bound in a cage: The Tree of Life

bound in a cage - Cherry

When I was a Christian youth I remember how burdensome, and full of pity was the work of learning to ‘hear the voice of the Lord’. The sermons and seminars, the study of scriptures heightened the anxiety, and forever, it seemed, was the cry, the angst of not know if ‘we would ever be able to discern the voice of God.’ It was terrible and frightening an experience for me as a teenager.

Actually the ease of knowing the voice of Spirit comes from childhood. If a child's circles can remain in the simplest levels of existence in play, eating, sleeping and growing being still, and listening to divinity is child’s play. But for adults taught to shed childhood realities crudely and cruelly to re-visit their natural state is as easy as their capacity to unlearn, to play, to be still, and breath like a baby.  The accoutrement of speed and the over-emphasis on fast paces underscores the brutality to the soul. It is like a pounding on the ears from a stereo system at full blast. If adults can unlearn a belief system to sit upon the Earth, their Mother listening to the creatures great and small seen and unseen who run, and live, and thrive and struggle as animals, as birds, as creatures, shape shifters and travelers between worlds the voice of God, or the Divine listening with the rest of Creation becomes a family affair. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories