AWAKENING TO FREEDOM: From Prisoner to Personhood Through Consciousness Sharing

[Arieljoy Fine]

I stare at the 1928 Everett Baby Grand that was my mother's seventh birthday present.  I stare and experience the musical version of "The blinking cursor syndrome".  The real issue is Freedom; how much can I allow myself?  How far from "Pretty" will I allow myself to stray?  Of course, this same question applies to life in general.

 

When I was practicing psychotherapy the people who called on me did so because they were not free.  What many of them didn't know at the outset of our work together was that the idea of freedom appealed to them while the reality of it was light years beyond their comprehension.  These clients were actually more afraid of gaining freedom than they were of remaining in this prison of their own making.

 

Like the Elephant calves who are chained to a stake by one leg so that when they mature into massively muscled adults they don't even try to pull away, my clients experienced the most resistance around the concept that they may have outgrown their shackles.

 

When we work for the release of imprisoned women and children, and for the respectfull and humane treatment of people everywhere it is critical to remember that we must work on freeing the spirit of the prisoners first.  The spirit must be prepared to accept this newfound freedom and this can be accomplished by raising consciousness from prisoner to personhood for each person being freed.

 

This preparation can be accomplished through simple meditation where the meditator feels the joy of his or her own freedom and then offers that feeling to the spirit of the person seeking to be free.

However, the meditator must acknowledge and respect the free will of the other person and refrain from superimposing an agenda.

 

It is precisely because we are all related that it is possible for us to share our joy with the spirit of a brother or a sister whom we have not yet met in the flesh,

 

Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin,

Arieljoy