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Essays Index to Essays - Dates: 9/30/99 -- On Paradigm Shifting 9/30/99 -- Paradigm Shifting: "Shape shifters" were Native Americans who possessed the ability to change "shape", to appear as other than what they were, e.g. as animals. This came in handy if you wanted to become a gray wolf and visit an enemy camp to see what they were up to. A "paradigm" or "gestalt" is the construct of which one forms their view of "reality", and none of us have the total perspective of the elephant. Each person's reality is different from anothers. Yet, as a society, as a people, we can agree to accept certain basics for a common reality -- in America, newer is better, faster is better, etc. However, as more and more of us experience and come to accept spiritual paradigm shifts, we stand on the threshold of being able to "single-handedly" but in the company of many, alter the course of history! Take the power of prayer. I'm NOT a christian. Despite two dunkings and one sprinkling, I just never "got it" that I was anything less than the daughter of the Creator, any more or less than Christ was the son of God -- he just happened to be a much more spiritually evolved Master and Teacher, as I see it. But I pray, almost daily, to start my day -- and have seen the effects of prayer. Experiments have been done, with heart patients, one group who were prayed for without knowing it, and a control group who were NOT prayed for. The patients who were prayed for had fewer complications and deaths. The power of prayer has an almost palpable effect. Our lives ARE a type of prayer in motion. Our every thought, and certainly our every action, is sacred, for they are truly a prayer. There is no such thing as a random thought that has no effect or consequence. This is why it is so important that we guard our thoughts, especially as we come to the close of this millennium. The fear-mongers and mind-controllers are hard at work, urging us to believe that new plagues are about to be let loose to reduce global population and render humanity into a gulag dominated by globalists and reptilian E.T.'s. And, hell, they could be right! But it hasn't happened, here, yet, today! And I remain convinced that cooperation will win out in the end, putting humanity and civilization much farther ahead than will competition. There are dark energies at our disposal -- but there is also the Light -- the beacon that calls each soul to acknowledge just how powerful each individual is, spiritually, when they revere each other instead of distaining those who are different. Not unlike our T.V. sets, only moreso, we are each an energy field -- powerful ones -- and as we ENVISION ourselves peaceful and powerful beings, we become them -- and we influence others around us. There IS much abuse still afoot on our planet -- but we don't have to play in that game if we elect not to do so. We each have a choice. 9/30/99 -- Drawing Attention to Ocean Life: Whales and Dolphins are fully conscious marine
mammals (cetaceans). They are planetary guardians who hold the energies of the planets's
biosphere intact. The whale's job is to put together the energy pattern of song that
allows the atmosphere and crust of Earth to exist every year. The dolphins job is to
interact with native food chains of the ocean. Last year, my mother, with whom I was not close, and my best friend, with whom I was very close for over a decade, both died within six months of each other. One died in the spring, in her mid-90's, the other in the fall, suddenly and in the prime of her life. One passing was a blessing, the final chapter in a very thick and uninteresting book. The other was a shock to the system. But, there were commonalities to both; for three days after each woman made her transition, I felt her spirit around me in unexpected ways. I felt more "loved" by my mother after her passing than I ever did "in person". The upshot of my friend's passing was a keen and vivid insight -- a new "knowingness" that the space between "here" and "there" is less than a breath away. The distance between this 3-dimensional "reality" and the fourth dimension of spirit world is not even a thin line, at times, but a very blurred demarkation. While dying may be an unpleasant, if of long duration, experience, the actual event itself is no more than eventful than stepping out of the shower or walking through a door from inside to outside. For anyone who has meditated for a long time, "dis-integrating" oneself and then re-assemblying one's atoms back into the "conscious" being we call ourself, I would think this is as near to a "near-death" experience as the actual thing would be. Birth, life and death are events are much more a part of one's "reality" for folks who live in the country, especially if they have animals around. In my first 14 months "on the land", I mid-wived several newborn kid goats and saw the sad and sudden demise of one, not to mention several chickens who required burial after a badger assaulted the hen house. But, unless one is associated with law enforcement or the EMS team, most "city folk" are insulated from this reality of daily life, and seem to dread, at all costs, such eventualities. I certainly don't advocate people go kill a kitten to see death up close and personal, but perhaps our attitudes need reflection, in order to lose the terror in what is really only a breath away from us all. Likewise, the more one is at ease with death, the more one comes to value life -- all life. It would seem that we take both, life and death, too casually. Could it be that we view one, death, with such fear because we take the other, life, too much for granted? 9/25/99 -- Urban Reservations: A reservation is a place apart -- isolated -- and much more than just a place for occupation by Indian peoples. It is a place where "control" is great and true "freedom" is contained if not compromised. The part of me -- my spirit and soul -- that is most like my Native American ancestors is the part that HAS to be FREE. The inscription under my senior photo in the yearbook read (in re: my goals as soon-to-be graduate) was: "Always to live as I choose in a free America." Now that's a verbatim quote; how many of you can remember what you said in 1962? Well, THAT desire was burned into my mind and heart. While I have NOT always done as I preferred, it's pretty much been of my own choosing within the available parameters and constraints -- at least I've never QUIT trying to do it "my way" -- sadly, America is no longer really "free", at least in my humble opinion. Two hundred years ago, some of my dad's people came from Scotland and settled in Cherokee County, N.C. I probably have some 32nd counsins, thrice removed, who are Cherokee. While I've known about the "Trail of Tears" for 30 years, I never read much about it until a few years back -- it was too painful. Even then, I cried as the story of brutality unfolded. An Apache elder who is a close friend has a saying, "Paybacks are a bitch" -- strong language coming from a gentle-spirited, genteel, gray-headed matriarch. But, she's right -- put another way, "What goes around comes around". And I am convinced that life in "America" today, at least in large cities, is no different from life on the rez, except there is the lack of community spirit, found on many. Sure, the unemployment rates and incidence of drug and alcohol abuse are much higher there than in the mainstream, but it's the loss of spirit -- the lack of people "knowing who they are" -- that predominates major cities. In cities, there is no time -- everything and everyone is in a hurry -- if the sunrises and sunsets are observed, it's mostly by accident, in conjunction with the commute to work or home rather than done on purpose to start and end the day in prayer and contemplation. There is great sadness in cities -- sure, there is "culture" and entertainment and fine restaurants and art galleries and events to attend. But there is also a feeling of great emptiness, in the soul of cities -- a sense of loss that shows in the eyes of many. This same sadness was, I'm sure, reflected in the eyes of Native peoples when they were herded onto reservations back in the 1800's. It was more than just their freedom to roam the plains and hunt buffalo or track deer through the wildernesses -- it was much more than being uprooted from their homes and ways of living. Part of their spirit was raped -- but not killed. There will always be, in some people, a spiritual connectedness to the Earth -- some who hold sacred, the land we walk on, the sky we see above us, the change of the seasons, and the hand of the Creator seen in all living things. And in our hearts, that strength cannot be killed. But I feel sorry for people whose lives are lived out on top of concrete. It doesn't seem that they are aware of having been "herded" onto urban reservations, where they can be easily controlled and manipulated by the very technology that they think serves them. Too many have forgotten how to "do" for themselves -- how to provide the most basics in life -- food and shelter -- because so much is "done" for them and all they have to do in return is sell their lives -- enslaved in jobs for the paychecks, traded for what passes for ease and comfort -- but at the expense of much freedom to think, and to be independent.
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