Spirituality

Thunder Dog’s Last Ghost Dance

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thunder-dog2

Thunder Dog—mad man of the Blue Mesa—had not been seen in seven days. When on the morning after the eighth night he stumbled into town, the people of Pueblo Blue took notice. Dragging a buffalo hide behind him he sent red dust rising, the trailing pelt masking his foot prints with the tracks of its wide sweeping folds. As he walked towards the village well, Thunder Dog sucked his empty gums, his blind eyes fixed on the cloudless sky. His feet alone felt for the worn path to water. Thunder Dog had been born in the rainy season in the year of the bad snow but he could no longer put a date to the event and thus had lost his age. With his tangled silver braids hanging down his bony sides, his age, some thought, could lay anywhere between 70 and 100 years.

Thunder Dog was half man, half ghost: the only undeniable evidence of his continued existence was his strong voice and distinctive scent. When he spoke the people of the mesa listened, and when the wind caught his tall thin form it lofted the scent of long ago camp fires, crushed sage, and faraway grasslands. He wore a red Hopi shirt, a gift from the village, and an ancient pair of buckskin breaches with the symbols of his tribe stitched into the legs. His feet were bare and callused to the thickness of a hoof. Besides his tattered appearance and fragrant scent, Thunder Dog had a gift: he was a story teller. The moment he had quenched his thirst at the village well he lifted his hands for peace, his voice calling out to anyone who would listen.

“I am a Human Being come from across the world and I have seen many strange and terrible things,” he began, stepping backward onto his old buffalo hide like an itinerant preacher stepping onto his soapbox. “I am Thunder Dog, called Many Horses in the Sioux Nation, and I have fought the devils in many lands.” He paused here in respect to his declaration. Little feet came to listen. Thunder Dog folded his long legs beneath himself and sat upon the hide. “I was born in the year of the great snow. I saw Conquering Bear fall, I fought Custer at Little Big Horn, I learned the Ghost Dance from Kicking Bear and Short Bull, and saw the killing at Wounded Knee. I knew the land when the Buffalo were many.”

By now Thunder Dog could hear the movement of children sneaking close to touch the buffalo hide. Such a huge brown beast had not been seen near the high plateaus in many decades. Thunder Dog felt the shadow of a form pass between himself and the sun and raised his hands again to speak.

“In the times before evil we ate the buffalo, we made our clothes from the buffalo and we covered our teepees with their thick hides. What is a teepee you will ask? It is not a pueblo made of mud and planted like a tree upon the earth. No, it is a moveable home of hide and pine that smells of sweet grass, earth, and the scent of roasting buffalo meat. That was how we lived then. The teepee and the grass lands were our home.” Thunder Dog looked again in the direction of the sky and was quiet. He felt a tug on his braid, heard a giggle, but said nothing.

Behind shuttered windows women passed shuttles through looms, ground maize to meal, and poured water from jar to pot as they listened. Whether they listened out of interest or respect did not matter. What mattered was that the stories were told, that his people were remembered. Another child pulled his braid.

“You have lived here for all my life Sioux Uncle. Why don’t you cut your hair like a Hopi man?” The child asked, coming to sit beside him. Thunder Dog raised his hands for peace and answered only when the giggling stopped.

“How would Wakan Tanka know me as a Human Being cast as I am among Corn Mother’s people? How would he hear my words? How would he hear my prayers? If I forget myself I will forget my people. If I let their stories die, they die with me.”

“Sioux Nation is still strong in the north, Uncle. You should go home maybe?” A boy shouldered his hoe and walked towards the maize field.

“My village is dead,” Thunder Dog called after him, “and I will die among strangers. Believe me, I am the last Sioux of the Piney Wood and I will tell you my stories.”

Thunder Dog’s stories grew and changed like the seasons. Sometimes his friends were ambushed by monsters, sometimes they fought in the open like braves. Sometimes they fought Custer, and sometimes they fell at Wounded Knee. Either way the children listened, grew quiet, and saw what the blind man had seen.

“How did an old Sioux warrior come to live on the pueblo?” Father Francis of the Church of the Immaculate Heart asked, his eyes fixed on the old man. The young priest had come to buy blankets to sell in the mission shop but was more interested in the old man’s talk.

“Some kind of mix up at the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” Mildred Corn Daughter told him, folding a blanket as she spoke. “Bad papers can get an Indian in a lot of trouble.” The priest only nodded.

The people of Pueblo Blue had accepted the old Sioux with his bad papers but his shifting stories of war, monsters and devils were far harder to accept. For one thing he could not be old enough to remember the first battle of the Sioux Wars. So they made up their own stories of how Thunder Dog had come to be among them. Some told tales of how he was prospecting for gold in the Superstition Mountains when he was caught off his rez. Others said he was a scout left for dead in the desert by a band of robbers. One man claimed he was a runaway rebel chief hiding from government agents. Whatever he was, he was stuck in Arizona. The pueblo was small and poor but they had enough food for an old mouth. Besides, the villagers were grateful to Thunder Dog, for his roving blind eyes and wild hair kept the Spanish and the government men away. As the tallest and loudest madman on the pueblo, Thunder Dog had a reputation in the other villages for a dark kind of magic that only the truly mad can know. Because he was feared, no sheep or burro were stolen by Navajo and there was peace among neighbors.

The priest continued to watch Thunder Dog with interest. He’d been warned to watch out for the crazed Sioux, but being Catholic he had a vested interest in devils. “Thunder Dog’s mind is a mess of spider webs. Follow one thread and you’ll find a thousand others, all wandering, lost, wandering like his stories,” Mildred Corn Daughter added, bringing a new pile of blankets to the table. The priest nodded, but asked no more.

In the red dirt of the village center Thunder Dog sat, his face turned to the sun, his mind at ease. He had told the story of his brother’s death in the Mormon Cow War. No one would forget that story and so his brother’s memory would live on. Thunder Dog ran his fingers rhythmically over the thinning fleece of the buffalo hide. Here and there a shadow passed across his skin, stopping the sun’s warmth for only a moment. When one shadow lingered long, Thunder Dog raised his hands, smelling a bowl of rabbit, beans, and corn meal.

“Eat, Uncle,” Maria Walks Far said. Her shadow, broad and womanly, cast a coolness Thunder Dog could not mistake.

“You are like Yellow Feather, my last wife: generous, thoughtful and round as a summer woman.” He reached out a hand towards her but caught only the breeze from the hem of her skirt.

“I thought your wife was called Annie Red Moon,” A boy asked, rolling a small stone through a pattern cut into the dirt. Thunder Dog shook his head and frowned. Setting his bowl in his lap he raised his hands for silence though only the boy remained in attendance.

“Annie Red Moon was my first wife. She was lean like a hard winter but bore many sons. Annie Red Moon was a gift wife from a northern tribe. She could cut down a hundred lodge pole pines, raise a village of teepees and bear two sons all between sunrise and sunset. And though she ate and ate she never grew fat like Yellow Feather. No, never has such a woman walked the earth before or since.” Thunder Dog shook his head, his matted braids swinging into his bowl. His old hands rose again, this time to cover his face. “I see them as they were. Though they are no more than dust now, they live on in here.” Thunder Dog struck his bony chest, the force of the blow making a hollow thumping sound. “But who will remember?”

“I will remember.” The boy struck his chest as Thunder Dog had. “I will remember their names.” Thunder Dog nodded his thanks, memorizing the soft pitch of the boy’s voice, the sweet scent of youth rising up around him.

When Thunder Dog raised his bowl again it was spiced with the peppery flavor of black ants. Thunder Dog smiled to himself. The boy would remember and the others as well. Yellow Feather and Annie Red Moon would live on in their memories, be woven into their stories, and would not die the second death of the forgotten.

The wind shifted as the day grew cool with coming night. Father Francis loaded the last of the blankets onto his mule, glancing occasionally at the Sioux. Thunder Dog lifted his eyes and stared blindly at him. The scent on the breeze troubled Thunder Dog. It wasn’t of corn or sweat or dust, but of a sweet smoke, more rich with oil than a desert flower. When the scent became a shadow, Thunder Dog reached for his knife.

“What are you?” he asked the shadow who came to sit on a low adobe wall beside him.

“Don’t you know me?” The shadow asked in Father Francis’s voice. “I come here to buy blankets.”

“What is that scent?” Thunder dog pointed at the shadow. It laughed.

“Incense I suppose. But never mind that. I heard you say you have fought many devils! Tell me, are your devils red and scaled or do they wear white skin and uniforms?”
Thunder Dog did not relax his grip on the knife. Though he’d lost his blade in the great surrender he felt the shadow of the weapon where it hung heavily at his side.

“I have no story for the likes of you. You are not a Human Being.”

“But I am as much a human being as you are.”

“Then you are half ghost. My stories are for the living.”

“How did you come to live among the Hopi?” The priest persisted. Thunder Dog rose to his feet, towering over the incense scented shadow. He drew his great knife and held it out before him. In his mind’s eye he saw late summer sun glint off the blade.

“I have spoken white man. Be warned.”

The priest laughed at Thunder Dog, his rolling laughter echoing off the pueblo into the distant canyons. “Your hand is as empty as your stories, old man,” the priest said. “You have fought no devils.”

Long after the priest had gone and the sun had set Thunder Dog remained in the village center. He listened as windows were covered, fires crackled, and people spoke in hushed tones, yet he did not seek shelter. In the seven days spent in the desert, Thunder Dog had eaten very little. He’d walked night and day praying for a vision that would help all Human Beings. The vision Wakan Tanka sent was of Grey Fox crying in a lightning storm. Grey Fox was wise. He was a messenger sent from Wakan Tanka and yet Thunder Dog felt his faith slip. Was he still a Human Being? Did Wakan Tanka hear his prayers? Had he dreamed up Grey Fox in his madness or had he really had a vision? A deep well of grief overtook him. He had fought so many battles, protected so many villages, and yet the white men still came, still took, only now they also laughed. Thunder Dog felt his age hanging on his bones, the cold chill of the night stealing into his chest, rattling his soul. I have lived so long and come so far but for what? Raising his blind eyes starward he prayed again for a way to help all Human Beings find peace.

Short Bull and Kicking Bear had brought the Ghost Dance to the Lakota Sioux in the belief that it would cover the white people with earth, raising the Human Beings high above the world. Lost brothers and sisters from all tribes would live again and the buffalo would return to the plains. Thunder Dog, once called Many Horses, had danced the Ghost Dance. He’d prayed to Wakan Tanka for the unity of all Human Beings but the white man still came and the tribes were divided.

Thunder Dog rose stiffly from his buffalo hide. He shook the dust from its well-worn folds and swung it over his shoulders. Lifting his hands palm up, he prayed to Wakan Tanka for answers. A slow shivering chill ran up his legs, numbing his connection with Maja Earth Mother. I need more time to understand, he prayed, stomping his feet to restore feeling. In his heart he heard the battle song of Crazy Horse rise until it was a whisper on his lips. Wakan Tanka, the great mystery is unfathomable, unknowable; who am I to question my vision? And yet doubt remained. Slowly and with great respect he let the song rise from his lips into a chant, the words moving his feet into a rhythmic dance.

As his voice grew, Pueblo Blue listened. Doors opened and the people watched the lone dancer singing in his native tongue. One man got his drum, another his flute. Thunder Dog, once called Many Horses, was dancing and his voice called to them all. They came with masks and with rattles, ankle bells, trumpets, and rasps. They danced and sang with Sioux Uncle late into the night.

When Thunder Dog’s legs could no longer hold him, when his hands could no longer grasp the buffalo hide he wore across his shoulders, the old Sioux leaned against the adobe wall of Pueblo Blue, and listened to Corn Mother’s people. They chanted Crazy Horse’s song even though they did not know the language. They did it for Thunder Dog, for his lost people, and because no Human Being should dance alone. As they danced the air grew thick with clouds. When the first rain drops fell Corn Mother’s children rejoiced with loud cries of gratitude, for the summer had been long and dry. The dancing grew wilder, more energetic, more filled with life. In the rumble of the coming storm, Thunder Dog heard a young brave call out in the voice of Grey Fox, screeching the, “HOWWW. . . HOWWW. . . HOWWW,” of the silver dog. Thunder Dog raised his hands to Wakan Tanka in gratitude as rain drops, like salty tears, washed down his face.

“I have seen the vision, Wakan Tanka. Grey Fox leads me into the storm. I will follow him. I will not die among strangers. Here, all my story will be told.” Thunder Dog pulled the buffalo hide closer around his shoulders, and with the last of his fading strength he rejoined the dance.

Shunning: Psychological Torture

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Unmarried mothers were shunned and left to fend for themselves
Recently I read an article reporting that between 1925 and 1961, 796 children were placed in a mass grave in one of Ireland’s Catholic run, Mothers and Babies Homes. The article stated that the mothers received little care and some women even gave birth unattended. Why were they so mistreated? Because they were seen as “a threat to Ireland’s moral fiber.” These children were the victims of an outdated morality that would rather shun its unwed mothers than support and love them as valued members of their community. The Mother and Baby home closed its doors and sealed its mass grave (a sewage tank buried on the grounds) in 1961.

In 1991, a Catholic girl at my high school had an abortion so her parents would never know she’d had sex. The 90’s were a sophisticated modern decade. We had free choice, free will and the right to make all the mistakes we wanted. Casual sex was the norm and most everyone I knew was going at it like rabbits. And yet, this girl chose to have an abortion because if her parents knew she’d had sex and conceived she would have been shunned, outcast and disowned. Her abortion was not a choice made in free will, it was a decision born of fear, the fear of being outcast, shunned and forsaken by the people who should have loved and supported her no matter what.

Everyone passed the hat to help raise the abortion money. Everyone contributed to the death of this “embryo.” Everyone participated in this act so that a girl could keep her family. No one asked if she wanted the baby? No one asked if she even thought of it as a child growing inside her? I remember how sick the whole event made me. I stood back, watched and wondered what kind of parents raised a child in such fear that she’d rather commit murder then admit to having a sex life, disorganized as it was.
mother and child

Over the millennia, billions of woman have been cast off, incarcerated and killed for moral reasons while their children have been aborted, cast out, hidden away, called basters and abused because no man stepped forward to claim them. Shunning is an atrocity. It’s a manyfold evil that leads to heartbreak, legalized acts of murder and a shame that taints our history and threatens our future.

If all life is sacred and we are the children of an all loving God than why do situations like this ever even occur? I try to forget this memory, this time in my life. I would like to put it on the shelf with all the other outrages and deaths that ran like a red thread through my early existence yet this death refused to stay buried. It welled up inside of me, rattling its cage because of the unconscionable cruelty that created it. Conditional love was the killer and this girl and her unborn child were its victims. Be good or you’ll end up on the streets, be clean or we’ll disown you, remain pure or everything you know and love will be taken from you.

Injustice should never be forgotten and like the mass graves that hold 796 Irish children, this memory will not be buried because conditional love is an evil that has no place in this world. When we practice unconditional love, acts like these don’t exist! Unconditional love does not reject, instead it accepts. It does not shun but gathers its loved ones together because unconditional love creates a community so strong, so entwined in love and acceptance that when the unplanned, or unexpected occurs it reacts with compassion, acceptance and a coming together that reflects what community was meant to be. In a loving and open community there’s room for the unexpected surprises life hands us.

Stories like the mass Irish grave and the girl in my high school remind us why shunning is such a devastating and horrific act. When you practice shame and exile, you abandon both the mother and child to the mercy of the streets or institutional care. We must, as forward thinking people, support the women and children of our community so tragedies like this never happen again. We must gather around new life and love it for coming instead of condemning its existence. After all, if we are all part of a divine plan than surly every life is divinely created, divinely loved and must therefore be unconditionally loved and protected. My prayers go out to all the souls who suffered and died in shame and isolation. Each loss is a failure to teach the beauty of unconditional love and unconditional support in community.
pregnant belly

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The Dance Between Light and Dark: In Theory

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Dance between light and darkThere exists in all of us a potential for light or dark action. All action is energy flowing in reaction to the catalysts that drives us forward in our lives. The question is, do our actions and reactions embrace a light and higher motive or a dark base motive. When a horn honks do we go into rage or do we chose peace, change lanes and avoid the dark hostility that rages behind us. In every moment of everyday we have the opportunity to embrace light and dark choices. Do we confront, argue and fight or do we free, release, and forgive those who would trigger us into likeminded darkness.

Rage, hostility, pain, anger, self-harm and regret are all members of a dark emotional family which feed on one another and anyone who crosses their path. Take one step into anger and you are inches away from pain and regret. Take one step towards forgiveness and you are on your way to healing and joy. As one emotional family sucks you dry another lifts you up and frees you to move forward in life. It’s all a matter of which one you choose.

How do we identify which is the light choice and which is the dark. Light will always feel light in our heart and darkness will always feel heavy like a rock in the stomach. In light action the Ego says little. In dark action the ego says many things. It condemns our failings, our humanity and everything and everyone who crosses our path. When the ego is empowered there is no room for love, friendship and peace because it craves material gain, power and isolation of the individual it haunts.

The ego is darkness in flesh and it prowls around our souls waiting for a bad day, a disappointment, for something to regret. Power is corrupting and the ego loves power, profit is bottomless and the ego will never let you know contentment. Isolation makes you independent of love, of nourishment, of physical touch and the ego loves isolation; for a solitary mind is easily preyed upon. Isolation leads to the end of relationship, the end of love, of communication and of healing. We heal in love, we are understood in communication and we are in love when our energies stream and pour from one heart into another. In love and joy, the ego cannot thrive.

When darkness has won and a soul is lost in self-loathing, addiction and self-harm that soul slips into a darkness so heavy that the light cannot be seen or felt. In reality the light never leaves us. It is all around us asking to be heard, seeking to be seen and loving us whether we know it or not. None of us is ever so lost, fallen or sinful that we cannot be redeemed. Free will has the power to open our eyes to the brightness of a new day, a new life and a new way of living. Every moment of every day we are given the opportunity to forgive, to be forgiven, to be of service, to be of god, to be of hope and light on his earth.

If you’ve fire walked you’ve felt the flames, if you’ve fallen you’ve felt the stones and know how they bruise. We’ve all fallen, we’ve all known pain and we’ve all been given the opportunity and support to rise again and be reborn in a love greater than any we’ve ever known.

Let the white light of the Universe
enfold, protect me
and bathe me in its healing love.
Let this journey be a tool
to bring peace of mind,
love, joy and kindness back to my life.
Cleanse my soul of hurt and bitterness,
resentment, vengeful and judgmental thinking.
Give me balance and serenity
to face each trial with faith,
an open mind, love and kindness.
When I get lost, let the sun shine down
white light to show me the way back
to the path of Love.
Amen.

A Prayer By Susan H.

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The Dance between Light and Dark: In Story

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A dance between light and dark the storyHow many days have I laid here lost between sleep, thirst, hunger, wakefulness and regret? To awaken, to truly open my eyes to this new day feels too heavy, too painful. The rocks beneath my body have left permanent imprints in my flesh and yet I dare not move arm or leg, hand or foot to find comfort. Pain is the sole reminder that I’m still alive. A light lingers in the corner, illuminating one small space in the endless darkness. It finds me where I hide in memory so heavy that to really see its glimmer I must open my eyes and then open my eyes again. Hell’s road may be paved with good intentions but its exit is barred by the lies of false prophets and a forked tongued god.

“You don’t have the right to live!” the voice croons gently in my head, every syllable a bullet in the brain. “You can’t ever go home!”

“What is home?” I question, but the voice interrupts.

“You’ve made your bed!”

I fall back into my bed, into a darkness that does not sleep, the voice coming and going, a murmur one moment, a scream the next. The hours pass in slow monotony until I recall a playground with a swing set. The memory is bright, its light pierces the dark that swarms like flies around me. I am warmed by the memory, my body jerking on its sharp rocks, my eyes opening to the corner where a glimmer still waits.

I remember more bright days filled with sunlit kisses and hugs that lasted all day. I remember smiles that lit my world and the warmth of my grandmother’s kitchen. I cry when I remember her, so beautiful with her silver hair and bright blue eyes. Shifting on my rock I raise my hand to catch the spark of light. How glorious the warmth feels on my fingers, its gentle rays sliding to me from no discernable place. I watch the play of light over my skin but my hand is dirty and the shame of filth is too great to bare. The game ends and I am lost again in regret. Grandma scolds me, her voice imperious with contempt,

“The dirt of childhood is easily washed. Yet, the filth and sin of the fallen can never be cleaned away.”

“Did she really ever say that?” I ask the room but my mouth doesn’t move. The thought lives only in my head. Grandma never spoke like that. Lifting my hand again I catch the light, determined not to lose it this time. Always in my heart there is a place for forgiveness. I forgave the one who hurt me, I forgave the people who watched but said nothing, I forgave the doctors who patched me up and handed me back yet where is my forgiveness?

“Do you deserve any?” The heavy question breaks through my thoughts but the voice isn’t mine, it’s an evil thing; it’s not me.
“You aren’t real. I am!” my words rattle the room. The light brightens. I cup it in my hands to hold it close. The closer I hold it the brighter it becomes.

“You are love” the light speaks softly, “born of love, in love, of love and so loved that you shine always, always, always even in the darkness…” I rest back on my hard bed but do not close my eyes. This truth must be absorbed, held, understood in order to feel real. The dark voice returns, shouting out edicts and condemnation that I refuse to hear because the light is with me, it is all I see and all I chose to think on. It’s soft whisper resonating gently through my soul.

“I am love, born of love, in love, of love, so loved…” and lifting my head I roll to my side, moving through the pain to my knees until the light encircles me. It is warm, loving, never failing in its comfort.

“Light be with me always.” I speak my words as a prayer feeling the darkness shrink away with many whining, whispering complaints. That dark voice, with it’s imprisoning words of judgment slides to an incoherent echo. The light draws me in and I am comforted by its softly spoken words.

“Turn to me and I am there. Find me and you find the way home. hear me and know that I am the light of love as you are the love that seeks the light.”

With these words the light and I are one kneeling being, free to stand, free to walk, free to find care, to find comfort, to live and laugh where the voice that judges the fire walkers and the fallen is silenced and blinded by its own darkness. I’ve walked the long cindered mile. I’ve taken the stony path and slept in a bed of my own making but these bruises, scars and burns have molded me, hardened me, opened me up and made me strong in the knowledge that love awaits me and brings comfort to us all.

Let the white light of the Universe
enfold, protect me
and bathe me in its healing love.
Let this journey be a tool
to bring peace of mind,
love, joy and kindness back to my life.
Cleanse my soul of hurt and bitterness,
resentment, vengeful and judgmental thinking.
Give me balance and serenity
to face each trial with faith,
an open mind, love and kindness.
When I get lost, let the sun shine down
white light to show me the way back
to the path of Love.
Amen.
A Prayer By Susan H.

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Eating Your Emotions Part 2 with Joanne Del Core and EE Orme

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emotional pain

Today I was able to tape the second part of Eating Your Emotions with the brilliant Joanne Del Core.  Recording these radio shows has been an invigorating and emotional process for me.  Thank you for all your support and for taking the time to listen to the shows.

Blessings and Unconditional Love,

EE Orme

 

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Love for the Fallible Human

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bride and groomI didn’t want to get married. The idea that I could make and hold a promise to God and a husband until my death seemed too immense for a girl of twenty three. I didn’t like the paper work, I didn’t want the ceremony. I was uncomfortable with the limitations I knew would arise from the everyday compromise of two people making a life together. I loved Dan and in loving him I felt I had already committed my soul to him knowing I was fallible, human and that someday God might want more from me. We discussed me dread of taking an oath to be bound to him forever before God. I’d seen how oath’s bound the people around me, keeping them from expanding their perceptions and consciousness of the world by keeping them in one mode of living, isolated and ignorant, their lives limited and removed from a vaster knowledge of the world. I didn’t want to share my freedom, compromise my passions and become someone else’s labeled and conquered being sworn before God to always be and due as I’d promised to be and due when still, in all reality, a child. People who are boxed in and unhappy look for escape and the emotional fall out of a broken promise is devastating and painful.

The perception of what it is to exist as viewed through an innocent Orange:

An orange sits on a counter top, it is the everyday type of orange, young and shiny in its freshness. In shape and color and lingering scent it vividly proclaims itself an orange. If in ego it were to swear before God to always be the orange would it remain unaltered, whole and perfect, believing in the strength of its identity? Though the orange believes one reality, one destiny, its fate is very different. Taking the orange up we peel away it’s skin. It is now a naked altered orange but still an orange. Does it feel shame for not remaining as it though it would, true to its youthful innocent nature, the nature it swore to maintain before God? Is it more of an orange or less of an orange now that it stands without the skin that once proclaimed its identity? Lifted, moved and dropped, it is transformed yet again into juice. It is now the essence of orange, its fibrous walls removed until it is free flowing orange, no longer contained by structure. With each alteration, the orange has changed, evolved and become more and less than it was to begin with. Yet if this orange really had proclaimed itself before God to always be an orange is it now in an energetic violation of oath? Has it become the Oath breaker, the liar and pathless turncoat who stands for nothing? Will it suffer mentally and emotionally because of this violation of oath? Will it ever see itself as whole and complete again? Or is it lost now forever?

It is, in reality, a simple orange and we can hope it takes its alteration with the spirit and courage of all citrus fruit. Humans are not oranges. We do not rest in the nature of our alteration, accepting each phase with quiet resignation.

The fallible, sentient human may make a million promises in its lifetime. How many will we keep and how many will we alter, bend and break in order to move with the world? Sadly, when a promise or oath is made and broken, the danger does not lie in the loss of God’s love, but in our leaving the presence of his loving light through our own guilt, our inability to accept change and our fear that we are no longer as good, as pure and as loveable as we were. In these moments we punish ourselves far more viciously than any living creature deserves.

God’s light and love never leave us. His joyful acceptance of our stumbles and falls are like those of a parent watching a beloved baby take its first step. In breaking the oath we become liars to ourselves and our faith and to this God who lovingly only wants the best for us. Thus we fall from grace through an internal struggle that has nothing to do with God and everything to do with self-disillusionment, self-hatred and the failure to meet the expectations of our earthly, manmade social paradigms.

In summation, I can tell you that I’ve kept my word to my husband. I’ve loved, honored and cherished him as I swore I would and I have no regrets. My path has altered far from where my dreams would have taken me and with every thought or plan I make, I must put family first while I make time for myself where I can. Marrying didn’t make our love stronger; it didn’t bind us in any permanent structure that could wipe out the possibility of separation but it has brought a tender loving trust that I would not have experienced outside of marriage. The oath hasn’t kept us safe from the terrors of loss but has made us work harder in our marriage to identify when we act out of love and when we act out of duty. In looking at our motives and perceptions we gain greater insights into each other’s souls and keep our love strong. In marriage we have matured and been stripped of our selfish ideals and self-interested perceptions. In marriage we have gained a life based on service, love and a deep mutual respect that evolves and grows richer with each passing year.

 

EE Orme

 

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Spiritual Winter

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spiritual winter1We are reborn many times throughout our lives. With each New Year we grow and change, becoming more than we were. Time and experience alter us physically, mentally and spiritually. Sometimes these evolutions are brought on by joyful happenstance and sometimes they occur through a trial of pain, illness, loss, or grief.

Early last year, my life came to an abrupt halt. My energy left me, I lost all my ambition and hope for my writing and wish for an independent career. I experienced what can only be described as a small death. I couldn’t feel God, I lost faith; both in a higher power and in myself. Life dragged on in a never ending cycle of exhaustion. I thought I knew my purpose in life, but suddenly I was no longer sure. Was I a writer even when I’d stopped writing? Was I a healer even when I felt unable to heal myself? Was I a good mother even when I felt too tired to give the care and attention I used to? Was I still capable of being a good wife or even a fulfilled human being? I felt lost in all these questions.

I was in fact experiencing a spiritual winter. Spiritual winters kill everything you thought you were and everything you thought you believed. They wipe your slate clean leaving you empty and purposeless. My spiritual winter wasn’t depression. Instead it came on my like an illness of body and soul, an exhaustion so complete that the garden of my life was buried under ten feet of ice. But was it a death or a rebirth into something more?

Like grief, spiritual winters stop the natural flow of living. Like a cold snap, they come upon you unexpectedly; changing the way you view the landscape of your life. Everyone will experience a spiritual winter in their life. It may come to you in the death of a loved one, the illness of a friend or in a change so unexpected that at times it seems unendurable. They occur in every culture, in every religion and in every corner of the world. But as unbearable as they seem, they often end with a melting away of old ideologies and preconceptions, making way for a spring-time filled with new and unexpected perceptions. When old beliefs die away our point of view opens, becomes vast and new forms of understanding are able to shine forth.

I survived my spiritual winter by letting go of the idea that, “This shouldn’t be happening.” I chose instead to love what is and to return to what really matters in my life: my family, my beloved friends, my country, my planet and my faith. In truth, I embraced everything that is good about living and I let go of, and took action against, the things that endangered the way of life I love. I prayed, I protested, I wrote congress and the senate and I reached out to those with the power to make a change to better our world. In reaching out I made a difference, I took back my strength and emerged more empowered to act than ever before. And you know what? It worked! I have seen the results I prayed and acted for. I have made connections with people who have the same passions and ideals while expanding my perceptions and awareness of this great universe we live in.

We all suffer. We all endure the trials and tribulations set before us to make our spirits strong. That is why it is so important to be tolerant with strangers while we remember that inside each person a great story is unfolding. For good or bad, we are all waging our own battles with ego, self-judgment and the often heavy realities that come with living. My advice to anyone facing a spiritual winter is to take action, ask for help and comfort, return mentally and emotionally to what really matters in your life and remember that we are all, no matter our beliefs, in this together.

 

With Ease and Grace we move forward in Love.

EE Orme

spiritual winter

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The Zing Effect

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I never play the odds. My mind won’t lead where my heart cannot follow. The only time I’m all in is when I feel that special zing of excitement flow through me like a pulse of vibrating electric current. When I feel a good zing it doesn’t matter if I’m backing a sure thing or a three legged pony; I’ll anti up just to see where the game takes me. He wasn’t a three legged pony and he was no sure thing but the cut of his suite, the way it fit his shoulders…yum. I didn’t even need him to turn around to know he was for me. The zing was flooding all through me. I felt it in my chest, flooding to the tips of my fingers. My soul whistled a cat call out through my heart yelling, Honey! I’m right here. No sooner did the feeling fill me but that man turned right around and saw me.

It’s funny the way souls attract. I’m very aware of the moment my soul gets all excited about another person’s soul. It’s the zing that gives it away. It’s the zing that shouts out, Hey you! And that’s why I never play the odds. The odds would tell me he’s sophisticate and I’m self-educated and no way-no how is such a pretty bit of man ever going to notice the woman behind the counter in the polyester uniform. Yet he does because souls don’t care about the superficial. Some say fate holds all the cards, yet I know there isn’t an obstacle in the universe that can counterpoint a good zing. My man lifts up his bag and walks to the counter. I stand my ground, my smile offering unlimited serenity in a sea of manmade madness.

“Ma’am?” he starts off real slow, his eyes down cast, his hand resting on the counter over his ticket. “I’m supposed to catch a flight out to Chicago but the schedule over there says the flights been canceled.”

“Let me check that for you.” Taking up the ticket I type a little and look a little and the zing just keeps on keeping on. On my second glance up I catch his eye and smile. He has pretty eyes; the kind that sparkle all kinds of color all at once. A boring person would call them hazel but I know they’re flecked with gold and bits of emerald green and sea foam grey all jumbled up together. He has nice, nice eyes. “Well…” I drawl out the world a little, my eyes fixed on the computer screen. “It would seem that O’Hare’s shut down due to a blizzard. There are no flights scheduled to Chicago for the foreseeable future.”

“So I’m stuck!”

“You could look at it that way. Or you could think of it as a fortuitous extension to your sunny trip to L.A. We have palm trees and movie stars instead of wind-chill and snow drifts.”

“I could look at the upside.” He nods his head with sober resignation.

“Do you have somewhere you can stay?”

“Not as of yet!”

“Well I know a great little place that always has room for a friend. If you like I could give them a call.”

“That sounds nice.” He studies me a bit. “Your voice is familiar.” His smile is slow and hesitant, the kind of smile that seeks truth and spreads gratefully when it finds it. “You’re from Louisiana aren’t you?”

“New Orleans.”

“I’m from Baton Rouge.” Our eyes catch again and hold for a lingering moment.

“Louisiana’s home.” I shrug and smile enjoying the lingering connection like powdered sugar kisses. “I’m off work in 15 minutes.” The words tumble out from my lips as soft and slow as a shared secret. “Why don’t you meet me in the restaurant around the corner and I’ll buy you a lemonade. It’ll be nice to catch-up with someone from back home.”

“I’d like that.”

When he walks away the zing just gets stronger. I feel it in my knees, in my fingers. Even my toes feel ticklish. The zing is why I never back the odds. Logic and the laws of probability won’t allow what just happened. But a good zing? Now that’s physical proof that God’s got you by that hand and he’s leading you to the sweetest part of the cake. I like living a life of possibility, I like dancing in the unpredictable. I like the joy I feel when life offers me a new adventure all wrapped up in sizzling surprise. Best of all, I like the magic that happens when two old souls attract and say hello all over again.

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The Very Human Need for Experience

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Good and Evil

Good and Evil


I wanted to shelter my son from the world. I prayed away my foul mouth, hid my tears and played happy family with gusto. I wanted his world to be flowery, fun and fantastically clean. I didn’t tell him about my childhood unless I was telling a funny anecdote about a pet or a friend. I socialized him, took art classes with him and enrolled him in a co-op preschool where I could play perfect with other perfect mothers. Right out of preschool we enrolled in a perfect private school where I was sure he would bloom into the perfect prep school boy. In my search for perfection I lost something integrally important to the development of a well-rounded human. That important missing element was a well-developed sense of reality.

As time passed I began to see the holes in the world I’d worked so hard to create. I wasn’t being myself, my friends were drearily superficial and my son was unhappy in his school. Desperate for answers I turned to a book I stole from my high school, an ancient, dog eared copy of Herman Hesse’s, Siddhartha. I love this book for so many reasons. Like many other great inspirational books I can just open it to any page and find a piece of wisdom that will help me with whatever it is I’m facing. That day I opened the book at the beginning. I read of Siddhartha’s mother, her love for her child and her tragic early death. I read about the prophesy, proclaiming Siddhartha to be the greatest teacher of the age. Then I read his father’s reaction to this prophesy. Having just lost his wife and then faced with the loss of his son to a religious life, Siddhartha’s father created a perfect world in which pain, suffering and old age had no place. He imprisoned Siddhartha in a false utopia and robbed him of reality in order to keep him safe. How did Siddhartha react? He ran away in search of answers to the questions his father could neither pose nor answer.

Child in the Garden of Good and Evil

Child in the Garden of Good and Evil

Setting down the book I began to see the holes I’d identified in my parenting open into rather worrying chasms. I remembered the perfect children I’d known growing up, the ones who’d summered at the country club, vacationed in the tropics with their perfect families only to go slumming as drug using collage kids. I started remembering other sheltered kids who’d gone wild with sex and drugs the moment they’d found freedom from the suffocating control of their perfect worlds. Slowly I began to think that maybe by keeping our children in ignorance of pain and suffering we create a vacuum in their experience which will only propel them into a deeper need to experience the very things we try to protect them from. We cannot limit our children’s experience on this earth by sheltering them from a world they will someday have to live in.

So what is a frightened conscientious parent to do? I still only have a vague idea. In my heart I think a parent’s job is to guide a child through the world but not to shelter them from it. I feel that we must discuss even the small details of their day and how their different interactions made them feel. Most importantly we must validate their emotions with empathy, compassion and a willingness to hear while we admit our own feelings, failings and frustrations within the discourse. In other words it is very important that our children see us as loving, fallible humans whom they can trust with their secrets. We live in a tumultuous world of opposites. As much as we hate to admit it good lives in balance with evil and both must be experienced in order to be understood. We cannot end suffering any more then Siddhartha the Buddha did because suffering is a necessary part of experience and experience is the only true teacher. No matter how hard we try, we cannot recreate heaven on earth because that isn’t why we’re here.

Making Peace with Experience

Making Peace with Experience

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The Death of the Guru

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prayer

We’re all searching for something. We’re all looking for the divine answer that leads to the divine escape from chaos, fear, heartache and loneliness. Whether we look for it in relationship, a bottle or a church we are seeking to be more, to be better, to but understood and accepted. When I was twelve I turned to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as my examples of peace. I desperately needed peace in my life, the kind of peace they seemed to embody. At twelve I realized how fully capable I was of violence. At fourteen I became a pacifist in theory if not in reality and I began my slow arduous journey towards a sustainable, compassion based existence. I began identifying and rooting out the evils in my life. First I moved away from home, taking my horse and staying with friends for months on end. At 22 I escaped completely and hardly looked back. By 23 I was married and safe but the hell in my head made a hell of my life. I continued my search for escape until the day I realized that wherever I went…there I was…with all my chaos in tow. I could not escape my problems because I never let them go.

Throughout my many years of searching for truth and forgivness I’ve come to one solid understanding: There is no single person who can fix me. There are thousands of people who insisted that if I just read their books, take their supplements, follow their philosophy or join their ashram I will find the inner peace I am searching for. I’ve had Christians tell me to placed my faith in Jesus and be free of darkness. I’ve had yoga masters promise me that through daily practice with their “Masters” I’ll be liberated, transformed and healed. Doctors have prescribed drugs, supplements and diets to clear my energy body, detox my cells and raise my energy vibrations. Acupuncturists have pocked me with needles, read my auras and told me that with a few more treatments my Chakras would come into balance.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on healing, thousands of hours drinking bitter health teas, popping pills, stretching, praying, meditating only to rise the next morning the same angry person I’d been the night before. So what was the answer? On the eve of my 38th birthday the only thing I am certain of is that I am the only one who can fix me. My belief in the abilities of sage healers is dead. I will never again look to a “healer” for guidance. I have killed the idea of the guru because the wise man is just another person getting through the day. I recently watched the documentary Kumare’ by Vikram Gandhi which verified everything I have come to believe. Only through daily practice of that which feels good, feels right, and serves my highest good will I ever find peace. The ability to heal is within all of us; it’s just a matter of taking time away from social chaos, duty and convention in order to find the small simplicities that lead us into peace. So I meditate, I walk my dog, I stretch, I self-medicate when hell rains down and I pray to God to remove my anger, to help me forgive and to make me a better person. I practice everyday gratitude and I live and love as if each day were my last. If I tell you I love you I mean it. If I love you it’s because I see the light in you, the sparkle God put there and I’m grateful you’re in my life. We are our own wise men, our own holy men, and we hold the keys to our own salvation through love of God and love of each other, tranquility of sprit and the solemn acceptance that we are human: flawed, beautiful, unique and fragile.

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