There is an unflinching light that is being focused on the massive inequality and injustice in our world. It is illuminating the deep shadow work we are all doing as a collective. The shadow of racism is very old and runs through all our ancestral lineages.  We are steeped in it, have been steeped in it for centuries. But this light holds us all in in its embrace and is making us accountable to end the culture of killing, fear, hate and irreverence.

We stand in the light of our soul. But we look at the shadow.

We look at those times in our lives where we witnessed racism and intolerance and kept quiet. It is so prevalent in our society; chances are good we have also participated in racism and prejudice. We also see and accept that we may have unconscious bias.

Our most sacred work is to recognize the shadow within ourselves and own all parts of it. To become whole. To continue our journey into consciousness. We must also look for the gifts in owning our racism. That may make us feel uneasy. How can there be any gifts in it?

There is a gift in seeing that we cannot arbitrarily judge people as good or bad because its not so cut and dried. Not so black and white. And by recognizing that a generally kind person can get caught up in the collective social ills. And as we see just how pervasive it is as a collective shadow, our eyes open and we become conscious of any privilege we have due to the color of our skin. And due to our economic level. And where we live.

This shadow work activates compassion. We can’t help feeling compassion when we see suffering. Compassion for families and communities who fear they may never recover from the grief and PTSD because the murders keep happening again and again. And compassion for the murderers who were programmed by centuries of prejudice and the repression of the reverence for all life.

We become ever more conscious of racism around us. And we get to decide how we participate in the healing of it. If we feel called to take action to bring about the healing, then it is a spiritual act and we don’t need to worry about whether we are perpetuating duality or failing a Divine neutrality ascension test. We open our hearts to sacred activism.

Inner actions we could take:

Clearing ancestral wounds that may reside in us that were hundreds of years in the making.  Using shamanic journey, meditation, or journaling, we ask to be shown the seeds of racism in our lineage.  They may show as contracts, vows, imprinted belief systems, past life karma, or other issues. We then call on our team of helping spirits and healed ancestors to energetically tend to the issue. They will help us clear the contracts or unravel the imprints of old belief systems. This healing will travel throughout our lineage and will affect our ancestors as well as our descendants.

For most of us, our soul has had many other incarnations, being both the oppressed and the oppressor. A deep healing shamanic journey is to ask our team of guides to show us if there are any parts of our soul essence that got split off and lost from any past life trauma that needs to be returned to us now. If there are, they may facilitate their return right then or guide us to seek out a practitioner for help.

Another powerful journey is to ask our guides if we have inadvertently taken any soul essences from another. If they show us that we still have custody of any soul essences that are not ours, we ask our guides to return them to where they came from. Then we can seal the work with a ceremony symbolizing the returning.

We do forgiveness work for those we may have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly, with our words and actions. We can include forgiving ourselves as well. We can do this by using recapitulation, prayer, ceremony, or other methods our team of helping spirits may suggest.

Outer actions we could take:

If the color of our skin gives us privilege, we use it to be an ally.

We take to the street and stand in solidarity in vigils and protests for every person who is not in a place of safety because of their color, creed, or economic level.

We support businesses owned by blacks, indigenous, and people of color; and donate to social justice causes.

We call out intolerance and injustice when we see it.

We have courageous conversations explaining why we are focused on Black Lives Matter with people who contend that All Lives Matter.

We are decent and kind to one another no matter what the circumstances.

We have reverence for all life.

Social reform is part of the human consciousness crisis. It will not happen by itself. We need to do the work to make it happen.  These are just a few ideas of what we can do for ourselves, each other, and humankind. Even if we only do one small thing it effects the entire collective. Never doubt our power to make a positive shift in the world.

Our first global pandemic has brought us a new way of perceiving the world. A wake-up call. A way of realizing our interconnectedness by sudden isolation from each other. Because our world has duality, yin and yang, things tend to happen in polarity to one another. 

Humanity is slowly but surely realizing that everything is energy. This is why distance healing works. This is why prayers create miracles. The science of quantum physics is right there with us, consistently showing that particles “talk” to each other when separated by great distance. What happens to one, happens to the other instantly.  We glance at these science articles when they make the news, but we do not fully grasp their truth. We don’t think they apply to anything in our reality. We forget that each one of us is made up of particles all stuck together. There is no separation on an energetic level.

Realizing this and acting upon it is what is going to help humanity to evolve into a species that can thrive. We are not thriving now. When only 1% of the entire global human population is thriving, that is the antithesis of thriving. There is more to thriving than economic prosperity. But it is difficult for humans to thrive when they don’t feel safe. When they don’t how they are going to pay rent and feed their families.  When they don’t have clean water to drink. When they are living in war zones. When they are refugees. That fear of not being safe is what feeds separation. It is what the media and authoritarian and plutocratic governments around the world count on to keep themselves in power. It ties up our compassion and strangles the expansion of our hearts. But it is the fog of illusion, and that fog is lifting away.

Without the illusion of separation, your poverty is my poverty. Your virus is my virus. Your fear is my fear. Your grief is my grief. The bindings around our hearts we’ve woven to keep us from feeling, to keep us functioning, to keep some semblance of normality in the face of friends, family and society are unraveling. Our hearts cannot help but expand when we can look at ourselves and see the other mirrored within. When we can see the other is us.

The virus of separation has caused us to be susceptible to greater ills.

In this time of reckoning, we are realizing the connecting of our hearts and compassion for all beings will be the cure.

When I was starting out on my shamanic path, my first teacher, Lone Dove, told me that since I made my decision to follow the spirit path of my true self, that which no longer supported my true self would fall away from me. This would include partners, friends, jobs, ideals, belief systems, and ways of being in the world.  She said the shadow part of ego was to believe that these needed to change with me as I changed. The way out of that judgement was to release them to their perfect path.

It made me uneasy at first. Who would I be without them? Could I make it without them? I had relied on some of them for a long time as defining who I thought I was, as well as for sustenance and support.  It took courage, but I also realized that ultimately it took love. It is an action based on unconditional love, both for myself and for them. It releases us each to follow our own will and destiny. Who am I to say what is perfect for anyone or anything else? How can I know what their perfect path is? I can only know what mine is, and by keeping that integrity for myself is the best I can do for all involved.

Releasing them to their perfect path became one of my most healing philosophies and tools. It is a state where I end my attachment to the idea that things can be any different than how they are at this moment. The action is in the decision to release them to their perfect path. Often further actions are needed after that to facilitate the release. If it involves cutting ties with a person or institution, then I must take that next step. Most times I have found that it is easier than I thought it would be because I am coming from a place of love, not hurt or anger, even if it is only love for myself.  Energetic action may be also be necessary. I cut any etheric cords that would keep energy flowing between us. I set clear boundaries. I also ask my guides if there are any soul essences that I have may have lost or that I may have taken unconsciously, and if so, ask for their help in the return. 

Releasing something or someone to their perfect path does not always end the relationship. Our perfect paths may still go in the same direction together, but the relationship changes it so that we are each in alignment with our own integrity. 

We all want to help others, especially if we have family and friends who are in pain and want our help. And we can help in many practical ways, but sometimes we overstep our good intentions. The most common egoistic trap of all humans is to think that we know what is best for another person. Releasing them to their perfect path frees us from this trap and respects their free will. It says we trust their Higher Self and guides to help them fulfill their soul’s purpose. Just as we trust in ours to help us fulfill our own.

Years after learning this from Lone Dove, I delved deeper into soul work through shamanic practice and reading Dolores Cannon’s quantum healing hypnosis case studies.  I looked at etheric contracts, soul group and lineage agreements, and how past lives interconnect us with others.  It neutralized the urge in me to judge anyone or anything. There is so much more going on at a soul level than we can ever realize!

Our current lives here on earth are but a tiny strand in the thread of our soul that is interwoven into the tapestry of the universe in the loom of the Source of All There Is.  Our purpose is to love and take care of our tiny strand the best we can. As we do that, the integrity of our strand is radiated to the other strands so that we all make the thread strong and the tapestry wondrous.