Tribe is Tribe

iracles, tribe

I was in an import store shopping for my best friend’s birthday a few weeks ago. I had found a piece of jewelry that I knew she would love and as the store owner was ringing me up I was explaining to her that my bestie is originally from Iran and that while this piece is not from her home country she would still love and appreciate it.

The store owner interrupted me though and simply said, “She’ll love it because tribe is tribe.” Tribe is tribe. She said it with all of the confidence and clarity of a woman who has spent that majority of her life among and within tribes.

Tribe is tribe.

I know that in our never-resting news cycle the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio that occurred at the beginning of the month are old news for most of us. They have left, as all mass shootings have since 2011, their fingerprints all over me though and are still fresh.

As I fielded emails from people asking if I was alright and checked on my own set of family and friends with El Paso connections, I kept hearing that woman’s voice in my head – tribe is tribe.

And I wasn’t sure why but I knew it was important. Then I took a walk down one of my favorite streets where an Acequia was full of water and running at force and I remembered. What I remembered was a psych class I took about a hundred years ago.

We were studying mental health in indigenous populations and I learned that one of the indigenous populations found in New Mexico and Arizona – the Navajo People – have a very specific way of looking at mental illness (and many physical afflictions too). The understanding is that while one person in the tribe may show symptoms of illness, be it mental or physical, the entire tribe is actually afflicted and that any healing that is worth a damn will address not just the individual who is obviously ill but the entire tribe.

I have been marked by every mass shooting since 2011 because that is the year I had my first baby. And that is the year when I found myself worrying about everything: leaving out a tiny piece of something that the baby could choke on, losing him to SIDS, speeding cars, and falling shelves, and…going into a public place where my child could be shot and killed, or I could be shot and killed leaving my baby without a mother or my husband could be shot and killed leaving my baby without a father. 2011 is when I started taking it personally.

Every time I packed lunch for my little one to take to school I would lay down a prayer that my baby and every baby child would be protected from a bullet, that today would not be a day a mass shooter came to a school, a place of worship, a place of work, or a place of fun. Now that I no longer make his lunch I pray that prayer every morning.

And because my babies are beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed, boys, I also pray that they are never the ones holding a gun aimed at someone else’s baby – because the statistics indicate that my boys fall into the category of the ones most likely to commit a mass shooting as well as most likely to commit suicide with a gun.

I don’t go into politics in my work or my writing. I remember sitting in hard-backed pews at the Baptist church and resenting the hell out of a preacher who had the audacity to tell me who to vote for. Dressing up that unique kind of tyranny in the “New Age” trappings of incense and crystals don’t make me feel any better. I believe our founders knew what they were about when they separated church and state.

However, for better or for worse, I am a spiritual teacher and writer and as such, I have a community of people who look to me for moral guidance. When the bullets start to fly I am asked to give words of comfort, clarity, and wisdom. To be clear: this is a task that I in no way feel adequate to, but it is also one that has been laid on my shoulders by nature of my work. So this is what I say: Tribe is Tribe.

And the killings and the killers are part of our tribe. There are many people in our tribe who are ill, who are hurting, and who are sick, but at the end of the day, all that really means is that our whole tribe is hurting, is ill, and is sick. Any remedy that further separates us from each other is no remedy at all and any attempt to bring some of the tribe together while leaving others out in the cold has failed before it even begins.

In 2011 I joined a special club, a tribe within a tribe, of parents who send their children to school every day praying that today won’t be the day that their child’s classroom door bursts open and guns begin shooting. We pray that today won’t be the day our babies are shot, today won’t be the day our babies are killed.

But this is not just my club, my tribe, or my problem. Tribe is tribe. This is everyone’s problem. The fact that bulletproof backpack sales have gone up 300% before the 2019-2020 school year begins is not my problem or the problem of my other parent friends, it is also my Republican uncle’s problem, my Progressive mother-in-law’s problem, and it is your problem too. Because tribe is tribe.

Every baby that dies and every person who thinks they can solve their problems with a gun pointed at someone else is everyone’s problem, the only way to address it is together, most especially together with the very ones you don’t want to deal with. You know, the difficult members of the tribe who look different and talk different, the ones that make you uncomfortable, the ones you’d rather not talk to.

You know Miracles, the inverse is also true. If one person commits to healing, to betterment, to living a life of integrity and justice and kindness then the tribe as a whole is blessed by that too. One of my favorite stories to illustrate this comes from the Jewish tradition.

It is the tale of the Tzadikim-Nistarim – the hidden righteous ones. They are 13 people who, through consistent right action, uphold the entire world and make life possible for all. My favorite part of this story is that these righteous ones are hidden even from themselves.

Meaning that it could be you, it could be me, it could be any of us. Because what one of us does touches all of us. Because tribe is tribe. And because there is nowhere else to go, nowhere else to be, but right here, with everyone else.

Here is a version of the prayer that I pray over my babies on a daily basis, feel free to work with it in your own life if it speaks to you.

xo,
Bri

magic, miracles: receive my lunar letters

ARRIVING on full moons each month.

20 Question
Tarot

The Dream beneath the Dream

Lunar Letter

Unda Wata Man’s Shoes” by Tosha Grantham (Translation: “Shoes for Walking in a Parallel Universe”)

hese magical shoes would be worn by a sacred artist who is going into the liminal, walking between the worlds. This is often how it goes with our dreams too…there is the dream we know, the dream we easily perceive, and then there is the dream that is part of the “otherword”, the hidden realm where we need more than the five senses to apprehend — we need hearts and minds and hands willing to look harder, willing to dig deeper.

As many of my longtime readers know, I was raised within a magical family, but I had no intention of becoming a professional sacred artist. In fact, I was all about law, and throughout high school won award after award in speech and cross-examination debate. I had my entire future neatly mapped out: scholarship for pre-law at UT? Check. Followed by law school at a top tier school? Check. Followed by hours and hours spent immersed in constitutional law? Check, check and check.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am that things turned out otherwise.

It started when I got sick the winter between my junior and senior year. Very sick. Underweight and bed-ridden for pretty much my entire Winter break. It was clear to me then that while my mind had decided on the dream I was going to pursue, my body had other ideas, and one way or another I was going to have to listen. It was clear that even at the high school level the kind of intensity required by my chosen field was not going to work for me physically. I knew it would only get worse in college and then again as a full-fledged lawyer. So the question became…why do I really want to do these things? If this is my dream, I said to myself, then what is the dream beneath that dream?

Stories like mine are not uncommon, and I actually got off pretty light. More devastating is the young dancer who discovers she has a stress fracture in her spinal column and cannot dance professionally anymore, ever. Or the athlete who has pinned all her hopes for the future on a college scholarship that never quite comes through. The surgeon who is hit by a drunk driver and no longer has the extremely fine motor control his craft requires. These stories sound dramatic, but they happen every day to people just like you, just like me.

More common still is the person who is waiting for just the right job, opportunity, amount of money, level of skill or security to do what they have always really wanted to do. All too often we spend our lives waiting for a moment that never arrives because it never existed in the first place. There is no perfect time, there is no perfect moment. There is what you have and who you are, right now, today. That formula possesses all the magic you need to do what you really want to do, to be who you really want to be. If, that is – and this is the tricky part – if, you are willing to ask…what is the dream beneath my dream?

So it is that the dancer dances for the beauty and grace of Dance — and there are many, many ways to be for the dance. The athlete is in it for Victory, and victory comes in many different forms. The surgeon? The surgeon heals — that is why they do what they do, and there are many ways to bring about healing. The girl who loved law and debate? She loves to help people by making complicated ideas simple and understandable, so she became a teacher.

And what about you? Under this full moon in Virgo — the sign that sings of devotion and excellence in craft and living — what is the dream beneath your dream? If you dream of a million dollars ask yourself why? If you dream of being self-employed and setting your own schedule, ask why? If you dream of the day when you don’t have this job, that lover, or this apartment ask…why? What is the dream beneath your dream – the real dream? If we can name it, then we can call it into being, we can begin to live it, right now, today.

magic, miracles: receive my lunar letters

ARRIVING on full moons each month.

20 Question
Tarot

Many Branches: Divine Alchemy with Hiro Boga

Learning and Community

ear Miracles,

Alchemy is often presented as a difficult to understand (to say the least!) concept best left to Renaissance-era mages and the Sacred Arts are seldom seen as having anything practical to say about business and our work lives. How wonderful it is then that we are going to spend time with the one and only Hiro Boga today. Hiro and I have worked in the same circles for quite some time — I admire her approach and respect the reverence with which she approaches ALL facets of life. Soak in her wisdom!

In Her Own Words:

Writer, teacher, business strategist, and energy alchemist, Hiro Boga teaches transformational programs and mentors creative women who want to shape a world in which soul and entrepreneurship, passion, and profit walk hand in hand. For the past three decades, she has helped thousands of clients and students reclaim joy, freedom, success, and creative sovereignty in their businesses, their relationships, and their lives. As a mentor and teacher, Hiro blends transformative energy technologies, the magic of a story, and grounded spiritual practices with pragmatic business strategies. Hiro offers two signature group programs each year: Become Your Own Business Adviser and How To Rule Your World From The Inside Out: The Art Of Inner Leadership.

She also works privately with a select few creative entrepreneurs and visionary leaders to unfold the miracle of their lives and businesses. Explore her online Deva Cards, and a wealth of other free resources at HiroBoga.com Connect with her on Facebook, & on Twitter @HiroBoga

One of the descriptions of your work is “energy alchemy.” What does that mean?

Everything that has its being in our three-dimensional world, emerges from patterns and potentials held in the subtle energy realms. In other words, our physical world is intimately interwoven with the subtle energy matrix that gives birth to it. If you want to create something new (like a business, or a book), or transform a pattern that no longer serves you, the most powerfully effective way to do this is by working with the subtle energy matrix from which it arises. Energy alchemy is a set of skills, practices, and above all, relationships through which existing patterns are transformed, new patterns are created, and dreams and wishes are given concrete shape and form in the physical world. I help people articulate and create their soul’s deep desires in ways that seem miraculous, but that is grounded in the practice of energy alchemy.

Something I really enjoy about your work and the particular way you express your gifts is your focus on business. I think much of the time we have this sense of: “My soul work is over here and my business is over there.” What is the connection between business and soul knowing for you?

Business, too, is a physical creation that has its roots in the subtle energy realms. Your business has its own soul essence, its own life, which is separate from yours. The pattern for the perfect unfolding of your business’s life is held by its Deva. But its Deva (or soul, if you will) cannot act in the physical world without you. Your business can only come into being when you choose to partner with its Deva to bring it to life. You lend it your desire, imagination, creativity, heart, time, money, energy and resources, but ultimately it is a soul creation – a collaboration between your soul and its soul. North American culture creates artificial divisions between soul and body, soul and business, soul and “the real world.” This severing of soul connection from daily life is at the root of the epidemic of loneliness, isolation, despair, overwork, stress, fear, and violence from which our society suffers so profoundly. The truth is, everything is an expression of the soul. Our bodies are made of the same soul stuff as our souls. Our businesses are made of the same soul stuff too! When we meet our businesses with open hearts, as expressions of love and wholeness, we grow businesses that are in harmony with the inner pattern of their being. And, through our businesses, we serve wholeness in the lives of our clients and customers. Through our businesses, we help grow a culture of love, peace, creativity, abundance, safety, and delight in which everyone can flourish. Growing a business in this soul-infused way is a lot like raising a child. Rather than imposing your vision of who your business should be, when you meet it as a living soul, with deep love and respect for its sovereign being-ness, it becomes your joy and privilege to help it to grow into its own best self.

I love cards — tarot, playing, Lenormand, and oracle cards. Tell me about the Deva cards. How did they come to be, and how are people working with them?

I love cards too – they are portals through which you can enter and play in the subtle energy realms sensually, intimately. I first created them for the folks who participate in my programs – initially, as a way for them to connect with their deepest desires and intentions, and to meet and partner with the Devas of soul qualities that could best help them fulfill their desires. One of the main principles we practice in all of my programs is that you create by becoming the person who embodies your creation. So to create a prosperous business, for example, you infuse your own inner being with prosperity. You become part of the activity of the Deva of Prosperity. My deeper purpose, in creating the Deva Cards, was to offer a simple, easy and playful way for people to develop deeper relationships with the Devas. These are beings of tremendous power and radiance. Their presence infuses our world on every level. As we get to know them, we begin to understand the depth of what’s possible for our planet when we partner with the Devas to co-create the world in which we want to live. People are working with the cards – and the Devas whose presence infuses the cards — to grow themselves; to become more resilient, more trusting of themselves and the world around them; less reactive, more creative. They are growing healthy relationships with family, friends, colleagues, and customers. They are growing vibrant, prosperous businesses that support them in living in harmony with their own being, and in harmony with their world.

Become Your Own Business Adviser is an offering that I have heard stellar reviews about. How did it come to be and what does it help people accomplish?

This program emerged from my thirty-plus years of teaching, research and exploration into the nature of desire, power, business as a force for good, and the methodologies and relationships by which we shape our lives, and the world around us, as conscious creators. I’ve spent most of my adult life as an entrepreneur. To me, entrepreneurship is a sacred calling — a living expression of the creative power of the soul at work. I see a profound need, among our tribe of creative entrepreneurs, for practical skills in working with subtle energy to grow soul-infused businesses that emerge from, and support, our deepest values. Without that, being an entrepreneur can become an exhausting, scary and lonely journey. People get lost in all the hype around marketing and sales, money and systems. There’s so much “Do this! Do that!” that drowns out their own inner voice and leaves them depleted, disconnected from their own sources of wisdom and nourishment. I designed this program as a way for folks to come home to themselves; to trust their own wisdom; to develop discernment about their own values, and clarity about the kind of business they want to create. The program is designed to help them make decisions from a place of sovereignty, strength and inner guidance; to learn energy alchemy skills and build lasting relationships with the Devas of their businesses. In the process, they discover that doing business in this way changes everything.

If you could give one piece of wisdom to my readers today, what would it be?

Trust yourself. Trust your soul. Trust the Love that brought you here, into this beautiful, complex, bewildering life. You are a living expression of the Sacred. You are in constant relationship with everything around you. You are safely held; you are loved. You are powerful and wise beyond anything you can imagine. Trust the wholeness of which you are apart. Trust that you are safe. Trust that everything you need is already within you, like a seed or potential that you can nurture into full bloom. When you’re faced with a choice or decision, ask yourself: If I trusted myself — right here, right now — what would I choose? In your deepest heart, you know what you want and you know how to become the person whose life includes it.

magic, miracles: receive my lunar letters

ARRIVING on full moons each month.

20 Question
Tarot