Practice Peace by Shiloh Sophia McCloud
DISCLAIMER: This writing is exploratory at best. It is a rough draft, unplugged. I welcome your thoughts.
Confronting the Ethics of the Law of Attraction and Exploring Other Scenarios
How Could It Be So?
I have long been compelled
by the work of easing suffering
and reaching my hand towards that —
the act of which
is the daily bread of my spirit.
Some offer food, shelter and hope.
My work is about encouraging us to use our creativity
to illuminate us
so that we value ourselves
and do not feel worthless, not enough, or be self haters.
This way I figure, our lives as a whole will be different,
if folks move from self love instead of self hate.
Sweet joy and peace, though it seems
unreasonable
comes only after the little flame of pain
has been lit on the heart in anguish
from hearing the cries of the world,
ours and theirs
and crying back, first with wonder, words and wishes
and then reaching back with what Creator:
The Power of the Universe
has put in your hand to do.
Compassion in action
may be the path to personal peace,
not avoiding pain,
this is something all the great religions
can agree on, except perhaps,
some
which suggest you can avoid suffering
if you will just
think correctly and practice these 5 easy steps towards
that which you are manifesting.
I am of another opinion. And I don’t care how popular it is.
The victims of our world do not call on their pain
from karma or negative thinking or to learn a hard lesson from
a daunting God or demanding universe or past life.
How could it be so?
We have gone beyond the simplicity
of each person’s cosmic destiny
being uniquely theirs to unfold.
Perhaps it was like that once long ago. I don’t know.
But since we poisoned our earth,
poisoned our body, poisoned our spirit,
a randonmness has ensued
that catches us in a crossfire
that someone else may have started,
that has nothing to do with us.
But since it crossed our path,
NOW it has to do with us just because
we have to deal with other’s messes and our own.
Now that we have the illness or calamity –
how we act is ours. Is up to us.
But the hardship showing up in the first place,
MAY OR MAY NOT have been personal to our path.
It becomes personal when it crosses our path – but
not because it crosses our particular path.
Now it belongs to us to manage, but did we CALL it to ourselves?
Sometimes. Not always.
It is so strange – I think
To think someone could “call on” being run over by a car –
Be so powerful as to CAUSE A CAR TO RUN THEM OVER
and yet not powerful enough to KNOW how to think to prevent
such hazards. The juxtaposition of power and powerlessness
in this scenario is mind boggling.
Here is a quote from a very popular being Abraham:
“These beings, that are acting out in those ways that you find so awful, are tormented and suffering in ways that you will not understand. Their horrible acts are extensions of that pain. We also have to say to you — no one who is not a vibrational match to that could be their victim.”
How could it be so?
How could it be so
that there is divine order,
as well as random chaos?
Because there is good and evil.
Some say we “cause” the evil through thinking it.
Whatever each person’s religion says about how it got here
And what it is doing and how it influences our lives –
Evil is here. Famine. Death. Rape. Greed. Ponography are here.
Regardless of what I think about evil, I contend with these evil
forces just by showing up in a body.
There is a cause and effect bigger than our understanding of
the law of attraction.
There may be more than one answer. Consider this scenario.
Warning: graphic content.
The Poisoned Woman
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She doesn’t know. She gets cancer.
Is it because of something she did, specifically to call it to her?
Random.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She doesn’t move. She gets cancer.
Participation.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She moves. She has a clean bill of health. Still gets cancer.
The way it is.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She doesn’t move. She chooses to think she will not get sick,
Thinks good thoughts. It works.
A miracle.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She chooses to think she will not get sick. She doesn’t move. Thinks good thoughts or hopes for the best. Gets cancer. Sues the landowner. And is now, really hard on herself that she didn’t move, and she didn’t think good enough thoughts, no matter how much she believed on it.
Happens a lot.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She cannot move. She gets cancer. Chooses to think it is her time.
Is it her time, or is it not?
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She contacts the landlord. She is so busy. She cannot afford to move. She chooses not to think about it. She gets pregnant from a one night stand. She is not sick, but her child is born handicapped. She doesn’t know if it is the water. She blames herself. Is she to blame?
The human condition.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She doesn’t know. But the landlord does, and doesn’t tell her. She has a healthy child with an absent father. Eventually she finds out. Landlord offers to install a filter.
She says yes. He comes over, she steps out for minute. Her child gets molested. Water filter installed. Still poison. Only she doesn’t know. And her child cannot speak yet, so she also doesn’t know what happened. The child grows up, gets cancer, doesn’t know why.
All too common.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She is too overwhelmed to take action. She works two jobs. The landlord tells her he will handle it. He doesn’t. She doesn’t have healthcare. She feels sick all the time, but blocks out that it may be because of the water. She lets it go because she does not know what else to do.
Ignorance and poverty. American healthcare.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She decides not to move. A friend comes over. Mentions the water. She tells the friend. The friend asks questions. The friend calls the Landlord. Makes friend move immediately in with her. Gets compensation to move friend to new home.
Community.
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She moves. She gets cancer. She uses it to wake up, to become present.
She helps others. She first challenges and confront the landowner to transform the building. He does finally. She forgives the landowner. She dies in peace because of how she dealt with the situation.
Grace.
A woman lives in a rental home.
She eats healthy and there is no contaminated water, she is on a well. She had a hard childhood. She is still so mad she cannot get over it. She has tried everything. She cannot get the images of her pain out of her mind. Her pain turns to hate. She gets cancer.
Self Induced?
A woman lives in a rental home.
She eats healthy and there is no contaminated water, she is on a well. She had a hard childhood. She is still so mad she cannot get over it. She has tried everything. Her pain turns to hate. She lives to be 101 and mean as cat piss.
Luck?
A woman has contaminated water in her rental home.
She knows. She moves. She gets cancer. She heals herself. She then helps other move out of contaminated buildings. Begins awareness campaign for toxins.
Hallelujah!
And the scenarios go on! The trouble is, it is NOT just one way. So promoting that it is, whether it is Christian or Hindu or The Law of Attraction is mis-leading people. Maybe we DON’T know how it is, I don’t know either – but I am pointing out that it is not just one way.
In speaking with my Native American friends, about the complete desecration of their people and land, some have said, We understand that change was inevitable. Did we call on this specific kind of change? As a nation? As a individuals? As a collective? Were we not “thinking” and doing right, so as to some how call this massacre a destiny that we called forth. No. They do not think so, generally speaking.
With child trafficking, rape, bio-chemicals – how could it be so that each blow we are dealt was something we specifically caused to ourselves? There is order to the universe, but it is not this kind. There are TOO MANY options, and too many outcomes. We KNOW that thinking well can heal, and sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. SiNCE the stats are in that it is random whether we get hit by car – maybe it was our time, but maybe NOT! Suicide bombers killing thousands of innocent people are TAUGHT to believe they get to go to Heaven for serving God. Did each one of those victims have a divine appointment to meet with the insanity of that occasion? Ignorance and enforced taboos keep us captive! That babies are being raped in Africa as a thought cure for aids! Does every girlchild of female genital mutilation call that upon herself in a sick karmic tryst with her family and future husband? And then there is collective karma too – to explain Hurricanes and earthquakes – and some call it God’s punishment! What?
When we do not understand the horror of what is happening here, we may blame God, because how could God allow this to happen? So they leave God all together. I really understand this as it is so HARD to make sense of the senseless. I have chosen to be in dialogue with GOD about all of it rather than not to be in conversation at all.
The real question is not ‘does it belong to us personally’, but how can we as a human race co-creating with Creator begin to bring HEALING and CARE to our world?
I have thought about this topic a lot as I face it all the time with the thousands of women I work with. And I have much more to say, and the LORD knows I need to refine the above conversation as well because it is clearly important for me to speak out about the randomness and crossfire I believe each of us is subject to.
In closing, what I would like to say, is that my experience with the women I have worked with, is that thinking they caused their cancer or their child’s birth defects or what have you – IS NOT A HEALING THOUGHT, and does not inspire the appropriate kinds of actions, because guilt is crippling if misplaced. IF we are truly guilty, that is another story and has a different conclusion and shows up differently in the life of that person. The ones who are caught in the crossfire, but are inducing guilt are not being inspired to act towards healing.
There is the personal, the collective and then how they intersect. Have we as a people as a whole attracted this situation? In a way, I would say that yes – we have.
But since we continue to birth children into this who were not a part of making it this way, how is that child responsible for entering into this madness?
So what is there to do about this? I will release a Part Two on my thoughts about what to do. But for now just leave it at this.
My prayers go out to Haiti, to Oakland, to the rich and the poor and to everyone in between who wonders how to proceed in impossible circumstances.
Click here to learn more about my work, paintings and vision.
