Our tribe...

Some indigenous cultures have a tradition of embracing and loving the member of the tribe who causes harm, pain or suffering to others. This is an act of treating pain (the wrong doer acted from his own pain) with love. They tell him he is loved. That he is made of divine love and he belongs. He may fight back but eventually the love (which never tires) wins. The community does not give up the battle to reclaim his goodness, no matter how long it may take. To give up on that member of the tribe is to permit darkness to infect the tribe.

We are facing the same battle today in many corners of our lives. It may seem that there is more darkness now than ever but that is not true. There is more love and light now than ever before because of all the hard work done by the generations that have gone before us and the work we are doing today. We, the light bearers, have brought so much love to the world that our planet has shifted and darkness can no longer hide. What seems like an endless series of scandals and injustice and war is the darkness bubbling up to the surface and into the light so it can be healed. It's overwhelming at times but we can bring love to all of this darkness. We are having the conversations, making stands for peace and learning how to have compassion in new and powerful ways. We must not give up, even if it takes generations. 

We heal this world every day with our acts of compassion and as we do, that energy ripples through the world and heals people we will never know. We are the wings of the butterfly and the hurricane is love. 

Just as the tribe does not give up on the evil doing tribe member, we cannot give up on humanity. Keep up the good fight. We are winning. And we are healing the generations before and after us by changing the story of our ancestor's children and our children's ancestors.

Namaste.

It's okay, you're not the only one...

I just received an email from a very close friend who moved to the other side of the world a couple years ago to follow her dreams.  She has.  But it's not enough.  It got me thinking (and writing) about how just about everyone I know is struggling right now.  I don't mean to say that people's lives are falling apart, in fact most "strugglers" I know seem to be doing okay "on paper".  They seem content and in most ways, they are FINE.  But fine just isn't enough when your soul is knocking on your brain and saying, "Hello, it's me, your higher self.  You're here for a purpose.  A big one.  And it's a big undertaking.  You won't fail, but you will have to change a lot of things - let's get going."

Sound familiar?

That's all well and good if you know what that purpose is (or at least think you know - or have an idea) and it's easy enough to live with if what you need to change doesn't cause you too much pain, or financial burden... but I don't think that's the case for many of us.  Maybe most of us.  I think we are all releasing something huge... and in some cases, we are releasing everything.

At first I thought it was mainly happening to my "generation" (let's call that Generation X - fancy label isn't it?) - but even that isn't right.  My mom is changing in ways I never imagined.  Others her age are turning over MASSIVE stones in their own lives.  At first, I thought my former students (who are now 18-24-ish)  didn't face as many of these challenges - I thought they had a different perspective because of their innate open-mindedness - they grew up living and breathing a kind of openness that has existed in their world view because they were born into a world that is connected via the webosphere.  They ARE the children of the global village.  But that assumption wasn't right either.  Many of them find the norms of society to be boring, redundant, pointless and un-engaging.  And they're right. How can we lose them before they've even really begun the "grown-up" journey?

Actually, I don't think we are losing them, I think they are leading us on this journey into Change.   For their generation, it's a default setting.  For us Gen Xers, it's a kind of refusal to conform.  For the once-radical baby boomers it's an overdue rebellion (they who got distracted raising us Gen Xers).  For all of us humans though, it is a very personal and very difficult set of questions, doubts, worries, self-examinations and, in the end, a battle that can only be fought and won with love and honesty.  Love and honesty with Ourselves.  Talk about a tough audience.

I wish I had answers for my girlfriend but I feel as though my only advice to her is to stick with it.  I'll stick with it too. (Mine is no less open-ended, unsettled, raw and inside out than anyone elses.)  Not only will I stick with my own uncertainty, pain, loss and confusion, I will do it right beside her (thank God for the internet).  And apparently I'll do it out in the open for the rest of the world to witness if they care to.  I suppose a big part of the self-honesty in this is admitting that we are not alone in the uncertainties - and then reaching out to ask someone to stand by us while we go through it.

This great collective of individual struggles is part of a greater human struggle to find what is right for all of us.  Collectively.  The Collective Human Population.  After all, we are all the same, aren't we?

What are you waiting for?