We are always blessed to have young children in our ceremonies for they bring innocence and pure awareness in how they are naturally made beautiful.
As one species inner connected to all life, we have lost our innocence, and may seek to know this again.
Today i hear lots of people say, " no judgement, it's all good". Yet, we make judgements everyday… from what we choose to eat, what to buy, what to sell, what to believe, what our spiritual practice is or is not, who to vote for, work for, …and the list goes on. We even make a judgement some call "choice", to be conscious of the power of our words that comes from the Breath of Life through us, we make judgements or choices to become "mindful" about how we speak.
Some have been taught that "Power" or energy is a bad thing, simply because there is so much abuse of power in the world, or that it was mis-used to abuse and oppress women and children, people of color, and ravage mother earth. Some have been taught not to seek to know power, because humility is better or more altruistic. Some even mistake lack of self esteem for humility, when lack of self esteem comes from being abused. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that we have no life power to create beauty with each other and Mother Earth. To wake up however, we may be faced with the stark Truth about who we are and how we behave with the power or lack of, we have as a species.
We are born with power, the power of life, the power to THINK, FEEL and make healthy decisions - judgements, for our selves and our families, communities and for any other endeavor we choose to do in life. Power, energy or consciousness is the life spark of our Beings. To seek to innerstand this power is to set ourselves free to Be our selves.
Courage or the Fearless Heart.
It takes a lot of courage to have healthy boundaries, when Our and Mother Earth's healthy boundaries have been abused. These "healthy boundaries", are embodied in the Integrity of a person's choice to walk a Spiritual Life. This "integrity" some say is the embodiment of the precepts of Truth, Love, Respect, Honesty, Humility, Humor, Responsibility, Compassion, Courage, Wise Ways, take nothing personal, do the best we can each day and don't ass-ume …etc… because when one walks this Way, no man made laws are needed…. and social Culture arises from this Spiritual Way of Being, Mitakuye Oyas'in. Imagine a day when "forgiveness" is not necessary, because we are walking in Respect, balance and harmony with All Life ~ with our selves ~ this is an innocence we have all lost, and long to return to. Please note, that invoking "fear" was not named as a precept, even though for some, it is fear that gets them to change.
This Courage or Fearless Heart, comes from a place of spiritual sovranty - when a person no longer acquiesces or puts something between themselves and their relationship with their cultural -spiritual sovranty and the Source of All Life. Are some of us Spiritual Protectors? ~ those who stand between harms way and the future generations to come. Are our prayers and meditations good, yet actions for the greater good better - becoming Spiritual activists? My words for these aspects are "Being the Prayer in Motion".
Today - at this time-space we have all chosen to come here, for this epic change of the ages. Today we are the living prayer of our ancestors for the
One Great Peace.
One Great Peace.
Today we choose to resonate the Love, Peace and Joy that will heal. With this choice may also come the Responsibility to live solutions, and determine, through "judgement" what is harmonious relationship with All Life. We are choosing loving kindness rather than fear and abuse to change ourselves and our reality. This does not always mean that it is not painful, and humbling to see what we need to change in ourselves and our actions, for a more loving reality.
This is something I have learned about Abuse. I know no woman that has not experienced some form of abuse in her life. The statistics of 1 in 4 women is a fallacy…why? because we are the birthers and caregivers of Life and interconnected to and made of Mother Earth and All Life… and because there are so many forms of abuse. Verbal, poverty, educational, warfare, ecocide, religious, government, racism, ageism, and perceptions of in-equality even between woman to woman relationships, etc….
Another aspect of abuse is the obfuscation of healthy boundaries for Self and for, or in relationship with others.
This obfuscation of healthy boundaries, leads to a lack of Trust in Self and others. When we do not have healthy boundaries, we loose Respect and Trust for Self and the abuse becomes self inflicted, we become participants of the cycle of abuse, and this is also the loss of innocence. Forgiving ourselves is a first step in healing.
If healthy boundaries become synonymous with "judgements of which we are not to have", then i see no reason to have leadership Councils. We should go back to the sewing circle, because if we do not have trust in the truth and wise that each of us bring to the collective Hoop … trust in the discernment (judgement) about the health of our respective Cultures and Spiritual Life Ways we each have given our lives too …which Is an authority and expertise from our respective perspectives, that potentially can nourish and strengthen us in this diversity… if we have no trust in our personal relationship with Self, we can have no collective trust.... and how then, will we be able to navigate, and walk for the greater good of all life?
Will we stand idly by and let all of our Water be poisoned, or will we choose to turn a blind eye to the abuse of government leaders, or continue to support fear mongers who perpetuate the belief that we have No Power… our Power is in giving and focusing on the Solutions, and sometimes the Solution is to not support or participate in something that is not healthy…. oh - yet this takes some "judgement" to determine what is healthy or not for ourselves and how we choose to raise our children.
We are told to never speak harshly of others, that this is judgmental. Are we speaking harshly of others when we protest or educate others about historical and current conditions, for example, missionary schools, genocide, terracide or government corruption?
When we say "Rescind the Papal Bulls, because they are lies"? Or when we see an abuse of power in religious orders ? All this causes me to pause and ask, What is a Spiritual Protector to you? What would you protect if you have no judgement, knowledge, discernment, power?
In some situations we might say, "Not my Way" and have the power to excuse ourselves, without the need for justification, so that our energy can nourish positive solutions, avoid drama, or the situation just calls for the acceptance to agree to dis-agree, and not take things personally, or maybe someone elses behavior may speak more about them, than you. Life is short, and we may choose to just cut off the cachingaderas.
So ~ back to innocence… being inner-connected to this innocence is a Joy and laughter that is boundless within. Our inner child's eyes are the eyes of all children. I continue to be awed by Gurus who profess that hunger, rape, warfare and suffering is an illusion. Have we asked the children about this ill-usion? ...then again, it's all ok, we are going to wake up after 5K+ yrs of this illusion, and put on a different movie, right? oops, in "no judgment", there is no right and wrong, right?
Courage is sparked from a deep Love for All Life and Resilience, like Water, that flows around obstacles, Water ~ the first healer, and from which we are made, ~ Women are caregivers of Water, ~ Water that energizes and magnetizes our prayers, thoughts, emotions and Life Ways of Beauty. Water is a Truth, that we can not live without, Water is Love.
If discernment/judgement is a folly and not seen as truth's courage to see what Is in all Life's beauty and grief, let this folly bring peace for my innocence.
Part 2
When the Fireside Theater Came to Town
~ bringing the horned dog ~
A Seed , a Stone, a Tree's loveroots growing
from the river, Water of Life's knowing
of a Fireside Theater that would come to pass
and the green grass beneath all children's feet
would grow sweet
along the Great Path of Peace
Fireside Theater preacher man's side kick
stands up and says
" woman stop talkin
and being a distraction
to the job of the preacher man"
so She drifted off with
eyes gaze only with beauty way's
heartbeat rhythm that made All Life
from this Love
blessing all that Is
Then the Fireside Theater preacher man
all dressed up in his real-ized
loudly conjuring up yelps yelling
"have you seen the horned dog?"
She said, "you talkin to me?"
blustered face yells "YEAH YOU!
HAVE YOU SEEN THE HORNED DOG!?"
"oh, you mean am not a distraction?"
wonder wondered if preacher man's rage
was terror's intention to invoke, invent
a smoky mirror
to bring woman into his do-man-ation
"sure i seen the horned dog,
that appears
because Believe feeds it's energy.
same as Quan Yin,
she appears too -
because of Believe's feeding
compassion…
that dog…
the one that feeds off indoctrination's
conceived by the papal bull …
that dog…
like rats on the treadmill
of it's battle between good and evil"
preacher man's face blood raged
and her Prayer Way left with all due respect
to energize and feed
Beauty Way's Life Ways
goodness for All Relations
and the Fireside Theater's preacher man
faded away with
that dog.
When we let go, or something is removed from, or we choose - healthy boundaries, judgements or whatever you want to call it.... a space opens for us to nourish beauty, love and good relation with Self, others and All Life.
Thanks for listening.
Alis ~Itlatol
