It occurred to me this week that part of the decolonization process is not only healing myself, but helping my tribe re-establish protocols that are critical to healthy tribal life.
When I study indigenous cultures, honour was a core component of life and feathers were often a symbol individuals obtained and received, as recognition of the highest honour, from other tribe members.
Honour is still expressed today in many cultures, passed down for thousands of years. Some of the things people do as a result of honour are rather barbaric and don’t qualify as honour in my world. Killing people because they cheat or steal violates Spiritual Law in my view, yet people continue this honourable way of life.
Honour is also a guiding principle with most military and para-military organizations. That would extend to police departments and all the way up the command chain to the Governor General of Canada or the President of the United States. In fact, those offices are held in such esteem that they are viewed as being sacred, demanding the highest honour.
This is misguided honour as an expression of respect for fictional constructs only contributes to the corruption of the individual by the tribe. When the tribe ends up being millions of people, we corrupt the individual by pouring out tremendous amounts of authority. That is the trap that we must avoid. Honour does not equate to authority but it has in the past in many cultures.
When I was training in the martial art of Tae Kwon Do, I trained under Grand Master James Lo. He passed away recently and it is with great sadness that I reflect on the lessons I learned from him. He showed me what healthy honour looks like. He came to Canada from Hong Kong and brought with him a discipline taught not only in martial arts but his culture as well.
When I first started training with him, I did not learn this protocol from him, I learned it from his students. They are the ones that taught me how to bow and why as I entered the gym. It was a sign of honouring and respecting the space upon which we train. Without it, we would have no where to practice our art form. When we meet a blackbelt, we were taught to bow as a sign of honour and respect to those who are willing to teach us. It is their knowledge and experience that we want to learn from and we cannot do it without them. But something happened that really made me stand up and take notice. Whenever a Master or Grand Master walked into the room, the whole room would stop everything that they are doing to bow to them. To show another man or woman that much honour was to acknowledge their dedication to the art form and express gratitude and appreciation for being willing to dedicate their lives to the art form. That level of honour is earned and acknowledged by the tribe due to dedication, hard work, time, commitment and walking the path for decades.
While we were training in the Martial Arts, there was a military chain of command and as such, senior instructors used that authority structure to help facilitate training. Sadly some abuse their position and abuse students in the process as they failed to honour their students too. But instructors with honour would not do that and not take advantage of their honour outside of the class either. Grand Master Lo never gave orders outside of class or abused his honour, to my knowledge anyway.
As a result of the high integrity he demonstrated to me, his voice carried great weight and influence with me and the people around him. He was not always right and he made mistakes along the way too. After all, he is human along with the rest of us. But there was also protocol when confronting him or raising issues. This protocol was followed to maintain honour and respect while helping him learn and grow as well. I witnessed this protocol and he was open to receiving so that he could become a better instructor. That is what makes good instructors GREAT! But if this was done outside of protocol and with disrespect, we risked being kicked out of the club.
After all, he is there to teach and disrespect is never tolerated as it shows a lack of self control, self discipline and honour. One of the core aspects of our training was to learn self control and discipline and it must be demonstrated at all times. This is the core of a healthy expression of honour.
The thing about honour is that it is not a self declared expression of the individual, it must be given to them as an expression of their tribe. If others disrespect their honour, the tribe steps up to correct or protect that honour.
Honour can be a tricky thing as it also depends on the moral and ethical foundations of the tribe. Within the Pacem Arts, we are working to raise that foundation to the highest levels of peace, freedom, prosperity and love. As a result, those people who don’t govern themselves at that level will not respect the work of those who do and as such will not honour them either. In fact, there is a risk that this highest level of ethics and morality would be attacked and rebuked as people may feel inferior, shame or even guilt for not takes the steps to achieve such spiritual consciousness.
This makes it even more important for those that are doing this work to support one another and ironically, I feel that the Divine Feminine has a critical role to play in this process.
One of the struggles that the Divine Masculine has had through colonization is that honour no longer applies as it threatened the sacredness and sanctity of the fictional constructs we call the Crown, Pope, Queen, Governor General, Lieutenant Governor, Prime Minister or any of those offices. The people sitting in these sacred offices could not tolerate others who had as much or more honour. So the customs of the tribes got demolished or even outright banned to ensure that everyone was obedient to the new master.
As we work on the decolonization process, the Divine Feminine is being asked to reflect on what level of ethics and morality they want to see expressed within their tribe and then ask the masculine to rise up and be a steward of that expression. The divine masculine is also responsible for this expression too as it will require team work. However, it is within the divine masculine to be the Spiritual Brave and defend this higher expression of healing, love, freedom and peace or confront those that don’t.
We all have a duty to heal and raise our consciousness to meet or exceed this highest expression of Spiritual & Natural Law, but the masculine has an extra duty to protect and honour the divine feminine in the process.
Over the last 15 years I’ve taken this duty very seriously and in fact, decided to take on the risks in order to protect Carey and they boys through the process. This is my way of being honourable while I took on the risk of testing this decolonization process. The healing and learning that I acquired through the process was immense. However, it has taken its toll on me as I’ve come to realize that my work has not been honoured. This became blatantly apparent to me this week when words were spoken by a family member that suggested that I was toxic, abandoned my family and that I’m incompetent. It is not his words that hurt me as I know they were a reflection of him. It is the fact that nobody stepped up to protect my honour.
This cut me deep into my heart and is the foundation of this post. If the masculine is going to step up and do the work to fix our tribes, take the risks and heal, they must be supported in that effort. That support is done through the acknowledgement and ceremony of honour and by taking steps to protect that honour. What I struggle with is wondering if I have yet to earn that honour from those around me, or that those around me have no idea how to show and protect that honour.
As part of the decolonization process, I find myself being challenged on what honour would look like, post colonization. Within the colonized, honour is often replaced with respect. People with degrees have more respect than people with high school diplomas. People with doctorates, likewise rank higher than people with degrees. But most blatant is people who are elevated to the rank of royalty or those with billions of dollars. No longer are we concerned about behaviour, ethics or morality, we are now caught up in status, money and worshiping sacred offices.
So is it any wonder that people who reject those colonial constructs and work towards Christ level consciousness are not respected or treated with honour? If that is the case, then those that do this work need the support and recognition from their tribes, or those outside of the tribe interested in learning. The divine feminine has an important role to play as their acknowledgement and efforts to perform ceremonies for those Spiritual Braves that are doing the work to fulfill their highest visions of morality, ethics and stewardship will solidify a level of commitment and dedication that they may have never experienced in their lives or ever seen within the colonial systems.
People all over the world are risking their lives, reputations, relationships and social standing in order to change how we are governing ourselves and confronting the violence, abuse, greed and genocide that is unfolding around us. These people have made sacrifices beyond what most others can even comprehend. Honour is, by far, the best way to support these people and we can do that by acknowledgement through ceremony or symbolic gifts, but most importantly, by protecting that honour when others seek to destroy it. If it is to be destroyed, it will be by the dishonourable behaviour of the individual, not by those around him / her.
Divine Masculine is floundering because colonization does not allow honour, only obedience and those who are decolonizing have yet to earn their honour among the tribe. This is mainly due to the tribe not being aware of these issues and not clear as to what standard of morality and ethics the tribe will govern themselves by. As such, how can we evaluate honour as a result and protect it from those who refuse to govern themselves at that standard?
Within the constructs of this school, we are working on obtaining the highest level of morality and ethics so that students can work towards a Christ level of consciousness to integrate within their tribe. I will continue to work hard to earn honour from those who support me here and those outside of the school wanting to learn. I will admit that earning honour for this type of work has been the most challenging and difficult part of the whole decolonization process.
I bow to you all out of respect and honour as you express an interest in learning and growing with me. Honour flows both ways and that is something else that Grand Master Lo taught me. He honoured me just as much as I honoured him. I do this work, despite the conflict, because I love people and I do my best to honour them, hold space for healing and forgiveness. If I’ve acted out of honour, I ask for forgiveness.
