Where are the Wise Ones?

  Looking around at the world at the moment my main thought is “Where are the Wise Ones?” I have just returned from a trip back to my homeland of Northern Ireland. The fraught issue of Brexit was everywhere, with non-stop ‘bun-fights’ between the British Government’s ‘Remainers’ and ‘Brexiteers’. In Northern Ireland, Brexit throws up the possibility of the re-instatement of a ‘hard’ border’ with the Republic of Ireland. It therefore threatens to de-stablise the entire island and severely undermine the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998. And where are the Northern Irish politicians at this most sensitive of times? Now proud holders of the world record for most days an elected Government has failed to sit – over 541 and counting. Mind you they are still all drawing their pay! And while I was overseas of course we had the Australian politics “muppet show” (to quote our latest leader) with a fourth consecutive first term Prime Minister rolled by their own side. And hovering over all this is the dizzying spectre of Donald Trump in the White House. Again I ask where are the adults – where is the wisdom?

  A few years ago I read a wonderful book by Helen Schaefer called Grandmothers Counsel the World. In it she tells the individual stories of 13 Wise Women from indigenous cultures all over the globe and then she expounds their collective wisdom which evolved from their four day summit in 2004. As Schaefer reveals the inspiration for the meeting and book was the fact that "in some Native American societies tribal leaders consulted a council of grandmothers before making any major decisions that would affect the whole community.”

  In contrast there is depressingly little respect shown for wisdom at the moment. Most of what passes for debate today represents two sides of an extreme pendulum swing. People are so married to their narrow and often short term points of view that they will do anything - arguing, lying, fighting and threatening those who see things differently. The mainstream media operating in a 24 hour news cycle offer up brief analysis, if any, before racing headlong to the next headline grabbing story. In depth investigation in the form of science or expert understanding is less highly valued than a 20 something ‘influencer’ who can get thousands of 'likes' for looking ‘hot’ while pouting in a selfie.

  But hopefully this trend is in itself a pendulum swing and we will return one day soon to a place where wisdom is revered and its gathering is the aim of our leaders. Until then it is incumbent upon us to seek out and reward those who are keepers and purveyors of wisdom.

   How do you spot the ‘Wise Ones’? They are not necessarily perfect people, sometimes their voice is raised in powerful objection; sometimes it is quiet but clear. Sometimes it is the calm middle voice; sometimes the slow painful voice of every man and every woman who has bled and suffered. Sometimes it is the voice of a leader drawing us back from the cliff edge of moral, social or physical destruction. Sometimes it is simply the guiding hand of a wise relation saying “I get you and I truly care.”  Often it is the ancient wisdom staring out from the eyes of a child.

  What they have in common is their authenticity, the sense that their wisdom is from beyond them, beyond their ego and the pursuit of power. That they recognise the greater ‘truths’ and are not afraid to utter them, can see the bigger picture and have the strength of purpose to honour the future above personal gratification in the present. Another consistent theme, underscored by the teachings from the International Council ofThirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, is the eternal nature of their message: the awareness of our inter-dependency with every other living creature on this planet and our total dependency on and therefore respect for Mother Earth. An understanding and recognition, also, of the eternal cycles of life…. and the fleeting nature of each lifetime.

P.S If you want an example of what the voice of wisdom sounds like try this You Tube video of  Maya Angelou, American poet, singer, memoirist and civil rights activist reciting her poem A Brave and Startling Truth to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the formation of the United Nations. Or this longer version where Maya introduces the same poem by recounting  how she was mute from aged 7 to 14 years yet her mother always told her she would be a teacher! 

To Need or Not to Need

  I recently broke my ankle and have had to rely a great deal more than I am usually comfortable with on my children, friends and colleagues. As such I have been thinking about the challenges many of us have with seeking/needing support. 

  I feel that a lot of the issues around this span from the fundamental (faulty) belief of our inner child in response to parents who didn’t necessarily meet our emotional or even physical needs when young. Interestingly such conditioning provokes two very different but equally unsustainable survival plans.

  On the one hand we have those whose subconscious belief is that “I cannot survive without the parent.” For them life is spent waiting for the parent to step up, or seeking others to replace the ‘missing in action’ parent. They demand a lot from friends/partners and rarely feel fully safe and supported. At the other side of the pendulum swing (where I have long sat) is the inner child with the fundamental belief that “I must survive without the parent.” Again the parent has failed to provide completely but the response is to ‘not need’. We are notoriously resistant to help and insist on struggling on our own. To seek help is to fail or to set up the possibility of being let down.

  Both are fed by evolutionary instincts. At one end is the biological fact that humans are born at a developmental stage where they cannot survive without significant input and care from the adults, especially the female. While at the other we have the evolutionary driver of the survival of the fittest.

  Both are equally distorted and damaging and both set up patterns which can take years to break. Ironically the end result is the same - both induce feelings of continually being alone and inadequately supported by the world

  The safe and healthy place is of course always in the middle. We have to address the inner child and replace its fear with the knowledge that as adults our survival is not threatened and we can let go of either ‘the need to need’ or ‘the need to not need’. We have to learn to accept that we can survive without the parent/surrogate parent, that absolutely as strong individuals we can get by on our own but equally importantly that, if we open to the generosity of others, we don’t have to.

"Sing Up Australia" Day

Like many I have been nursing a growing disquiet about the date on which Australia Day is celebrated – the date that represents Invasion Day for the first Peoples of this magnificent land. Indeed basically only marks the establishment of a penal colony in Sydney to which many of my Irish countrymen were dragged. A date, I might add on which Australia Day has only been celebrated since 1994.

  I woke up on 26^th January and was instantly aware of a sadness and heaviness in the spirit world. As many of you know I am very privileged to be allowed to work on a spiritual level with Indigenous spirit and I tuned into the Aboriginal Ancestor with whom I mostly work and he asked me to tell the following story. 

  

"A very long time ago there was one land and one vast expanse of water. Then the great divide happened and land mass fell away from land mass as the world re-drew its shape. Over a long time the oceans became themselves and the continents became themselves. As the tribes of man spread out across the land they moved slowly and over long periods of time they spread into each corner of the land, evolving to each climate and habitat. As they went they followed the earth’s energy lines and through these energy lines, the land they walked communicated to them. It told them the way to plants and water, to sacred spots, how to be in communion with the land.

  We became the people of this great  southern land mass and this is how we lived. We did not know that in other lands this knowledge had been lost, that this communion with earth was no longer understood and honoured.

  The energy line grid in Australia was kept in place by my people and honoured up until 200 years ago. We still let the earth tell us what she can give, what should be honoured, what should be sacred, what should be foregone. We evolved as a people to sing to the earth’s energy lines, we evolved alongside them. We knew the questions to ask and the energy lines gave us the answers.
   These energy lines are also the way the earth keeps herself fed and the loss of each one re-defines the energy of those who destroy it, those living on it, the animals and plants who feed off it and earth herself.

  This was our bargain with the land now called Australia.  It was a bond of trust and understanding – a bond that was extremely successful for tens of thousands of years. It was what you would perhaps call a contract.

  When white man came he not only took our land, he took our songs , he took away our ability to honour that contract.

  We were surprised by how little white man knew – knew only to battle with the land to beat it into submission, never asked us how to work it, heal it, tend to it.

  As our contract with the land has been dishonoured we have been powerless witnesses to the animals lost, the birds lost, the habitats lost, the healing plants lost, the water-ways polluted, the fish and corals lost. We see the energy lines fade. We see the energy lines fade.

  That’s why we cry today – not just because it marks the invasion of our land, not just the annihilation of our many tribal nations. On this date our contract with the land of Australia was torn up and thrown away. This date began the end of an ancient way of being that had truly celebrated this land.

  We understand ceremony, we understand the word ‘to honour’, it is part of our culture. We understand the power of many uniting to put their energy and intention into one thing. Therefore we deeply believe in the need for this land to be honoured– that there must be a Day for Australia when all the people of this land can focus on its wonders and beauty and celebrate. But this date is not it.

  Sing with my people on another Date, a Sing up Australia Day. A day to be grateful for all you receive and then to give back – to walk the lines, to feed the energy of the land around you. Ask my people how to say thank you to the land that is Australia, my goodness my friends – you must say thank you."

(On 26 January 2018 it is estimated that 60,000 people protested the date of Australia Day in marches around the country.)