I just read an article from the Huffington Post which discusses research into residential school deaths. Numbers, names, causes of deaths... millions of documents revealed… all interesting in itself. While none of it is particularly sinister... this does not change the fact that these deaths were the direct result of an environment that never should have existed in the first place. Group home environments were incubators for diseases like influenza and TB… and pre-1960 was just an evil time in our (white) history. Corporal punishment was the norm. Fathers were free to molest their children, most girl were sexually abused by one or many male relatives. Native culture did not view children as property and did not have biblically sanctioned abuse of its children. It must have been so   confusing for these babies to be thrown into such a hateful environment. I'm a very tolerant person; I understand bad decisions and errors in judgment. What is unconscionable is that these schools remained open for 100 years. When the first generation of graduates left these places (10 years in), damaged, broken and lost... Somebody should have said, "That didn't work", and shut the damn things down. 
          Followers of my Angels of the Road blog site are well aware of my
involvement in social justice issues, particularly as they relate to our Native brothers and sisters. This may seem like a very political discussion for a spiritualist website like this one and more suited to the other blog, but I want to share with you what I am seeing here. I see a new age … an end to ass-covering, finger-pointing and blame-setting. A time to look squarely at where we have been as a society…this is a sad and ragged piece of Canadian history which we all need to own. NO guilt, just awareness and a coming together in our grief to end the injustice which shamefully still exists. As I said in Silent No More, “regardless of when we were born or when we got off the boat, we are all responsible for what comes next”. 

I think this is such a beautiful picture of courage, hope & pride.
Photographed at the  Idle No More  demonstration
on parliment hill January 28, 2013.
 Read the article and view other photos on the Huffington Post website. 

         The Grandfathers  teach that all things must be treated with  respect… we must respect all of creation if we wish to be respected. This is why the grandmothers and grandfathers (ancestors) would use every part of the kill (game animals)… to waste any part would diminish the value of the life given. 
          But what does respect mean to us today, this isn’t 1750? How do WE honour all of  creation? The obvious is recycle, renew, reuse…and do whatever we can as individuals to reduce our negative impact on the world. And when you consciously do something positive for the environment, “thank yourself” on behalf of your grandchildren and their grandchildren (unto 7 generations). Gratitude is a huge part of respect.
          You can begin by being grateful to the Creator, for breathe, for earth’s bounty (food) for light and warmth from the sun, for compounds of ore and mineral which build our homes. Gratitude for the love and companionship of other people, and for animals both friends and food; clearly this list goes on forever. A major step into happiness is being grateful for each moment and what it brings, even gratitude for the awareness of feeling grateful.  
          While respect for all of creation would be nice; personally I would just be happy to see human-beings start showing respect for each other.   Then advance to respecting all sentient creatures and perhaps one joyous day respect all of creation.  
          I guess the best first step is to stop judging and start accepting. No person (including one’s self) is better than or less than another… we are quite simply different. Seneca said, “A thing be neither good nor bad but  that we think it so”. So stop thinking so damn much! We are what we are… a thing is what it is… acceptance is about living with the reality of this moment.  Respect can only exist hand in hand with acceptance.  
           Parable time, woo-hoo!!!   The porcupine has quills (simple fact) he does not judge these as bad or good. They are just there riding around on his back. The fox in any moment does not judge the porcupine’s quills as bad or good, in fact he probably doesn’t think about porcupines much at all. Now in the moment that the fox attempts to eat the porcupine, they both make a judgment about quills. Fox thinks quills (the ones in his face anyway) are bad and porcupine thinks quills are good. 
           What I am saying is, “don’t judge people”… you can judge an
experience as bad or good, and gratefully take the lesson from that moment (porcupines are not good eating) and grow from it (intellectually, emotionally, physically or spiritually). Respect can only come from a place of acceptance. “Civilized”(I use the term loosely) man has a long history of judging people, to quote one of our greatest prophet/teachers, “Judge not lest ye be judged” and he said it just like that in perfect Jamesian English LOL. 
           The fact is judgment is the bane of our existence…first we judge
ourselves most harshly, then to make us feel better we judge others to be “less than” we are. Accept that you are a work in progress… forgive your mistakes…and be the best YOU that you can be in any given moment. Accept yourself and you will be able to respect yourself. Accept others and you will be able to respect others. Treat everyone with kindness and respect and the world will be better for having you in it. Have a joyous day. 

          This week I was asked two very significant questions, by two different people. I answered both, but not as well as I would have hoped. That  is because I had not really given much actual thought to what I was doing; I am a creature of instinct, I follow my intuition.  The long & short of it is; I  received a very strong message that I should move to Victoria and open a  spiritual healing centre.  This further reinforced my career plans… of working for Victoria Cool Aid, which (because of my experiences with Angels of the Road) I believe to be one of the most effective program delivery models in the country. That is how I came to be in Victoria ;-).  
        Back to the questions… one person asked, “What is your vision
for the healing centre?”  The second person asked, “What kind of programs are you planning?” When I mention there could be Sunday services she asked if this was going to be Christian.  Oops, is that three questions, I am going to treat the second one as a two parter LOL. 
       First about the vision:  A couple of years ago when I started learning more about energy healing; (I was already pretty self-aware and  spiritually grounded) it was disheartening to see how this was another area in which money was a barrier to accessing services. I watched as truly gifted people were ignored and passed over as healers, in favour of many whose great talent was the ability to write a cheque and sit through 10 classes on reikki. People whose personal lives are a holy mess, are being certified as life coaches, to advise others. This practice seemed wrong to me, it is very 3 dimensional thinking; grounded in distrust, of each other and ourselves. The element  of exercising control (which is apparent in the practice of demanding membership and certification) is way too ego based for spiritualists aspiring to 5th dimensional living.
       Practitioners, claiming to be motivated by a desire to help others and heal the world were setting up their practices (probably unintentionally) in such a way as to exclude those most in need. They refer to money as simply another expression of energy… but it is the only expression of energy that they acknowledge in their practice. These people do a lot of good in helping people move through the energetic shift toward 5th dimensional thinking and collectively we all benefit from the  vibrational changes. But this business model is grounded in old  3 dimensional thinking… my vision is an evolution into the unified reality of a 5th dimensional world.
       Spirit of the 8th Fire as a community is intended to be an Energetic Co-Op. Where people aspiring to live their flesh (physical existence) ruled by spirit (higher consciousness) can come together and exchange their  energy in any form, for the energetic services of the other brothers and
sisters. That in no way disallows the use of money as an expression of energy… it just opens the movement up to those who have  different blessings to share with us. Much of our culture/society practices a socio-economic segregation, which cuts both ways… Spirit of the 8th Fire transcends that barrier. We are all brothers and sisters on this journey to enlightenment. As with any journey there are some ahead of us on the road who can help to guide us and there are some behind us who need our guidance. That is true of every single person; no one is more than or less than another… we just are where we are in any given moment.
         What we are planning to do there is... Off the top of my head, but not
limited to the following... There will be gratitude circles, healing circles,
intuitive development (pretty much anything considered ESP), art groups, online  gallery, drumming, drum making, meditation space, guided meditations, discussion groups, journaling, creative writing, peer support, tai chi, and Native awareness classes/ meetings. Possibly a religious style Sunday service, for those who would like a formal celebration of Creation and the Creator. This will be offered from the perspective of the individual speaker. As spiritualists there will be a consistent theme of one Source from which all life springs… described in a multitude of ways by a multitude of names. Everyone who comes to the centre need only to desire the peace, unity and healing that will manifest for humanity in the time of The 8th  Fire.