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Gracefully, a beautiful, brilliant white seagull glided past my window at work. The sun seemed to resonate with the bird as it dipped and soared in the wind, glowing in the morning light, delighting at just being alive. In fact, the radiant little bird knew in order to fly, it had to be free. It knew nothing else.
At the time, I was heavily immersed in writing, designing and editing one of three newsletters I produce at work. While my writing is usually completely captivating, intensely drawing me into the story I'm telling, the sudden flash of those powerful wings caught my eye, causing a wonderful momentary distraction.
I had been reflecting lately on the essential need for absolute freedom for creativity to flow, unrestricted, as an unblocked river needs to flow. It seemed the sudden distraction of the seagulls fly-by was something I needed to internalize a bit more in so many ways.
Sometimes these themes are universal, rather than personal, and beg for exploration. Last night on the news, the media was showing enormous ice dams on rivers in Indiana and Ohio that were causing a maelstrom of troubles. It seemed Mother Nature was teaching us something spiritually vital as much as she was summoning our attention - much like the bird's intrusion.
And like the answer to a crossword puzzle, a co-worker told me about a strange Oregon "love cult" that swept the area around the turn of the 19th century. What seemed strange to my co-worker was that the love cult was led by a Christian minister. I just had to laugh, but then sobered quickly as I thought about the flood of priests who have been caught doing something similar. What does that have to do with the seagull and the blocked rivers in the northeast? More than seems obvious.
When my co-worker showed me the picture of that minister, I was struck immediately by what I could only call a sinister look in his eyes. His slanted and seductive gaze gave it all away. This guy was drunk on power and knew how to manipulate people, primarily women, to gain their allegiance, "love," and power. He won them over, heart, mind, soul and body by projecting a power image, a kind of charisma, to seduce them to give him their "power," i.e. sexual access. I thought how interesting it is that a woman's power is interconnected to her sexuality.
They who had no sense of real self worth and power, who were like jamed up river beds, hungry, vacuous, were vulnerable to the predatory seduction of another who was equally as powerless but masqueraded as one with power. He could not have succeeded if they had been empowered. Their power was already gone by the time he entered their lives. But, their power and sense of personal value and dignity, as all those endangered by our collective predatory, authentically powerless illusion we call "the world," was blocked. The block is multi-layered, diverse, complex and all pervasive - psychological, physical, religious, tradition, cultural norms and controls.
Whatever it was and is, is that which exploits the weak, drains women's souls of self love and personal power, and that usually shows up on some level in their sexual prowess. The antidote is for all of us to become healthy, strong, whole, self-empowered, fiercely courageous with a strong determination to be bold and live powerfully, enriched and enriching our experience here.
I went back to writing, but my mind was running with this thought and I wanted to detour through scripture, psychology, history, anthropology, health science, earth changes and the universality and wholeness of it all.
We know the earth changes are due to global warming. While we also know all the planets are heating up as the solar system makes her 26,000 year circuit through the Milky Way, our excessive materialism, exploitation of the natural environment for oil, urban sprawl, reduction in natural habitats for the animals and so much more, has turned up the already high planetary temperature. The result on a physical plain is a heating up which is ironically causing the sudden sub-zero temperatures in the country, which are causing the rivers to freeze up, blocking all shipping. It's interesting that nature's response is actually curing the disease. I think the metaphors are obvious.
Concurrently, the Middle East and the Ukraine are erupting in long overdue revolutions as repressed rage is suddenly blowing off the lid of the political oppression of tyrannical rule. Meanwhile, Russia is poised, like a predatory vulture, to sweep in and take advantage of the consequent poverty which is plunging the Ukraine into an unprecedented financial vulnerability. The impulse of both the Ukraine and the Middle East toward revolution and civil war is a profound cry for freedom from oppression, from the icy tyranny that has blocked their self-determination for centuries.
As we human beings seek greater self -expression, more personal empowerment, a greater global spiritual experience, we are going to stand up for freedom, we are going to find ways to break the ice and let the creative life force flow. We must be free, but to break into ultimate freedom, we also need to realize unless we regain our own individuality, self-realization, spiritual autonomy, we will be victimized and preyed on by those who will corrupt the faith, use it as a lure, to seduce away our power. This is what is happening everywhere. It is as if the world itself is crying out in its demand to free itself from the shackles of oppression on every level of life.
It's both a global crisis and a universal call to wake up, step up and reclaim what is true. We all need to wake up from the drunken illusion in which we are still staggering around, like drunken sailors.
If we are to respond to our life's purpose, our own destiny-call, don't we need to awaken from the seduction of our times, the call to success in worldly terms, be onguard for the wolf in sheep's clothing, who will lead us to destruction?
In the story of the bad minister who seduced a whole colony of women, he eventually married one of them, and moved to Seattle. In a Seattle street, the woman's brother shot and killed the minister. The brother was consequently arrested, tried and acquitted. Later, the woman shot her brother. Later, in jail, she hung herself.
It's evil's mad drama, but in order for evil to prevail, it must first "tie up the strong man," to paraphrase Jesus, or the strong woman. Today all of us are weak, somehow disempowered by all that goes for power in our illusion we call "realty." We are all either victims or predators, the two players in the synergistic dance of disempowerment. For us to find our power, we must all be free to be first and fed from the great well within and learn to fly and in that flight, we will encounter true beinghood. And, that's enough, isn't it? To be full of our own innate divinity and power is so awesome, so radiantly beautiful it's enough to make the sun dance at our soul flight.
