Taking Back Our Shadows

Below is the jist of last nights Vessels of Peace meditation...it feels appropriate to share this message further.

An experience of connecting with Africa through a series of meditations has shown me how I as an individual am responsible for the state of affairs in the world around me. At the outset I felt no sense of connection to Africa. Using the words communion, communication and community as our guidelines we examined world attitudes toward Africa. I realized they were my own. I sat for a week with the uncomfortable feeling of how perceiving Africa as a resource to be exploited, and currently as a needy third world country creates the Africa of today. I felt clearly how my own unexamined attitude contained an emotional charge that contributes detrimentally to the situation I have the attitude about. I create and fuel a destructive shadow within myself and of the people, places or things I put my attention toward.

During one of the meditations we were led to follow the thread of people who had been stolen and sold from Africa to be enslaved in North America; through immersing myself and becoming one of the enslaved, sharing the crushing pain I was able to extend a sincere apology back down the timeline. Without immersing myself in the pain and agony and owning that part of me that committed the atrocities at the same time, there could be no sincerely felt apology right now where the power lies. And for me, a feeling of real connection with Africa began the moment I asked for forgiveness.



Events in Myanmar/Burma and China these last weeks have released many souls from their physical bodies. I felt drawn to begin our meditation today with a focus on those souls. We can thank them for offering their lives at this time of earth changes and promise them to serve life by learning the lesson they offer. We can stand as witnesses at the bridge between life in form and life in spirit and sing of love with all our hearts.

For the next stage of this journey I would like you to notice how the heart area of your body feels…open, closed, warm, hard, or soft…take a moment to feel your heart…. we will need to each call up an image of a rose. …not a closed bud, nor a completely opened rose…but a half unfurled rose, a red, pink or yellow rose. Imagine that rose breathing with you, as you breathe in the rose unfurls a little, and as you breathe out…it closes up again. As you breathe in your rose unfurls a little…as you breathe out it closes a little…breathe like this for a moment…now visualize your rose hovering over the heart area of your body….and gently invite that rose to descend into your body….to create a heart rose. Spend a few moments glorying in the rose of your heart. (Many thanks to the Grandmothers and Sharon McErlane for sharing the rose of the heart meditation with the world)

Now we are asked to invite the Generals of Burma/Myranmar who are unable to open their hearts into the rose of our hearts that they may experience the strength, compassion and wisdom of peace that resides within us. We can witness their fear, mirroring peace. We can thank them for their role in awakening mankind and with the assistance of a violet light, shower them with that strength, compassion and wisdom of peace.


Now there are many other names and faces that I/we need to call into our circle and claim as part of the whole, part of me, part of us. Names like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Khadafi, (add your own names too) people just like me that I have reviled, I now ask your forgiveness. I can see the fear, see through the fear, and mirror peace. I invite the world leaders into the rose of my heart, thanking them for their roles in this awakening mankind. I invite the major power brokers of our time into the rose of my heart, asking them to forgive me for laying blame. I love the bureaucrats, doctors, lawyers and teachers I have formerly disrespected, maligned, and yes, hated. I take back all the shadow parts of myself that I have unknowingly left littered as energy to be employed destructively. I take back all the shadow parts of me that formerly fueled the separation between, I take back all the shadow parts of myself to be loved and healed through forgiveness, not of them, but of my unawakened self.

In committing ourselves to working in a medicine way we open doors that only open for commitment. When we stretch for the strength and courage to open the doors within ourselves that lead to healing within, we chart the way to healing without. We are this century’s wave of explorers charting the world of peace we envision.