Recently, one of my friends and a member of the Texas Circle, made a comment about navigating the divisiveness between segments of the America public. “We’ve gotta watch everything we say.”
She alluded to how difficult it is these days to converse with others across the new cultural landscape without triggering hidden mines—emotional judgements that might put us in one camp or another simply because we dare open our mouths and speak our truth.
I was glad to hear this woman speak aloud to me the difficulties that we frequently face. In lieu of a big hug, I gave her a heartfelt smile. I felt for her. Today, it can be difficult to live our core values, especially as women. Truly caring, compassionate people innately feel the drive to connect, touch, and nurture through words and facial expressions. Now our faces are seldom seen in public and our words when spoken, are judged, often harshly, to put us in what others decide is “our place”.
If only these chasms between people were gone. Unfortunately, astrologers predict the judging of one another becomes more radically righteous in 2021, not less. People will feel more isolated and shunned just because their spoken truths don’t match that sanctioned by society as a whole.
I don’t know what I said that day in response to my friend’s consternation about being judged. But in my mind, I whizzed around the Wheel of Memories, as I often do at my age, and alighted on wisdom gained while living in the tribe decades ago:
“Welcome to living in a sub-culture…” –––Dallas Chief Eagle
“At the start of the next [21st] century, the government will turn all of you into Indians.” –––Roger Buffalo Head
(Think parallels between: natives being forced to wear white people’s clothing one hundred years ago, and modern people being forced to wearing masks in public; natives forced to stay on reservations a century ago, and ‘moderns’ forced now to stay at home; the high number of natives dying from typhoid-infused blankets in the 1800’s and the high number of moderns dying currently.)
And finally,
- “Every thought (think: spoken word) is a prayer.” –––Ancient Grandmothers
This last bit of acuity comes to my mind often. It suggests the remedy to what ails us is inside the heart and soul, not the outside world. To heal we might concern ourselves with how much thought we put into what we say. Are our thoughts always—or mostly—filled with material world maladies, political or otherwise. It’s up to each of us as individuals to take measure and restore balance in our minds. In our thoughts.
If we find ourselves judging others for what they do or say, (we all do it!) we’re being given a signal: time to clean up the mind space—the inner self, not the outer environment. That’s where the most deeply-seated (think: -seeded) contagion, as prolific as any material world virus, grows among us. We need to remind ourselves: every thought is a prayer.
My prayer? The thoughts spoken aloud and shared between us are watched, guarded diligently while still in our heads, so we don’t get put into any camp or category by others, especially people who are overly judgmental or self-righteous. Doing so, we keep attitudinal chasms from widening. And eventually stitch together the space torn apart by hatred and violence in all its forms. It’s not a bad thing, this “we gotta watch what we say.” Like the Dakota Grandmothers, I’d like to see that mature to become “we gotta watch what we think.” Negative words spoken aloud and those silently held can be just as toxic in the astral realms.
Most people I know are part of an emerging segment of society that wants to truly heal the rifts that tear us apart. Perhaps we’re only a small percentage of people that aren’t self-righteous, and honestly hope to see tolerance blossom and grow. Good for us! Once we recognize thoughts are prayers, we can accept the idea that if we are gentle in our thinking, at least some crises in the human family might actually abate.
At any rate, it’s the woman’s way to handle difficulties. We meet disasters with nurturance; soothe the nerves and calm the fears, and then, adversities show us the opportunities inherent within them. Seems like a tall order in a society where the most aggressive actions and loudest howls grab the media’s (and therefor, the public’s) attention. But, to the few who are on board and grappling with the finer levels of rampant disharmony, let me repeat the words of Dallas Chief Eagle: “Welcome to life in a subculture.” A subculture where we learn to watch what we say and think, and in so doing, find not repulsion or frustration, but satisfaction—at contributing to the world’s much-needed recovery.