Life is sacred and is created from one source. Atoms make up all of creation, in this Universe, therefore atoms are sacred. I am and we are made up of atoms, through our Creator, therefore we are Sacred. All elements that make up our earth and the creatures, are made of atoms, through the one Creator, therefore all are sacred. All are from the one Source and therefore interconnected and sacred in their source and purpose from the Creator. To harm the least of these is to offend the Creator.
Therefore, our spiritual responsibility is to work in harmony with the many faces of the Creator, throughout our earth, solar system and Universe. Harming any of God's creation, means to use it for purposes other than what it was created for, which disrupts the balance of life and injures the delicate web of life.
Human beings have been given the power of free will, where all other creation in our earth naturally follows the Creator's Will and Plan. We have a special place in the Creators Plan as Co-Creators, to compassionately and lovingly work in harmony with the Creator's Will and Plan.
I began my walk toward healing my wounded child and wholeness, with my membership and relationship with a Unitarian Minister, Rev. Bob Payson. This lead to a membership in a organization called Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship and eventually to entering a seminary in the Graduate Theological Union on Holy Hill in Berkeley, California, called Starr King School for the Ministry. A few years after graduation I was called to the ministry of Niscience, which began, in one of our Units in Denver, Colorado and led to living at the Ann Ree Colton Foundation in Glendale, California nine years later. My interest since childhood has been in healing and later a specialized ministry. Through these religious vortice pools, I began and continued the work on my shadowed self towards wholeness and a sacred relationship with the Cosmic Christ of which earth and all life on it are a part of this sacred relationship.
Let's define a healthy individual. One ideally, has a healthy Inner Family, made up of the Inner Mother, Father and Child. Each, a Universal Archetype. These three Universal Archetypes, would represent the Feminine Principal, the Masculine Principal and the True Self. This Inner child is nurtured by the healthy Feminine and Masculine Archetype within. When a child's environment is dysfunctional, and fractures their psyche, the Inner Family Archetype is thwarted and we have a dysfunctional child. This is a major challenge in life, as most of us if not all, have some dysfunction in our childhood environment, a riddle so to speak, that we must solve, in order to fulfill our true purpose.
The archetypes are a deeper directive force, a word that refers to the "first types" or "primal patterns" from which people derive their sense of essence and existence. They govern our psyche and relationships. We have learned from Carl Jung, and his observations, when archetypes are repressed——whether within one person or in a entire society——we are cut off from nature, self, society and spirit. Archetypes are in the "I Am" realm. They heal and bridge the splits of spirit with nature, mind and body, and self with universe. They are essential elements of our psyche. Even when archetypes are repressed, they bleed through into other realms of human experience, showing up in dreams, visions, artwork, ritual, love, madness and religious knowing.
Sages have always taught that we must know our self first, then we may become aware of why we are here and where we are going. Perhaps these words of Ann Ree Colton say it best:
"The mystery of my beginnings resides within the record of my soul. The mighty eternal awaits to speak and reveal to me the I AM that I AM."
It is becoming increasingly clear that the sum of our life will add to either a positive or a negative influence on the rest of creation in this world. The darkness in the souls of men correlates to the rape and wastelands created on earth. Our disharmony is reflected in our desecration of creation. Many examples of famous people, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and many not so famous, whom we know in our own lives, have demonstrated a modern day Ahimsa heart, or harmless one, who's life's contribution was clearly positive on creation.
Some of the important lessons to learn from such ones, is unconditional love, compassion, courage and that it takes supernatural strength to stay the course. We can not do it alone. Those who would seek victory or control unethically, may gain briefly for a time, but will lose touch with their soul. In my own initiations in this area, I have witnessed this to be a clear truth.
If we are not emotionally honest with ourselves and clear in our emotions and mind, then we cannot be compassionate and understanding, and will become critical minded. As Charles Du Bois has said, "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." This relates to the paradigm shift necessary for evolving consciousness. If we are too insecure and fearful, then often we opt to have control, or hide out, then we cannot make the shift at that time. Another way this is wisely said, is by Ann Ree Colton:
"To live the sacramental life is to be a child of the Resurrection. A child of the times' eyes see not further than the wall in front of them, or this life. A child of the Resurrection eyes sees deep into eternity."
Who are the children of the times? Today, they may be described as an ever increasing population of At-Risk Students who move into adulthood, if they survive their youth. They are either low in I.Q. or in preparation to meet the challenges of life. It was reported in a study in 1996 by Kotulak; "Half of all high school students in Chicago and other large cities, for instance, fail to graduate." Many turn to conscience desensitizing video games and rock concerts with negative messages, falling into depression, alcohol and drugs. Some become suicidal, turn to criminal behavior, cut their bodies and/or pierce them, turning to hideousity activities and images of the astral influence.
If we continue to have significant numbers of students fail in their learning, this poses unacceptable risks to our democracy, and dooms far too many of our citizens to unproductive and unfulfilling lives, let alone the tragic consequences for each of these souls and those they touch.
In 1989, President Bush Sr. called for the nineties decade to be dedicated to brain research. During the past nine years we have learned more about the brain than in the 100 years preceding this decade. The research is revealing some very serious issues for our society and its youth. But unless we can direct our energies with love, compassion and understanding, no research or new information will help.
Well intended Federal school programs, such as, compensatory and remedial programs, called by some the "lifers" programs, that have been in place since 1965, dooms those placed there to a slow process of learning, where few ever find their way back to the academic mainstream. We call them Chapter One students, marking these students for other conscienceless students to make fun of, and faculty to have low expectations for them.
After four years, a new paradigm program at John Hopkins,has proven to be successful, in addressing the "lifers" problem. It is called "Neverstreaming." Students are kept in with their group of students through the years and provided with the resources needed inside and outside the classroom to keep up with their fellow classmates each year. This has been 100 percent successful, requiring more funds in the early years with an expected return of no "At-Risk" students preventing problems for the students and society, in later years. I have observed this being implemented into the Special Education programs in the LAUSD District and applaud the team effort of the educators in applying this program.
There are critical periods for some learning, in the early years, that cannot take place later, and other learning that can be done at any age, due to the brains plasticity, although it maybe more difficult and the results may be different.
In a study, Pat Wolf (1998) reports on a study by Ramey & Ramey (1996) which "proved that an intervention program for impoverished children could prevent children from having low IQ's and mental retardation." (p.11)
The study was conducted at dozens of research centers with thousands of children. The studies were based on IQ's, which has its limitations, as humans are now thought to have multiple intel1igences.(Sweet, 1998) The results of working with mostly six week old to four month old children was to raise the infant's scores on intelligence tests by 15 to 30 percent.
Developmental psychologists know that children have specific biological developmental phases that come on line at specific timings and, if their needs are not met at these timings, they suffer wounds in psyche. Joseph Chilton Pearce in his book the "Magical Child" compares the benefits of natural childbirth with the American medical model of the twentieth century. Brain injury is prevalent in the medical model, indicated by the studies of Goldberg & Shiffman's research which states "that 20 to 40 percent of our school population is handicapped by learning problems that may be related to 'neurological impairments at birth.'" (p.56-57)
My own experience has borne this out. My first child was a home birth, using the Bradley method with a midwife and doctor from Berkeley Children's Hospital. This was the doctors first experience with a home birth. My daughter was born a healthy, bright, very conscious and energetic child. As part of my research and preparation for my Masters Degree, my wife and I were part of those in the 70's who utilized and promoted home births, along with others, to change the birthing practices for families, doctors and hospitals as part of a collective effort.
Four years later in another marriage, my wife was not receptive to my training and previous birthing experiences and due to the doctor's miscalculation she was not prepared with her Lamaze training. My son was born in a hospital and with the doctors over booked schedule of births, the birth was left to the hospital interns and nurses. When the doctor finally arrived, he used forceps which caused neurological damage and my son has borne the damage the rest of his life. His eyes could not track the words in his reading and handicapped his learning process for a lifetime. Happily he has mastered it somewhat so he could take his college courses required to become a fireman.
My third child is a girl and she had the grace of our using the birth preparation of my Spiritual Teacher, Ann Ree Colton. She was born five and half years after my son, in a birth room in a different hospital with a different doctor, who repaired the damage caused by the botched delivery, from our sons birth.
In Joseph Chilton Pearce's book, "Evolution's End," he explores some very fundamental issues about the human mind and our development as a species. He writes of the massive evidence that our schools are collapsing "not from 'bad' educational systems which have always plagued us, but from a majority of our children having been neurologically damaged past the point of educabi1ity." (Pg. xviii)
His evidence and conclusions are frightening:
"Cultural childbirth, intellectual interferences with that which is spontaneous and natural to women, has eroded this bonding process for centuries. Nothing in our entire history, however (or else we would have had no history) comes close to the disaster of twentieth-century medical childbirth, which has destroyed our genetically encoded bonds point for point and brought about massive damage, probably past the point of repair." (Pg.125)
Kotulak's 1996 research paper magnifies the serious conditions our society is facing:
"In a recent report, Starting Points, the influential Carnegie Corporation of New York said the first three years of a child's life are vitally important to brain development. Unfortunately, for a growing number of children the period from birth to age three has become a mental wasteland. Society, said the Carnegie report, needs to invest adequate resources in helping these children at this critical period in their lives if we are to stem the growing epidemic of violence.
There is increasing concern that the lack of proper stimulation, may be damaging brains. The same may be true of too much exposure to the wrong kind of stimulation, such as violence. Indeed, in the last 25 years there has been a doubling, of the rates of crimes of violence, depression, suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse.
The culprit, many scientists now fear, may well be brain cells that do not learn what they are suppose to do because they have been deprived of normal stimulation on the one hand and overexposed to violence and stressful events on the other.
For millions of American children the world they encounter is relentlessly menacing and hostile. So, with astounding speed and efficiency, their brains adapt in an effort to protect them by preparing for battle. Cells rewire trillions of connections that create the chemical pathways of aggression....
The toll it takes on the brain is staggering. Children born to mothers who have less than 12 years of education have a fourfold increased risk of mental retardation, said Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsop, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC's Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
‘This regardless of race.' she said, ‘White children had the same fourfold risk as black children if their mothers didn't complete high school.'
A CDC study of more than 1,000 children showed that mild retardation, defined as having an IQ between 50 and 70, occurs at the rate of nearly one in 100 children. The biggest risk factor for mild retardation is the mother's low educational level, which far exceeds the risk posed by poverty.
About 22 percent of all births in this country are to mothers with less than a high school education, Yeargin-Allsop said. These women often do not know how to provide stimulation——such as talk, toys, and physical activity——to their infants which can lead to stunting of the brain during the crucial first three years of life, she explained. Mild mental retardation is generally believed to be caused by a failure to provide the brain with the kinds of experiences from its surrounding world that it needs to develop to its maximum capacity. Early educational intervention programs for children at-risk have shown that they can increase IQ levels by 15 points or more.
‘At least half of the cases of mild mental retardation are preventable.' Yeargin-Allsop said. ‘We can leapfrog over the risks if young people stay in school and get as much education as they can.'
The brain's food is education. Just as the food we eat gives our immune systems the strength to fight off 1ife-threatening infectious germs, education protects us against bad choices. In effect, education acts like a vaccine that boosts our mental powers, making us more resistant to illness and premature aging.
Education provides such strong immunity, in fact, that people who acquire more of it are living longer than ever before while those who don't have it are falling farther behind. It is the secret to a healthier, longer life. For people who don't grab at the opportunity for education, the news is grim. They are on the wrong end of a widening gap between people who build more brain power and those who ignore it, and they are more likely to die younger. Despite an overall decline in death rates in the U.S. since 1960, poorly educated low income white males die at rates that are three to seven times higher than white men with better education or higher income. Dr. Gregory Pappas of the National Center for Health Statistics found in a 1993 study."
