Today, I got a glimpse of the protest in Paris because my friends are there vacationing. It is involving the French Yellow Vest and their 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron. Simply, they are protesting economic injustice and favoring of the elite. I’m sure there is more, but I will not get into it here.

This glimpse into Paris got me thinking about the idea of the many uprisings that are occurring throughout our whole world. I feel a surge of uprising from us all. Some uprisings seem positive and for the good of the whole, others strike out against different ethnic, religious and gender groups and are of the more negative nature. However, if we look at it from the standpoint of the people uprising, they all have what they consider their legitimate reason for rising up. Whether it comes from deep-seeded anger or a longing for equality and love, it is a effort to influence and sometimes control the environment and each other with the intention of expressing their individuality, whether for the good of the whole or not .

I have been most grateful lately for these uprisings because I see it as the truth of where we really are in consciousness. We might well have been asleep for the past several decades, thinking that prejudice had actually subsided and that the rights that we have fought for over the years in regards to gender, ethnicity, religion, right to choose, and sexual preference were actually in place, when in fact, we hadn’t addressed the real deep cause.

Like all uprisings, they come from some feeling of oppression that is like a bubbling pot held down by a lid that is rattling like crazy. Whether they are uprisings of what we consider in agreement for the good of the whole or against it, they still come from the need for expression or as Ernest Holmes would call it, “suppressed libido.” I am not talking about the libido in regards to sex, but in regards to the creative power that lies within each of us. Life must express itself. One way or the other, Life will express itself. It will push inward and create illness and disease of all kinds within ourselves and our planet, or it will express outward at the level of our consciousness. Regardless of the expression, it is all Life. Life didn’t leave because we do not like how it is expressing. The Power within each of us, again, expresses at the level of our consciousness.

So, how do we turn this all around? How do we allow each other to express outwardly without harming each other or taking away another person’s rights of expression. In society, we’ve set up laws and rules. However, even this doesn’t seem to work because of the humanness of those making the laws and for the innate need in each of us to be different and unique. Add to all of  this, the strong ego that is expressed without regard to others, we have violence, prejudice and anger.

I can’t possibly conceive how we can approach this from the outside, trying to control everyone and everything. We could look to the examples of those who created change in the world. The people who made great progress like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Jesus and others worked from obedience to a higher authority, the Divine authority which is the author of love and peace. They understood that everything was consciousness. They invited those who would follow them, to follow them and left the others alone. Yet, still, what they taught us is many times translated into distorted truth and is used for the good of some and in judgment of others or forgotten all together.

What is the answer? For me, I must sit quietly with myself and really focus on what I believe to be true. I must call upon the Higher Authority within myself, the author of love and peace and bring it out into and as my life. I must not go out proselytizing and getting others to believe what I believe, but instead be that change I want to see. I must start right where I am with my own life and encourage others who come to me to do the same. I must forgive everyone and everything, realizing that all that is occurring is the mirror of the prevalent consciousness of the whole, including mine.

What if, just what if, everything was coming up right now to reveal something far greater than ever before, while healing the deep wounds of our past. I truly believe it all has to start with the individual. We do create a ripple effect when we place our rock of consciousness into the pond of life. It is up to us, but only in regards to our own life and how we, individually treat others and our planet. We our given dominion of our mind, which in turn gives us dominion of our actions.

Rise Up! Rise Up, oh consciousness of mine! Touch the stars and bring them down to earth through this vessel of mine and do what is mine to do.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita