Not even 48 hours later, and some of the heated furor over the presidential election continues. At least I think it does based on the few minutes I allowed myself to even listen to the news.
While that political scene foments, the protests and mistreatment of the mostly Native American protestors continues. I do not intend to report on this every day, but I will provide a link here that appraises the situation accurately: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment-energy-transfer-partners. Why do I bring this up again, besides the fact that I will expose the egoic forces of power elite structures as long as they take away freedom of people to live life Purpose? Because people need to have ways to cope with such upsetting situations — the immoral and illegal thrust of the Dakota Access Pipeline and its parent company Energy Transfer Partners and the election day results. I will say this: lessons can be learned from negative acts of ego, from the workers of those acts, things that may be impossible to learn anywhere else. However, their injustices will be exposed some way or another. In the meantime, those affected by such events could use some understanding, insight, and peace. I offer what I know to be true for me, the foundations of my philosophy. Let me make it clear, though, this is not theoretical crap I say I believe and then act like it doesn’t matter in everyday life. I live this, and I know peace because of it. I work my way to peace through it. If we want peace, we must shift our thoughts away from that which is creating turmoil. As humans, we don’t do well simply turning away — we need something to turn towards, something to shift our attention to. In other words, we must consider the positive that correlates directly to that which upsets us. In this case, whether Native Americans at Standing Rock and around the nation or voters, we have been manipulated, controlled for purposes not designed for our good. If you don’t think that to be true, then why does all this healing the divisiveness need to begin? Because the goal was getting elected, our benefit was not an issue. Oh, the politicians can say they had to get into office to do good for us, but do the ends justify the means? Not to me. Here’s what I need to know and do. We must turn into the quietness and solitude of our own Hearts. We must silence Ego, that part of us energizing our minds and souls to engage in battle on the oppressors’ or offenders’ terms. To know how to engage, we need to turn our mind and soul and tune them to hear Heart. I can’t tell anyone else what Heart says to them because its their own essence, core Self. This is your positive shift. Discover and access who you truly are. Identify that self; that essence is there waiting for us to come to that place, that Self, who has always been there, pleading, waiting for discovery. You must discover YOU so that you don’t keep listening to THEM: Step 1. When you discover YOU, you will be inexorably drawn to create life Purpose because that’s the reason you have a Heart, a YOU. Life Purpose provides vision and motive that gets us off our asses and doing the things that will bring us a sense of accomplishment and achievement in the face of what may be feeling like helplessness and hopelessness: Step 2. Wallowing in Ego, licking wounds and sobbing over something we didn’t create through our own Heart offers absolutely NO relief. If you say you don’t want anything different, that you want to wallow, that’s fine. You will hurt and become ineffectual and ineffective in terms of life Purpose, because not wanting relief is all Ego. Relief comes in two steps: 1. Discover core Self. 2. Create and engage in life Purpose. When we engage in anything related to Purpose, we experience a plethora of positive results. Most importantly in reference to the things I discussed, we will know what to do to feel better and how to respond to unscrupulous assholes in organizations like Energy Transfer Partners and Dakota Pipeline Access or the American political system. My hope is that we all can feel better, and that my Native American friends will prevail. I am thankful to them for exposing darkness. Blessings.
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My mood has been like the infamous Deflategate of the 2015 AFC football championship; only it’s not Tom Brady’s work that deflated me. It has been the handiwork of political campaigning, elections, and the commentary, that I actually limited considerably, but it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t the winners or losers, the outcomes, that zapped me; it was the divisiveness, the inability of so many people to engage in thoughtful discussions. It was all about show and destruction. Differences of opinion should produce thoughtful consideration that may end up in compromise or in creating some new animal. I read somewhere today that someone said — I don’t care who said it or where it was said — we are all on the same team. (Now, that I’m thinking about it, I believe it was President Obama — still don’t care). People on the same team do what I mentioned above. Co-captains (the candidates) don’t destroy the players — citizens, voters — and hope that there’s enough standing up on one side of the field to vote for them as the only captain. And I’m not speaking about the presidential candidates only. I can honestly say this: I will never again vote for anyone who directly initiates assault on their opponent in a media campaign. I didn’t this election; in fact, contrary to all of my past voting experiences, that was one factor determining who I voted for. The sum result of the whole day yesterday was disgraceful as far as I am concerned, and as I said, it is not because of who won or lost. It is because of the spirit and lack of intelligent, Heart-based discussion. Now, you may tell me Heart has no place in politics. Then, any brand of politics, any politician, any government claiming that has no place in my life. A total philosophy of Ego, that it’s all about Ego, has no place in governance of any kind. Let me make it clear, NO PLACE. If a government, leader, politician, dictator, ruler does not nurture people to explore, live, and engage in society based on Heart, then that leadership should not have that position. And Heart, my Heart, the fellowship with my Heart and those who are in that same fellowship, is the only thing that helped me to function today in terms of writing. Writing, as learning, cannot be disassociated from emotions. It’s why Morning Pages wasn’t completed until a little before five o’clock today. What did my Heart tell me? The reason for the existence of government is not to create a job market or give everybody what they think they deserve or provide for every need of life or society. No, it should be to allow others to live to their fullest potential, i.e., to manage the societal excesses of Ego so that each of us is free to discover Self, create a life Purpose, and live that Purpose. For those who would say that we can’t all do whatever we want, yes we can — IF it is truly through Heart. If the motive force is Heart, then death, destruction, or injury to others will not be the result. If you are one of those who believe a government should make everyone fit your idea of society and philosophy, then your Ego is working overtime to control and manipulate others, and my friend, that means you will never be consistently happy, fulfilled, or satisfied. I am aware my views of government need much more explanation, which may or may not come. I will say that I believe the original intent of many from the beginning of this nation was much closer to what I’m saying, infinitely closer to what I’m saying, than what we observed yesterday. The spectacle of this year’s campaigns means nothing to me; I feel absolutely no indebtedness or responsibility to agree with, give assent to, or follow anything resulting from this election and the policies, laws, or anything else that emanates from this Ego show. And again, the reason is the purpose of the campaigns was not to hear my voice or your voice; it was to get elected at any cost. Fuck the dead souls lying all over the battleground. That’s the message, and acceptance or concession speeches mean nothing in the light of that. They are worthless. Of course, Native Americans have felt this frustration, defeat, and assault for years, being purposefully, powerfully, and deceptively forced into a place of voicelessness. And not one idiot candidate had anything to say yesterday about Standing Rock and the right, total moral and Heart right, to reverse the Dakota Access Pipeline. By the way, Clinton didn’t support the tribes, and Trump is invested in Energy Transfer Crude Oil Company, the parent company of DAPL and a contributor of over $100,000 to his campaign. So neither of them measure up. None of these politicians do who bludgeon, beat, and bloody one another because they are too stupid to recognize that when they assault one another, they’re debilitating us. They don’t get that interconnectedness of all. They don’t get that when they’re doing all the yelling, they leave us voiceless, which disqualifies them for any leadership role as far as I’m concerned, which means I will never support or follow them. Ultimately, I want to encourage anyone who reads this to do something. No, not write your representatives, although I’ve done that many times. I want to encourage you to not look to a government to supply those elements of life that can only come from Heart. Discovering core Self, who you are at Heart essence and creating, determining a life Purpose based on that Self engages all the energies of life from the Spirit, the Universe to carry us forward to significance, fullness, joy, peace, love, adventure, you name it. Do that, and we won’t need most of the machinations of government — or the disappointment. So, for me, I write, and in this I have peace. Blessings! Strange. Very strange indeed. Strange that on this day of politics and voting in America I have not heard a candidate or reporter mention freedom, especially for the Native Americans. I haven’t watched news all day, nor have I seen more than a few minutes of the initial results.
It’s not necessary to know that nothing has changed for the Native American situation in their own land, at least nothing the media or any candidate found worth mentioning. As far as I know, the cursed pipeline is working ever closer to the Missouri River, and the water protectors seem to be standing helplessly by. As far as I know, some heartless legislators in Utah are still seeking to make theft of 100,000 acres of Ute land a legal proposition. (A classic tactic, by the way, of passing a law of unrepresented people or insufficiently represented people and then accuse them of breaking the law when they don’t agree. If that happened on a national level, it would bring about war.) Yes, I’m thinking about freedom this evening, as I did this morning. And sovereignty in the sense of freedom from control. The power elite, that scheming, engineering, self-deceived oligarchy understands it. They know when they steal the ability to make any kind of change from people, when they suborn, cajole, and deceive people into being so dependent that they cannot make changes for themselves, that they cannot do anything to determine the course of their lives, then they have enslaved people in the most powerful way. Because they eliminate the necessity of people having to work to live their vision and mission, they have stolen the freedom of thinking, of spirit, of seeing any value in responding to their own Heart and creating their own Purpose. This is the history of the treatment of indigenous tribes for over 500 years, well, at least after outright annihilation failed. They steal freedom. Candidates and parties and patriotic sounding twits can talk about freedom, all the while either oblivious to or uncaring about what has been done and is being done in plain sight to minorities. True freedom is predicated on choices a person makes to know Self, follow Heart, and live a life Purpose. If it’s of the Heart, life Purpose contributes to the welfare of others as we live our love for Self (which is Spirit) and love for others. Anything that a government does that directly or indirectly and purposefully hinders our desire and ability to live in freedom by living Heart wisdom and precepts is enslaving. However, government and its politicians are not necessarily the ones calling all the shots. Powerful, wealthy, influential oligarchies have sensed, known, and chosen to take away the freedom of people and societies because the oligarchs rejected their own hearts and chose Ego to allow them to control, plunder, manipulate, subjugate, and even eliminate any who stand in the path of their designs for obtaining wealth, power, and dominion — all ego, all self, no other reason. American Indians have recognized this, perhaps more acutely than any others. Sitting Bull, Tatanka Yotanka, of the Hunkpapa Sioux in an interview with a journalist who was invited into his tepee, talked about all the things that the Whites had given the Sioux, but in the giving, they took, took away their land, and something more: “They gave us meat, but they took away our liberty…the white men had many things that we wanted, but we could see that they did not have the one thing we liked best — freedom.” Are we willing to give up some wants in order to gain the most precious commodity, freedom? Sitting Bull was: “I would rather live in a teepee and go without meat when game is scarce than give up my privileges as a free Indian, even though I could have all that white men have.” That was in 1882. In 1967, Clyde Warrior of the Ponca tribe spoke about what really held the Indian in poverty and defeat. He said that “our old people felt rich because they were free. They were rich in things of spirit. But if there is one thing that characterizes Indian life today it is poverty of the spirit. We still have human passion and depth of feeling, which is something rare today, but we are poor in spirit because we are not free, free in the most basic sense of the word.” (All previous quotes from Great Speeches by Native Americans, Blasidell, ed.). Here is my ultimate point tonight. The loss of freedom can occur gradually and when it happens on a large scale is done purposefully. Those who perpetrate slavery, even of spirit, operate based on Ego, having willfully rejected Heart, neither hearing nor heeding it. They can change. I hope they do. Until then, we should all recognize that a government that makes us dependent on it takes away our spirit, takes away the desire to know Self and create a life Purpose. That is true slavery, loss of freedom, and poverty. Such conditions have characterized oppressed minorities in America for 500 years. It is shameful, and until strides are made to encourage people to live according to Heart principles, there is little to boast about as a nation. The hope for any of us, whatever tribe or race we belong to, is to listen to our Heart voice, discover core Self, and create life Purpose. We can still do that with great latitude and live a pleasurable, significant, fulfilling life, but we may be letting power elites rob us of that. We need to stand with the oppressed, because if we don’t, we will become the oppressed. Yes, freedom of mind and soul through Heart offers our best hope. Don’t we all want to be all that we can be? And more? Then, what? Well, maybe just a little bit more. When someone asked one of the richest men in modern history, John D. Rockefeller, about how much money was enough, he supposedly answered, “Just a little bit more.”
All of this to say that as human beings, we are wired with a mindset of expansion, a desire for ever-increasing capacity. We have this penchant for almost everything. Have you ever wondered why? The piece of eternal Spirit in us, that part of Spirit arriving here in our mortal bodies, drives us to discover that core Self. I know I’ve said it before, but I rejoice, am exuberant to consider that all the rest of me, my ego, mind, body, soul has added the distinct personality of ME to the collective of eternal Spirit. And that leads to those drives we have to be ever-expanding, growing our capacity to be, to have, to love, to know, to create, to enjoy, to everything! Why? Because eternal Spirit fills the Universe, is in, of, and through all, our part of Spirit pulls us to those ends. We at our deepest level yearn for Unity, connection. Limitless. In daily life, we seek to expand capacity of soul, mind, and life in general through one of two motive forces: Ego or Heart. Ego will seek to expand, but it will do it for total benefit of the individual, which is Ego’s job. However, Ego can’t connect us with eternal Spirit; therefore, Ego never allows a spiritual expansion. Do you see how important it is to consciously choose which operating system you are going to allow? It’s Heart urging us to expand our spiritual capacities. Ego is just not designed to connect us to others. It’s used to protect and isolate us from others or to promote us above others — not promptings of eternal Spirit. Ego can expand our capacities in some things, but the way it does it stands in diametric opposition to Heart. Ego will destroy and take from others in its effort to expand rather than connecting with others through Spirit. The situations of the Native Americans I have written about over the last few days illustrate the contrast between expanding capacities of Ego and Heart. The duplicitous Dakota Access Pipeline LLC company and supporting government and law enforcement certainly are expanding, expanding the domination and goal of eliminating Native Americans. The same is occurring in Utah with the Ute tribes — increasing capacity of land development for the state at the expense of stealing from the Ute Nation. These increased capacities are base; they just suck. The Sioux Nation and supporters at Standing Rock exemplify expanding Heart capacities. They are concerned about the sacred nature of the water and how it will be preserved for many others for many years. There are bonds, connections being formed. Spiritual expressions of unity and purpose. What a contrast and what a blessing to witness the spirit of the indigenous people! If you want to really grow, really expand spiritually, choose Heart. It’s the only way to go! You ever feel overwhelmed? Overwhelmed comes in different shapes and sizes, happens for different reasons. Really, it does.
One shape and one reason overwhelms me today. The shape is that of any given Native American reservation in the United States. Of course, those shapes don’t constitute any states of the United States. And that observation yields the reason: The government of the United States never meant for Native Americans to exist, to stay in existence, never meant for them to hold any land worth anything or to hold onto freedom in any form. Reservations accomplished that goal of the government. I think many white Americans believe reservations are like nice private estates where Native Americans are free to live in some idealized past. No, not quite. Not even close. Reservations are regulated and controlled by the federal government in virtually every aspect of their dealings. Any dealings concerning property, land development — their own land — or almost any other actions must all go through multiple agencies. And even when some enterprise is begun, the feds collect the money and decide how to distribute it. They often “lose” it. (Most of this information comes from this Forbes’ article: https://goo.gl/1uqppW). Conclusion: The government has used legal-sounding bureaucracies to minimize the existence of Native Americans through impoverishment, disenfranchisement, and maybe worst of all, imprisonment on the reservations. Oh, no, the imprisonment isn’t one of keeping them inside of boundaries. It’s one of keeping them from developing their own hopes and dreams by robbing them of freedom and spirit, by making it difficult to engage with their own Heart. Thankfully, many still seek Self. The development of reservations was purposed to destroy the freedom of indigenous tribes. The engineers knew if they gave up their freedom through bogus treaties that the zeitgeist of fierce freedom would be forfeit, and the spirit of the people would be broken. No president, legislator, judge, soldier, law officer, or anyone who had any part in imprisoning the Native American in despair and hopelessness has any respect from me in anything associated with their work. None. The leaders who were and are attuned to their Heart understood and understand the purpose, the intent to destroy their race by taking away every vestige of humanity. In 1912, Carlos Montezuma, a doctor and an Apache, spoke before the Society of American Indians — very powerful. “Colonization, segregation, and reservation are the most damnable creations of men. They are the home…of personal slavery.” In 1967, 55 years later, Clyde Warrior spoke to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Poverty, and said this: “…our old people felt rich because they were free. they were rich in the things of the spirit. We still have human passion and depth of feeling, which is something rare today, but we are poor in spirit because we are not free, free in the most basic sense of the word. We as American Indians are not allowed to make those basic human choices and decisions about our personal life and about the best need of our communities, which is the mark of free, mature people” (Great Speeches by Native Americans, Blaisdell, ed.). And 50 years later, this brings me back to the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Sioux Nation and the Utah land grab and the Ute Nation, both situations ripping the “choices and decisions” about the “best need of [their] communities out of the hands of the people. Such extensive documentation and history makes these situations no-brainers except for people with no functioning brains in the areas of Heart and morality. If the pipeline goes through and Utah gets Ute land, then those actions only confirm what Native Americans have experienced for 500 years and what I have said in defense and support of them: the goal of the federal government of the United States, as well as state and local governments, has been to eradicate, whether physically or spiritually, the Native Americans. They feel native Americans and any possible benefits from their reservation lands only exist for plunder purposes, since they have managed to hang on this long. Over the last three days, I have written my Heart. Well, I always seek to write my Heart, but I have shared ideas and ideals I hold very close. I may not have written very well. I have, however, shown you, whoever may read this, that my Heart is in communications such as this. I have shown you that when we become Self-aware and know our Heart we can expose actions, people, and purposes that work against the light. I do not even condemn those who have made such decisions. In fact, I send my best energy their way for awakening, and if they awake to Heart and life Purpose, their actions will bear it out. My life Purpose is to write to help others discover Self, their Purpose, and happiness, significance, joy, love…whatever it is they wish. Each of us has that ability because of our Heart. Those who have come to the fellowship of the Heart form a unique tribe, able to appreciate the freedom of all and the connections to all. This can certainly alleviate those feelings of being overwhelmed. Much blessing. |
Questions to consider:How many times have you asked yourself or simply thought about the following questions?
Who am I, really? What is my truth? How do my actions reveal what I really feel and believe? What would I do with my life if I could do anything? What is my passion? Why am I here? How can I discover answers to any of these questions? If you have considered any of these questions, I hope that my experiences and writing will give you some guidance. Please read my blog and comment and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you! Archives
December 2019
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