By Margie J. Walden
Recently, I was invited to serve on a diverse Committee of leaders that needed to look at reducing a 17% poverty rate in a local Florida city. Many of the areas in this city, most affected by this situation of unrelenting poverty, are historic African-American neighborhoods. I began to work with a small group of African-American leaders and realized that I was the only white person in the room. I was not sure why this was the case and tried to understand my role in the group.
“my intelligence was valued only in relation to my ‘heart’ nature.”
Now that I look back, I realize that I had private meetings with each of this small group before we really coalesced as a working group. Clearly, before I was accepted each person had to personally meet with me and make sure that “my heart was in the right place”. I had no idea that this was happening but now I see that it was a very clear process. The important point here is that my intelligence was valued only in relation to my “heart” nature. The alignment of body (heart), mind and spirit was key in gaining access. Once there was approval, I was invited into the trust circle of deep work.
One night after writing and sending a document to my group for review I have a very deep understanding of why I was included and how my past experience has led me to this moment. As I tried to sleep at 2am, my life played before me like a movie in my mind.
“the day I marched with Indigenous people in the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica”
I saw the day that I marched with Indigenous people in the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica where they were protesting the lack of citizenship in their own country. I was on the front line walking with the big banner and chanting in Spanish about the struggle for human dignity. Then the scene flashed to traveling with the Ven. Dhyani Ywahoo, Founder of Sunray Meditation Society, into the jungles of Talamanca to visit the BriBri people to help prepare documents for citizenship that were submitted to Government officials. The poverty we saw there was hard to witness. There was no running water, no electric. People lived in thatch porch-like structures open to the elements with the animals running underneath the house. We slept in the sacred meeting space on boards wrapped in our rain ponchos. This was a blessing and we understood that we were being given the best the BriBri had to offer.
Then there was the view of working in the United Nations representing Indigenous Peoples from the seven Central American Countries for the International Year of Indigenous Peoples and helping to create a United Nations Decade of Indigenous Peoples for a forum for more discussion on rights, land and resources.
“asking difficult questions of the international community powers”
Then the review flashed to Taiwan where I was responsible at the United Nations and in Washington, DC to share Taiwan’s story of their road to establishing a democratic society based on basic human rights and freedoms. I saw my work with world leaders and being able to hone my abilities to articulate in speech making and to write short and long documents about democracy, human rights, and women’s rights. I saw myself standing up to Communism, asking difficult questions of the international community powers and steadfastly being in alignment with the highest ideals.
Then the life review led me to the present. It was clear, in that moment, that all this past work and experience had afforded me the wisdom and opportunity to address some of the most deeply painful problems of our own country-the devastating effects of slavery, Jim Crow Laws, segregation, Redlining, incarceration, and every other way that the elites have created pockets of extreme poverty and decay in impoverished American communities.
“diverse collective efforts of trust are needed more than ever”
I am grateful to my Spiritual teacher, Dhyani Ywahoo who has trained me to be able to do this work through the Peace Keeper Mission teachings of Sunray Meditation Society. I am also grateful to my parents who taught me at a very early age that it was no disgrace to be poor. Being encouraged to study hard and to always be open to others reality paved the way for goodness to come through some major darkness. I am not sure where this journey will lead in the future but I am honored in this moment to stand in a group of like-minded people who understand that the most important step in moving forward is to lift those around you as you take each step. The power we need today is not in what we can do alone, but in the groups that we can form because diverse collective efforts of trust are needed more than ever to precipitate the light to shine forth in our local communities and in the world.