I come from a broken tribe, whose ancestors were raped and decimated into compliance. I have ancestors who rebelled against colonialism and the toxic patriarchy. I have ancestors who never forgot and held onto their witchy ways, defying the diseases of oppression and acculturation. Unfortunately, they are hidden deep in the archives of my blood: only to be found in my knowing and desire to believe.
More assuredly, I have ancestors who hid, sold and lost their souls at the expense of countless others' for the illusion of safety. I have ancestors who succumbed to the temptations of delicacies, prominence, and resources that privilege hold. Easily colonized and righteously christianized, my ancestors donned the clothes of the oppressors. In their soulful loss, they prevailed.
I was born into their white washed skin with racism’s blood staining my hands, my beliefs, my soul, my epigenetics. My ancestors reside in my bones and in my blood. I feel them, and am often bereft by the pain, guilt, grief, shame from their diseased egos, broken hearts and fractured souls. I feel and carry our generational trauma in my own heavy heart, and in my own fundamental deep recesses of shame and unworthiness.
I also own my responsibility and my comfort in societal roles and privileges granted me. Uncomfortably, I acknowledge I am racist. Fully acculturated, I have perpetuated, benefited by and have even protected my privileges of freedom that is my blue-blooded white-skinned American right. I am “free”, and yet why do I feel like I’m a prisoner, reinforcing others' imprisonment to protect my meager privileges and rations for my children?
Fueled by my white guilt, my attempts to live a conciliatory lifestyle have only taken me so far. Now committed to staying radically awake, I Am fighting to reclaim my soul and my living legacy in this world, and to lovingly transmute my bloodline’s miscreations. Humbly and contritely, I acknowledge my privilege, my racism. I strive to speak my truth. I strive to live life truly in concert with my beliefs, values. I strive to call out racism, oppression, colonialization when I see it, starting with myself and for others to witness their deeper truths. I strive for my actions to reflect my words, my beliefs. I welcome others to be my mirror, to call me out, to challenge me so that I may see my blind spots and grow. I seek to fundamentally change my basic agreements within all structures in which I reside.
While I Am a work in progress,
I promise to be guided by my deepest integrity.
I will do my best to act in the best interest of all of my brothers and sisters.
I will do my best to be true to the fundamental rule of the Circle:
what I give, comes back to me;
and all that I receive is reciprocated to continue the flow of abundance.
I care for you as I desire to be cared for, always in a most beloved way.
I honor my truth that we are all integral and essential to our Oneness.
With my heartfelt prayer for mutual forgiveness and abiding understanding,
I humbly (and powerfully) seek to reclaim my place
in the Circle,
in our Oneness.
I will always create and share with respect and reverence for all to co-thrive
in Mother Gaia’s perfect interdependent multidimensional realm.
And so it is.
You can find this prayer in this book, available for purchase:
