24 November 2011

On Following the Heart this Thanksgiving

About a month ago, my son came to me, eyes searching to connect with mine, and said, "Mom...? I don't really want to eat the Turkey..." My heart swelled with the Empathy I felt in his voice, and finding that one of my own heart strings had been plucked in Resonance to his statement, I empathically returned, "Yeah, Honey... I don't really want to, either..."
Sometime within the past year he had approached me with a similarly softly and sensitively pronounced statement, "Mom...? I don't really want to eat the Cow..."
Each time he has stated such, something within my own heart has echoed his sentiment. Although our energies are oftentimes very different of course, one thing that we seem to share is a deep empathy and respect for Life, the animals in particular. Not to say that we are vegetarians, but meat has quite a rare presence in our home for sure.
This week has been very difficult for me, as I am sensitive to energies in general, but particularly to the energies of the mass consciousness of the society that I was raised and still live in. "Everyone" getting ready, buying frozen or fresh Turkeys, the frenzied thronging of the grocery stores, the busying the streets.
The conflicts arise inside of me, the battle between- the cultural conditioning I received in my upbringing, and the voice of my own Heart, wherein the Wisdom of God and my higher Self lies. We are taught from a very young age in this world that all Self-Guidance and Inspiration that rises from the Heart must be discouraged in favor of logic, Reason, mental process. However, as one Awakens to and begins to pursue a path of Spiritual Knowledge, no matter what religion it would seem, we are then told to be in Silence and listen to the Heart because that is how we connect with our Mother/Father God. In psychological, self help and healing modalities employed for self transformation and tapping our highest human potentials, we are told to listen to the heart as well for therein lies our Truth...
So where does one go, what does one do when the 'whole world' is busying about celebrating a holiday that their Heart and Highest Self is not in Resonance with?
Because I felt so deeply this conflict of not really wanting to go along with this so called "turkey day", I considered a lot the meaning of this holiday called "Thanksgiving", its history, inherent meaning, and why is is purported to be an occasion to celebrate in this country, and the hows and whys of the dissonance I felt with it.
Thanksgiving was initally a three day event in 1621 because the Pilgrims were so thankful for their first harvest and to the Native Americans who taught and helped them to figure out how to grow food here. The Native peoples showed an incredible amount of Selfless Love and Generosity to "uninvited" settlers in their homeland, even after so many of them had been tricked by the English and taken back to Spain to be sold into slavery. This included Squanto, who happened to be "sold" to an Englishman, and who upon being able to return to his homeland found all of his Pawtuxet people had died of Eruopean plague! I am hoping that the Pilgrims, then, were very much aware of the fact that they all could have died of starvation had it not been for the visit of the Wampanog, Samoset, who had gone and enlisted the help of Massasoit of the Wampanoag, the people that Squanto had joined when he found all his people gone.... Yes, intellectually, I understand all of this- and the reasons that the last Thursday in November was declared a national holiday by President Lincoln.
However, during the many, many decades that have passed since this historic day and since this Proclamation, something has been lost, although I can not be certain if it was even there to begin with, as I was not there. I am speaking of the reverence for the Life that has been taken to nourish the lives of all who are partaking in the meal, that is including the vegetable plants who equally share a yearning of Life's self expression.
It feels as of what this holiday is really about for Americans now (yes getting together with family which of course is nice) is "pigging-out" until one's gut "busts", and then sitting on the couch to watch football. Oh, yeah, and having "leftovers" for the next week.
I think of all of the Turkeys, and how much they must have suffered, been kept in pens, unable to move about, being force-fed and "fattened" on grains and other things that are completely foreign to their natural diet in the wild, how they were mercilessly slaughtered, then packed, frozen, shipped to a grocer, and how many thousands will sit unsold in a grocer's freezer, or rot in a refrigerator case. And really, I just don't want to eat that. Niether apparently does my child. As I have tried in this past week to convince myself that I should do this because "it's what we do" on the last Thursday in November, the conflict inside of me only raged harder.
Because we have so much in this country, there is gross excess as a result of taking way more than is needed. We take more than we need, we devestate the land, as a species, and still there are those who are starving. How can this be?
We waste, thoughtlessly, completely disconnected from the Sentient Life whose Life was taken through the portal of physical death, so we can continue to "live". Though, most humans are not really living, not to the Highest Path and Purpose of their Soul, not according to the Divine songs of Truth that resonate within their Hearts, with the Joy of being alive that is our Divine Blueprint and our Birthright.
We are a society, for the most part, of connive-thrive-drive robots, brainwashed by our corporate controlled government to be obediently submissive to what we are told, which is to not think for our self-to follow orders- "do what you have to do"- to work-consume-retire, for a moment, then die. Nearly every Thanksgiving dinner I have been to in my life was celebrated by rote. I have rarely remembered anyone offering to say Grace, or any prayer of thanks for the food, until I, as I grew older, initiated it- and then the participants bowed their heads mostly to "humor" me, not that I sensed one heart open up to really feel it.
Desensitization is a sickness of the world we live in. We move too fast and use the wrong organ to think. I "wanted" to eat Thanksgiving dinner because that's how I was raised, not because that's where my Heart is. My mind says, "You must do this because it is Tradition." My heart says, "I do not need a dead bird on my table, one day a year, to fold my hands in Prayer and Thank my Creator that I am here, to be Thankful to All of the life that has nourished me and kept me alive on this Beautiful planet."
I do acknowledge that all living things must die in order to support the continuance of Life on this planet. It is the way physical life is set up here. But, I choose not to participate in a Tradition for Tradition's sake, especially if the quiet voice inside of me says, "No." I even tried in one last ditch effort to do what I was "supposed" to do on this day, and offered my son, on our grocery trip yesterday, to buy and roast a chicken. He firmly said, "NO!" WE moved on...
So, today, I choose to be Still, to breathe into and BREATHE OUT my social conditioning, and follow the guidance of my Higher Self, the part of me that lives with God, my Essential Self, the Voice of Which resounds in the Center of my chest. I mean, isn't that what we are all here to do...? Really.
From my Highest Heart, and In Service to All Life, I send
Blessings.
- Ursula Carrie

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