Wow what a year so far it has been for so many.
So many significant events have come, gone and some still carry on, that the chaos of change has, and I think I can say honestly, all of us swirling!
Standing Rock called everyone out of the sleep! It asked us were we really serious about protecting this planet, our children and grand children, and standing on the brink for what we believed was true. It also held up to us who we might be appropriating an expression of spirituality that wasn't ours.
Black Live Matter showed us our privilege as a White race. It really asked us to own it or go home.
The election of Donald Trump showed us how deeply asleep we were, how disconnected from each other, and asked us were we really serious about equality and freedom.
Still the journey continues and how are we going to travel? What is really important to you? Do you really walk your talk? Is your spirituality based on Indigenous tribes that aren't our ancestry? Is our privilege harming those we say we fight to protect?
Is love and light going to change the world? Is the love we say we offer strong enough?
Are we sharing and teaching from our ancestral medicine? Are we sharing and teaching to make a buck? Is our wildness really ours? Is it really expressed? Do we own it?
These are questions that only we can answer.
For me, I have focused my uncovering on my ancestral medicine. As I learn, I am finding that other memories, doorways, and mentors enter my life. My ancestral wisdom and healing comes flowing up into my consciousness. The unconscious patterns come forward. I have a choice to change them, create healing around them or embrace them as a way of being. There is a wisdom in the simple life they lived. Yes it was hard and often short but it was full and free. I am not naive enough to think the Irish famine was a walk in the park or any other hardship many of our ancestors experienced. Slavery certainly wasn't a joy. It was filled with violence and hatred.
Our ancestors did find a moment to love and feel joy. A human experience isn't without its pitfalls and persecutions. I do believe that they had a connection to the land that we only glimpse. They had a connection to a deeper story steeped in a sacred living. It was this deeper sacred story that helped them to wake each morning. It helped them to bring life into the world that was harsh.
As I relinquish the many possessions in my life I find a simplicity. I have more time to be on the land whether it is in hiking or walking around town. I am in the world enjoying its various flavors and humans. My ancestral medicine contains within it a responsibility to protect, preserve, love, and relish the land, these crazy humans, and amazing animals. It is the combination of this spiritual ownership with the celebration of our value that brings about joy, strength and eventually change.
I would gladly go back to the Neolithic Age where we lived in communion with the land, people and animals. Where the magic of our life sustained us and helped to birth new life. When we looked to the Stars and knew we were connected to a greater expansive existence. When we didn't need to conquer in order to feel whole.
As white Europeans, especially Americans, we have lost our medicine. This loss has created a constant search for wholeness. Our souls ache, our bodies ache, our minds wander in search for the magic, the connection, and the communion our ancestors knew.
For me it is time to own the past, present and future darkness of hatred and greed as well as the lightness of the joys and love.
Join me, there is room for all.
Traveling on ~
The Soul Traveler
