The mystical power of the gaze
This has been a hard week, hasn’t it. No wonder it’s the week I was pushed—shoved—to launch They Are All Our Children, a global radical love prayer practice to close migrant internment camps and free the children. I'm sure you know all the woeful news of the week: ICE raids, carefully planned for the opening day of school, left hundreds of children with disappeared parents. But did they arrest the owners who provided the employees with fake social security numbers? No, they did not. If that weren’t horror enough, there were 3 mass shootings by more angry white men, killing parents trying to protect their babies with their bodies. The gun violence in the United States is so pervasive that countries are now putting out travel advisories warning their citizens not to visit the US! But did our politicians take action to get assault weapons off the streets? No, they did not. The week capped off with the “suicide” of a hyper-wealthy man who ran a human trafficking ring of girls for himself and his friends—all big names in the political and entertainment worlds. His death came the day after an appeals court released a cache of previously sealed documents filled with details and names. In a bizarre twist of fate, I know this prison. It’s where my son was a political prisoner for 253 days. I know a bit about this high security federal prison. And there’s no way… And as I write this, his private island is in flames. How much evidence has been destroyed? Will his death stop the conspiracy investigation? Power will certainly try to stop it but let us hope not. I know this list is hard to read. It’s hard to write. Even harder to live through. But please don’t look away. Because:
Looking matters. It is the very first thing we do in our 5-step radical love prayer practice. We begin by gazing.We gaze at one camp representing the entire system of over 200 migrant internment camps. I didn’t plan this. Heck, I didn’t plan this entire prayer practice. But it became nonnegotiable when I was awakened by screaming: Prayer Artist! Do Something! If you’ve been following me for a while, you know a few things about me:
Saying yes to Prayer Artist has totally transformed my life, my work, and everything I offer to you. Sophia guides me in directions I could never plan or foresee but which always turn out to be perfect. So when the command to create They Are All Our Children came through so loud and clear and nonnegotiable, I got to work. Once I said yes, I was awakened at night with directions. Sometimes images, often words. One night, I was kept up for hours listening to the music for the two songs in the prayer practice. (Not bad for someone tossed out of choir for not being able to carry a tune!) I got my marching orders in the night and then in the morning, in deep soul writing I’d get the details. Well, the very first detail I received was that the prayer begins with a loving gaze at the camp.I remembered reading in Paul Pearsall’s The Heart’s Code that when we look at someone, we are sending a dose of infrared energy—what Dr. Pearsall calls an “info-energetic love map”—directly from our heart into the other person’s eyes. That energy passes through their pupils to their retinas and up the optic nerve to the brain and from there, spreads into the cellular memory of every cell of their body. (described in more detail in my 7th book, Find Your Soul’s Purpose) The most amazing and important thing about gazing is that “When you look into someone’s eyes, at their black pupil, you are looking at what has become of you in their eyes.” (The Heart’s Code) Now, do you see why the prayer practice to free the children has to open with gazing. You are not just seeing the reality of the camps. You are not just seeing the suffering of the children, you are also seeing the suffering of the guards and everyone affiliated with these camps, even the owners who profit from them. Does that surprise you? That I include the people who make money off terrified migrants fleeing from unspeakable horrors in their hometowns? I have to. The heart of radical prayer is forgiving everyone. Everyone. Even the guards. Even the politicians. Even the owners.On my own I couldn’t do this, but when I pray deep mystical prayer from within the womb of the divine mother—the mother we all share, then I can say to her, “Mother, forgive them. They know not what they do.” And she can. And she does. She is able to gaze at each of us with love and see in our souls that one spark of infinite love and perfect. Her infinite love and perfection. Humanly, I know this feels impossible. But through the short meditation I was given, followed by a special version of Ho’oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian Shamanic prayer of forgiveness, I am able to ask that everyone—everyone—be “cleansed, purified, and transmuted to the pathway of light.” And I can ask myself to gaze with love. Not just at those I love so much: my precious son, the sweet members of all my prayer intensives, my family and intimate friends, and the magnificent women who teach these prayer intensives with me. I can also gaze with love at those I find really really hard to love. You know, that “love your enemies” directive! I’m not going to tell you this is easy. It’s not. I am going to tell you it’s necessary.The patriarchy will not just pack up its bags and go after five thousand years of relentless control of power and money through the relentless control of the bodies of women and children. There is only one power capable of changing hearts. Opening fists. Opening eyes. That power is love. If love is calling you, please join the growing global community praying for 11 minutes each day to shower the camps with eyes of love. Here's the link to the landing page on my site. You can watch videos including the story of One Mother with One Child in Prison, download a PDF of the prayer practice, join a special facebook community, and much more. to opening the eyes of our souls to gaze with love, even at that which is unloveable Janet |