Nurture All Life

I was at Shamanic Journeying and Sweat Lodge workshop and a young woman was telling me about her emotionally abusive husband. I listened and asked questions hoping to prompt her to think about things in a different way. She carried on and on about her grief and there came a point when I ran out of questions and then couldn't listen anymore and walked away. Later, in the sweat lodge, as we were going around the circle and stating what we wanted to let go of, she said she wanted to let go of self-hatred.
I was totally shattered when I heard that. What a fool I had been. Immediately I realized what I had done, and when it was my turn, I vowed to let go of the need to analyze everything. This woman didn't need me to help her understand what to do. She knew. What she needed from me was a shoulder to cry on and a friend to hold her close and tell her she was loved - she was so beautifully lovable.
There are rarely easy solutions to life's problems, but there can always be welcoming arms. She was in deep pain, and I walked away from her because I didn't have an answer for her. Part of me felt inadequate for not knowing how to help, part of me felt superior for having figured out my life, yet none of me felt at ease in my own skin. All I could do was let the magic of the sweat lodge readjust me back to my centre.
"When you feel confused," offered the leader, "sing, dance or chant. That's what the elders taught me. Me, I'm just a baby. What do I know? But the elders – including the earth, the stone people, the tree people – they know. Sing, dance or chant and they will hear you." And so I sang, cried and sweated and in the cleansing found my place of peace again. Before she left, I gave the young woman a big heart-felt hug and my email address.
What I've come to know is that my time for analyzing is over. It's helped me get where I am today but no longer serves me. We are in a time of crisis in our planet, in our culture, in our community and in our homes. What more do we need to understand? The answer has been laid out before us already by philosophers, scientists, artists, theologians, mothers and fathers and it is: respect and nurture all life. That's it. It's that simple. Before we can do that, however, we need to help each other let go of the barriers that prevent us from being who we were born to be. The grief, the self-hatred, the fear, the anger, the pain: let's hold each others' hands and help each other let it all go so we can get on with being who we were born to be.

Last time, I wrote about having to find a new home for my giant puppy. There was something inside me saying I was trying to whittle a square peg to make it fit into a round hole, and that just didn't feel right with me. Here's an edited letter we got back from his breeder:
Amik is doing great. He has been introduced to all of the alpacas and my other dogs and he loves to be around them. I think you may have been right about him needing to be around other animals in a working environment.
I have him running loose outside with me when I am out there and he is listening well. He has not growled yet at us or the other dogs, and my one shih Tzu (all of 6 lbs) plays endlessly with Amik and she can get really annoying jumping and such, but Amik loves her and just rolls over to play with her. He is very gentle with her.
All doubts were released when I read that. Amik was freed and so was I.
There are others in this community who know of the all-embracing love of which I write. For instance, Janice Crawford, of Jan's Hair Affair, was diagnosed with cancer in November and had to give up her livelihood in order fight back. Her friends and family saw that she was wasting precious energy worrying about her finances so set up an account to accept funds. Many of Janice's customers responded and that has tremendously lifted her spirits. The rounds of chemotherapy aren't as lonely knowing others are encouraging her on.
It doesn't matter what we have or what we know; it only matters that we respect and nurture all life. We can always offer patience, kindness and a hot drink, and that's what aching hearts truly want…a shoulder to cry on, someone to witness the tears and the hope that comes from such caring.


The Highlands Communicator was created to generate good news, so if you have any stories you'd like to share about people whom you've helped or how you have been helped by others, please send them to me and I will include some in my upcoming columns, which will henceforth be called Dancing Along the White Trail.

Janice Crawford benevolent fund: TD Branch 3042, account # 6250975
whitetrail@distributel.net