BOUDICEA

Goddess of
Focused Energy

Boudicea was a holy terror. Her need for justice and revenge for the  rape of her two young daughters cost 70,000 innocent people their lives.  She destroyed everything and everyone that got in her way. Now, wouldn't you just love to dish out that kind of justice to hateful people in your life? Can’t do it, though. Not legal, and the karmic debt would be worse than the interest on a pay-day loan. However, you can learn from Boudicea.

At the time of the Roman conquest of southern Britain, Queen Boudicea ruled the Iceni tribe of East Anglia alongside her husband, King Prasutagus.  Boudicea was a tall, fiery red-head with a fierce eye and harsh voice.  Definitely a lady to be noticed! The Roman Governor of Britain at that time was Suetonius Paulinus, who was as much about conquering for Rome as he was about punishing anyone who stood in his way. After her husband's death his lands and household were plundered by the Roman officers and their slaves. Not content with taking all the property and lands, Suetonius had Boudicea publicly flogged and her daughters were raped by Roman slaves! Boudicea went on a tear.  While her battle was to keep Britain free of Roman control, even more of her anger and vengeance went into destroying Romans for the rape of her young and innocent daughters.  "Hell hath no wrath..." never rang truer than watching Boudicea fight against the malicious patriarchy of the Roman military.  In the end she lost the battle against the Romans and rather than be taken prisoner, she swallowed poison.  Still, she secured a place in British history remembered for her bravery.  

But how much of what she did was considered justice?  How much done to her and her family could be considered justice?  Just how much does justice actually have to do with right and wrong in our country so pledged to justice for all.

How many times do we ponder vengeance for some egregious wrong done to us or someone we love; innocent men locked away for something DNA will clear them of never having done decades later?  Something that captured the media in late 2017; women coming forward with secrets they feared speaking of decades earlier that ended up costing many of these men handsomely for their arrogant abuses.  And certainly if someone violates a child, surely it should be permissible for the parent to punish the predator as they see fit, up to and including murder of the perpetrator.  Right?  Unfortunately we, as a civilized society, live under the rule of law that says everyone is innocent until proven guilty...even when we know they are guilty.  And unfortunately,  based on the ever growing scarcity of truth on popular web cites in trending social media, it can grow into guilty until proven innocent like a fire storm.  This particular brand of justice can ruin lives long before it's proven to be false in an actual court of law.  The damage was done almost before it could be handed off to a lawyer.  This is definitely not justice.

It seems so unfair.  How can a civilized society allow anyone to walk about freely knowing they are hideous predators and murderers?  How can the same civilized society allow a man to be sentenced for life for a crime he was accused of by someone who was paid to bear false witness for it...or they had a personal grudge against the accused....or because the accused was considered disposable by the same people who sat on the jury that convicted him?  It's been argued that no one is innocent in life....if they aren't locked away for one unspeakable crime, they surely got away with other unspeakable crimes.  Seriously, shouldn't we be better at dishing out justice by now?

I buried a son when he was barely twenty-one years old because someone offered to pay his killer to get rid of him so he wouldn't be bothering him for the piddly amount of money he owed my son.  His killer was sent to prison....and the man who arranged the assault was whisked away by a wealthy father and never even had to testify in court.  Two people should have gone to prison but in reality only the one who was too poor to get a lawyer paid for murdering my son.  I didn't call this justice then and twenty four years later I still don't call it justice.  What provided me justice on that ride to the hospital to see about a son I was told had been shot twice visiting an acquaintance? A decision I made on the way to the hospital; to stay calm and remember people lived all the time from being shot. I reminded myself of the rapper, 50 Cent, who was shot numerous times, but instead lived to get rich writing about it.  I soon learned I was not going to be that kind of lucky.  When they told me at the hospital that the damage was just too great and they could not save him, I evaporated into anguish.  Later I recalled, on the way to the hospital, having "envisioned" a long line of cars with headlights on and I said at that time, "Please do not let me live my life in bitterness."  This was all it took to remove me from the bitterness I should have been consumed with, to this very day.  But such was not the case with me.  

I have never felt bitterness for this man, a young man one year younger than my son. When his mother reached out to me in the court room and apologized for her son's crime, I felt no bitterness.  I felt such pity for that mother, though. A woman clearly struggling with drugs and poverty, but still unconditionally devoted to her son.  A woman who would have to go to bed each night wondering what injustices her son had endured another day in a prison full of hardened, angry grown men.  I told myself she still had a son who would join her one day, but what kind of man would she get back from the scared and helpless boy who went in 8 years earlier.  And what kind of life would he have once out, as a convicted felon.  A convicted murderer.  Still, I felt no bitterness.  I am, in fact, an advocate for real prison reform.  I want ex-convicts to have hope, real hope, for a life outside the cells where they repaid society for their crimes.  I hope the man who took my son from me has found a way to redeem himself and is surrounded by people who believe in him and support him.  I earnestly do.

Over the last twenty four years I have felt anger for any number of betrayals and injustices thrown my way.  I have fantasized having the perfect opportunity to tell a few people exactly how I felt about them for the lies and mistreatment they heaped onto me.  My anger has not been tempered toward disappointments and failures throughout the years I have grieved for him, but I have yet to feel bitterness or contempt for my son's murderer. I have no idea where he is now or how he is doing, but I can honestly say I do not wish additional hardship on him.  I know when I made the request not to be bitter I was granted forgiveness.  All I had to do was send forth that intention and it was done.  I know now, that this one loss lived out in bitterness and hate would have destroyed me.  I know this to be true.

I have channeled his death a plethora of ways from donations to various charities to creating my own empowerment cards years ago.  I promised my son I would keep him alive even from beyond the grave.  I speak of him so often and in such a way that people who do not know I lost him twenty four years ago think I have two sons, which I do, but only one lives and breaths.  

My energy has gone into keeping him alive through me, not suspended in death by his murderer.  Anger can be channeled into useful, constructive areas. It is possible to free yourself of mean and hateful attitudes that weigh you down. With intention you can move on and move up, leaving behind your doubts and fears. Boudicea’s energy destroyed even though it was accomplished in honor of her daughters. That same energy can create in honor of loved ones.  Our focus can create or destroy.  It must be an intention we establish; to use our energy to remember life instead of death.  Focus!

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Boudica/