-flight planes would be allowed to land. Later that week, when I could finally get a flight home to New Brunswick, we were greeted at the airport by machine-gun carrying guards. There are also good memories. Stories like those from Gander, Newfoundland, population 10,000, where 6,700 stranded passengers were welcomed and cared for. It’s good for us to remember all of it. Thank you for writing this post.
Thanks for sharing your memories, Susan. Even the painful ones are treasures. My father has dementia and 9.11 is one more memory that is lost to him. So even though I still don’t look at the photographs of that day, I don’t want to lose the memory.
The Newfoundland story is wonderful! Thanks for that.
Tear-jerking to read all the 9-11 remembrances today. I find this Jupiter alignment really interesting… and hope it means a realignment towards peace and unity. 9-11 affected everyone in our country so deeply. I was living on an island off Seattle at the time and remember thinking what it must be like to live in NYC. “It’s like there’s a mountain outside your window and suddenly it’s gone”.
I’m curious what your then 3 year old, now 14 year old, remembers from that fateful day. Does she remember the carefree way she continued to play with her friends? The safety that you and other parents created for him/her?
Thank you for sharing your first-person account, Pamela.
Actually my daughter has no memories of that day- probably because there was no strong emotional component to it for her. I do remember a slightly older boy showing her some drawings he did some time later and him telling her why it made him sad (his parents chose not to shield him in the way my daughter had been). She listened because he was her friend, but she didn’t understand. His mother was one of the people who wanted to move after the attack and they did by the spring.
My daughter went to Washington DC when she was 10 on a tour and some clueless guides took the kids through the News Museum where there was an exhibit on 9.11 photographs. That made a huge impression on her. She’d of course known about it by then, but still hadn’t seen the images. So yes, she is grateful that she didn’t see any of that when she was small. Thanks for your post, Heidi.
My hubby and I actually left the US a couple of months before 9/11 (we had been international students at the time), and I remember distinctly my feeling of relief that we were fine, but also a longing to come bak and comfort our friends, and really anyone who’d need comfort. We came back for good a year and a half later to a changed country, people’s personal stories, a different national consciousness. Of course it’s a tragic moment in our human history, but at the same time, I feel that now our consciousness has evolved: many people have echoed your sentiments of appreciating the everyday life more than they used to. Any evolution, I believe, is painful in the short run, but necessary for our human race to grow.
I agree, Karo- more people are awake than in the past… may the numbers continue to grow.
I too remember September 11 and what the planets are doing now…I didn’t even think to go back 12 years to where Jupiter was then…so thankful to get this perspective.
I’m also happy for you that you have learned to smile more (we need more of those) and to not take anything for granted. I think that I have learned similar things in these past 12 years as I could have been in one of those twin towers on that fateful day but I was at our home office in Maryland.
Linda- thanks so much for sharing your very personal memory.
9/11 always makes me aware of how fleeting life can be; to forgive those you love because things can change in a blink of an eye.
absolutely, Kimba…
I recall where I was when 9/11 happened. I’m a Brit, so I was safely across the other side of the pond, but it was horrific to see the bear that is the USA getting poked like that. I wondered how long it would take that giant to awake and retaliate, now it was awake and angry. Not long. I hope it learns peace and tolerance: I hope others do too.
And being the mother of 3 children, I think I too would protect them from the news as much as possible. Sometimes, the job of a parent is to keep the veil of innocence in place.
the irony of course is that the majority of NYers were against retaliation… but the people are not the same as the power…. and our country is very different in philosophy and perception depending where you are in it. I know a man who was a firefighter combing the rubble for months after the attack. He now is an international speaker advocating peace. Dan speaks for many of us http://www.chiefdaly.com