3 years on and what exactly have I learned?

Hi everyone!

 It was three years ago yesterday that I quit opiates. It feels a lot longer. I have fitted an awful lot of discovery and growth and  change into that period. I remain ever grateful to be alive in this time of planetary transition. I remain ever humbled by the enormity and profundity of this experience we call "life", and I remain happy....most of the time. 

I have watched the darkness of hatred born out of fear seep ever more intrinsically into our lives. Into our water, our air, our food, and our minds. I have watched, like you, the senseless murder of countless people, young and old. I have watched, like you, the tide of displaced people suffering unimaginable pain and anguish and grief and hardship as the political figures of Europe and the USA wring their hands and pontificate about the economy and the need to close borders.

I have watched, like you, the determined agenda of the monstrous fossil fuel industry and the "special interests" behind it as they seek to rape our world in ever more desperate and reckless ways to fuel their monstrous addiction to power and control; domination and conquest.

However, I have seen other things this last few years too. 

I have seen people waking up to the lies and illusions we have collectively been subjected to for generations. I have seen a huge revival of awareness of the things of Spirit and Mind. I have seen a quiet revolution of vegetarianism and veganism occurring, alongside a growing collective desire for sustainability and people taking radical, practical steps in their lives to achieve it. I have watched groups forming around the globe, one of which I am a member of, regularly and actively seeking to establish peaceful progressive relationship with the wider reality and community of sentience in our universe. I have seen and watched and been a part of the rising ocean of dissent, non-compliance and confrontation with unreasonable and unaccountable authority. Authority not by mandate of the people, but by force of arms. Authority imposed through violence.

I have watched  all of these things, and myself very closely. Sometimes I have been deeply disturbed by the things I have observed. Sometimes I have been shaken awake by them. Sometimes paralysed by fear, and other times compelled into courage.

Throughout it all I have remained grateful to be alive in these times, in this place. Grateful to be included in this opportunity to create a future that embraces, encourages and empowers all the entities that share it.

I have come to this conclusion so far.

I am your brother. I may not agree with you always, or even like you at times, but I shall always respect you and I shall always seek to remember that your experience of life, your interpretation of it's meaning and your emotional responses to it are just as important and meaningful as my own, and I offer you my service and my friendship, whatever nation, culture, religion, planet or galaxy you originate from.  

The following is something I began many years ago and I feel certain that I shall continue to work on it for many years to come.

A Prayer

I pray for a world where we can all just get along with each other, accepting each other’s uniqueness and cultural and philosophical differences without resorting to hatred, violence or the casting of others in the role of the devil. I pray for a world of true compassion where the strong protect the weak, the smart help out the slow, there are no wealthy or poor, and the healthy nurture and heal the sick. I pray for a world where it doesn't matter what name you use when you pray, but what matters is the heart you pray with and the peace you pray for. Where people are valued for their own sake, and not for their wealth or physical attractiveness or social position or ability to inflict harm, where folk can see further than the end of their figurative nose and consider the needs and well being and happiness of others, even those others they shall never meet and never be known by, even those others yet to be born, with equal desire and engagement as they consider their own. I pray for a world where the only person anyone seeks to control is themselves, a world where nobody is so arrogant and so misguided as to assume that they have all the answers to life's mysteries or possess a monopoly on truth and wisdom. I ask whatever God or Goddess or Higher Being of any kind from the realms of spirit, mind or space that may be listening, to consider my prayer.

Love, Courage and Strength to you all.

A