Celebrating Protectors and Caregivers :
Repairing the Sacred Hoop of Life
I have often wondered why we have adopted the word "survivor" in relation to the "war on women and children" or violence toward us.
-"A
veteran (from
Latin vetus, meaning "old")
[1] is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."
sur·vive (sr-vv)
v. sur·vived, sur·viv·ing, sur·vives
v.intr.
1. To remain alive or in existence.
2. To carry on despite hardships or trauma; persevere: families that were surviving in tents after the flood.
3. To remain functional or usable: I dropped the radio, but it survived.
v.tr.
1. To live longer than; outlive: She survived her husband by five years.
2. To live, persist, or remain usable through: plants that can survive frosts; a clock that survived a fall.
3. To cope with (a trauma or setback); persevere after: survived child abuse.
"Survivor" status tells us that we go on to "exist, persevere despite what has happened to us, we are still functional or usable, we lived longer than the experience, we cope" all of which indirectly or directly still says we are objects under "occupation" and really does not celebrate the sacredness of our lives or Life . As "survivors" are we not also "educated through direct experience and healing" to change our behavior, be on guard, have heightened senses of awareness, learn to protect our children and home (lands), have had countless hours and years in traditional and non traditional healing modalities to recover, mend, heal, transform ourselves to live again, and live through thousands of years of wars on, and caught in the crossfire of violence? Where every wumyn and child is harmed, so too is their family and the men they are related to.
I remember one year at ceremony when we were honoring our Veterans, when the rifles were shot, i wanted to run for the hills and in that moment had a vision of all the raped and murdered wumyn and children in the world. It flowed like a tapestry of tears made of voiceless nameless wumyn and children caught in the crossfire. And then it became a worldwide wave of all the names, places, with the number of wumyn and children, both who are still living and those who had died, as a result of the many forms of war, rape, abuse - violence.
You see i no longer feel or think there are lesser or more damaging aspects of violence because it sends a message that there is a hiding place to justify, diminish the effects of one or another aspect of it, or create reasons for not healing ourselves and changing the culture of violence's many forms. Some of these forms are: being raped and tortured as child, woman or grandmother, being raped or murdered in a combat zone, being raped and assaulted at home (incest-domestic violence), date rape, work-place rape or sexual harassment, rape by religions and their missionaries, being stiffed by the men for work paid and not performed, being robbed, held hostage, poverty, being jeered at by drive bys, ogled and fondled in the minds and by the hands of perverts, emotional-mental-spiritual manipulation by psychopaths AND how our Mother Earth and her Peoples are being raped by corporations and politics. This is not a complete list of violence's abuses.
Some gurus say we are "not our "bodies", let the identity with your body-mind-emotions go". While spirit is beyond the physical form, here on earth we are inner and interconnected to the mind, body, emotions, spirit and all that is Creation. Furthermore when it comes to rape and torture, being externalized from your physical form is what the spirit does…its called the fight or flight response. We are born into the sacred temple of physical form for Creation to experience Life, creativity, beauty, and love…and no i do not think this war on wumyn and children as being "just your lesson in life"…simple lesson: violence is wrong and something went terribly wrong in the culture of humanity. Some call it "colonialism".
I recently heard a great song called "Overcomer", as a term for survivors of cancer. Am not fully feeling this word, and definitely do not relate to "survivor", rather have related to "Protector" for a very long time, and this is why:
* Does it not take courage and bravery to face predators over and over again?
* Does it not take divine strength and skill to pick yourself up
and remake your life, relocate if you have to or stay and live where a predator walks free and unaccountable for their actions, time and time again after each assault?
* Does it not take compassion to forgive yourself and the predator?
* Does it not take Love's Truth to know that most predators have been victims
of abuse and/or rape, incest, war - themselves?
* Does it not take the skill of a special agent, to learn to recognize a psychopath as they become more and more skilled to stalk their prey via internet, in on and off line social networking and gatherings, and spot the infiltrators that show up at ceremonial or religious traditions, political arenas, and in our neighborhoods? After all not everyone has been busted yet.
* Does it not take great wisdom born from our own healing and generosity to decide to serve to help heal and protect others from harm?
* Does it not take trust to jump out of the river of denial and look into the world of violence on women and children and see it is also how Mother Earth is being treated?
We are protectors in the sense that we have learned protective skills…for ourselves, families and home (lands)…and as Protectors, we still love with all our hearts….now that is truly something.
Here are some highlights from 2013:
International
Day to End Violence Against Women https://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/ Despite this being recognized in the US for monetary reasons, i am hopeful that the culture of money, property, and prestige as reasons to eliminate violence will change to a culture that honors the sacredness of wumyn as caregivers of Life.
"In February of 2013 , One billion people in 207 countries around the world" rose to sing, dance, pray and celebrate for the end of violence against wumyn and girls
http://www.onebillionrising.org/
The components of real apologies express the following:
1. A valid acknowledgement that an offense was made and to whom.
2. Expresses remorse and humility and recognizes the suffering that was caused. (ability to feel empathy and compassion)
3. Acknowledges what the offense was, and at he least something about why they did what they did.
4. What they are doing to change their own behavior. (self-responsibility)
5. Some form of reparation, symbolic or real for the perpetrators offense to the person and it may also include reparations to the family, tribe or nation as well. (responsibility to others and their community, because where one is harmed, all are harmed)
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes the Archetype of Rape:
" the Archetype of Rape; as an archetype is a universal idea that rises from the unconscious into consciousness and takes hold and carries either great positive or negative numinousity when beheld by some humans, causing them sometimes with huge inflation of ego, to identify with the dark shadow of the archetype, which carries intention and feeling toned ideas, but is not human. If one becomes possessed by such inhuman and dark archtype, it is said psychologically, the person who once was, is no longer:
She also describes the Cultura Cura, and Predatory rule:
“While much psychology emphasizes the familial causes of angst in humans, the cultural component carries as much weight, for culture is the family of the family. If the family of the family has various sicknesses, then all families within that culture will have to struggle with the same malaises. There is a saying cultura cura, culture cures. If the culture is a healer, the families learn how to heal; they will struggle less, be more reparative, far less wounding, far more graceful and loving. In a culture where the predator rules, all new life needing to be born, all old life needing to be gone, is unable to move and the soul-lives of its citizenry are frozen with both fear and spiritual famine.”
So today as a Protector in the ongoing war on wumyn and children that has been waged for more than four thousand years. In this 5th Sun, the new world where everyone is jockeying for the next royal seat at the banquet of money, property and prestige….. let not the suffering of our wumyn and children be the banquet from which you feed, rather generously nourish our wumyn and children.
For our men and masculine principal:
Thank you for your acknowledgement of harm done, and for your apologies.
We are grateful for all your personal and collective work to change the culture of masculinity and what it means to be a divine Man.
Thank you for loving us and supporting the healing of the divine feminine.
Thank you for your generosity and support to mend our lives in both tangible and intangible ways.
To all Predatory violent behavior:
The feminine principal in Life is the Divine Virgin-Mother-Crone, Mother Earth, and is Caregiver of Life. Because this is how we are made, it is our Birthright, to have say in regard to decisions of war and peace. Therefore you are hereby given notice to cease all violence against us, seek healing and bring honor to the masculine principal of creation.
The feminine principal, is tired of cleaning up after you, healing, changing, hiding, transforming, protecting… we want to see your change and your courage to learn what love is and is not - and take responsibility for your actions by making restorative amends both to the wumyn you have harmed and to Mother Earth. There are no more save-iour-asses, learn to walk your talk.
I met someone once who was the kindest most generous, courageous, honest, loving man anyone could meet. I look for him inside of every man. He would say "Love one another, be kind and generous. Be honest, brave, compassionate, walk gently with Mother Earth not upon her, and honor all wumyn with the same respect". So I ask myself today,
What would Love do?
Paleeeze! understand that these types, are very slick… today, am still learning no longer acquiesce my inner authority to determine what is and is not violence, rape, abuse and predatory behaviors. After all - we are Protectors, right?, and maybe one day we will not need experts in the mine-field and operations of violence toward wumyn, children and Mother Earth.
When I hear things like this, i pause: "We all come from the infinite. Every cell in our body is a universe of it's own. It's intelligent, it's complete, and it's programmed to be what it is. It is perfect." .... or "everything is love and light, and don't judge" or "just get over it" or "not my responsibility, my ancestors did it, but i didn't"….
Yes we are made perfectly beautiful ! ..and violence is not a "perfect program" and there is a real sickness and "dis-ease" within the culture of humanity … Every dis-ease's origins are interconnected with our relationship to Her, our Mother Earth, the feminine, and her marriage with Father Sun and Sky…collectively the majority of "western civilized" people are living
Life out of Balance.
So with much gratitude, to everyone who are protectors, and caregivers of Life, these qualities are really not genderized, the masculine and feminine have different ways of expressing the characteristics of the Sacred Protector and Caregiver, for the Greater Good of All Life. We are re-membering this while we heal, change and transform the culture of humanity and protect our Beloved Mother Earth.
From one Protector and Caregiver to another, made of glorious, loving, creative, courageous, Beauty, thank you for listening.
Image found on facebook: 40 Days Focusing on Manifesting New 5D Earth... with all due respect to the artist, if known I would like to give credit where credit is due.
ama ~ January 3, 2014
