In Tarot, the Tower represents great change, and sometimes catastrophic change that will change one’s life forever.

Ten years ago, two towers came down and changed our lives. Was it catastrophic change? Looking through the lens of the present, I think so. It’s changed the way our government works. It’s led us into wars we can no longer afford to be in. We’re in a depression and people are suffering, at home and abroad, because we’ve elected people to represent us out of fear of the other instead of doing what’s in our best interest.

Public figures have treated this crime, this blood sacrifice, as if it was a political rally, or a political event that was staged just for them. They use the deaths of over 2000 people as a political token, saying that if you don’t think like they do, especially about security, then you’re dishonoring their memory.

And every year the media plays, over and over and over and over, video of the towers falling. They play over and over people talking about their feelings, as if ten years hadn’t passed.

We are kept in a perpetual state of grief. This is not healthy, nor is it honoring the dead.

I remember that morning. I lived outside of Boston at the time. It was kind of surreal walking into work and seeing my coworkers around the television. I remember asking what was happening, and someone told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I went to my desk and got on the internet to read the media reports as they came in. After awhile, the CEO told us all to go home. I don’t really remember the drive, but I do remember being home and watching TV. At first, like most people, I just watched because I was in shock. I kept flipping channels. I’d go outside, or open the windows in my house, and it would be eerie because you couldn’t hear the sounds of planes or helicopters.

But, after a few days, I got angry. Not only because the whole thing was senseless to me, but because the media was just repeating the same messages over and over. Talking to people who were trying to find their loved ones, and people who had confirmed that their loved ones had died. Hounding the ones who were grieving to “get their thoughts” on what this could mean.

They were grieving. I was grieving. Dammit, why couldn’t they just leave us in peace?

That night, I sold my TV to a neighbor for $30. He came and got it (it was an almost new TV) right away. Finally, I had peace. Finally I could sort out my heart and mind.

Every year since, I’ve avoided mass media almost entirely around September 11. For those who lived in New York, or knew people who died, this is a hard time of year. They get pestered by reporters to describe, yet again, their feelings about that day. Politicians ramp up using this tragedy as a political football, posturing and posing for the cameras, sporting flag pins on their collars in a contest to see who can be more “patriotic”. The media replays footage over and over again of the towers falling.

Enough. I say, enough.

I have mourned for the dead. I have lit candles. I do think about those who have passed every year. But enough already. I am tired of being bullied by the media into being in a perpetual state of mourning. I am tired of politicians using a tragedy for their own political ends.

Instead, I choose to turn off the media and say a prayer for those who have passed. I choose to honor the lives of the dead by working for social justice and world peace. I choose to honor the lives of the dead by doing interfaith work that counters religious extremism. I choose action and service over perpetual grief.

I choose to celebrate their lives and honor their memories by making this world a better place to live in.

I choose to celebrate life instead of glorifying death.

I choose.