Newtown Shooting & Every Parent's Worst Nightmare

My daughter is in high school, the next town over, 15 minutes from the shootings. I received a recorded call about 11:00, "Schools are on lockdown due to the situation at Newtown." I had no idea what was gong on.I don't have a TV so searched online for "news Newtown CT." Ironically while this was unfolding, my cable company came and I obtained TV for the first time in 2 years. The timing was fortunate in that I was able to quickly pull up the news and am watching the news unfold as I write this.

Our modern age has boundaries more porous than ever. The fact that this gunman was able to get into the school is unbelievable. Also, I was able to text my daughter and reassure her. She told me they didn't have a lot of news but were in their classrooms carrying on class and the teacher and students were online trying to get news.

At first, it was just the gunman dead. Then one child dead. Now they are saying 27 people dead, 18 of them children. As I write this the numbers are changing. The gunman is 20 years old. These are elementary school students!It's been 13 years since Columbine - and this appears to be many more lives. I'm all for freedom of rights but how many more of our children need to be killed before we look more seriously at gun laws?

The world has become a scarier place with many people in pain and taking it out on those around them. How do we simultaneously protect our children, observe, notice and treat those in pain? How many more children need to die before better actions are taken?

As part of my yoga community, I was planning a healing circle tonight. Now we will have a much fuller circle - of shock and pain join us.