We know what is right, we know in our hearts, in our bellies, our guts. We know in our blood what is most important. The earth, the soul, the natural world.

In times gone by, priests became our elders and had access to the upper-worlds. We would revere them and admire their more than holiness. We would see them as ‘enlightened’ beings and trust that their judgment was always the best. We would seek their advice and bow to them paying them with our money and offering’s. Often we are encouraged by them to ‘look to the light’ as the place of spirit. We need to ascend and this can be a beautiful experience. Most religions will encourage us to look above for the right path. However if we always look to the light we stay more childlike and immature, stuck in an adolescent phase of our life.

This is a useful way to be in the world for those who would dominate us. Many leaders have always encouraged us to look to the light, to praise God in the heavens; anything that was below was seen as the devils realm and of hell. They knew that if we explored the depths we would grow up and become more mature. If that happened we would no longer be able to be controlled. So we learn to fear the depths of darkness, fearing we may be cast to hell if we look deeply enough.

Yet it is the soul that we need to connect to in order to grow and become adults. That is scary for the people in power and not something they would necessarily want us to do. Will we remain small and insignificant in order for that power to be held over us?

We are not always encouraged to descend into the darkness, into the worlds of poetry and myth, into the very places that makes us feel more deeply, and yet we need to go to these places in order to enter fully into the realms of the soul. It is here that we find the beauty of true growth, the way forward for the mature adult to become real and empowered.

If the people descended in to those realms of soul, they would begin to feel, they would discover the dream time and the poetry, they would allure others to be in the dark with them and then the people would begin to grow, to inhabit their own inner power and to find the light within the darkened places. The descent to inner-sense.

The spiritual leaders condemned the beliefs that poetry and the dance, the myths and the legends, were part of our craft to engage with soul. They created fear in people’s minds and in their communities, ‘Always look to the light’ they would say, that is where the true God resides, keep looking upward and all will be well. ‘Do not explore the dark, it cannot serve you.’

The money and the wealth and the positions of power would always be theirs. The people would not grow, but remain like children looking up at their parents, lost to a world of depth and discovery. When those who saw that light within the dark made any attempt to share the truth, they were burned, they were drowned and they were hung. Still we throw our crumbs to enlightened beings, taught that true life is above us, to steer away from the feminine, from sensuality and sexuality. Indigenous cultures would be undermined, land stolen, men tortured and the women raped.

The innocence lost in a make believe world of keeping our selves small. Innocence is not small, it is the inner power of all that we are. Our strengths and our vulnerability.

We know this at the deepest core of ourselves, we feel a ‘quickening’ that shakes us and vibrates through us. It speaks to us, urging us to move forward. If we pay attention to the ‘quickening’ we know we are about to grow.

Words from ‘Reclaimed Innocence’ ©

The Woman’s Medicine Song

I cannot share my medicine with people in power

She cannot share her medicine with people in power

The woman she is burning in the deathly fire

I can hear her screaming

When nothing else is heard

But the smoke that is rising

Is the call for new birth

So she beckons to her sisters holding out her hand

Asking for forgiveness for shaming the land

The voice it is broken

Scarred beyond belief

But the mending is beginning as the soul begins to speak

Words of pure wisdom from the belly of the earth

And the fire reaches higher as the waters cleanse her heart

And sisters are united as the medicine is heard

And the mists begin to clear with the sunlight of dawn

So she will share her medicine with people in power

We will share our medicine with people in power

Her heart is burning brightly

Her passion running wild

The dream has awoken and is spreading through the land

The voice no longer broken but a strong and powerful sound

People in power will hear her medicine

People in power will share her medicine

                                                                Caroline Carey From ‘SHE has a Voice’ ©