True Freedom
How to Become Ungovernable
“Democracy begins at birth. The child must know what is going to happen to him, that he will not be seized suddenly, that his permission will be asked first.”
~ Maria Montessori
I found myself reading a series of quotes from Maria Montessori the other day and sobbing. Maria Montessori is the visionary who created the Montessori school movement. She birthed an educational philosophy in the early 1900’s to counterbalance the (then) newly created public school system. A public school system that was created to get ‘unruly immigrants’ off the streets so they would become well-trained factory workers. A public school system which Montessori and others knew would eventually destroy democracy. She was a visionary, leading from a heart in coherence with the cosmos.
Her words speak about children with dignity, reverence and care. She saw in children the future worlds that they have come here to build, grow and love with their divine souls. She understood childhood as the precious gift that it is. To be protected, guarded, honored and enjoyed.
I read Maria’s quotes against the backdrop of 165 Iranian women and children killed by the United States and Israel when we bombed a school on February 28th. We bombed a school.
We bombed a school.
Not the first, and it will unfortunately not be the last. Bombing schools is a new war tactic. Unabashed and brazen. And we’ve tried to pretend it wasn’t us. Everyone knows it was.
We are being led by psychopaths with a blood lust for what they believe will herald the second coming of Christ. I wish I was making that up. They actually said this out loud to U.S. troops last week. Over 200 enlisted folk filed formal complaints as a result. Our leaders are completely comfortable carpet-bombing Tehran, a modern city of 90 million inhabitants just trying to live their lives. We struck first. We are the aggressor. Business is good when we drop bombs.
In case you haven’t noticed, any flimsy myth of American piety around our value for freedom and democracy, for the rule of law and the sacredness of life has been obliterated.
So what comes next?
I wish I had an answer. There is so much that is uncertain. So much that hangs in the delicate balance of Wetiko, whim and profit.
What I do know is that this doesn’t end tomorrow. And what I do know is that the death-cultures that run our geopolitical world will continue to wreak havoc and chaos as they experience their own death spiral. Because the systems are dying, they no longer work. And the powers that be know it.
The old world is dying. The new one is yet to be born. This is truly the time of monsters.
What I do know is that another world is currently being built beneath the tatters of all this ash and that we cannot be stopped. Every day, I meet, talk to, read, encounter, pray with and sing with other humans who are actively building more beloved futures where everyone gets to thrive. There are too many of us humans who have tasted the beauty that lives and breathes on the other side of war. We know what peace hums like.
We’ve been eating fresh foods from the earth. We’ve been medicating ourselves with plants and sunlight. We’ve been getting reconnected with nature and our souls. We’ve remembered how to say thank you to creator, source, god, goddess for the gift of this life. We’ve been blessing our water and befriending our neighbors and we’ve been filling our minds with peace. Peace and quiet and stillness. We now know how to be still in chaos. We are becoming ungovernable. We know the taste of true freedom.
When I actually sit with the devastating violence that some humans feel comfortable enacting on other humans, more than human kin and Earth herself, it can become very overwhelming. But when I sit with this reality, my ancestors sit with me too. They were warriors. They know too much of war. As ancestors they have dreamed me into being. They sent me here with a mission of peace. I’ve learned to translate their whispers. You too are the peaceful warrior dreamed in by your ancestors. That is how you have found me.
We are warriors of a different kind. Peaceful warriors who build the new that makes the old obsolete. We don’t even have to tear anything down. We simply remove our attention and our fear from the places that seek to siphon it and we focus on the love and simple beauty that is right in front of us. We become ungovernable and from that place, we build. We know the taste of true freedom.
We teach this to our kids and we protect their innocence. We pull them out of traditional schools so they can learn in the forest from their elders, so they can remember what it is like to play and dream. We protect their dreaming so that they can build the new worlds with us. They came with blueprints for beloved futures that we are just now beginning to understand. And with these moves, the futures become ungovernable. No longer ruled by governments that oppress, silence and kill. We find circles where once there were squares. We can breathe again.
We are the quiet movement that has been growing in every place in every way, slowly and steadily remembering what it is to be fully human and actually alive in the magical miraculous bodies that Earth gave us. These truths are self-evident and they cannot be taken from us. We become ungovernable when we know the taste of true freedom.
True freedom does not oppress others to survive. True freedom does not enact senseless violence. True freedom is satiated with simple beauty and authentic connection. True freedom thrives with collective liberation and the abundance of nature. Because true freedom knows that everything on Earth is of Earth, us included. And true freedom knows that Earth is a magical jewel in all the universe. True freedom speaks love poems. True freedom knows the gift of song. True freedom is who we are.
“The cloudy grey enchantments of a world gone mad fall away, replaced by the sacred drift of our collective geometry, bright and alive with potential. We remember ourselves in alignment with every other being of creation. In this remembering is a deep peace that passes any understanding of the mind. I can love you without ever having met you. I am you. We are together.”
~ Our Beloved Futures, p. 202
I’m here today to tell you - hang in there. Call me crazy, but I know that the best is yet to come. It’s going to be a rough road and the end is not in sight. But we are the future ancestors who understand the illusion of time. We dream new worlds with our breath. Build beauty where you can. Protect innocence where you can. Build communities where people care about each other and help others when it gets weird. Because it will get weird. So don’t be surprised by anything that comes our way. Most of all keep your heart open. Even in the most difficult circumstances, keep your heart open. It’s a superpower we’re still just beginning to comprehend.