Blessed  Pathways  of  a  Sacred  Nation

David Barnes   June 2019   Salmon Arm, B.C.

“Wall to wall spiritual talk leaves no oxygen for the Living God to breathe.” What is most important is the living Spirit that is allowed to be present and dominant in the atmosphere in which we dwell together. Meaningful words will accrue as we truly live, but the dominant thing is the Spirit and the tranquil nature of the space we share. As has been emphasized many times, the real meditation is in living, not so much in the spoken words concentrated and released—although that is important too. But it is in the moments of everyday that the proof is evident, and an example set within the flow of life itself.

Here are verses from a poem that I wrote back in 1992, titled This Place Is Holy. I have had the good fortune to work with some very fine, native Indian medicine people—men and women who were given to living in a holy way, as best they knew. There is some of that influence present in this poem. The first verse is from a prayer by Black Elk:  

Black Elk, Hehaka Sapa,

The great holy man, wicasa waken, of the Oglala People

says, in prayer:

‘Grandfather, Great Spirit.

You lived first,

and you are older than all need,

older than all prayer.

All things belong to you.

You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other.

The good road and the road of difficulties

you have made to cross;

and where they cross

the place is holy.’

“You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other”. This is a very powerful realization! Think about it. And this, which follows, is also a useful and creative image: “The good road and the road of difficulties”—because we can see portrayed here the plain of life through which move two roads, one horizontal and one vertical. Often the horizontal road—the environmental circumstances, relationships and challenges—is considered to be a road of difficulties. Black Elk is saying that there is a vertical road as well, which he calls the “good road.” He is speaking of the vertical road of connection with the One he calls “Grandfather”; or what might be named Almighty God, the Father of all life. When a person is identified with, and centered in, the Spirit of that vertical road there is a transformation in consciousness relative to the perception of what appears at every point on the horizontal road of day-to-day life. When one stands at the Center point where these two roads cross, rather than experiencing the circumstances, relationships and situations as troubling, difficult or as tribulation, there is an increased awareness of opportunity and the gift, of holiness, and of wholeness.

Where the good road

and the road of difficulties

cross

is where I stand

and that place is the center of the world,

and it is holy.

Everywhere I stand,

that place is at the Center …

Every time I allow my body world

to come to focus

in the spirit of the good road

the road of difficulties

dissolves

in a consciousness of the holy place,

a consciousness of Creator magnificence,

a consciousness of love.

This place is holy.

Something is suggested here, of the identity of the One who is present at the Center point—the crossover point where these two roads meet—and thus something is brought to bear in relationship to the circumstances of this world that would not otherwise be present, when someone stands at the Center in a clear attunement with the Spirit, indicated as being from above: Grandfather, Great Spirit. It is necessary to have an attunement with the Great Spirit, with the Grandfather, with Almighty God, in one’s own character, with a clear awareness of who one is as an individual aspect of the greatness of all Spirit, standing at that high point of vibrational connection between the good road and the road of external circumstances—everything that is dimensionally below that point.

The place where one stands, at the Center point, is in the midst of the Spirit world, where there is keen awareness that a change must occur in the consciousness of human beings, a change in outlook and in the forms of manifest life itself. It is seen that a transformation must take place in the phenomenal world, and as the opportunity is accepted to be present in the heaven of Spirit on earth, a high frequency presence and influence is then brought to bear along the road of difficulties. The usual tendency has been to become lost in the outer dimensions of the world, attempting to bring transformation by manipulating the forms, physical, mental and emotional, by pushing, struggling and maneuvering—using a great deal of sweat of the brow trying to change what seem to be permanently fixed outer circumstances, and it seems they can only be reshaped by manipulating them forcefully. It never proves to be satisfactory. As rapidly as one gets something shifted in this direction, something starts moving over there; so you rush over to take care of that, and something else has shifted around behind you. A person is left exhausted trying to maneuver the factors of form by force of human determination and will.

The Spirit of the Grandfather, of Almighty God, is brought to bear in a focused way through the opportunities of incarnation, the incarnation of Spirit Being into individual human form. We can forgo speculating about what goes on at the level of Almighty God—within the vastness of universal Star Spirit. By paying careful attention to the fact of our own incarnation, and of our own true nature as a Spirit Being, the human being is transformed. Somehow, there has been an awakening to these things—and we have moved beyond the beginnings, having now a more conscious awareness the reality of our own eternal nature as a Star Being in human form. Out of the vastness of the great Star worlds of Grandfather Spirit, I have come, and I am incarnate here now as a human being, and I bring with me a consciousness of the Great Spirit needed in this world—and each of us may bring what is needed in a very unique and specific way.

The original purpose and formation for this world didn’t require that we deal with the unpleasant things that have since developed along what is now called the road of difficulties. Originally there was no experience of, or words to describe, a road of difficulties. There was only the Road of Beauty and the Blessing Way crossing the Good Road and the Spirit Road. The road of difficulties is something that has developed in the experience and language of the desolate human state—self-created and self-inflicted. It is sufficient for today to call it a road of difficulties—which means a state of amnesia, a state wherein the human being has forgotten who he is and why he is here as a Star Being in human flesh form. These days something begins to come clear and we begin to remember. As we speak about it now, and as we are awake through all the moments of our days, a vibrational intensification is brought to bear in our own human hearts and minds, and in all people everywhere—and great changes are being compelled.

So there is the movement out of the vastness of Grandfather Spirit into incarnation in a human form, and a remembering is happening—a re-membering of the Sacred Nation. And so there is that essential movement that draws consciousness upward onto higher ground where there is once again a true Man and a true Woman present in the earth—standing tall at the Center point, the crossover point, the place of the clear heart where there is a great interest to bring the greatness of the Spirit into the earth, and a throbbing of the heartbeat to let that Spirit move like a mighty river into the whole world. At first, the influence is to condition and recreate this human heart, my own conscious and subconscious mind, and my own physical body, so that it can be an adequate vehicle for the pure expression of the greatness of Grandfather Spirit as it relates the Center of my life and world—whatever that is for each of us as individual human beings—and then to help others do the same, so that each one of us may bring something strong and true and specific to bear at the place where the Spirit Road meets the road of difficulties. This place is then made Holy.

This relates to our responsibility and capacity to express a Holy Spirit in the midst of daily living, bringing this Spirit into action in relationship to all the earthly events that come in sequence along what has been conceived to be, up to this point, a road of difficulties. But as these elements of day-to-day life are brought into consciousness and allowed to blend in a right relationship with my Spirit, there comes a knowing that this place is Holy, that all these things are sacred. The quality my own mind changes as I let my Spirit free, to be expressed. The makeup of my own consciousness changes and expands my capacity to let the Creator’s Spirit be present in the world. As this happens in you and me, we begin to handle all things in a very different manner. The movement is graceful. The Blessing Way is now in the world and we are of a giving nature—giving the gifts of the Spirit to one another, and there is an increase all around. There is a new Spirit present in the earth, brought by Men and Women whose presence allows a new atmosphere to appear, and the aura of a new Earth begins to take form. We love the forms of the earth as they are now, and they also begin to transform in magnificent ways as the ever-new Spirit is always being brought into the circle of right relationship with all the things of the earth. Everything begins to change.

The sense of what is possible in time and space begins to change; time begins to transform and be something different in our own experience. It seems that we have more time, and we have more space. Time and space are known to be quite other than what we thought they were—and there is plenty of time and plenty of room. There is a new sense of timing in relationship to everything that needs to be done. It is all quite different than we had previously believed. There is all the time necessary to do what really needs to be done in accord with the ways of the Good Road. There is a right sense of time and a right sense of proportion, and we move easily in the ways of renewal. We know these things. Challenges are brought into our field of life by other people who don’t share the same consciousness of Spirit, and who don’t live at the Center of things, but that is OK. “You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other”. This is all part of what has to be met and engaged where the Good Road and the road of difficulties meet—and where they meet this place is Holy, and it is the Way of Beauty. I stand at the Center and so I know.

Two of the Seven Sisters of the Great Star Spirit which we come to know on the Good Road—the Spirit of the Single Eye and the Spirit of the New Earth—these differentiations of the One Great Spirit are all right here with me now, and they are Me, and I so bring them with me to the Center of the World where I stand. Here at the Center point all things are known to be Holy. From out of the ever new Spirit a new earth appears—and there is a blending and a wholeness of substance, and there is a vivid sense of integration, of things coming together—even as there is an evident disintegration of the factors that have made up the road of difficulty. The structured forms along the road of difficulties are set free so that they may conform to the Way of the Spirit that is present in this new Place, at the Center of the world where everything is seen to be Holy and Whole. And from within the Wholeness, the Blessed Pathways appear once again, and all the tribes of the earth gather together into a new formation of the Sacred Nation. “Great Spirit, day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things.”

the great circle,

the great hoop of life,

the Sacred Hoop

moves as I move

and a great arc of light across the land,

pulsing,

breathes into life

the blessed pathways of a Sacred Nation

the Sacred Nation comes into being

where the road of difficulties

known in this body world

and the good road

blend

this place is holy

every time I allow my body world

to come to focus

in the spirit of the good road

the road of difficulties

dissolves

in a consciousness of the holy place,

a consciousness of Creator magnificence

a consciousness of love.

this place is holy

receive the ever present opportunity to listen

for the presence of love.

perceive

the ever present design of love

and walk in its pathways.

these are the ways of life in the earth.

learn these ways and respect them

always.

this is the command of the Great Spirit

obey.

‘Great Spirit

Day in and day out,

Forever,

You are the life of things.’

© david barnes