We are into the July 4th Weekend of the Pandemic. Will this weekend be any different than any other weekend of the pandemic? Social Distancing, we keep to ourselves, we turn inwards – and yet the birthday of when this nation was established (recognizing that we invaded other nations that were already here on this land) is usually about going out, barbequeing with friends, watching fireworks in crowds.
We have our independence from Britain – but what are we using it for? What are we doing with this independence? We are not independent of our acts of aggression, genocide, and slavery – those are intertwined with the founding of the United States of America.
Maybe we have taken independence as far as it can safely go. The current political regime in power in the USA gives us pause to consider this. Maybe it is time that we stopped celebrating independence and started celebrating Interdependence.
We would start by acknowleding our interdependence with Mother Earth and her children, this land that we live on which we took from our Native American brothers & sisters. Then it would lead to acknowledging our interdependence with Africa and her children whom our ancestors captured and enslaved, prospering off of their labor. Then it would lead to acknowledging our interdependence with all the people of the Earth.
This Interdependence Day weekend, we offer to you Chapter 14: Spiritual Democracy, from our book, Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality.
“Spiritual Democracy is a living connection, allowing the flow of spirituality through our lives, embracing the divinity in all creatures and the divinity of the Earth. Spiritual democracy is the way we treat others when we learn to see the divine in all things and that we, too, are part of divinity. It is a sacred way of being. Periodically, we forget that we are divine as we live in this world of matter and go through its trials and travails. We, as individuals, as well as we as people, need periodic renewal at the font of spiritual democracy.” (p. 381)
We invite you to use this holiday weekend to renew our Spiritual Democracy. Let’s put the “we” back in “We the people…”
If you’d like to read the chapter, just download the pdf below.
Being Fully Human 