I had a Vision
I was climbing an old high mountain trail, looking over the vast Earth. Though it was day, I could still see the infinite cosmos sprinkled with diamond and sapphire stars and swirling galaxies, all threading together in a flow of interdependency. I looked out and saw that the Earth was one vast living system connected within the cosmos. I saw ecosystems merging into one another in an immeasurable energetic web of life in which all species, including human beings, participate. I realized that the jeweled earth was beyond beautiful. Taking a deep breath, I felt an amazing warmth and peace as I understood that just to be alive was miraculous.
I walked along the rugged mountains, following no path but my own curiosity. As I climbed along knife edges on top of granite peaks, I wove through summer woods while listening to birds singing, streams caroling, the chimes of trees and wind, and felt rich soil texture beneath her feet. Seasons passed like minutes, and I saw summers pass into autumn, snow cloaking the earth while everything seemed to expire into a white desert. Yet, the earth kept spinning. Springs arrived, new beginnings were rebirthed, and life streamed again. The seasons spiraled in an endless pattern; life and death threaded together in a wondrous mosaic of a living mandala.
Finally, I climbed and climbed to the top of a great mountain. From here, it was easy to see that there are no countries, divisions, or hierarchy. In clarity, I saw that all flow together, all is needed, and nothing stands alone. All is and has ever been wholeness.
As I watched the unfolding, the past mingled with the present. I couldn’t tell if this was a dream, a vision, or real as I stood there watching the unfolding arising. Appearing before me were thousands of indigenous communities. I observed them adapting to various ecosystems, developing cultures, and living in ways that connected them deeply to nature. These groups of people lived differently based on the ecosystems in which they lived and the community they dreamed of together. Some were more peaceful and some more violent. They sometimes pushed against each other’s boundaries but never with annihilation as a goal. Many of these communities had no concept of ownership. They moved with the rhythms of the Earth, rarely staying in one place. They lived this way, changing their ecosystems over thousands of years.
They didn’t seem to have the pervasive anxieties, traumas, addictions, or violence that our culture has shown. I observed examples of this. I saw Columbus meeting the Taino people for the first time. Before he and his men brutally enslaved and murdered them, he said they were the friendliest people he had ever met. “T]his people has no religion nor are they idolaters, but very mild and without knowing what evil is, nor how to kill others, nor how to take them, and without arms…” I then saw Hernando Cortes who, with his men, destroyed the entire Aztec Civilization. Cortes, the conquistador of Mexico, said, “We Spanish suffer from a strange disease of the heart, for which the only known remedy is gold.” I saw that this was emblematic of the great disparity between how indigenous peoples and our culture’s people are educated to see the world.
Next, Black Elk rose silently out of the mountainside. He looked around with sadness in his eyes. He shared, “The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us…..” He then said, “I could see that the Wasichus [white man] did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation’s hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. This could not be better than the old ways of my people.” He then disappeared back into the earth. As this part of her experience disappeared, I saw how these indigenous communities illustrate how humans have the potential to live in balance with the world around us.
And then what I was seeing shifted into something insidious. I saw a culture emerging out of the fertile crescent, and it began devouring the world. Their children were molded and educated into suffering beings with beliefs of separation. From this ideology was the birthing of hierarchy and psychological fear. So many of the people molded into this culture acted out their suffering upon each other and the planet as they became adults, for they were ignorant of their conditioning.
I saw blood pouring out of the earth as this culture consumed continent by continent. Blood of earth, the blood of animals, plants, and trees, and any people that came across their destructive path. This culture foisted its separatist ideology upon its children, forcing them to follow its authority and decrees and forged their psyches into fragmentary beliefs and into manufactured workers. Without knowing it, children were led into playing out their conditioned role in society’s system no matter their class station. Children had no choice but to follow unless they wanted to feel the wrath for going against the grain. The culture, overstepping the bounds of place, and producing more food by taking more land, grows like a malignant tumor.
The people of this culture thought of themselves as dominant, having the right to all the earth’s resources and the power to control and manipulate nature. They poisoned the skies and rivers, tore down forests, and made them into deserts. They imprisoned animals perpetually and abused them until they slaughtered them for food. They destroyed any creature that wandered across their crops. The leaders of this culture made excuses for the cancerous growth by calling it progress.
I saw genocide after genocide with insidious proclamations and hollow excuses. They wanted every inch of the land, so they would devour every indigenous community they encountered. I saw many people turning their heads and ignoring what was happening or participating without stopping to think about what they were doing.
I saw this culture create a multiplicity of oppression. A hierarchy that feeds off of conflict, violence, and disorder as it breeds injustice. It craves more and more greed and ignorance stemming out of its roots of separation. This culture, energized by fear, continued to produce and manufacture more and more sophisticated weapons to kill and defend.
They followed a known creed. Hate begets hate. Violence creates more violence. And instead of stopping to ask what we were doing and pausing to question, people just continued to follow the path of ignorance and let the leaders of this culture rush them toward a cavernous pit. This culture fed off of isolating people from each other and nature, isolating themselves in despair, and then blinding them through a maze of work, entertainment, and war. In this way, I saw this culture spin so many people into the web of its collective neurosis.
Yet, amidst all this, I saw many people questioning this society, trying to break free and wake people up from their relentless sorrow. They spoke up against the grave injustices calling for us all to wake up and change our course. Even though speaking out against injustice could get one killed, voices continued to rise. I saw that every voice mattered and everyone brought unique skills to help wake us up from this maddening dream of despair and systematic oppression and violence.
And then I woke up. It was as if I had a fever. My hands were clammy, tears flowed down my cheeks, and beads of sweat dripped down my forehead. Did I wake up from a dream in which I was sleeping? Or did I wake up from the dream in which I was living? Were they different? Understanding spread to where it contained all. Clarity arose. I saw clearly that I couldn’t wait for change to happen. I knew in this presence that awareness is.
Learning is.
Wonder and curiosity empowered me to look and question everything to see what was actually true.
Here, as days and nights drifted together like the tai chi mandala, my ignorance began to shed, beliefs dropped away, and my enculturated thinking was seen for the suffering and divisiveness it is. As there was no place for thought to be, quiet entered. From here, the right action came into being, and there was no choice left to make. Instead of reacting to problems, which are part of our cultural paradigm, one can act out of love and compassion. I met people and saw them in their holiness; no matter how dysfunctional or stuck they were, for in that place, I saw the whole of them, and love poured through. From this place of freedom, I understood that releasing our cultural dogma and the idea of separation is when she acts rightly; otherwise, it will still be part of her dysfunctional, conditioned thinking. Within the confines of dysfunction, even if I think I am doing good, I will create more harm.
Waking up is stopping and being present to what is. In this place, thoughts die down, and we see no separation; everything is interconnected, and wholeness is the source of it all. From here, I act, and from this action comes love and goodness.
I knew that it is possible for every human to wake up from this bad dream our culture has taught us and begin to live in vulnerability, love, compassion, inclusivity, and community, and in flow with the wild ecosystem that we live with. From this place of trust, we would see our children differently and let their wonder and innate curiosity lead the way to learning. We would see all other creatures differently, and see that they have every right to life as we do, and that in no way should we ever enslave them.
If we can simply pause and stop running, stop reaching out of ourselves, and stop thinking that success, materialism, and becoming somebody will make us feel better, then we can begin to wake up instead of staying blind to who one is, I thought. We are running in the wrong direction. We are already at home. Our enculturated thinking has just clouded over our wholeness and wonder. By stopping and seeing that a deeply dysfunctional culture has taught all of our thinking, we would see that we no longer need to hold onto those thoughts. Our culture is about holding on, attaching, and escaping from presence.
Wholeness is about letting go and being present. By letting go, we let go of everything that deceives us from who we are. I knew that we are not what our culture tells us we are. Waking up is not in gain but in complete annihilation of everything false. Here is freedom for there is no psychological fear. Here is love for all is oneself.
