A dear friend, in the midst of a political discussion recently, opined that he thought civil war might be a reality in the not distant future. This chilled me to the bone for it’s potential to materialize. Unless?
Of course we were numb at the news of yet another flipped out male youth with the power of guns way bigger than any bit of consciousness he possesses, murdering little children in cold blood, like it was a video game.
Now comes the avalanche of opining by our “men” in charge about whether or not we should at last take responsibility as a society for our attitudes towards guns and the perpetual harm they do to us as a collective, a society. In patriarchy, a gun is a symbol of manhood, no? What would Freud say?
I have many times here tried to put in perspective an understanding of patriarchy that underscores its basic structure as a thinking model, not a gender model. Not all men are patriarchal and not all women aren’t patriarchal. We live in a 6 thousand year old repressive and abusive paradigm that is psychically fueled by religion. Six thousand years may sound like a long time; it’s a small fraction of the time civilizations have existed on this planet.
When you believe in a male god, you call Him/He all the time, it gels an image in your mind that will guide your beliefs, perceptions and your choices as a person. The patriarchal god is extremely controlling of his “children” the human race; his superiority warrants all sorts of cruelty and misogyny. The stories told about this sky god in the patriarchal religious texts spin myriad tales of inflicting pain and suffering on humanity in the name of this god. In the OT, Abraham barely misses having to slice his son’s throat to prove to this insane god his loyalty; in the NT, this insane god does it himself, sacrifices his only son to justify and meliorate his own petty peeve with humanity.
These are beliefs; there are ways to know that God/Goddess/Spirit is Love in your own daily/nightly experience. Our world is desperate for a paradigm that isn’t greedy and unkind, like the patriarchal paradigms that are always demanding blood and sacrifice and elevating one gender and race above all others. Because they are beliefs, however ingrained in us since baptism, they are not real. When our hearts crack open and we love, not Hollywood or gender specific love, but the Love that is the real deity in our universe, the Love we can touch in each other and in our dreams, the Love that when we open to it, is our ultimate destiny, our ultimate bliss. You don’t have to believe me or anyone else about this; it’s in you and you can experience it yourself, especially if you pay attention to your dreams.
I look to dreaming as a possible avenue to reshaping our paradigm enough for us to act, to save, our home, this beautiful planet, and ourselves here in the physical. We have a sacred responsibility to pass on the most love and the most beauty we can to our children. Instead, our patriarchal paradigms flay our souls from our bodies and demand we place the most precious aspect of our human existence in the hands of greedy, misogynist men who enforce what we shalt and shalt not do.
We need to be having a different human experience on the planet. One that indigenous American teachers, like Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, speak of today. Spirit is one energy we all experience, including animals and all that is life on this planet. Patriarchal authoritarian pyramid models of “governance” are classic all over the world. At the bottom of those global patriarchal pyramids are children, women and non-dominant patriarchal races. At the moment, white males seem to be in charge, followed closely by other despotic male autocrats around the globe.
I have also many times described these rules as enforced by a frame of mind and a blind allegiance to shit that doesn’t make sense. The most toxic enforcer of this patriarchal thinking is our so-called “religions” that propose to all and sundry that the supreme ultimate invisible deity is some old fart with a beard. To him all men bow and in return, this super daddy bestows on men the right to do whatever they want to women, like deny them full personhood or health care under the law, the same as men.
I have many times said that this shit isn’t as old as you might think, given the scale of time that humanity has managed amazing civilizations on this planet that weren’t patriarchal. We have been taught a very skewed history; we can’t see before the 6 thousand years of this patriarchal paradigm. Our written history is not the whole story of humanity on this beautiful planet. Things are not, as many think, “always was and always will be”.
I have many times pointed to the facts taught to us by modern physics and metaphysics that reality isn’t matter, it’s energy, and that the “observer” (any conscious person) can influence the outcome of how this energy takes shape. I think of “The Secret” and manifesting your ego driven needs as the McDonalds’ version of this universal law. The version that counts, that you take with you beyond your physical death, is the evolution of your awareness. Our divinity is part of who we are; we are not born defective and in need of patriarchal daddy intervention in order to qualify for social acceptability.
Under the patriarchal paradigms we are asked to uphold, there is no room for trust in our own spiritual awareness. It's simple. We are spiritual beings having a physical existence. We don’t need to believe in anything in particular, we need to be who we came here to be. We have a spiritual connection to soul, self or however you name your connection to your eternal existence. We live in two realities at once, the temporal physical and the eternal spiritual. We know this when we track our dreams frequently with respect and curiosity. Dreams are a bridge between our waking and spiritual selves.
Our “after” life depends on our choices now. Christianity, Islam and Judaism espouse choices that warp our organic spirituality into twisted shame, penitence and servitude and can be especially lethal for women. By the way, as I’ve said so many times, Jesus, did not put up with patriarchal bullshit and it got him killed. The fact that patriarchs decided to take his story and run with the Messiah angle is a continuing source of irritation to him, I’ll bet.
A paradigm like the toxic one we are seeing disintegrate before us is not invincible; at least not in the ways that matter. Each person that calls bullshit and starts to educate themselves in ways to be more loving to others and to themselves tears a thread from this malicious web that has frozen us in such discord.
No one person, of any gender, will turn this tide of destruction, but each person that refuses to participate in it, each person who opens to new, unimagined possibilities for our survival, each person who learns how to love, each person who participates in any way towards a collective solution, is saving not only themselves, but others, too.
On a time line of human reality, “you are here”. The expansion of our experience can draw on what was before this disaster of a paradigm, but it is up to each of us, however we identify sexually, to help create a paradigm that is fueled by the energy of the universe, Love, which, to materialize, we ourselves must embody.
This means daring to embody the energy of divinity, of Love, in any way you can. Sing, dance, play music, laugh a lot, be kind, patient, giving; all those great things and do them in a way that brings joy to your life.
I don’t know what will happen. What will it take to turn this tide of hate and division that so many patriarchal zombies are manifesting around the world, including, in the USA. I do know that however grisly it gets, we still survive this consciousness beyond the physical body, as proven by dream research, to name one avenue you can explore.
Taking this into consideration, it’s important for each of us to ask ourselves what we are here to learn and what we are here to do. Anything each of the 7 billion of us does in Love for others and for ourselves will help tip these crazy scales. Also, if we are to give up the psychic poison of patriarchal religions, we need an alternative. Any time we make a connection to spirit dreaming or meditating or walking in nature with heart open, we are experiencing our soul selves. There are so many ways to experience the reality of Love. We can let go of the fear-based paradigm and embrace the one that is with us always, our organic spiritual connection so evident in life. We have nothing to prove and plenty to do. Each person’s contribution is important.
May it be so.
