FREEDOM IS WINGS

Freedom is Wings  12"x9" Mixed Media on mixed media 98lb paper

The process comes through relationship, through dialogue and today, I am very grateful to Harold Fedderson (https://unleashingyourpotential.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/back-to-back/)for our conversation. "duty: a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility" is linked with "obedience: compliance with an order, request or law or submission to another's authority; observance of a monastic rule"

We practice, (take on an old observance of 40 day Winter Feast) to gain the ability to go into whatever it is that arises. Resentment, an offshoot of fear, I've found is often connected with my resistance (my mother was a trained missionary!).  I didn't want to submit to the higher authority of the Ayaawx (Ts'msyen ancestral law) because I'd come to believe that my value and worth came by submitting to how others interpreted the Ayaawx. I didn't see my understanding of the Ayaawx was distorted by my judgement of others until I found myself in a mess that I'd created by not observing the Ayaawx. 

When I admitted my ignorance to my eldest brother and my House Chief, everything shifted. Not because I made it shift. I simply admitted my ignorance and asked for help. My understanding of the Ayaawx shifted in a moment of receptivity, of a willingness to see and understand from an open heart.  Understanding expanded outside of myself and how I experience the Ayaawx now is as an energy force that sustains and is constant. A force that is outside of myself and as I submit to its authority, there is a sense of freedom. Duty and obedience are no longer a choice or an attribute to be concerned about. It is new territory. Freedom comes, she gives us wings and a song.