Suzanne Lewis, Editor
I watched carefully being a child of the fifties, a teen in the sixties, and a disillusioned young adult in the seventies as we finally stepped into the Age of Aquarius, the Golden Age. Even with the wisdom of the decades, I have pondered “as one thinks and dreams, so shall it be”. Maybe one of the follies of youth is the immense gullibility that accompanies dreams and aspirations. Aging seems to dilute possible dreams.
East on the great wheel of life is all about visioning and bringing forth one’s life dream. It is also connected with springtime, birth and new growth. We are asked to petition for a new dream in the fall or West on the wheel, then contemplate the components of the dream during the winter or North on the wheel and finally take the steps/actions to manifest the dream in the springtime or East.
Many indigenous messengers have shared with me that most North Americans are stuck in an East-West pattern. One dreams a mighty dream inspires great profits and then becomes a broken dreamer because of impatience or literally dreaming too big a dream. This causes the visionary to swing across the wheel to the West and become heavily obstructed with dysfunctional patterns, addictions and depression.
Repeatedly I have heard the medicine of the East is to recognize one’s life dream, chart a course of action or outline of the steps that may be required to obtain the goal, being aware to validate and appreciate each marker in manifesting the dream. It is also important to be reasonable regarding one’s dream to understand if the goal is obtainable in a lifetime or is it too big of a project.
What I wondered this beginning of the Golden Age whose dream was it to create such potential fear and non-safety for all the family of life, light and nature.
East on the medicine wheel is often represented by the Eagle and Red Tail Hawk for they can see the bigger picture.
Whereas the Oriental Five Element theory is represented by the wood element of the liver and gall bladder. I find it curious how naive most people are regarding how major an organ the liver is. The typical American connects alcohol and rich food consumption with the health of their liver. Until just recently liver cancer and death went hand in hand. It would take a page just to explain the multitude of jobs the liver does—creates bile, influences the bowels, works with the kidneys to help or harm the spleen, affects the menstrual cycles, stores blood, works with the lungs to oxygenate the blood that then gets pumped to the heart… Whew we all deserve to become more educated on this organ’s importance.
I love the Oriental simplistic view that the liver physically resides below the right rib cage and stretches up and under the heart and thus is considered the foundation of the heart much like the base a house is built on. If the liver is balanced the heart is strong, especially spiritually. Whenever the liver is out of balance then the heart is weakened. What make the liver weak usually is related to something that violates one’s moral code or our big dream or life dream. When we feel violated then the emotion that erupts from this organ is anger. Anger turned inward is depression, anger directed at someone else is abuse and just expressed is a healthy passport for change.
Curiously, alcohol is often referred to as a “false spirit” for what most individual’s desire is to experience their sacred calling, to live their life dream.
Those of us born in the late forties, had mothers who were often drugged, unconscious, and thus from our first breath in the outside world, out of the birth passage ( a tight squeeze) was influenced by drugs. When life gets challenging for my generation, gets tight, we automatically desire to go unconscious and alcohol and drugs become our tool.
East medicine wants us to dream the big medicine, the life purpose and then get wise enough to develop an adequate timeline and road map so that we can have ease and trust that this is a good life and support from the creator is available to say what we mean and do what we say with patience. There is enough time. The earth is a friendly place. We are all one family of life. At the cellular level the trees, the wind, the water, the two legged, the winged ones, the stars are all the same. If we harm another we harm ourselves. If we are violated, the circle of life is weakened. Maybe the fear that tried to saturate the beginning of this century is the teacher or antidote for each of us to enjoy the new day, the new century and be enthused with the fresh season of growth remembering the thrill of being surprised and filled with childlike wonder. What is your dream and how will it help the world be a better place?
One of my favorite thoughts from Angie Arrien
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading or.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
She’d sum up with “taking care of yourself is not merely a matter of good health,
it is a measure of spiritual evolution.
I love the Rumi prose that basically states, Each day we are to begin again. There are a 1000 ways to kneel and kiss the earth. What’s important is to abstain from going back to bed (going unconscious) or meandering into the library and getting lost in a book (distractions). Instead we are to go out into the field beyond right or wrong and Ill meet you there. A procedure for joining our spiritual community composed of beings committed to walking their talk. Ones who proclaim the willingness to participate in the Beauty Way with its standards of kindness, respect, generosity, clear communication and love. Beings recognized by their proud stance and energetic integrity. Ones who are trained from decades/lifetimes of experience and are able to say Yes or No with certainty.
Gone are the dead weights and gray fogs of confusion. Their eyes sparkle with clarity exuding a depth of light as luminous as the radiant glow of the spring sun.
This community values the breath of life as well as the depths of death. They sense the continuum of spirit and the nurturing embrace of unity. Gone are the chapters of neediness or projections, instead there is a willingness to hear the harmonious choir that charms us into participation each willing to sing for their life visible and invisible.
Nature is a great teacher offering constant validations for those who have the courage to be in their sense to see, to smell, to hear, to touch and to taste. Ah, to look into the face of a flower and see GOD. There’s a field out there beyond right or wrong and I am met there.
“Only when you drink
from the river of silence
shall you indeed sing…”
~Kahlil Gibran
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.” Mother Teresa
I believe that Imagination is stronger than Knowledge. That Myth is more potent than Reality. That Dreams are more powerful than Facts. That Hope always triumphs over Experience. That Laughter is the only cure for Grief. And I believe that Love is stronger than Death. – Robert Fulgham
