Lots of people have been asking me to
return to the basics with the Medicine Wheel and Indigenous Dreaming. I’ve been quoted a few times in the last
month and each time it’s been about “concentrating on the foundation, in order
to solidify the house.”
One lady said: “I often feel anxious,
scared and unsafe; but if I return to the basics and simplify my thoughts and
expectations I already realize I can handle anything.”
We live in a society where everything is
about performance, competition, and earning our place / and our salary. There’s no doubt that having to prove
ourselves is a constant source of stress; but it’s more then that… Who doesn’t want to belong; to be loved; to
be “enough”. Having to fit in a World;
which constantly questions who we are; what we can do; and how fast we can do
makes it difficult to cultivate the attitudes necessary to feel whole and be
happy. How can we even begin to reach
the heights of our dreams if we are constantly and inevitably working against
them?
Last winter we discovered that our senior
Beagle, Murfle had an aggressive kind of bladder cancer. Since she was diagnosed is a specialized
clinic we were seen immediately by an oncologist who quickly suggested a few
treatment options. At first glance we
didn’t think of the money it would cost us.
Love and the fear of loosing her kind-of lead the way. Fear, moral values and practical thinking
were constantly debated during the months; which followed the surgery and then
the chemotherapy.
We constantly asked ourselves the question:
“How do we make the decision to stop treatments; to accept cancer; and to
choose euthanasia?”
What was incredible about this journey was
how our family and friends rallied together and promised one other to be clear
and honest about our feelings, our thoughts, and our deep down beliefs.
The
three first elements of the Medicine Wheel: Clarity, knowledge and illumination.
From the very beginning I made up a rule:
“It doesn’t matter if we don’t see the same things, the same way and want the
same results. The idea is not to agree
but to open up trails and trails of possibilities.”
On a few occasions when emotions flared
some people questioned my “genius”: “How
can it possibly help to have more perspectives then actual solutions and one
clear choice?”
The Medicine Wheel tells us that it’s not
the outcome that is important but the journey.
The learning, the healing, the abundance, the beauty, the
inter-relations, and the attitudes; which lead to gratitude these are the
reasons why we are incarnated. If we
focus on how to manifest our basic desires they inevitably dominate us; but if
we “circle around them” like animals do -- we uncover the secret of stepping
into them.
If you have ever had a pet, you know that
these animals often mirror their owners / masters / or human Alpha. Contrary to humans animals are rarely selfish
and self-indulged. They please the
people they trust and they grow into their basic desires of being loved;
belonging; and feeling safe. What makes
them different than humans is that they surrender; and allow themselves to
change.
The
second trio of elements on the Medicine Wheel:
Growth, trust and love.
Through watching Murfle in the last year, I
realized we (humans) over complicate our lives.
We want to be heard, we want to fit, and we want most of all to be loved
but we spend so much time “working at making it happen” that we don’t trust
life to actually deliver it. In the last
little while I’ve had too many people tell me that they are giving up and that
love, peace, and feeling whole doesn’t exist.
Murfle was a wounded adult dog when we
rescued her. She was a work dog for a
few years; and was abandoned into the dog adoption system moving from one
foster home to another because of unfortunate human, life circumstances. By the time we got her, she was 10 pounds
over weight and didn’t trust humans.
Everyone questioned why I picked her over
some of our other options…
Ironically it was all about Bella
then… We were looking for a companion
for our over zealous puppy. The two dogs immediately bonded and in less than a
year, something as simple as “playing and running” had skimmed 10 pounds off of
Murfle and given her back hope.
Through the last year, G repeated often the
words: “Lets just make Murfle and ourselves HAPPY.”
Here, I was worried about money and about
fearing the end.
·
How would she die?
·
Could I make the final
decision?
·
How much would she suffer
etc…?
From the very beginning she told me through
a dream: “Don’t worry. I’ll die when
it’s my time. You won’t make the final
decision and you’ve already taken away the suffering.”
It took living the journey all the way to
the end to believe in the dream. Murfle
brought me back to the basics and reminded me to listen to myself; to listen to
the Universe; and to listen to the Wheel.
She taught me to “let go of fears, worries, anxieties.” She gave me a glance into the Sacred Circle
and showed me that through change there’s always renewal.
The
last elements of the Medicine Wheel: Renewal, purification and wisdom.
Murfle died September 26th,
2015. She didn’t die of bladder
cancer. The surgery and the treatments
actually worked; and she was in complete remission. Instead, she died of internal bleeding due to
a vulva cancer nobody saw until it was too late. She didn’t suffer. None of us had to make any tough decisions
and she passed at the happiest point of her life. It was one of those bittersweet moments where
“you’re glad and your pissed all at once! LOL
Our minds create all kinds of stories and
scenarios with the assistance of our aching and wanting hearts; but what if our
hearts were synchronized to the rhythm of the Wheel and feeding our minds an
infinite amount of possibilities? The
journey literally brings all the pieces together and if we can get the mind to
listen to the heart; and the heart to listen to the Wheel / the dreaming / the
Cosmos we inevitably grow, and mature allowing our basic desires to find
HOME.
Comments