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Does our world need a\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Global Apology Project<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>?!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n About a week ago I ran the following post on my personal Facebook page:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhile I was teaching in Philadelphia recently I received a piece of guidance (and it made me sit up in bed and pay attention): \u201cour world will not heal until there has been acknowledgement and apology for every single act of injustice ever committed\u201d. I teach all my students (in my Ancestral Healing work component) that shamanic healing work often means taking the place where an apology is owed and voicing that. I am teaching my students to get \u201cbeyond their own ego and their own ideas about right and wrong\u201d in order to do that. Miracles occur as a result of this, tangible changes in everyday reality. So then I got mulling how to take this idea further collectively\u2026 Create a group dedicated to apology, offering an apology where one is needed (and not forthcoming from other quarters), a great \u201cAkashic Archive of Apology\u201d for our world?! I don\u2019t think the Web of Life or larger Knowing Field (ultimately, in the very long run) minds where an (overdue) apology originates \u2013 as long as it is wholehearted and unconditional. If it unlocks sentient beings from being stuck in old trauma \u2013 the World Soul will welcome this and guide the process. \u2013 Just offering this as today\u2019s idea\u2026 May well develop this into a blog over the weekend\u2026 And no, it would NOT be a substitute for personal and individual shadow work and forgiveness work and get people off the hook that way \u2013 not remotely. However, many grave injustices were committed by people long dead \u2013 but the trauma still vibrates\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The responses I received were very encouraging!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Step 1,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 I created a Closed Facebook Group called\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>THE GLOBAL APOLOGY PROJECT\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to bring people together. Feel free to find us and join!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1902301606465391\/?pnref=story<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Step 2<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0was creating a dedicated webpage on my website and here is the link: http:\/\/www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk\/info2.cfm?info_id=225572<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Step 3<\/b><\/span> is writing this article and also sharing the instructions for our first apology-and-healing journey\/meditation (found in this same edition<\/a>!)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I decided to explore the question: why did I receive this guidance in Philadelphia (where I teach courses) but not in London, UK or Sweden (where I spend far more of my time)? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Two things come to mind immediately: when my colleague<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0Susan Rossi<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0invited me to bring my\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>2 year sacred art practitioner program to the US<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0and suggested we use\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Quaker Retreat Center Pendle Hill<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0as our venue, we both did some shamanic journey work to understand what was calling us to do this.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0informs us that:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Relations between Pennsylvania\u2019s Native American and European peoples underwent cataclysmic change during the second half of the eighteenth century. Despite the reputation for peaceful intercultural relations that Pennsylvania had enjoyed since its founding in 1681, a series of wars engulfed its frontiers after 1754, leading to the dispossession and exile of the colony\u2019s native peoples. During the\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>Seven Years\u2019 War<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>, which lasted in North America from 1754 to 1760, the colony that\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>William Penn<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0had envisioned as a \u201cpeaceable kingdom\u201d became instead the scene of some of the most horrific interracial violence in early America. The disruption of Pennsylvania\u2019s Indian relations caused a deep political rift to open between Philadelphia\u2019s Quaker community and colonists living along the Susquehanna Valley frontier. By the 1790s, Native Americans and Pennsylvania\u2019s European peoples were permanently estranged from each other, and no Indian nations retained secure possession of homelands within the state\u2019s borders.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n As <\/span><\/span><\/span>a<\/span><\/span><\/span> Dutch national it pains me to report that\u00a0 Dutch people committed atrocities here. They may not have been my immediate family ancestors (there is no record of immigration to the US in family memory and family tree research) but on level of nation and homeland\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>they are of course my ancestors.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0So I interpreted the invitation from Susan Rossi as a call to take spiritual responsibility for what the Dutch people\u00a0 did here. I decided to actively engage with these memories, to apologize and make amends. We also made a conscious decision to move a step beyond that: in our program we are actively working to arrive at the higher octave manifestation of the warrior archetype (meaning the sacred warrior and protector who stands up for Life and all sentient beings). We are also working with the sacred marriage (or\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>hieros gamos, Divine union<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>) of the sacred masculine and sacred feminine in their higher octave manifestations. As above, so below!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The second strand of meaning I focused on is that\u00a0Philadelphia is often called \u201cThe City of Brotherly Love\u201d but actually, going back to classical Greek, the name means : \u201cThose from the same womb\u201d (<\/span><\/span><\/span>Adelphi<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0in classical Greek means\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>from the womb<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0and came to mean brothers but originally meant siblings, of any gender, in more ancient Greek.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Philoi<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0means\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>loving<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>). To realize that we are all members of One Human Family and children of Mother Earth is another key strand in our work. Let\u2019s focus on a return to\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>loving our brethren<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>!! (The link takes you to the etymology of the name Philadelphia).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The third strand consisted of us looking into the history of Pendle Hill, the place hosting our training. Today this is a Quaker resort and retreat center. During World War II it was used as a respite place for soldier wounded in World War 2. That is another piece of the puzzle because our journey work kept showing an\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Out Of Control Warrior God or Archetype<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>. It must be remembered that we did these preparations in the Summer of 2015 so well before Donald Trump became president of the US!! Tp be frank hose journeys were uncomfortable, even a bit frightening.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Today, as this guidance came back to mind so strongly, at least 235 people were killed and another 109 injured in an attack on a mosque in Egypt\u2019s North Sinai region (I started writing this blog on Friday 24 November 2017). This appears to be the deadliest terror attack on Egyptian soil so far. After at least two explosions, gunmen waiting outside opened fire on fleeing worshipers. Sadly our world sees many terror attacks at this time and young people are actively being recruited (and brain washed into the ideology of terrorism as a solution to the world\u2019s problems).\u00a0Another way of saying\/seeing\/framing this is that<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0the shadow expression of the archetype of the warrior (as opposed to the blueprint of the spiritual warrior) is very active in the world right now.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>\u00a0And the rest of the world is at a loss dealing with his, dropping into fear and \u2018waging a counter war\u2019 instead. Waging War on War obviously, visibly, does not heal anything. History proves this but it may just be one of the core (and most painful, most traumatic) lessons humanity will ever face. Tragically that lesson will be \u201con repeat\u201d (appearing again and again, desperately seeking our attention and healing) until we grasp this.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The US especially has demonstrated a tendency to\u00a0\u00a0\u201cwage war in far off lands\u201d and then receive home veterans with PTSD who are not honored or supported properly \u2013\u00a0 meaning that the USA as a nation and landmass holds huge shadow material (not owned or addressed) around war, native peoples pushed off their land and decimated, human sacrifice not honored, the sick and vulnerable not tended.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We are all watching the decisions Donald Trump is making and here in the UK this week members of\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Parliament voted that animals do not feel pain as part of the EU Bill marking the beginning of Brexit.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n