August 31, 2015

Chief  Oren  Lyons






Keynote Speech: Keeping the Homefires Burning Gathering



Oren Lyons is a Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, and a Chief of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee — People of the Longhouse.





Chief Lyons attended Syracuse University on an athletic scholarship, where he was awarded the Orange Key for his athletic and academic accomplishments. A lifelong lacrosse player, Lyons was an All American at Syracuse and, together with his teammate Jim Brown, led SU to an undefeated season during his graduating year. He was later elected to the Lacrosse Hall of Fame and serves as honorary chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team.


Upon graduating with a degree in fine arts, Lyons became the planning director for Norcross Greeting Cards, began exhibiting his own paintings, and became a very successful commercial artist. He accepted a teaching position with the University of Buffalo and was named a SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies.



In 1977, Oren Lyons was a founding member of the Traditional Circle of Elders and Youth. This council of respected Indian leaders meets annually to provide an avenue for Native American culture to inform and contribute to contemporary cultural and political debate.


In 1982, he helped establish the Working Group on Indigenous Populations at the United Nations. He is the recipient of the United Nations NGO World Peace Prize. In 1992, he addressed the General Assembly, where he opened the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival, is a frequent participant in human rights issues in Geneva, and recently received Sweden's prestigious Friends of the Children Award, along with his colleague, Nelson Mandela. Among his other honors are the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, the National Audubon Award, The Earth Day International United Nations Award, and the Elder and Wiser Award of the Rosa Parks Institute of Human Rights.



Oren Lyons is the subject of a PBS documentary by Bill Moyers and recently appeared in Eleventh Hour, a documentary on the state of the natural world and climate change, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. He is the author of several books, including Exiled in the Land of the Free, co-authored with John Mohawk, and has  illustrated several children's books. He was also featured in the book Wisdomkeepers, by Harvey Arden and Steve Wall.
 




www.facebook.com/OrenLyonsFaithkeeper

August 27, 2015


Attics  Of  My  Life



sung  by  the



Lamont  Men's  Choir






In the attics of my life
Full of cloudy dreams unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know
And lights no eye can see
When there was no ear to hear
You sang to me

I have spent my life
Seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play
You played to me

In the book of love's own dreams
Where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lights grow old

When I had no wings to fly
You flew to me
You flew to me

In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me


Songwriters: Jerry Garcia & Robert Hunter

 © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group


August 25, 2015

from


The  Return  to  Sublime  Being





Alan Hammond   September 17, 2006



Our aspiration is to express the sublime character, not for an hour, a week, a month or a year, but in every moment of our lives—and not merely, therefore, into one narrow field of endeavor, but in every aspect of our life experience. Does this sound like too much to aspire to? Not to true Identity. Our challenges relate to everyday situations—perhaps to finances, health, or relationships. Are these circumstances too small to reveal something sublime? To reveal the glory of Being?


We first of all might consider that these small circumstances are attached—ultimately, to everything. And in any case, what greater purpose can there be in any moment than to reveal our angelic Selves? Our victories, if we have them, are invariably private. However, we know about them if we successfully express our true Selves. And Being knows. That may sound very abstract. To make it more specific, the King knows. It has been said that the King, the Father, knows when any sparrow falls to the ground, when any microbe dissolves, because Being is One, and sentient.


In true Being, the sublime character and experience is shared. We can share the quality of spirit, the sublime that was revealed anywhere at any time, because the sublime Spirit is One. We rejoice in it wherever we encounter it, or wherever it manifests. For us, we can perhaps recognize that one of our most potentially sublime contributions into the experience of Being on Earth is the reintroduction of the experience of true Identity in human form. We may read of other people’s magnificent contributions of spirit in life, we may thrill to the quality of spirit revealed—but our day is now. We are alive now, and we are to reveal this sublime spirit in this day.


There is a spiritual process which is intensifying in the world. With our outer minds we can most easily observe it through the phenomenon of the shrinking world. With the latest technological developments in communication and modes of travel, the world is getting smaller. Another way of saying this is that there is less and less space for human nature. Soon there won’t be any. Time and space are two facets of a certain dimension. There is space, and by observing and measuring the movement of objects through space, time is known. So if there is less and less space for human nature, there is also less time for human nature to be about its destructive existence. This accelerating process is also true for individuals, inasmuch as everybody is getting older, so everyone has less and less time in their human nature experience.


Because of the intensification on the larger global scale, this shortening of days is not just something for the elderly to consider. It is happening for everyone. It is happening for the whole human race. With this process underway, human beings identified in their human nature selves, struggle more and more for fulfillment. They want more space for themselves. “Time for myself to do what I want to do. I’d rather be somewhere else, maybe with someone else. I want more spacious opportunities for my fulfillment,” and so on. By contrast, we utilize this spiritual process differently. If we have less space, we are delighted because it causes us to concentrate on what is actually present with us where we are, and perhaps awaken more to the creative opportunity that has always been present, and is certainly present now. Also, this squeezing process squeezes us into the present moment.


So in time and space we are delighted to come to pure Being, where “I Am,” to begin to awaken to, explore and enjoy the wonders of Being. Here we find we have plenty of space, plenty of time to express the sublime Spirit and to reveal, as best we may, our finest. Our experience of Self is getting larger, and we gradually find that our consciousness is blending into the infinite as our own human nature is transcended.


There are dimensions of our Self which transcend the outer form and therefore transcend the passing or the dissolution of the outer form. (I would mention here that Life creates form—form doesn’t create Life.) As finer substance is generated, we begin to experience a change in our experience of time and space. Certain aspects of what we have known as space begin to fill in so that there is no longer the experience of isolation and separation from the rest of Life everywhere. Also, the feeling of temporariness dissolves. Thus there is the gradual dissolution of the false experience of time and space.


Different ages and stages afford the Angel opportunities to focus creative activity and experience in different aspects of life. So as we individually and collectively come to the shortness of days, this can permit the Angel to intensify the experience of true Identity in their own outer consciousness and thereby bring it more vividly into the collective Archangelic consciousness.


In healing there is always a creative process prior to a healing crisis, when more obvious change is evident. This is true also in the process of the restoration of the Archangelic Body. There has been and is, a generation of certain qualities of substance which is necessary before time runs out for this diseased planet and the healing crisis occurs. In this process there are two aspects. There is the generation of the necessary qualities of substance, and there is also the cosmic schedule. The Earth can’t stay in its fallen state indefinitely; it has a role to play in the larger Design. So there comes a point in the divine schedule when the Earth must be reincorporated into the function of the whole Design. At that point there will be a specific radiation from the undimensional levels of Being which will cause the transformation that is possible in the human form and the overall Archangelic Body. One way or another, the fallen state will be gone.





There is an interesting passage in the first book of Corinthians, Ch. 15, vs. 51. Paul wrote:


"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."


This vision by Paul is obviously not entirely accurate. Dead bodies are not going to be lifting up out of the ground, and there will not be the resurrection of any human egos. But we can discern what Paul was sensing. He was sensing something true. There will occur the restoration of the Archangelic Body and the consciousness of true Identity on Earth.


When an individual wakes up from sleep they don’t wake up in sections—first of all their toe, then their ear, then their nose, and so on. The individual wakes up as one. So it will be with the Archangelic Body. It will awaken into the knowing of true Identity—its real consciousness in the real world. Of course as the Archangelic Body awakens, all its parts, all the individuals composing the Body will wake up simultaneously. This is another example of the holographic process. Such change comes “in the twinkling of an eye,” not by creeping conversion! However, we don’t imagine that therefore we now just sit around waiting for this great event to happen with nothing to do. We are in the midst of the creative cycle, and to put it succinctly, we are here to generate finer substance which will allow transition, either individually or collectively, to be easier and more natural.


Just as the death of the individual human form occurs in the twinkling of an eye (and I have mentioned before that no one can ever experience nothing, thus nobody has ever experienced death), so at the transition, the Archangelic awakening is into undimensional Identity. The experience of the undimensional Self is very different to the experience when identity was mostly in the outer form. Because identity has been in the outer form, our experience of time and space has been of a particular and peculiar nature. The undimensional Self lives in the eternal now, and consciousness is not bleeding off into the past or into the future as it does now. That doesn’t mean there is no awareness of something in the past and something of the future, but it is a different kind of experience mainly because the experience of space is different.


With all the finer substances restored, what has seemed like vast areas of space in every dimension of experience will be gone. It is impossible to describe, even imagine what that state is, but isolation and separateness as we’ve known it will not be known. The old time and space shall be no more. We will then find that the levels of our creative activity are very different to what they have been when our identity was more fully in the outer form. Many activities that human beings are currently engaged in are none of their business. Meanwhile, their true business has been totally neglected. For example, virtually all physical processes will be achieved through other levels of mind, not through the conscious mind of the Angel.


We have taken a brief look at a process which is obviously underway, so that we may participate more consciously and accurately in the preparation for this major transition. This prognostication has been made throughout recorded history, but its fruition is very apparently drawing much closer. However, we continue living and serving in the present moment, not bothered about great events of the future. We continue letting our true Selves be evermore vividly present in this moment of the creative cycle. And as the process continues to intensify, no doubt our considerations on the topic will likewise intensify in the days to come.


As we express our true Selves, we know our oneness with the beauty of Being everywhere. There is no separation; it is one expression. We certainly don’t look for pats on the back for real or imagined glorious expression or sublime acts, because as we have considered many times before, Being is One and none of us can do anything without a myriad other factors contributing to whatever we do. The glory of Being is One, and we rejoice in that. It is delightful to give expression to that glory as we can through our capacities as they are--maybe not much of a show sometimes! Nevertheless, identified in the Spirit we know oneness with the Whole, and satisfaction in playing our part.


There is this vague feeling in the world that things will go on, and on, and on, the way they always have. After all, recorded history seems to go back a long way, and it is imagined that the future will dawdle on with gradual progress in human civilization. Nothing could be further from the truth! There is dramatic change in the offing and we rejoice in that—nothing to be afraid of. We are one with the sublime Spirit back of it all! And so we joyously move with its action moment by moment.


© archangelicbody.org

August 18, 2015

Isaiah 55





Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat;

yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.


Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.


Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live ...


Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near ...


For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.


For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts.


For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth,

and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:


So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void,

but it shall accomplish that which I please,

and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.


For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace:

the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.


Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree,

and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree:

and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign

that shall not be cut off.