A Time for Spiritual Strength and….

This came across my facebook page inbox  from a group called:
GRANDMOTHER MOON: Intentional Emotions of Moontime, Dreamtime and Earthtime <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=169964574625>

I’m very impressed with what this woman has written here. You can read on…  It is definitely the time for spiritual warriors in these ‘interesting times’.

NEW MOON CYCLE OF SPRING
(Aries & Eris) APRIL 14 – MAY 12
“The Incarnated Dream”
First of the Fire Moons!

This moon cycles intention is all around Relationships, our Physical Body, our Anger, and All my Relations. What can I say, its SPRING! If we *Give more than we Receive – it’s called the Martyr and if we Receive more than we Give – it is called Pride… seek to be aware of which dominates in your being, and then dare or risk touching the opposition called fear in order to rebalanced your giving and receiving. Intentions to focus on today:

I AM DISCIPLINED
I AM HEALTHY
I AM FULLY IN MY BODY
I AM FEELING ALL MY EMOTIONS
I AM A SPIRITUAL WARRIOR
I AM RESPECTING MY BOUNDARIES

SHADOW WARRIORS:

The Hermit / Shaman….

If there was a church of the martial arts, the hermits would be its saints. Very little is known about them except today’s tradition in the living hermit, shaman warriors. Mystery surrounds them. But at the genesis of many martial arts, there is the figure of the hermit. S/he arrives at dawn before any history. Their story is murky, like the appearance of a ghost who passes on the treasures of knowledge before disappearing again in the fog. History begins only after a traveling warrior stumbles upon one of these mystics of the forest, the sorcerer and shaman who shares for several years after the hermit’s solitude by becoming disciples, and then comes back in the world to teach what s/he has learned.

In the Chinese martial tradition, the hermit is often a lonely Taoist in the company of the teachers of avian, animals and the natural elements much like the shaman and which are basically the same. Nature teaches her the ways of enlightenment and immortality. Observing wild animals dueling, s/he learns fighting techniques unknown to human beings. Worldly affairs have no importance past a simple ten minute debate which shows the hermit shaman the lack of consciousness of the others defending illusion or personal illusion. Because s/he has stepped away from history in order to dance with eternity of mother earth, s/he lives in a parallel world that doesn’t follow the same laws of human society or wo/men. She doesn’t belong to anyone or anything anymore to what is commonly identified as humanity.

His is the gift as well as its danger. A shamanic story tells that it is very easy for apprentices to learn to travel from a human body into a deer’s body to be unable to come back to the human level. Shamans say that in the consciousness of a deer there is no desire to enter into a human body, so some badly prepared apprentices remain stuck forever.

The Ninja…

Ninja’s do not t need to fight where the battle is fiercest to demonstrate courage. Silent and unseen, he achieves what ten thousand warriors charging straightforward cannot accomplish. The ninja doesn’t acknowledge any authority to laws alien to his heart. “I didn’t create them–he declares–I don’t subscribe to them. So I don’t have to live by them.”

The samurai looks at the ninja with contempt, considering him nothing more than a nocturnal predator without honor or morals. But the samurai is wrong. It isn’t that the ninja has no morals. Simply, he is not bound by rules written in stone. His morals have their sources in the paradoxical waters of Taoism. He doesn’t dogmatically apply a series of preset rules, and, like Tom Robbins’ outlaws, doesn’t need to consult a manual of good behavior to decide what to do.

The ninja chooses to choose. Always. Every situation is unique and should be faced as such. Neither human nor divine laws can choose for him. Faced with the events of life, he stays open, flexible. Certain aspects of Tibetan texts on the art of war, and some yogic techniques belonging to secret sects of Buddhism, they created a vision of life radically different. When society decides to crack down on the lifestyles of mystic, the ninjas used their skills to defend themselves.

The Tribal Warrior…

June 23, 1876, state of Montana. Thousands of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors have gone to face the column of soldiers who wanted to attack them. They crushed them and took away from them any enthusiasm for battle. While on the hills the Indians chase the last soldiers tying to run away, another threat steps onto the scene. A second group of almost 300 soldiers has arrived in the valley from the opposite side and is getting ready to attack the women, the elders and the children left alone in the completely defenseless camp. Almost completely defenseless.

Four Cheyenne warriors who didn’t take part in the first fight are still in the camp. A few seconds are enough to understand that the thousands of warriors on the hills will not arrive in time to defend the camp before the soldiers attack. The four Cheyenne take a look at the camp that in just a few minutes may turn into a slaughterhouse, look each other in the eyes, and without any hesitation pick up their weapons, jump on their horses and charge against General Custer’s two hundred sixty-three calvary men. Their uninterrupted fire slows down the advance of the soldiers, buying time for the other warriors to come down from the hills at full gallop and swallow Custer in a single mouthful.

The Ronin…

The dictionary tells us that the ronin is a samurai who doesn’t serve any master. But as an archetype, the ronin is the symbol of something much broader: something that is not limited to Japanese history and traditions. It is a universal image. Every epoch and every culture has seen the spirit of the ronin being born under different shapes. The mountain man who ventures alone to live as a hunter before the lands of North America became states. A nomadic warrior who doesn’t stop in any place long enough to grow roots. He offers his services to the highest bidder before disappearing again following a different trail. He is an anarchist adventurer in the best case, and a mercenary in the worst.

Friedrich Nietzsche writes, “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Unnecessary words for the ronin, since chaos is his natural lifestyle. He is not the kind of man who can live by the routine of a regular job and who goes on holiday with the family for the weekend. One can’t expect him to be on time with mortgage payments on the home. Maybe it is more precise to say that he doesn’t even know what a home is. In his DNA are the genes of the genius as well as those of the beast. The chaos of his spirit is the sun illuminating his life as well as the curse that can ruin him.

The Samurai…

There are things for which it is worth losing everything: things that are worth more than fame, more than power, more than any kind of wealth; things that separate normal human beings from those individuals whose will cannot be broken by external events. Two swords and a set of armor don’t make a samurai. Not even great martial skill and membership in a renowned family of warriors are enough. It is not a question of technique or heritage. A samurai is one who forges his spirit according to the ways of Bushido.

No word is strong enough to define what Bushido means to a samurai. In comparison, the promises of eternal love between two lovers and the devotion of a priest for his God are but small things. Love can end and a dying faith can be traded in for a new one. Bushido is a different story. Bushido is the soul of the samurai, the vibrant heart that instills power into his every action. The Japanese samurai of the past lived their existence following a chivalrous code of behavior which didn’t leave any room for compromise. No “buts,” no “ifs.” Bushido has no patience for exceptions. The samurai were taught since they were very young never to play with their principles. One mistake, just one moment of weakness when their honor may be slightly compromised, and harakiri knocks at the door. “The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love.”

The Searchers…

“Now once more I must ride with my amazon queens to defend what was and the dream of what could be.” The romanticism surrounding the myth of the band of mystics fighting to right wrongs has always created legendary figures. They are the Shaolin fighting monks, the Knights of the Round Table, the Celtic Queens and Nubian Queens of Africa, the Jedi masters, or the members of the Fellowship of the Ring. They heard the call and followed it until they met each other. The search united them in a pact of spiritual brotherhood between seekers of intensity.

Belonging to a tribe of searchers is always the result of a choice. Nobody is born a Warrior of the Searchers. Listening to the call is the way to become one of them. Like true warrior-ladies and gentlemen, the group of seekers is busy on two fronts. On one side there is the inner search whose goal is the personal enlightenment; a constant quest for self-perfecting purification, pushing them not to settle for the goals ordinary humans dream of. On the other side there is the path of the fighting bodhisatva and the Kali Ma women slayers who expose truth rather than their male counterpart who search for it.

In the Mahaparinivvana-sutra is written:

“If enlightening beings practice mundane tolerance and thus do not stop evil people, allowing them to increase in evil…,then these enlightening beings are actually devils, not enlightening beings.”