1st September 2010
Its 3am, I’ve been woken from sleep by an anguish in my gut and I have to write from it. I know there is a trend these days amongst conscious people to focus on the positive, to spread the good news, to keep our vibes high; and mostly that’s what I choose to do. It makes sense. But every so often I have to express my No to the world’s folly and it’s a No that comes from way down deep in my soul. This is one of those times.
Those of you who have been following my return journey to Aotearoa, Land of the Awakening Dawn, will have heard how my soul has been singing here at the far end of Golden Bay, as I sit in the peace, beauty and simplicity of this undeveloped piece of coast, looking out over Farewell Spit. In this unspoiled nature, far from so called “civilization” there is a life giving wholeness which feeds the soul. Because of this I say this land is holy; it is sacred land. And there is not much land left in our world which still has the Life-Love-Force in it.
Much of our world was sacred once and now it is profane. The sacredness of nature has been destroyed by so called “progress”, by developers making a quick buck, people who see the land as an exploitable product.
Well sadly, there is now someone here who wants to make a quick buck by developing this unspoiled piece of coast. He’s shut down the local store and petrol pump that served the rural community for miles; and he’s bought one of the few campsites in the Bay and is planning to build a trendy sustainable village for rich people, adobe and grass roofs, all very pc. And you know what, that’s just the beginning of the erosion of this unspoiled piece of coast. Because once one person has “developed” and sold his trendy apartments at vastly inflated prices, there will be more. Remember “Dances with Wolves”? “The white men are coming, and there will be more.” Yes, there are always more. And my soul is hurting so much because I know how the indigenous people feel when they lose their sacred lands, and I know how the animals feel when they are hunted to extinction. And please don’t tell me that it’s all Ok, and all perfect, and the animals are just going into the next dimension, tra-la. That’s not the point. The point is that I am here now, watching this Earth that I love so deeply being destroyed and eaten up bit by bit by people who want to make a fast fat buck to put in their pockets, and I am alive to the pain of that and I will not numb it out or rationalize it away. I simply want to express and be heard. Not fixed, not smoothed over and calmed down, not shunned, not argued and disagreed with. This isn’t a head thing, it’s a deep feeling thing. Just heard is enough. Being deeply heard in a loving environment is balm for the soul. I long for us to be able to give each other that.
A few weeks before I left the States, I listened to a broadcast from Joseph Giove of Common Passion, www.commonpassion.org , from the Gulf of Mexico. A group of Native American elders had been at the beach surveying the damage, praying and doing ceremony. The seabed is being destroyed, people’s lives and livelihood are being destroyed, sea life is being destroyed, and the authorities are lying about the extent of the damage. It feels scary to even speak about this; I feel I am breaking taboos on all sides. While I have been living in the States I have watched the anguish of my dear soul friend Woods in response to what is happening in his own country. There are wonderful things happening in the States too, a huge explosion of consciousness, and I have many wonderful friends there, but I certainly felt I was living in the belly of the beast, with both the best and the worst of human nature in full view. I was there when the presidential election happened. I watched the enormous hopefulness of the people when Obama was elected. I watched the biggest bank robbery in American history, as the Bush administration and the bankers walked away with billions of dollars of the people’s money, just stole it point blank in full view with that characteristic Bush contempt for the people, and hardly anyone said a word. I watched people being made redundant, and having their homes repossessed and left to stand empty, while decent people crept away into tent villages to eke out an existence as best they could. I watched the depression that crept over the people as small business after small business closed and the streets became eerily empty. It was like being at a national funeral, a wake, and sure enough it was followed a year later by an awakening. I watched the quick ebbing of trust in Obama, and the crisis in the Gulf, and the continued pouring of tax payer’s money into unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where whole cultures have been destroyed and millions of innocent men, women and children killed. For what? And still very few people speak out. And all the entrepreneurs are jumping up and down and saying, oh this is a great time to make money! And everybody’s twittering away trying to make a slice of the action. Sometimes it all feels insane to me.
Aaah! So, I decided to come back to the comparative sanity of New Zealand. Only here there are many signs of erosion too. The development I am talking about here on Pakawau beach is small fry, but that’s how it happens, little bit by little bit, while we’re looking the other way, while we have our heads in the sand, the soulfulness of our sacred Earth is sucked out. Remember “Avatar”?
I want to take a stand beside the indigenous peoples for the sacredness of the land. I want to take a stand for the deep longings of my own soul.
A few days ago I went to visit the house I lived in before I left NZ, which I called the Garden of Eden. It’s still there, and the quiet rural lane that leads down to the beach, which I walked most days, is still the same. Only when I got to the campsite at the end of the road, the gate was locked and there was a no entry sign. I entered anyway. So many times I had imagined walking down that road once more and feeling again the joy of stepping onto the beach at the end, I wasn’t going to give that up for some old keep out sign. But it robbed me of some joy nevertheless.
Where I come from nobody owns the land. This is actually true. I grew up in England and there were rights of way and public footpaths everywhere. Provided you did no damage you could walk through farms and stately homes and wherever the ancient rights of way existed. This freedom too has been eroded, but I grew up knowing that the land belongs to everyone. And this law is written deep in my soul.
The Earth cannot be bought; we are the guardians of the Earth.
I feel it is very important that we have safe spaces where people can express their anguish and fear and outrage, without being shut down or “fixed”. This is the teaching of Joanna Macy, one of my sources of inspiration and the creator of “Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age”; to contact and fully connect with our power, we need to express our despair and be lovingly witnessed. I was one of hundreds who trained with her and her husband Fran, about twelve years ago when she decided to pass on all her teachings and encourage others to take them out into the world. I have been developing different forms of Soul Sanctuary over the last five or six years. A Soul Sanctuary for me is a space for deep inquiry and a container for transforming the base metal of the whole spectrum of responses to our world, into the alchemical gold of our highest potential. In the States I was offering Soul Sanctuary as a tele-gathering, with a community drawn from across the US and Canada. Although we had never met in person we developed a deep soul connection or soul field, and I know when we connected our higher selves in that way and then connected consciously with the energy of all the other thousands of groups doing similar practices in the world, we were making a positive difference to consciousness on the planet. I call this spiritual activism; raising our love-wisdom energy and focusing it for world healing. At the very least it makes everyone feel better, and when we feel better our good energy ripples out into the world.
I will be starting the Soul Sanctuary tele-gathering again at 9.30 am Sunday September 12t h NZ time; that’s 5pm Saturday September 11th Eastern Time and 9.30 pm Saturday GMT. I invite anyone who would like to join me for this meditation/visualization/heart sharing and community building to do so for 45 minutes, wherever you are. I would love to build this practice into a global community and September 11th seems like a good time to start the next chapter. If you would like to join in, please email me by Friday, rose@awholenewworld.net, or Woods thereafter, woods@awholenewworld.net and we will send you the number.
Namaste
Each one of us makes a difference and together we can do what seems impossible.
