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The Sacredness of All Life
Ingrid Naiman
Yesterday I channeled for a friend whose space is being stalked by a mountain lion. The advice was to make an offering to her in a space far from the sanctuary where she has her animals and tries to shield them from harm. It's a holiday weekend and probably there will be a lot of road kill. If the plan is meant to work, she will be put into a situation in which the offering can be made, but as part of a treaty with the mountain lion whose territory was affected by fires. The mountain lion is in grief and feels that the animals who are cared for by my friend receive more love and protection; she wants this love and protection, but to receive it, she must obey the rules of harmlessness. It was further suggested that the winged creatures be put on duty to warn if the mountain lion approaches as a huntress rather than one herself seeking nurturance.
Animals understand rules. They have
very firm rules with each other and recognize the role of people
and know there will be consequences for trespassing. This said,
we are also trespassers and we have precious little to win the
hearts of our brothers and sisters who live in the wild.
Years ago, I had an invasion of pack rats. I actually never saw
them, but I kept finding their trails and stash. They put bird
seed inside my tape duplicating deck so I figured they could squeeze
through a hole the size of an electric plug. Anyway, the person
who sometimes helped me with my housekeeping asked if she should
send her husband to kill them. She said, there were hundreds. I
said no, I'd try another way. Cindy was incredulous.
I went into counsel with my spirit guides and told them to put
the pack rats on notice that they had six weeks to leave. I gave
them ample time in case any had families. I told them that they
were welcome outdoors, that there were sheltered places near the
warmer walls of the house, spaces in the rock walls that were safe,
areas near the compost that were warm and safe, and that they would
not suffer any harm if they lived outdoors, but they needed to
leave my house. They left immediately and there was never another
problem.
I therefore came to trust that while we constantly try to assess
the place of our brothers and sisters on the pecking order or food
chain on the basis of communication skills, we are using our language
as the test standard, but animals are very communicative without
books and sounds we recognize as language.
The doctrine of ahimsa is
not negotiable. As the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi has said as
part of his work, nonviolence is about becoming the change we
wish to be. It is not a strategy to use at times of crisis and
discard at other times -- or we might say vice versa. We are
not non-violent when it is easy and violent when we allow ourselves
to believe that force will bring about a quick solution. I have
been thinking about this for many years, perhaps many lifetimes.
Whenever we cause something to happen against the will of another,
we disturb relationships and set in motion a cause that will
need to be corrected. Moreover, just as when we throw a stone
into the water, we cannot control the length of time it takes
for the water to smooth out again, so when we set the laws of
karma in motion, we cannot choose when we will have the experience
needed to resolve the karma.
When we decide to kill another creature, we are ignoring the God
that is in that creature. Years ago, I felt I was put to the test
when I was paralyzed for a year by multiple spider bites up and
down my leg. It was excruciatingly painful, simply unbelievably
painful. However, I was then as now a healer. I do not do battle
with illness; I listen to it. So, lying on my sofa in a sort of
reclining Buddha position day after day, I asked to meet the spider
in my inner vision.
Today, in this world of greatly escalated fear and terror, I want
to share what the spider said and a little of how she said it,
and I would hope that someone such as Arun Gandhi would accept
the philosophical ramifications of the story.
The spider appeared first to be slinking, ashamed. I saw her black
back, but I told her I wished to see her eyes and talk to her.
This made her more ashamed, but she raised her head and her body
and I could see the red on her belly. She said she feels rejected
and her venom is the poison that people push as far away as possible
so as not to have to recognize the anger and revenge they feel
towards one another. She said they push it so far away from themselves
that it incarnates as something that appears separate from themselves,
but she said, she is just carrying a part of rejection, she is
not separate from the One Life at all.
She had my undivided attention and went on for a long time explaining
the emotions of love and hate and the energy of rejection that
pushes away what it refuses to accept. After a very long time,
she transformed into a Middle Eastern belly dancer. She was hauntingly
beautiful and interesting, still dressed in black robes but with
red undergarments that sometimes showed as she danced. This is
personally very important to me because one of my unfinished articles
is about the "Scherazade Complex." It's an astrological
article on Uranus aspects to the Moon and Venus. Anyway, the metamorphosis
was important to me. In the appearance as a dancer, the lady showed
that she is interesting, mysterious, and capable of teaching people
about what they hide from themselves. In this role, she drew elaborate
pictures, every bit as wonderful as Leonardo da Vinci's drawings
of man. She superimposed these pictures in layers, similar to her
own dress, and showed how light enters the psyche of human being
and sometimes fragments in the head region because those who are
not responsive to Divine Love develop ego that enables them to
function in opposition to Divine Law. She suggested some therapies
and practices for correcting the misalignment, and then she transformed
into the Mother of the Universe. There, she showed that every star
and sun and planet is connected by etheric webs that she holds
into place, implying that God the Father creates the light but
she maintains the matrices that hold the light in place. The entire
response to my request for an interview took many hours and I tried
to scribble pictures to show what she was explaining. She asked
me to bring her story to the world, and I began doing this through
a series of channeled tapes.
At the time, I was being treated by a therapist who happened also
to be a Catholic nun. I had great respect for her because of her
life choices, and I tend at any rate to prefer to have my body
handled by someone who understands reverence than to have my body
viewed as a system of muscles and chemicals that lack sensitivity
and consciousness. I told Sandy a little about my interview and
she told me a Zen joke about how the essence of others does not
change simply because I have chosen a new quaint way of viewing
them. Her point was, "Ingrid, I'm trying to help you get well.
You start making friends with spiders, and they will kill you.
Recognize that they are who are they are and protect yourself so
you don't get hurt again." This was painful because I was
still in a very subtle energy field as a result of my interview
and I preferred to believe in what I had seen, not in the more
pedestrian view of the Zen master (joke).
So, I put out the word, in much the same way as I had to the pack
rats. I told the spiders that they were welcome in my house so
long as they brought no harm to anyone. They were not to hurt any
of my birds or guests. Soon thereafter, I was in the kitchen, barely
able to stand, when a spider came out from behind the refrigerator.
I decided to have a chat. I said I was glad to meet her but that
the weather was warm now and perhaps she would like to live outdoors
for the summer. I opened the door and she walked about eight feet
to the door, struggled really hard to climb over the threshold
and left. So, I am absolutely convinced that one can communicate
easily with any species.
How do we do this? We always expect them to understand words because
we think we communicate with words, but if you have ever made love
to anyone, you know you communicate with eyes and touch and the
subtle dance of finding the places of harmony between yourselves.
You can use this same loving communication with any species. You
can also invoke your chakra guardians, spirit guides, and subconscious
so that they work together to create the harmony you seek.
I know this is very long, but I am truly obsessed over non-violence
so I want to tell one of the stories of a past life of Gautama
Buddha. In that incarnation, tears welled up in the eyes of a goat
that he was about to kill. He asked the goat if the goat was afraid
to die, the goat answered, "No, but I see hundreds of future
lives of suffering for what you are about to do."
I do past life recalls, past exploration and I work with karmic
patterns. I know how deep and entrenched the patterns are; and
I also know that the time to create harmony is now.
Poulsbo, Washington
Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2002, 2006, 2009, 2014
