Elder Wisdom
Living a Moral and Ethical Life
A Message from ThunderStrikes
Humans throughout time have pondered, argued, contemplated, and written volumes in an attempt to define what constitutes ethics and morality. The Oxford Dictionary offers the following definitions:
Moral – of or pertaining to human character or behavior considered as good or bad; of or pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to the actions, volitions, or character of responsible beings. Capable of choosing between right and wrong.
Ethical – dealing with morality or the science of ethics or questions connected with it.
Every society, every religion, has established a code of ethics and moral behavior: for example the Christian Ten Commandments; the Ten Buddhist Precepts; the Bill of Rights (10 Amendments) of the Constitution of the United States; the five Huaquas of health, hope, happiness, harmony, and humor, to name a few. Close examination will reveal that they can all be distilled to one truism – the one true and only great sin is theft.
How is that so? There is not room here to examine all of the above, so let’s take some examples from each.
- The Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not commit adultery. Committing adultery robs another of love and relationship and robs ones’ self of self-respect. Thou shalt not murder. Murder obviously robs one of one’s life. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Bearing false witness, or lying, robs another of their credibility, their respect and honor, perhaps even their ability to make a living, among other things, and the liar steals integrity from him/herself.
- The Ten Buddhist Precepts: Refrain from using intoxicants. Intoxication robs one’s clarity of mind, one’s ability to function, one’s self-respect, and so on. Refrain from gossiping. Gossiping robs another’s right to privacy,
- The Bill of Rights is a declaration of an individual’s inalienable rights such as: freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly; right to keep and bear arms; protection from unreasonable search and seizure; and so on. The violation of these rights is thievery.
- The Five Huaquas – When you do not “feed” the huaquas in your life you steal your life force energy and your shining.
In all these examples the greatest thief is the one who steals from oneself. Your thievery robs you of the beauty of your sacred self, your self-love and self-respect. You steal from yourself to the extent you do not walk in Beauty or honor your artistic originality and genius. Every time you project pretense you are stealing from your luminosity and your shining or allowing your shining to be stolen. Self thievery diminishes your character; you blow out your own candle. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is a story about the forty thieves of the soul. We perpetrate thievery on ourselves as well as invite thieves to rob from us.
Your sacred self is your true nature spirit personality, natural undiscovered self, and mirror of self-reflection. The following ceremony will help you to explore and discover the many ways in which you steal the beauty of your sacred self or allow others to do so.
The Ceremony
A Mirror of Self-Reflection Walk/Talk in Nature
Go hiking where there are lots of rocks and boulders and trees. Walk for a while without any expectation or agenda. Just let go and be fully present with all around you. You will slowly slip out of your customary box or way of being and feel a growing connection with your surroundings. Nature is our greatest teacher. The worlds of Grandmother Earth – minerals, plants, animals, humans – and the world of spirit, speak to us and reflect back to us our mirror of self-reflection. It is a pure reflection. Nature is just there and has no concern about your perception of it. You can be your natural self in nature – no pretense, no one to impress or hide from, no judgment or comparison. You don’t have to look good.
Be willing to look and act foolish, playful, exhuberant. Match the little people’s (the fairies, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. we call toliloquey) fun as they show you the world of magick they possess. Express your individuality within that energy with no limitations. Be the voyeur to glean the deepest aspects of your thievery. Strip away the veneer of how you are. That is where you will find where the theft has been going on. Barriers you encounter in playing with the toliloquey point especially to where you steal from yourself.
Tune in and talk to the worlds. Feel where you are being drawn. If a boulder, for example, strongly draws your attention, dialogue with it. Ask the following questions and listen for answers. Continue doing this with all the worlds until you have gotten answers and insights to your questions. Journal what you get.
Mineral World – What did I steal (a physical object or tangible something) from someone that actually stole energy from my physical body? Go back through your life as far as necessary until you identify such an action. Pay attention to what comes through.
Plant World – How did I steal someone’s heart, perhaps through manipulation, and then walk away? How did I present myself as an attraction or appeal to someone’s heart – in any arena – and then did not follow through or perhaps took personal gain rather than create an encounter or relationship for mutual benefit?
Animal World – How have I been the thief of my own mind? Hymeyholsts Storm said this was the greatest of all thefts, and deception is the greatest theft of the mind. You steal from your own mind by holding on to core beliefs and unvalidated opinions without facts. In other words, ask: How have I stolen my free thinking mind? In what way does my mind need deception to know who I am? How does this define my illusory identity? How do I rationalize and justify, choosing to keep my restricted self rather than embracing my unfettered natural self?
Human World – How have I stolen the life force within my family and how have family members robbed me of my beauty and my shining? How have I allowed them to do that? Ultimately, it is us who do the stealing. No one can take from us what we are not willing to give up.
When you encounter another 2-legged during your walk/talk, step into your critical observer witness and feel how you shift back into the box of social conditioning. What takes place there is a major teaching. Then as you go on, with each step feel yourself going back into your natural sacred self.
Spirit World – How have I stolen from the beauty of my sacred self by focusing only on the material world and my acquisition of things? How have I shut down my O’larien (abilities to perceive and sense energies) and doubted my inner voice? How have I robbed myself by disconnecting from Spirit and the essence of creation in all its forms?
When you feel complete begin the process of healing. What must you do to restore what you have stolen from yourself or what others have robbed you of? Perhaps you need to do acts of forgiveness. This is not a quickie ceremony. You are out to catch a thief, perhaps many thieves. The reward is the beauty of your sacred self. When you capture that, take it out into the world and shine. That is living a moral and ethical life.