The ancestors want you to know,
you are not required to carry their pain.
Your mother did not spin the web that nets you,
you wove it from your own desire.
Yesterday’s rain won’t nourish this flower;
the new sun drank last night’s tears.
Your grandmothers are singing for you
to birth your own unbearable happiness.
Your grandfathers’ bones are praying for you
to hunt the sweetness in your own marrow.
You think you must stand like a warrior
in the withering crossfire of your father’s blood.
But what wounds you is the wavering blade
of your mind, slashing the past and future.
If you insist on making reparations, plant
a wild pine; let it be a tree of Presence.
— Alfred K. LaMotte, from WHAT THE ANCESTORS WANT
Brother, there but for the grace of God go you and I.
Just for a moment, slip into his mind and traditions
And see the world through his spirit and eyes
Before you cast a stone or falsely judge his conditions.
Remember to walk a mile in his moccasins
And remember the lessons of humanity taught to you by your elders.
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave
In other people’s lives, our kindnesses and generosity.
Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins.
— Mary T. Lathrap, 1895, from JUDGE SOFTLY, aka WALK A MILE IN HIS MOCCASINS
Two weeks before my husband, John, and dog, Bridey, and I set out on a 31-day sweep across much of the US in our electric vehicle, I pondered how to take advantage of my writing and creative skills during the trip. The idea of asking the folks we meet an uplifting question came to mind. A Chicken Soup for the Soul-kind of compilation, and also a sort of temperature check across America.
I have the empath’s keen sense of moods, and as you may also feel, these times are dark and heavy. I considered a way to seed something else, maybe I’ll ask people what they’re grateful for. Maybe I’ll ask people what they’re proud of. Then, on October 7th, just five days before we departed, the unthinkable happened in the holy lands of the Middle East. War.
On a wall in the childhood bedroom I shared with two of my sisters were the inspirational words by suffragist, preacher and poet, Mary T. Lathrap. Reminding us to walk in one’s moccasins before judging, the words are often attributed to indigenous cultures, and perhaps Lathrap was inspired by a direct Native American contact. These words rang in my ears as I watched friends, family, and people around the world weep, rage, despair and take sides over what was happening. I felt and still feel unwilling or unable to make sweeping statements about who is at fault and what failures happened. I haven’t walked in those sandals. Instead, I find my voice for the children and the land and her beings.
One cannot embark upon a road trip without being impacted by what is happening and forced to confront the American privilege of being able to travel at will across country. Thus, my question morphed into one about peace. Because I deeply believe that here, inside the sacred heart chamber, is where the work of peace-building begins. What brings you peace? (Go, do more of that.)
I’ve had a particular relationship with Peace, as if the concept itself were a being, since 2015. Or perhaps it’s best said my relationship was with War. Back then, two powerful experiences occurred that changed my life.
The first experience was a dream which I titled, What Put an End to War. By most accounts, it was a dandy. In traditional dream work, we tell the dream in the present tense to bring it to life. I invite you to take a deep breath and imagine this is your dream.
A great battle wages upon the land. It is a battle of brothers and sisters. It is a battle of peoples, no more or less murderous or devastating than any of the many wars that have been fought throughout the ages.
Suddenly the fighting ceases. Both sides are brought together, and some Ineffable Power compels each side to line up, facing the other at a close distance away. Two lines of warriors snake forever across a vast, scarred landscape.
All eyes close upon things mortal. All are silent and still. The Ineffable Power guides them to listen with their hearts.
After a few moments, all eyes are opened and the warriors look out at the opposing sea of faces. They witness something other-worldly. The faces are changed! Those faces among the enemy whom one knew personally before the war – a brother or a neighbor – remain, and yet, most of the enemy’s faces had become their own.
Each warrior stands stunned, mouth agape, looking at a wending river of his or her own face – there, and there, and there, and there — interspersed with the faces of the persons once known and once loved.
Suddenly, like a great ocean swell, the warriors fall into each other’s arms weeping, and with joy, just as the faces change back once again.
Then both lines – no longer enemies – link arms, and walk together across the battlefield, bearing brutal witness to the carnage and destruction they have wrought. They begin to work as one body to restore the land, to bury all dead, and to make amends to the earth and all her beings.
I begin to emerge into a limbic state, my awareness returning just as I hear a deep voice from the dreamtime, “And this, they say, is what put an end to war.”
Imagine stirring in your bed, your eyes crusty with sleep, with a dream like that clinging to your consciousness as though desperate to be remembered, to be honored, to be made manifest. What or who was the Ineffable Power? Where can we find that force of nature? We so desperately need what seems to be a mysterious and miraculous influence to end these heartbreaking killings across the globe.
Dreams have been an important part of my spiritual journey since they began to pummel me in early 2013. It seemed my waking practices did not allow enough space for a still, small voice to emerge. Thus, dreams pervaded my sleeping state. Often, they were riddled with tragedy or a great need that I was oblivious to in the dream, waking up too late. More and more I became attentive to my dreams, choosing to believe they contained messages from the ancestors, my intuition, or a deeper interconnected source. “Wake up! Change your life!” they seemed to say.