Peace

The following presentation was prepared by Pa’Ris’Ha Taylor, to be presented by invitation at an international peace conference to take place November 1, 2017; sponsored by the World Brotherhood Union, Mevlana Supreme Foundation in Istanbul.

 

 

 

I stand before you today as the total collective of all who have lived before me, and whose very purpose of existence was that I am here in the now.

 

 

It is a great honor to be here with you today as we gather here in spiritual truth and a greater purpose than recognition and fame. I deeply appreciate all who have worked to provide the beauty and love we explore together at this program for world peace. I acknowledge all of you present, who are visible, and that of Spirit, as teachers and messengers of wisdom that propels all humanity to a greater understanding of our divinity. Separation destroys and inclusion heals.

 

 

I am honored by the powerful work and knowledge that this organization and its founders have brought forward in our world.

 

 

More than ever before, our generation has the greater challenge of human survival. I am a simple woman and in service as an Ancient Tablet Reader. I am of mixed bloods and was raised in my Grandmother’s Tradition, The Cherokee. Our origins are the system you know as the Pleiades.

 

 

For over 55 years I have pursued studies in all the sciences to prove my People’s wisdom and today I celebrate that has come full circle.

 

 

In our way of life, we exist as nature and creation, so we honor all peoples’ service and worship. We know all is of The One at its most infinite level of origin and we respect that is expressed and reflected in all different aspects and relating to Source, so that all is of great love and appreciation. I step outside duality to be the all-allowing love as co-creator. Our purpose is to meet the challenge in the 3rd dimension, to evolve to the state of harmony outside the field of duality, and emanate peace.

 

 

In our Wisdom Keepers’ ways, we are in the sixth world and facing the pivotal point of humanity’s thriving and existence. Many have said this in very eloquent ways, but the fact is, what is needed is you and I being daily in purpose and more relentless than our opposition. I am in the field daily where harms’ way touches the lives of the people and our Earth.

 

 

There is no burn out or fatigue when serving with Divine light and energy. Time does not hold us and boundaries do not exist; we serve the enhancement of all good things in life and all is life. All manifestation and physical presence is frequency and intent and purpose, so all is some level of life. All is given respect and consideration. This is our charge and trust, to honor and protect our planet and all life.

 

 

In my life what I have seen leads me to believe that the most misunderstood word in our language is Love, and the next one is Compassion.

 

 

To truly live awakened and attuned to Spirit, we must have the reality of both Love and Compassion.

 

 

Compassion is not done for others; it is done with others, for yourself, because you can no longer deny the need.

 

 

We are created of atomic energy waves, just like the entire universe and because it is impossible to separate waves, we are all connected; our waves are always meeting and getting entangled in each other. The universe is you and you are the universe, each one of us is. Unleash your inner power and start creating amazing things.

 

 

Peace is active, not passive. It is an active process of transformation that we create first within ourselves by transmuting lower conscious states of fear, greed, and anger into joyful and harmonic relations within our entire sentient community. This takes work. The Great Work, Magnum Opus, as practiced by Ancient Alchemists, is performed by today’s science in Quantum Physics and called by physicist Fred Alan Wolf, the new alchemy. It takes each individual to create himself, both spiritually and physically, as one whole unit like one cell in a universe of multiple worlds.

 

 

There is no outer world without first there being an inner world, no matter without spirit, and no peace without each one of us first coming to peace within ourselves and then including all humanity and sentient beings within a single community of what we call life. This reality unfolds based upon our own beliefs and experiences. If we choose to transform a world filled with suffering and conflict, we must first confront our own selves and know that anything in our lives that we are not satisfied with exists solely because we have chosen this experience from our own beliefs, emotions, and environment.

 

 

Fundamental to transforming mind into matter, anger into peace, is “the concept of unity: the great inseparability of all things.” Science now has proven and understands Ancient Wisdom, that all is inter- and inner-connected. String theory shows us that there is not one thing that we experience that has not been created within our own minds and spirit. Life and death are not separate. Anger and peace are intrinsically bound to each other. This duality, known as the field of polar opposites, is the life we experience here, on our planet Earth known as The Sun Wheel or Medicine Wheel to global Indigenous Peoples. The Ancient Alchemists strove to unify mind, body and spirit. Today we know that we have never been separate from all that we desire except by our choice to divide ourselves from our divine origin.

 

 

Awareness is the first key to achieving the unity of mind and spirit with an outcome of peace and harmony. To be aware only of matter and body is to separate ourselves from our imaginal and mental realm. And in this great inseparability of all things, we become aware of the fact that we cannot have death without life, peace without anger, and day without night. In our great world of duality, Reality is experienced as we remember it, influenced by our beliefs, emotions and level of consciousness as right and wrong.

The world, life, cannot exist without us. Just by being here, in this room together, we influence all life, as our consciousness expands. Satellites and instruments not known to the common man are measuring the psyche of the entire world, right now. What we choose to think, the way we choose to act influences all life. Right now, we are enhancing the meaningfulness of life for all, and for all we can create all good things by the way we each act upon this knowledge. This is wisdom and also science.

 

 

This connection to all things is the ‘I Am’ that dwells within each one of us. We each have countless opportunities to create unlimited possibilities, each a world. Peace and our world depend on us and our interactions. Each of us affect everything else in truly countless ways. Peace depends on what we believe is real. Is life all good things, full of health, wealth and happiness for all, or not? Science proves that is up to each one of us to choose.

 

 

Think about this, we are a part of a vast invisible field of energy which contains all possible realities and responds to our thoughts and our feelings. This is true and we each make a difference and are needed, not one more than another.

 

 

The infinite sources of our sciences, specifically quantum theory, has taken off a lot of layers of denial and shear ignorance.  There are heights we still have not touched. To profess one’s ability to think and yet, use so very little of this power, how do we not thirst for the ability to tap into one’s own vast field of energy and power. Each of us has a different finger print that amounts to what? There is only one of you and me. That finger print says you are coded and hold a field of energy not like any other, but yours to do.

 

  

We know that from the vast fields of energy, we evolve our thinking. Have you heard, “I think therefore I am?”  We create our reality and without our thoughts there is no reality. “Energy is the very fabric of all things material, and responsive to MIND.” Whatever you attach your thoughts to, you magnetize to yourself. 

 

 

We are capable of all that we can think of. Mind and matter are one.

 

 

 

© Pa’Ris’Ha Taylor 2017

 

 

 

 

 

Pa’Ris’Ha Taylor, seventy-seven this year, has both Celtic and Cherokee Native American heritage, her Peoples origins are the Pleiades, she is a spiritual Elder, Mystic, Sacred Ancient Tablet Reader and Interpreter. Pa’Ra;Sha pursued the sciences originally to be able to talk coherently to people of her peoples knowledge. She is a Philanthropist, Perennial Student of neurosciences, biology, chemistry, cosmology, theology and world religions, 55 years ago she began teaching quantum physics, time travel, Paleontology and human evolution. Since birth she sees Spirit and energy and has always been assisted by those she calls The Ancients, or affectionally spoke of as The Old Ones, those who are of before time. She also is assisted by her Ancestors who are different than The Ancients. Her peoples’ ceremonies are attended by other terrestrials of Inner Earth and Shy Nations.

 

 

 

She seeds Abundance and does start up business consultant, and an Investor. She is a practical psychologist and scientist, a perennial student, and Spiritual Archeologist, and global traveler, Oracle, an ambassador for peace, and advocate of human rights. Presently she is dedicated to resolving human trafficking. She gives credit to her Native Elders and Global Mentors and teaches in wonderful stories that recall her life experiences.

 

A global traveler who has shared teachings in 180 countries, she was a keynote speaker in the Parliament of World Religions Centennial Interfaith Program in Chicago with the Dalai Lama and worked with Mother Theresa; in China, a catalyst in bringing Eastern and Western medical professionals together to seek a cure for HIV; a popular and often sought after speaker at the University of Physics and the Humanistic Psychology symposia in Bratislava, the Institute of Psychiatry in Moscow, and in Siberia in the former USSR. Another project was the Peace Village in Israel, created to foster harmonic relations and conflict resolution between Palestinians and Jewish citizens, as a few of her services.

 

 

Pa’Ris’Ha has been acknowledged as TARA a reincarnated Bodhisattva Buddha by Rinpoche Kālu and a Bhutanese Rinpoche T’sering Wangdi. His Holiness of Bhutan ordered a Stupa built for her and has declared her director of his Dharma Center. A sought-after guest speaker on numerous global TV and radio appearances, she hosted her own radio program ‘On Eagles Wings’ for two years. Her show’s ratings jumped to the top of the list in three short weeks. Presently she airs a show on Law of Attraction Radio Network, called “Windows in Your Mind”. She taught an accredited CEU program at John Hopkins School of Nursing on alternative healing and energy healing practices. She was selected by the Algonquin Nation’s late Chief and Elder, William Commanda, to be an Elder on the board of “Elders With No Borders,” a global association of Wisdom Keepers committed to preserving the traditional spiritual knowledge and teachings of all indigenous people.

 

 

She is a founder of the Yunsai (White Buffalo) Society, a not-for-profit organization of thousands of people globally dedicated to promoting interracial and cultural awareness. She founded The Center For Human Development, a humanitarian organization of over fifty(50) Million people during 56 years of service that has supported education and personal discovery and expanding of consciousness.

 

 

When asked to introduce herself, she humbly replies, “This one called Pa’Ris’Ha by The Principal People is a Wife, Mother, Grandmother and an incurable people watcher. I am a child of God, Loving, Serving, Living and Learning in this world.”

 

 

My life Since I Met Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha

I went for an appointment with a Tibetan monk, because I had at this time articulation problems.

He told me: “reading books is not enough, you should have a master.” 

I told him I had a few, but when I did know them better, they were not an example for me.

He said: “a real master acts the way he teaches! That is the way you will recognize the good one.”

 

Few years later I met Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha.

I was in a workshop with her in Québec. During those two days I felt her love, her consciousness and her wisdom.

She is the person who walks her talk!

I realised that I met the Master who will show me the many possibilities that the great Spirit gave to me.

Each breath brings me to the next point.

Listening to birdsong and let them heal my heart.

Observing Beauty of nature and clouds showing messages.

Welcoming the kiss of the soft wind on my cheek, hearing “you matter”

And that

My finger print is unique and the world needs me.

Life is precious and short. There are so many distractions!

I have to be aware of my choices.

Each day, each week I keep on looking for more comprehension about humanity and the vastness I can explore. Learning is a real passion for me.

My Elder, Grandmother is always there! Challenging me, opening my eyes and my heart. What a gift.

 

Health Wealth and Happiness!!

This is the mantra she repeats.

Looking for Balance all the time, Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha teaches me

·         To be available helping humanity, to serve (while I am serving, I am in pure love and compassion, I receive as much as I give)

·         To spend time to improve my knowledge (How can I recognize truth with a lack of education)

·         To find in myself a passion and to realize it (the Medicine Wheel is a good tool to use)

 

My Elder is living this way each minute and it is the most powerful example because I know then it is possible!!!

 

Everything is sacred for Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha

 She has opened many doors for me, she is the Light who illuminates my road.

 

 Numerology: I know that when she recommends a book, the author can be trusted. I still have many things to integrate and I am happy because getting older gives me time to keep on my learning.

 Sciences of the brain: she introduced me to the work of Dr Joe Dispenza, which helped me in “breaking the habit of being myself.” Living in the past and focusing on my wounds doesn’t help me. Visualization and writing my story, my script; how many times Grandmother said that it was so important to journal.

 Food: a body without acidity is healthy. Sugar, tomatoes, red meat contribute in an acid body.

Eating sugar like bananas for breakfast increases the need of sugar for all day.

Benedictions. My love is in every meal I prepare.

Choosing the right ingredients, helping with my purchases the small biologic farmers.

Consciousness when I eat and how I share the food to be sure that every person gets a part.

Clothing choosing natural fibers to be in contact with my body altar. For me creating beauty when I get dressed is a way to respect life and all the people I’ll meet in my day.

 

I had the privilege to travel with Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha.

I learned a lot about love in a couple. With a great simplicity she shared with us her personal experiences and what she picked up in observing people with the eyes of the heart.

Last week I used what I learned with her advising my grand-daughter. She was at a turning point with her boyfriend; they want to live together now and she was afraid of making a lifetime decision!

I told her some native people make commitments for one year at the time. Each year the couple review what was positive in the past year and what is to improve for next year. Bingo!  Now she gets the tool! She was so happy! When I lift myself I lift up others!

 

I am so grateful to be part of Grandmother’s life.

Since I was very young, I dreamed to be born as a native girl, the reality is that my Elder bathes my soul in her Cherokee wisdom.

As far as I can remember spirituality and intuition were so important for me. But not prayers like a parrot!

I once asked a priest why he was saying the same words each mass, I didn’t get any answer just big eyes from my teacher.

The problem when you like to laugh and have fun, people around you get surprised when you talk about healing you can generate in a group by focussing on Love. In group there is the circle.

The power of the Circle. Each one having the right place. Connecting with the ancients that used the order and this circle to resolve and listen to everyone.

I see that in this time of chaos the talking circle would help humanity to respect the one facing him.

 

Let me share you a moment I had.

I was in Ohio for a Sun ceremony for the first time. Stretching my mind was the beginning.

How many hardwired thoughts did I have?

The huge need in sleeping hours, the need of coffee and food at regular time, all this became useless.

There was a ritual to prepare, a time to respect and I was able to extend my consciousness traveling on Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha wings.

Each task was important. Working in group and consciousness. I saw how fast a disagreement between two persons didn’t last long. To be in the present moment, letting go the past.

The kids.

When kids are four years old in native tradition, they have to bring food on the table and participate. I noticed how mature each child was, Grandmother was taking time to educate them, asking everyone to include them in the work so they learn to participate and find their skills.

 

When the daily life brings me teachings my cells always remember the lesson.   Some people had to find boxes with vegetarian food, let’s say 40 meals. All day long they were phoning everywhere around even 200 miles away from where we all gathered without result.

At the end of the afternoon, Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha talked to the two persons and told them. You were so sure that you won’t succeed that you didn’t get what you were looking for. The power of the intention, creating our reality.

The lesson if I do want to succeed: I have to get a clear intention and listen the inner voice who guides me in this fantastic Life.

Beauty is all around

MG

 

Community

Perhaps at this time this word engenders so much fear yet its true essence is so needed as we live our lives. In The Different Drum by M. Scott Peck, he refers to this as the "real" need in order to deal with our lonely lives believing in rugged individualism. To me "soft individualism" is being able live together with others with all the warts and talents acknowledged and fully accepted. Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha has often reminded us in her teachings, that the fallacy of rugged individualism is our idea that it is one person succeeding all alone.

Having lived in community for many years this idea of community really resonates with me. Community to me is more than 20 people with a focus living together. When trying to get things accomplished in one’s "own" life you seem to be constantly running through obstacles and around people but imagine with 20! Perseverance and tolerance had to be relied on and these virtues encouraged as in the Pecks' marriage.  And though teamwork seems to be constantly referenced as an ideal in business or in sports, it’s when team anticipates the needs of the group that success is achieved or felt.

In the time I lived in community with Grandmother Pa'Ris'Ha, she would often assist us to see how in our daily lives we could achieve so much more together. That being a meal or building a building. Separate is never equal to another in talents or failings so in order to make things work, you accomplish it together. The individual feels, well that one thing you do but more you fill up with esteem and joy as your project succeeds; your life seems on track.

Pa'Ris'Ha would let us "wool gather" for a time when working toward a goal but bring us back to the focus of how each of our actions must work in concert with the other to bring our completion. That the separation we perceive as outside ourselves doesn't really fit or work. To be successful, it is in the supporting of another and coming to a completion that we bond. Therefore, becoming fully human which to me is Mr. Peck's "soft individualism".

Often with Grandmother Pa'Ris'Ha as we came together to work on something, we were able to think of ourselves as one family or community. Not separated from others just connected to like-minded people working for a common goal.  Living in this way is not lonely because it is done together with individuals.  All of us are needed and all in us is needed as well. Nothing separated out.

Today private lives are lonely; influenced as we are by the internet, lockdowns, working from home or on-line schooling. Achieving and being happy with what we are doing seems almost like a TikTok video short and looking for others to like us! Somehow not seeing the Divine spark. We are who we are looking for. We are not to be separate, as Pa’Ris’Ha reminds us, we are meant to work through those differences to see how your boundaries can meet mine and form the cohesiveness of Life.

By Ew

GRANDMOTHER PA’RIS’HA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM OF COMMUNITY

Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha. Where should I begin to tell about my wonderful, beloved mentor and friend, Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha and the American Dream? There is indeed, so much to tell!

First, the stage needs to be set so I will tell you about how I met Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha. I hope this story will jostle something in your soul and even sound a bit familiar.  

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Spirituality has been the central focus of my life, especially since my college days. After a dramatic experience in those early years in which my heart began to burn with love, (a whole important story in itself) — I was hooked on acquiring a metaphysical understanding of the phenomena called “LOVE”. I dove into philosophy, religion and psychology studies—and opened myself to learning about LOVE —not to finding a “good job”.  I figured that if I got the big questions answered, my life would just naturally fall correctly into place.

Also, of course, I wanted to “fall in love” but I will hold that for another time.

My soul, my spirit, my mind (however you want to say it) also hungered to understand the “meaning and purpose of life!” I was so curious! I asked myself the really BIG questions! I wanted to know if there was really life after death! What did the great sages and the world’s religious traditions — East and West — and their texts say about life after death? What did psychologists say about people who had “Near Death Experiences?  What were the world’s current spiritual leaders saying about the meaning of life?

I “majored” in the study of Religion and received my BA diploma from a prestigious Ivy League college. It had a small religion department, but at least it had one.

These were the good old “hippie” days when lots of people—both young and old— were asking similar questions.   Many were taking a good look around and saw that the “rat race” was not the American Dream it was made out to be.  The young especially looked at our parents to see if they were happy.  So many were not!!! Lo and behold they were mired in a nine to five regime and stuck in a lifetime of toil to pay their houses off and for their kid's college. What had become of the American Dream?  Our parents were on a treadmill. Where was the world headed? (Surely it has not changed very much since then….and may be worse?!)

 

I grew up in Pennsylvania and had an aunt who lived in the Pacific Northwest. While in my early 20’s she took me to see a “homestead” on the beautiful coast of British Columbia. A Californian art professor had retired early and gone “back to the land.” He had taken his wife and family to a tiny little inlet, built a log cabin and planted a garden. They grew vegetables and canned them. They fished. The kids played in the delicious clean waters of their private little bay and learned to do everything their parents were doing to “live off the land.” That was their home-school.  No public school for them! And you could play your guitar and read books at night by the light of the fire, cozy and warm. Maybe you could actually use an electric light jerry-rigged to a car battery for power.

This was a revelation to me! OH!  You can make your way through life living on a small plot of land out in nature? You can be surrounded by fresh air and sunshine while you are living and working side by side with your beloved family??? You can take your boat out on the waters and fish and smoke the fish as you prepare for the coming winter?

HOLY HOMESTEAD!

THAT was the life for me!

Does this, pray tell, sound like something a Native American might know a bit about?  How about a woman such as Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha who was raised by her own Cherokee Grandmother in the hills of southern Appalachia?  Might she be well versed in the ways of walking a Beauty Path on the earth? Indeed!

If they teach about the 1960’s and early 1970’s in history classes these days, (and I have my doubts) you may know these were a time when the Environmental movement, Civil Rights movement, Women’s Liberation, and other good causes were shaking the nation, along with WAR, of course; the Viet Nam War. We had a great anti-war movement, but not so great that it did not prevent our troops from coming home broken and traumatized. And then we young people grew up and went back, for the most part, to our parents’ old ways.  Get a Job.  Buy a House. Go into debt. Sound familiar? Only it’s not just the parents who are in debt now…their children’s lives are plagued by college debt, etc. now too. And unemployment.

And in the meantime… our jobs were sent to China and it does not look so good for the “American Dream” ...unless you creatively reshape that dream somewhat!

At the age of about 26, I DID “fall in love” and a major factor in cementing my relationship with my Beloved was our common love of the earth and Mother Nature.

I told my Beloved about my visit to the British Columbian homestead. He was sold, lock, stock and barrel!

We scrimped and saved out money. He eventually quit his job as a high school teacher and I quit mine as a writer for a small newspaper outfit. Land was cheap in West Virginia and we were able to scrape together $13,000. In 1978, we were able to buy 54 acres of forested hillsides and a flat, cleared “hollow”. We lived our first six years there in a stone root cellar with a tin roof, 15’ X 15’. We lived without electricity (except a car battery) and pulled our water with a bucket from a cool, clean stone lined hand-dug well. We worked little jobs on and off to make ends meet and ate peanut butter and jelly as our mainstay (with homemade bread, of course.)

We had chickens and a garden and to our surprise we met quite a few “transplants” like ourselves. We had a little group of friends both “transplants” and locals who shared in our enthusiasm for going “back to the land.” And the local older folk were downright friendly and helpful and somewhat amused at this culture of hippie homesteaders. (Just to keep the record straight….my Beloved and I did not “do drugs”.)

Admittedly, we eventually became more traditional and designed and built a “dream house” with real electricity and many of the modern conveniences, though we always heated the house with wood. My Beloved went back to teaching and we raised two sons. I homeschooled for a while, then the boys went to public school where if nothing else, they learned the ways of the world. Their father, my Beloved, was a well-respected history and psychology teacher and coached the wrestling team. My family’s high school years were great, and often I went to the high school to substitute teach.

But as the years went by, and my dearly Beloved spent much of his time at the school, I began to feel a discontent, a restlessness. Our dream had changed. We no longer worked side by side as we used to. My children made friends with kids their age and were often in town with them when not in school. (It was a long drive to the school and town.) I became the sole gardener and caretaker—the person that baked the bread and kept the home fires burning.

At the same time, during the years I WAS at home in the woods homeschooling, my spiritually questioning mind had led me to read books that gave various “takes” on Native American spirituality, or to say it another way—the “Medicine Path.”

Back in my college years, I had read a very popular book titled A Separate Reality, written by an anthropology graduate student named Carlos Castaneda. As Amazon summarizes: In 1961, a young anthropologist subjected himself to an extraordinary apprenticeship with Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus to bring back a fascinating glimpse of a Yaqui Indian's world of "non-ordinary reality" and the difficult and dangerous road a man must travel to become "a man of knowledge." Yet on the brink of that world, challenging to all that we believe, he drew back. Then in 1968, Carlos Castaneda returned to Mexico, to don Juan and his hallucinogenic drugs, and to a world of experience no man from our Western civilization had ever entered before.

During the years I was in West Virginia, Castaneda wrote many more books telling of his foray, his explorations and experiences into a “separate reality.”  I had had my own experiences with psychedelics in college and had determined that was not for me--even though I certainly learned things from those experiences. But I was intrigued by Castaneda’s tales. My appetite for Native American teachings and phenomena such as mystical visions was whetted.

Now and then, a friend would lend me a book or a series of books and the book, Medicine Woman, by Lynn Andrews, was one of these. She described her “apprenticeship” with a Cree Medicine Woman and I was intrigued. As I read each book in the series, I found myself shaking the book and exclaiming to the air: “I have to find a Medicine Woman”!

 

West Virginia is a beautiful state filled with hidden treasures and surprises.  About an hour from my home is—would you believe it—a Krishna community. Founded by young seekers during the hippie era, they had embraced the teachings of a Hindu holy man named A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who taught in the U.S.  His followers were often seen (and heard) on big city streets or in airports chanting “Hare Krishna”. To quote the Wikipedia, this religious organization holds core beliefs that are based on Hindu scriptures, particularly the Bhagavad Gita, and the Bhag Purana, and the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition which has had adherents in India since the late 15th century and American and European devotees since the early 1900’s.

New Vrindaban, as the community is called, sports an awe-inspiring home built for Prabhupada, but he died before he was able to reside there. This “Palace of Gold” is open to the public for tours.  The campus has stunning rose gardens, a temple and a lake where 30-foot-tall statues of Krishna and his consort, Radha, stand (if they are still there) in a paradisiacal setting.

In the mid 1990’s, the community reached out to other spiritual traditions and teachers and presented several Interfaith conferences. These were delightful gatherings of all manner of spiritual oriented folks! I heard through the grapevine that a “real” medicine woman would be speaking at a coming conference. This is where I met my Beloved Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha!

It was love at first sight-or perhaps I should say—at first hearing. When Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha did her presentation, she sang what she calls her “Heart Song” which is in the Cherokee language. I was, as they say, “blown away”! I had found my Medicine Woman! I did not understand what she sang but it pierced my soul in an inexpressible way. Eventually I learned it was a song that called to the four directions and gatekeepers of the Cherokee Medicine Wheel.

I was in the front row of chairs during Grandmother’s presentation and I sat eager with anticipation, waiting for her to speak. And during her talk, she walked across the space in front of my seat and stopped right in front of me. She smiled and reached out and touched my cheek with her finger. Again, I was “blown away.”

I learned that day that Grandmother lived in Cleveland, Ohio, as did many of others in her Circle. I wondered when I would ever be able to see her again. I was “blown away” again—overjoyed to learn that they were building a retreat center and educational facility a few hours south of Cleveland, across the river from West Virginia, just about two hours from my home. OMG! I was thrilled! It was called Friendship Village. I subsequently spent many a day there, helping with building projects, learning ceremony, doing Vision Quests, and sitting up all hours of the night, captivated by Grandmother Pa'Ris'Ha's oral teachings; laughing and drumming and chanting and experiencing the ways of living in a small community, in a Circle of friends.

When I look back now at the beginning of my association with the Circle, I realize that one of my fondest wishes, my American Dream, was to live in a manner that put me close to the land. My dream came true, partially, in my time in West Virginia, until I was essentially left alone on my hillside while my husband and sons were drawn more and more into the mainstream of life, and I was left behind.

The lesson I have learned is that it is sustainable communities or Circles that we need here in America.  To be a truly strong society, we stand in need of living close to the land with love and respect. And we stand in need of Circles—of “intentional” communities with families and friends that are large enough and who share common productive activities that are viable enough to continue even while people come and go and seek their own destinies.

I owe so much to Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha for providing me with the extraordinary experience of living and working in a small community, Friendship Village, where people learned and worked together, sharing common goals. Not too large, not to small. Not a town. Not a city. Not a family farm--but a unique self-governing community of People who embraced common principles and ethics and shared a beautiful American Dream! I like to imagine that Friendship Village provides a kind of prototype for the future of America.

BDW