Miracles,
Embracing Diversity – Some of you may have noticed that I did not send a lunar letter out on the New Moon and so instead you are receiving this note on another of my favorite lunar phases – the waxing quarter moon. This is an excellent time for divination and Embracing Diversity at least according to the Oracle at Delphi who was open for business only during this lunar period and even then only for certain seasons.
In truth I got tied up with some fun stuff: celebrating my oldest child’s 11th birthday, packing up the family to head out West for snow and mountains during our Spring Break, and then turning around and celebrating my beloved’s birthday in said mountains.
Amid all of that commotion I was also feeling and thinking into what has been going on in the world as I know so many of you have been as well. Part of that feeling and thinking into was deciding what words, what approach and really what medicine would be most useful to everyone in this community of soulful seekers. There have been some good posts about the needed medicines right now.
And as these things do, I received my answer in a dream I had a few nights ago. In the dream I was watching two scenes unfold. In the first scene a young man in Ukraine was talking to his grandmother about going off to war and expressing the fear he felt. He asked her for a charm for protection and I watched as she wove one into his uniform. The second scene was identical except the young man, and the grandmother, were both Russian. Same story. Same fears. Same blessings. Opposite sides of the divide…at least today.
In many prayers and magical castings there is the notion of seeing with eyes other than your own, feeling with hands other than your own, loving with a heart other than your own. Typically when we work with that kind of language we are asking to see, feel, and love with the presence of something Greater, something Holy Embracing Diversity.
As I sit with the conflicts that are happening world over, not only in Ukraine and Russia but also in Yemen, also at the great river that forms part of the border of this country, it occurs to me that the presence of Greater needed right now is that of Grandmother eyes. Grandmother vision.
Grandmother eyes see differently than my regular eyes. My regular eyes want a good side and a bad side. I want someone to arm and I want someone to pay for the suffering and loss of life that is occurring and that is yet to happen.
Grandmother eyes know better.
They are rheumy in just the right way and have been around long enough to never buy into overly simplistic thinking that one side is all goodness and light and another side is all evil and bitter. Grandmother eyes are touched by Holy Mother…giver of Life who walks ever and always with the shadow of Death.
So it is that Grandmother eyes see babies who survived – against incredible odds in many cases, growing up to become young men and women who will be mowed down by tanks and bullets and bombs in the name of whatever cause and over-reach is currently in play and acceptable.
Grandmother eyes don’t see enemies but they do see – with crystal clarity – power-hungry so-called leaders who make choices and laws and decisions that are paid for in other peoples’ blood.
Grandmother eyes weep for loss of life – period and end of story. They weep for life cut short by violent death – period. Side doesn’t matter because every side is the same: there are mothers who will mourn the loss of their babies, men and women who are terrified and don’t want to die and will anyway, and children who will lose both home and family…and if you don’t think that those experiences transcend sides then may you continue to be blessed and protected so that you will never know just how exactly and completely they do.
It is not relativism. It’s Embracing Diversity. Grandmother eyes see right actions and they see wrong actions. They know there are those who bully and those who get bullied. It is just that they do not believe in simple stories neatly packaged for mass consumption…they believe old stories and eye-witness accounts which always, always, tell us things were more complicated than we originally thought or knew.
It is not even anti-violence. Grandmother eyes know that violence is part of life. If you have ever seen a grandmother respond to a threat to her grandchild, then you know exactly what I mean. But Grandmother eyes do not yearn for violence, they don’t glorify it, they don’t rationalize it or say that in some cases it is justified. They know that while necessary in rare moments, it is never good. Never to be sought out.
Perhaps most of all though, Grandmother eyes recognize that there are other Grandmothers. Other mothers and fathers and families besides their own. They want their families to be safe, they want their descendants to live happy lives and not to be killed in war and violence…and they want that for everyone. This is Grandmother-Holy Mother yearning…in the desire to see not just their beloved children live, but in the desire to see ALL children live and thrive and flourish.
So that is how I am seeing now and how I am going to continue to see as these wars and battles emerge around us.
If you want to join me for Embracing Diversity and aren’t sure where or how to get started, may I suggest this traditional prayer, which is also a spell, named for Saint Francis – a Holy Helper who absolutely saw through Grandmother eyes.
Prayer to Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
I also have some suggested reading/listening for you.
Charles Eisenstein also has a great piece on generating the Field of Peace over here. Gordon over at Rune Soup has an excellent piece on what is required in this moment from professional Sacred Artists (my language, not his) and it is good listening whether you are a pro or not.
Be safe. Be Kind. Make Magic and Make Peace.
xoxo