Because the world is changing so rapidly, people don't know what to do and many are afraid. We face enormous challenges, which we have to face and which we can face if we have the will. But instead, those who are afraid gather their guns and their religion around them for safety and are deluded into thinking their god will come and 'rapture' them away from this troublesome world because they say they believe. But before that, they want to control the rest of us because they've projected their own evil onto this new world which is trying to find its balance with freedom and choice.
If these Christian nationalists really believed in their god, they would try to follow his commandments, such as thou shalt not kill. This is their fight against abortion rights - they actually believe that embryos are babies! And if one is destroyed, they want to considered it murder. But the hypocrisy is so overt now it's impossible to ignore. These same people that stand against a woman's choice also send their children into the army to learn to be killers. Soldiers are trained to kill people. So aren't their children murderers? Shouldn't they be stopped? Whose life is more important? Perhaps it's time to look at the mote in their own eyes before they point out another's flaws.
This identity embodies a victim mentality that arrived on our shores with the first pilgrims. Many of the original settlers came to this new continent for 'religious freedom', escaping persecution. They felt they were victims, which is a big part of Christian mythology. But once victims gain power, they often victimize others, which they did to the Native people of this beautiful land and others around the world.
We see this with the MAGA movement today. Mr. MAGA is such a victim. That's why he can be a bully. That so called religious people follow him still leaves me shocked. Afraid, spiteful, not at all loving and forgiving Christians, but wearing the cloak of 'righteousness', these fearful people either act out their worst fantasies or else they give over their personal power to a leader, a church, an ideology which has past its due date.
This identity thrives on being afraid, on being a victim, on being entitled, on being Christian and on being male-oriented, even for women. That's choice number one.
So what's the other option for our collective identity?
If you're not into victimhood, perhaps you're into freedom.
But freedom doesn't mean doing whatever you want at the expense of others. Freedom entails responsibility to yourself and to others. Only when we free ourselves from our cultural expectations can we discover our own unique identity. Just who am I outside of my job and my family? What are my values, my dreams, my hopes for life? Answering these questions helps us know ourselves.
Carl Jung said that during the Aquarian Age, the archetypes would become conscious. The Aquarian Age has begun with us. S ince we'll be discovering and birthing our unique identit ies , let's first identify ourselves under broader archetypal categories: leader, mother, father, creator, artist, priest/ess, healer, teacher, protector, storyteller, musician, merchant, writer, explorer, mystic, visionary, peacemaker. Once you understand your true talents , you can inhabit that role in your own unique way.
These archetypal figures reshape who we've been told we are into the being t hat our soul incarnated to be. Patriarchy kept us so busy surviving on its terms that we didn't have time to break free and live our authentic lives. Now we can, and aligning with the archetypal energies will help us grow into our power.
Once we figure that out, we can work on asking Who are You? as the hookah smoking caterpillar once asked Alice. When we know ourselves, we aren't afraid to recognize and honor others because we're not afraid. We have to deepen and evolve for this next step of becoming not only a citizen of America but of the whole world. Many people are already doing this!
W e are the world. We are the children.
But identity has always been an issue for Americans. We're all descended from immigrants. Our ancestors uprooted themselves from other lands, other cultures and another life to come to America. They abandoned the known for the unknown. In ancient cultures, this would have been a harsh punishment, being exiled from your people. But in the past 300 years, it has become a choice. A choice to start your own life over again.
It's only been a few hundred years since most of our ancestors arrived in America, so our roots are planted in the shallow ground of our modern corporate culture, such as it is, which hasn't the depth and richness of the cultures left behind. Whatever bits and pieces of those cultures we still retain, we don't have the cultural integrity of a larger community to nurture them, as we did back in 'the old country' .
So we Americans are a patchwork of different stories, different customs, and different beliefs. As we grow, we are shaped by the American culture we do have. We're told to find our own identities, but those identities are either shaped by cultural expectations, media manipulation or restricted to what is useful to our corporate culture. Because immigrant families want to fit in, after a few generations their children have lost their connection to the old culture and become totally Americanized.
And of course, each new wave of immigrants was and is still being met with hostility and domination by those who arrived beforehand. This is just so stupid, brutal and hurtful, the acts of a bunch of teenage boys being bullies. So the victim mentality is passed on. Those WASP y guys, who were here first, knew how to put us all in our places.
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