Rainbow Tribes

THE PROPHECY

When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying,

a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth

from many colors, classes, creeds, and

who, by their actions and deeds,

shall make the earth green again.

They will be known as the Warriors of the Rainbow.

I have come to believe that EVERY action or decision we make is based upon either Love or Fear.

Unfortunately, most of them come from fear.

Fear is not inherently bad. Fear is the learning that there are things harmful to us. Fear keeps us from burning our fingers by touching things that are too hot. It guides us to be wary when we are in unfamiliar territory. But it is only meant to be a tool, to serve to protect us, not to govern or control us. When we allow fear to govern us, we become slaves to it, and soon Fear keeps us from doing just about everything that's good, worthy and worthwhile in the world.

A few years back, I got a flat tire late one moonless summer night on a pitch-black country road out in rural Oklahoma. I had no jack, so there was nothing else to be done for it. I would have to walk to the highway some 3 miles away, in my sandals. Dark as it was, my eyes played with every line in the asphalt, every shadow. Snakes do tend to travel at night when it's hot, and to enjoy the pavement's heat, so it wasn't entirely unreasonable to be afraid of copperheads. They're often aggressive and have no rattles or other warnings. So there I am, walking in the pitchblack, freezing in place with every shadow. I quickly realized it would take me all night long this way, and I still might not be any safer. I finally had to let go and just trust in God/Fate/Universe, look out ahead of me instead of down at my feet, and walk. I imagined there being some young man walking across a desert in the sunlight on the other side of the world at that exact same time. I recited the Lord's Prayer, and the Litany Against Fear... and I walked, one step after another.If there was a copperhead with its sights on me, I never knew it. In retrospect, I was probably more likely to have been harmed by stumbling or some driver not seeing me, than by a snake.

During that hour's walk, I became much more familiar with myself, and the ways in which we ALL allow fear to paralyze us. Rather than being our protector, it becomes our prison when we do that to ourselves, give away our Power to something so irrational as fear of the unknown. The Unknown isn't inherently bad, either. Each and every thing, person, place, activity or pleasure we have ever enjoyed has been Unknown to us at one time. The Unknown also brings us tremendous good. Should we be so fearful of it, then, that it might bring something unpleasant, that we deny ourselves the knowing of the good, pleasant experiences as well? Even in a worst-case scenario, nothing we have encountered thusfar has been so terrible and powerful that we did not survive it... and none of us is getting out alive anyway.

I would much rather risk an unpleasantry or even the inevitable meeting with death, than to sit safely in my corner the rest of my days and die of old age, having seen, learned, smelled, tasted, felt, expeienced and loved nothing new. And so I will not let fear of the Unknown control me. Instead, I remind myself of these thoughts, and of this:

Litany Against Fear

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

- Frank Herbert

What, then, is it to make our decisions based, instead, upon Love?

Before we examine that, allow me to present another powerful notion:

War And Peace

"The opposite of War is not Peace... it is Creation."

Jon Larson - Rent

I found this incredibly profound and powerful as I began to think on it. The statement shows that War isn't just hostility, it is Destruction. We're always claiming to fight for peace (another oxymoron, along with screwing for virginity.) Just ceasing hostilities will not repair the destruction. Perhaps this is why Peace is always tentative, short-lived. What is needed is not that middle-ground, but the true opposite of Destruction: Creation.

Click here for an extended dissertation on that concept.

In guiding and helping people to Creation, we go further than just the cessation of hostilities called Peace.

What ways can you think of to promote Creation?

Back to the part about Love and Fear. If we are motivated by love, we will Create.

There's an Arabic concept called Zakat. Literally, it means "poor due", or what one owes to the poor. It is obligatory upon Muslims to be charitable to those in need.

So what about the poor people themselves? Who do they give to? How do they give when they have nothing? According to the Prophet,

Fear causes us to be controlling of others. Fear causes us to be unkind. Fear is not just the mind-killer. It's the spirit killer as well.

Will you get burned? Absolutely. There willl be people who will take advantage of you, or mistake kindness for weakness.

I don't believe one can claim to be a pacifist if he can't fight his way out of a wet paper sack (because then he's not really choosing, he's just making lemonade.)

The thing is, one should fight only as the very last resort, and to protect, not to conquer.

According to O-Sensei, the founder of Aikido (the Way of Harmonizing with Energy,) and a Shinto priest,

we have the right and responsibility to defend ourselves, to throw an attacker as hard and quickly as we're able.

But since Aikido is a loving art, we're to be equally diligent in trying to catch them before their head hits the cement.