I recited ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, many moons ago, in a large tent, before family and friends but I addressed it specifically, on that day, to the man I had chosen to share this life-journey with. There are parts of that invitation, I am only now beginning to understand, in light of multiple relationship casualties over the past four years, most of them, involving people who listened to my recitation that day.
I want to know… if you can be faithless and therefore, trustworthy… from ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Previously, I tried to make sense of this line in the context of what I understood ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ to mean. For me, faith and trust are both ‘good’ things, so I could not understand Oriah’s exhortation to be ‘faithless’ in order to be worthy of trust. Now, as I examine the wreckage of the past four years, I have a new understanding of that line.
My father’s speech on the same day, moved some listeners to tears. The bond of love between he and I, was clearly evident for all to see, in the emotional delivery of his words. I never doubted that love. I never questioned its durability. The nightmare unfolding in our collective world for the past four years, however, has forced many of us to re-assess the almost continually-shifting landscape of relationship and it is in this context, that I now understand Oriah's ‘Invitation’.
Faith in itself, is not a bad thing. Belief is important - we all need something to believe in; to hold onto in a chaotic world that might otherwise sweep us away. For me however, this faith is based on intuition or inner knowing; a direct and embodied experience of something that is true for me regardless of what others believe.
Blind faith on the other hand, in any dogmatic belief system, formulated and passed on by others - be it religious, political, medical or otherwise - is dangerous in the extreme. Saturated in such an environment, the un-questioning mind, unable or unwilling to engage in critical thought, can be switched easily from dormant-neutral, when no threat is perceived, to dangerously over-zealous mass-formation with the application of targetted socio- and neuro-linguistic programming, a phenomenon so well-elucidated by Mattias Desmet. (1)
Not for the first time in our history, Mass Formation Hypnosis looms large. All of the required conditions for mass formation to occur, were neatly met back in 2020. Very quickly, heels clicked into lock-step, obediently ready to march as one against the ‘enemy’.
Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia - George Orwell, from ‘1984’
The apparent inability or unwillingness of the majority to apply critical thought to an all-pervasive dogma, offered by politicians and mainstream media with regard to world-events, frightens me in a viscerally-palpable way. It also creates dissonance for me, not just cognitively but emotionally and spiritually.
I am painfully aware that my crusade to ‘wake’ people, whom I perceive to be asleep to the very real threat of unbridled digital control, runs counter to ahimsa (non-violence), one of the basic precepts of Yoga, which I try to live my life by. Because my efforts to alert people to the danger I perceive so clearly, come from a place of fear (I am seeking safety in numbers), they are received as aggression by family members and friends, who do not see what I see. Thus, my pleas, at best, fall on deaf ears. At worst, they create strife in now-fractured relationships.
For me, love, trust and respect are inextricably linked. As I negotiate the shifting landscape of relationship with family and friends, I struggle with loss of trust and respect as integral pieces of these relationships. Love endures, of course, but the relationship is irrevocably altered through injury sustained to a vital part.
I can disagree respectfully with someone’s views and beliefs, even when they are quite different to my own, only if I can see clearly that these beliefs and conclusions arise from rigorous questioning and inquiry. However, that is not what I see in today’s world, where critical thought is sacrificed on the altar of dogma and blind faith, such that I hear the same ideological mantras repeated to me by different people, verbatim, almost like a chant; echoes perhaps of a not-too-distant past?
I can have neither trust, nor respect for minds, which refuse to open to the possibility of multiple narratives, choosing instead, a path of least resistance, in the form of dominant group-think and blind faith in programming proffered by the weapon of mass distraction that is corporate media, dogmatically pursuing one agreed narrative, through the Trusted News Initiative - BB anyone? (2)
Such blind faith is, in my view, a woeful abdication of repsonsibility to our collective consciousness. These minds, as far as I can tell, are, in effect, fervently faithful but equally untrustworthy.
As a counter-point to this, a sort of silver lining, I now have deeper insight regarding relationships with friends and loved ones. In addition, I have been introduced to many interesting people over the past few years and through them, new ideas I might not have come across otherwise, had circumstances been less cataclysmic. These are the people willing to question, when others are afraid to do so; to stand up and be counted, no matter how high the cost. For some, the cost has been high indeed.
In the creation of New Earth - a radically different and more simple way of being on this beautiful planet we call home - stakes are inevitably high but we must believe it is worth the risk, if we are to engage fully and achieve success.
Why?
Why should I blame him for being spell-bound
cast in a sea of moral drought
where feeble minds are drowned?
He is not my safety net
behave though he would as righteous defender
yet blinded and hood-winked by lies.
Why should I blame her for turning away
shaming the light in my eyes
leaving me to burn at the stake
for an uncommitted crime?
She is not my mother’s womb
believe though she would in her love
yet walking me into a deep, dark grave
designed by those who have none.
Why did I choose to come here now
surrounded by blindness and fear
where thorns of madness prick my brow
and sting my eyes with tears?
A purpose beyond my understanding
though glimpsed in moments of calm
has left me awake in the dim half-light
to remind me who I am.
Answers to my questions come
as guidance from stars up above
and also through such shining ones
who stand with me through worldly troubles.
The falling away of what went before
which took me by angry surprise
gave me sight when the Great Tree shook
so that fruit could be recognised.
And though it saddens to let them go
the ones I believed I could trust
once grief has loosened its grip on me
I know I am on the cusp
of fulfilling a dream as ancient as Time
as deep as love itself
to reap the rewards that can only be mine
when Earth meets Heaven again.
© Áine Fortune 2022
When Trust is Gone
When veil is lifted on web of lies
so that eyes now closed can see
and politicians who once held sway
despised and shown as weak
still, the reaper comes to claim his prize
of all in battle lost
for even those who win the day
have paid too high a cost.
Victory cannot sweeten the taste
of bitter salty tears
for all that was and might have been
if not for doubt and fear.
Trust is such a precious gem
the flame of love its twin
there is no line between them
no end and no beginning
but delicate as a butterfly wing
the slightest wound may tear
and like this wing, once injured
it cannot be repaired.
The trust which seemed implicit
in all that went before
is trampled in the nightmare
consumed by raging storm
so loved ones turn their face away
from those they knew so well
unsure of who is friend or foe
for whom they toll the bell.
The reckoning came so swiftly
as battle lines were drawn
connections severed suddenly
no time allowed to mourn
bonds of friendship stripped away
amidst such battle cries
the smokescreen took away our sight
and trust was left to die.
Suspicious of each other
doubting of ourselves
we did not know to whom to turn
when trust in battle fell.
But heavy though the loss may be
and deep the reaper’s cut
there is yet hope amidst the pain
the door is not yet shut
for when the ashes clear
our chance will come again
to look around the battlefield
at old and new-found friends
where tendrils of connection float
as wind may carry wisps
and trust, just like a butterfly
awaits in chrysalis.
© Áine Fortune 2021
Why?
When Trust Is Gone
Footnotes:
The theory of Mass Formation has been well-articulated by Mattias Desmet, Professor of Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium and author of ‘The Psychology of Totalitarianism’
“The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is an international alliance of news media, social media and technology corporations, which claim to be working to identify and combat purported disinformation… This led to the launch of a ‘Trusted News Charter’ on September 7, 2019, outlining plans to develop tools to assist industry partners in "moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold.” Other projects were to include an online media education campaign and disseminating information on how to vote". Source: Wikipedia. BB = Big Brother from George Orwell’s ‘1984’