40 Days of Peace Day Twelve
Authenticity of the Spirit
My true nature is love
There are two forces in this human experience.. one is fear, the other is love. We come from love in our purest form. We each come with a unique divine “blue print”, our Souls fingerprint on the Universe. This unique make up is WHO WE ARE at our core. As a child we know this truth. We find joy in the things that spark this creative fire of our natural blueprint. This blue print is clearly evident if our parents are watching closely. Any parent who has more than one child can attest to this idea of each of us being born with unique “personalities” and “gifts”. You could have ten children and raise them all the same and they would still reveal their own unique being.
My brother and sister-in-love have 3 daughters and they are so completely unique, its as if you know who they are already. Of coarse, they will take their own journeys in their life, but I can tell you that, the oldest will keep us on our toes with her desire to soak up knowledge, truth and adventure. Her imagination will carry her through life. The middle sister will keep us in tears, laughing. She has the gift of merriment and her love for making us laugh is a gift to the world. She will be an adventurer, a wild hearted, mountain climbing, jolly kind of adventurer. And my sweet newborn niece is wise beyond her time. She has healed our hearts, united our family and community, and keeps us present and grounded in the moment. She has a love and truth in her eyes that speaks volumes. Her parents, and this auntie, pray for wisdom to honor, nurture and protect their unique gifts to the world. And wherever their adventures lead, they will be loved and supported greatly.
Our authentic self is pure love, pure joy and fresh out of our mamas womb, we know this truth.
The other truth is that we’ve been living in a world with a lot of chaos, competition, greed, selfishness, beliefs systems, old stories… so naturally along the way, we receive outside messages that go against our AUTHENTIC BEING. We go to school and our teachers share “their beliefs”, we go to church and our teacher shares “their beliefs”, our friends, parents, tel-lie-vision.. all sorts of outside factors effect our “vision” of ourselves and the world. But what if we focused on our authentic Being? What if we let nature teach us something about our purpose. We know that every plant, animals and being serves a purpose. So what does nature have to teach our “inner child”? As we shift into the New Earth, how can nature lead the way?
Asters and Goldenrod
One of my favorite chapters in Braiding Sweetgrass ( and I know I’ll probably say that a LOT, but seriously this time, this chapter is imprinted on my own blueprint now) … Asters and Goldenrod.
The author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, tells us the story of how excited she was to start college majoring in BOTANY. She was most excited to tell her professor “I was BORN A BOTANIST, .. I had shoeboxes of seeds and piles of pressed leaves under my bed.. I’d stop my bike along the road to identify a new species ..plants colored my dreams .. THE PLANTS CHOSE ME.”
When her adviser asked her “So, why did you want to major in botany?” She proudly responded with her answer… “ I told him that I chose botany because I wanted to learn about why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together.”
But her advisor was not so excited about her answer. “ ‘Miss Wall’ he said, fixing me with a disappointed smile, ‘I must tell you that that is not science. That is not at all the sort of thing with which botanists concern themselves.’”
“I’ve heard that early experience can attune the brain to certain stimuli, so that they are processed with greater speed and certainty, so that they can be used again and again, so that we remember. LOVE AT FIRST SITE.”
The things that bring us joy in childhood will still bring us joy as adults, if we are allow it or stay open to this magic. Our child like spirit is eternal, yet, simply lost or hurt at times. Peter Pan knew a little something about having faith in our eternal child. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
Yeshua (Jesus) told us about the gift of the child like spirit. He knew the Truth, that who we are in our pure Being, is infinite love. “At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”
For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.” -Matthew 18:1-5
When we are in communion with ourselves from this state of PURE LOVE, PURE BEING… ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Magic and miracles and dare I say, Neverland.
“Together, the visual is stunning.
Purple and gold, the heraldic colors of the king and queen of the meadow, a regal procession in complementary colors. I just wanted to know. WHY do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone? Why this particular pair.
Einstein himself said that “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”
I wanted to know why certain stems bent easily for baskets and some would break, why the biggest berries grew in the shade and why they made us medicines, which plants are edible, why those little pink orchids only grow under pines.”
“Not Science” said her advisor. “If you want to study beauty you should go to art school.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass)
Her advisor had played the part of the false teacher and just like Robins grandparents and their grandparents had experienced through genocide, physically and culturally, there was a act of “taking her gifts”, (or at least an effort to). Just as her grandparents had their language, culture and families taken from them, Robin was experiencing this teachers ego, believing the HE knew best. He made her doubt her TRUTH, her authentic blueprint, her heart song! Claiming that HIS WAY was the right way.
You can read Robins journey for yourself, but it is a story that many of us have experienced through our “teachers”.
Arrogance is one of the ugly faces of fear. Add some righteousness and anger in there and violence easily follows. I could say that stripping one of their childlike spirit is a type of violence as well… a destructive force… using intimidation… Yes, I believe we’ve all experience violence in our lives, stripped from our natural state of BEING.
Nature remembers our names…
and this is the good news!! Robins “natural inclination was to see relationships, to seek the threads that connect the world, to join instead of divide. But science is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer. ‘Why two flowers are beautiful together’ would violate the division necessary for objectivity.”
She calls us to see ourselves in the circle once again.
So WHY ARE the goldenrod and asters best friends??
(Robin, in her wise and beautiful words explains this poetically so you should read in full for yourself , but I shall summarize)
“Their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whole meadow , A BEACON FOR THE BEES. Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing along. It’s a testable hypothesis, its’ a question of science, a question of art, AND a question of beauty. It is a phenomenon simultaneously material and spiritual. When I stare at the world with science eyes, I see an aftermath of traditional knowledge. Might science and traditional knowing be purple and yellow to one another? Might they be goldenrod and asters?? We see the world more fully when we use BOTH.”
“The question of goldenrod and asters was of coarse just emblematic of what I really wanted to know. It was an architecture of relationships, of connections that I yearned to understand. I wanted to see the shimmering thread that hold it all together. And I wanted to know why we love the world, why the most ordinary scrap of meadow can rock us back on our heels in awe.
Native scholar Greg Cajete has written that in indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our BEING:
MIND. BODY. EMOTION. SPIRIT.
It is a WHOLE BEING who finds this beautiful path.
It is a “remembering” of our Inner Child who wants to come out and PLAY. She knows we are born to love, to play, to create, to give and receive, to share, to dance, to sing, to BE THE UNIQUE MASTERPIECE WE ARE CREATED TO BE.
Journal Time
As a child, what brought me JOY?
What did you love most about your child self?
What made you laugh the most as a child?
What was your favorite game as a child?
When you were a child, want to be when you grew up?
Invite your child self to come out and PLAY!
Shams of Tabriz’s 40 Rules of Love
Rule 12
There are more fake gurus and false teachers in this world than the number of stars in the visible universe. Don’t confuse power-driven, self-centered people with true mentors. A genuine spiritual master will not direct your attention to himself or herself and will not expect absolute obedience or utter admiration from you, but instead will help you to appreciate and admire your inner self. True mentors are as transparent as glass. They let the light of God pass through them.
Eating in Season
