Sharing Quotes from Anam Cara

Recently I picked up my well-read copy of Anam Cara and on reading through my under-linings I decided to share a few of my favorites:

Anam is the Gaelic word for soul; cara is the word for friend. . . a person to whom you could reveal the hidden intimacies of your life. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. .. a friend of your soul.”

“The body is in the soul: this recognition confers a sacred and mystical dignity on the body.”. .(and/but)  “It is in and through your body that your soul becomes visible and real for you. You body is the home of your soul on earth.”

“The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey drives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for  a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. . . When you learn to love and to let your self be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warmed and sheltered."

“Presence is the way a person’s individuality comes toward you. Presence is the soul texture of the person.”

“The Celtic mind had a wonderful respect for the mystery of the circle and the spiral.”

“Deep within, there is a gallery of different selves. Each one of these figures expresses a different part of your nature.” 

One of 13 Original Grandmothers Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance on Papal Bulls

A copy of handwritten letter dated March 2009, an appeal to Pope Benedict XVI, from Grandmother Beatrice Long-Visitor Holy Dance, Oglala Lakota Nation regarding the three Papal Bulls which are the foundation of the “Doctrine of Conquest” or “Doctrine of Discovery” made me want to circulate the information in it, and possibly inspire further inquiry and advocacy. It had been sent from Grandmother Beatrice (now deceased) to Anele Heiges, O.P., who was then the president of the International Policy Institute, a UN NGO. Anele Heiges is a Dominican sister, and a supporter of the Millionth Circle and 5WCW at the UN, we have been in the activist-trenches together since I went to the CSW at the UN in 2002, she much longer.

Grandmother Beatrice was one of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers assembled in 2004) all of whom I met shortly after they came together and from time to time thereafter met some of them at conferences, especially at Bioneers. The Council went to the Vatican in July 2008, prayed and did ceremony, and requested a meeting with the Pope, which was declined. In 2013, Pope Francis (named after Francis of Assisi) born in Argentina in 1936, became the first Pope from the Americas. I wonder if Pope Francis unlike Benedict XVI would be receptive. 

Grandmother Long wrote: “Unfortunately, relationships between nation-states and tribal peoples in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania rests on the the doctrines that can be traced directly to three papal bulls: Dum Diversas (June 18, 1452). Romanus Pontifex, January 8, 1455. and Inter Castera, May 4, 1493. These papal bulls gave dominion to Europeans over lands that our tribal nations have occupied for thousands of years, and the outright  theft of entire continents from our indigenous people worldwide. It has been over 500 years since these papal bulls were written, yet they remain the spiritual, legal, and moral foundation for exercising jurisdiction over tribal people by nation states today."

Grandmother Long asked Pope Benedict “to remove these Papal Bulls. An act like this would create a global healing of all the injustices suffered by indigenous people . . .and could also bring healing to those who committed these injustices.” (there is a mystical sense of healing all generations, past as well as present and future). 

Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth to Power at the UN Climate Action Summit

Greta Thunberg, the sixteen year old Swedish climate activist’s arrival after sailing for two weeks across the Atlantic was the lead story in The New Yorker Magazine “The Talk of the Town”. Thunberg is sometimes compared to Joan of Arc and sometimes to Pippi Longstocking. 

In her emotionally charged four minute speech to world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit on 9/23/19 she quoted facts and reiterated, “How dare you!? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," and accused them of ignoring the science behind the climate crisis:

"We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth - how dare you!" An eloquent, passionate, truth-teller who did not mince her words.