Taming the Dragon – Righteous Fire

Igniting the Righteous Fire

In this chapter I will explore the awakening of the Righteous Fire within myself and our society. If you will allow me to give you some background, I have explained more about myself and my childhood awakenings. If you read through it I hope you can understand that my journey, like so many, has been challenging and because of these challenges, I have become a strong leader but also I have created a strong outer shell. Like most everyone, I have been directly attacked by those around me, but it doesn’t stop me from loving humanity or those that are in true need of love, guidance and are willing to change. Thus I see attacks by others specifically toward me as a challenge and as a learning experience. I hope you can all have these same revelations.

From my earliest childhood memories, I knew I had one specifically strong, powerful and yet debilitating gift: Righteous Anger. I know now it is part of my makeup, possibly my past life accumulation of experience, but it comes from the childlike attitude that the World is an unjust place because there are too many injustices. I was not one of those girls who would burst into tears when offended. Instead, I would become enraged, often with bursts of loud, angry expressions of “that’s not fair!” and other times resorting to a wrongfully appropriate behavior, such as hitting the offender (usually my brother or one of the neighbor boys), or freaking out (usually reserved for my mother and father). I am now slow to anger and rarely allow it to get to me. Not that this is 100 percent guaranteed….

Many of my life’s relationships realized early on that I was the “strong” one. I carried a large stick it seems. I was a “tom boy” in grade school, though the label is subjective. I wanted to do what the Cub Scouts were doing, not what we were doing in Brownies. My mother was one of our Brownie Troop leaders, but my father was into hunting and camping and was excellent at carpentry and fixing up the house. From my earliest memories, my fondest recollections were doing activities like sawing wood and hammering nails. Between third and fifth grade, I started to become passionate about being able to do anything the boys could do. I had a train set and a microscope and a guitar and a plethora of collectible animals. I loved riding horses and I kept a detailed diary that was about how someday I would travel to all the cool and far-away places my aunts and uncles travelled. I wanted to be a doctor and I was determined to do it.

At this time as well I was cast in my first musical—“The King and I”—at the local high school. I was bit by the acting bug! I had a few parts in third and fourth grade in school. But this opened up a new ballgame for me. I religiously participated in church choir as well, which was such a gift and opened many doors for me throughout my life. I was a natural “ham” and a natural leader, so this was my outlet to shine. It was also a strong influence on my siblings because I encouraged them strongly to be a part of this world. I had a feverishly active imagination as well. At one point I decided I wanted to be a pirate and taught my sister how to be one too! I scarfed up books every summer as if I was starving for stories. I read all types of fantasies, from the Narnia series to the Dark Is Rising. I couldn’t get enough of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. And I loved any adventure that took me to a far-away place.

I also realized by fifth grade that there was a terrible rift between my parents and me, but specifically, I was always fighting vehemently with my mother. The anger started building when I would see her do things I thought were unjust. I am the oldest of five siblings, and by the time I was 10 I had a brother and two sisters. I could go into detail about all the stupid fights we had, but it’s not necessary since most of them were sibling rivalry. But my brother was also very angry and we fought almost daily. After studying sociological behaviors, I realize that because my mother had been so openly angry at my father and the injustice she felt about her own life, her projection toward me specifically and the rage she outwardly expressed on us as children trickled down to our own behaviors. As the oldest, I was always told by my parents that it was my fault if we misbehaved because I was supposed to be the good example. This was so wrong to me! This created a lot of the mindset I adopted on how to truly understand fairness and rightness in my world.

Friends, I implore you to know that this was a common dysfunctional pattern among parents at that time in history. I am not excusing it, but even cinema at the time showed how there was a strong divide between adults and children. There were the wars many fathers fought in Korea and Vietnam. The country was openly rebellious against the system and these wars. In the 70’s as a child, these sentiments were also rebellions against the system of gender roles, with feminism and women’s liberation. I was definitely a rebel and a critical thinker. My mother was a traditionalist. I resented the role as a subservient wife. I wanted nothing more than to be a career woman with high goals to help save the World. I wanted to join the Peace Corps like our neighbor did. I wanted to become a missionary like our friends’ parents. I wanted to heal the sick, travel the world, and get away from these systems. I dreamed about this almost every day.

In my childhood, we were also actively involved in a Christian environment. And I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, the home of Wheaton College, the alma mater of Billy Graham and several other famous Evangelists. The town was infused with Christian principles and thus the hierarchies that come with it: Religious Oligarchic communities, supremacy of men over women through patriarchal conditioning, ultra-traditional roles and invisible ceilings, and children were to be seen and not heard. The community was also very wealthy as a whole and very conservative. This actually enhanced my chances to get a better and more competitive education. But it also gave us naivety, closed-mindedness and being closely monitored and sheltered.

I am grateful for the aspect of my youth that allowed me to be protected for such a short time so I could learn voraciously and know that someday I could accomplish these goals of becoming a doctor and a missionary. I chose the path that did not allow me to do either of these things, but now I see that my path is not less important by any means. I just had to go through the fires to get here.

Walking Through the Sacred Fire

Initiation in most cultures involves some sort of sacred fire. Coming of age for me was also of a sacred righteous fire burning deep within me. I had been connected to the Spirit at an early age. My deeply loyal love for the Creator was my own, not taught to me or ingrained in my environment. In fact, growing up where we did showed me that the majority of believers in a particular faith were human in nature, not actually believing what they subscribed to be practicing. And I saw many leaders fall prey to “sin” and “temptations.” There were Christians in my community who were unfaithful to their spouses, many of whom were pillars of the church. I have learned that many of my peers also endured hidden sexual intimidations from leaders of all faiths. I was fortunate—I only encountered my hypocrisies among my own family system and among my friends’ families. But nonetheless, it was the awareness of these “do as I say not as I do” encounters that led me to be more high minded.

There was still a strong propensity for bullying in school in subtle and outward ways. I was a “nerd” and one of the smart kids. My initiation into puberty was a dichotomy of blossoming knowledge and a growing distance between those of us who were adamant about our grades and the “popular” kids. It was fine with me. I had the long-term goal of getting as far away from this environment as possible. Meanwhile, I also had a strong desire to protect the bullied, the underdogs and the downtrodden. I couldn’t stand to see anyone suffer from harsh words, especially because secretly I endured so much of it at home with my mother. I also learned to “rescue”—this led me to many years of protecting those less fortunate and eventually led me to my current career choices.

Middle school was the hatching of hormones and discovery of the opposite sex, which I had no issues being around as a child, but suddenly I felt awkward and unable to approach with these newly discovered feelings and biological changes. As the Dragon hatchling, I needed a strong example to my rebellious nature and I found that in my aunt in New York. She was a doctor. She was my idol. But she was also very far away and disconnected. I wanted to be just like her, but I also wanted to honor the Creator of my childhood, whom I saw through the eyes of my faith. And I needed more than anything a guide to get me through the wading guilt of our belief system as well. Parents chided us, teachers scolded us, we heard the messages of guilt from the pulpit every Sunday, and we even perpetuated systems of shame and guilt amongst ourselves.

The Sacred Initiation of most teenagers of my time involved alcohol, sex and rebellious behavior. In our community, however, this was either less prominent or more hidden. I knew of things like marijuana and the psychotropic adventures of many of my aunts and uncles, distant relatives and what we saw on television. But we were in a bubble in our community, so I never saw anything. But the guilt-and-shame system of our adolescence forbid us from open sexuality, gender identity differences, discussing things like domestic violence or child abuse. We were socially forbidden and internally driven to be “perfect.”

High School, however, was my Sacred Initiation into adulthood. Besides my obsession with learning and becoming a top honors student, I was actively involved in acting and theater, student counsel, Spanish Honor Society, and anything academic. I found this diversity helped me connect with peers and friends from all backgrounds and I could see myself in the reflection of everyone. I was mostly devoted to Speech Team and became an accomplished speaker and performer. I am eternally grateful to my teachers and peers for leading me there. I was shaped to become the higher minded person I am because of them. I loved competing in events, spent hours memorizing scripts and perfecting my characters. I learned method acting, which obviously led me to my studies in social psychology, anthropology, political science and religious studies, all of which I incorporate into my leadership trainings and life coaching today.

To be fair to all my friends who know me, I could have easily adopted any belief system and become a strong leader in that faith. All my years of leadership training within my church, youth leadership, camp counseling and club organizing in school could have been translated into any system that honors a Creator element. I have studied intensely Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism and the Wisdom Texts of many beliefs. I subscribe understanding and commonality with all of them. I am open to all the understandings and ideologies of Shamanic and Pagan leadership—they just come at Creation from a different angle.

Indulge me to explain briefly a little further. You see, all my studies have come to the same conclusions about this Righteous Fire:

1. There is a Creator or Creative Force.

2. We are all connected on this planet Earth as a part of that Creation.

3. We are all made of the same organic materials that permeate the existence of us as a part of that Creation as well at the atomic level.

4. The nature of all humanity is to create order, community and find something to believe in, whether it is family or religion or politics or corporate capitalism or nationalistic identity. We are all part of a greater tribe. And we will protect our beliefs and our tribe and our deep-set systems at all costs.

5. We naturally rebel against our Creation when we feed our Ego and commit thoughts and acts of racism, classism, and social separation because we believe only our system of belief is the correct one. We actually feed into the nature of destruction and create more anger and rebellion than we purport to be fighting against. It’s the age old Cain and Abel story—brother against brother--Ego-based anger and jealousy. And outlying acts of socially unacceptable injustices, such as child molestation and serial killing and excessive violence, are often glamourized in our American society today. We feed into the fire with an excess of horror and violent films and video games. We create archetypes of these injustices through the internet and cartoons and we spoon feed them to our children. So of course we are dividing our society based on the one element that separates us from our Creator: fear.

6. Righteous Anger is a normal system of purging injustices by utilizing the tools we have to educate and incite change around us. Though many historical and religious accounts claim that God or the Gods are responsible for this kind of purging, it is actually a collective human philosophy to administer these changes among our own tribes and family systems, whether by law or by rebellion. In our country we essentially have Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and the ability to change laws to protect the weak, punish the criminals and honor the changes of socially acceptable and not acceptable behaviors. Of course, take this one with a grain of salt--this is not always possible or allowed by the higher control systems. Unless you are a member of Congress, a public figure or an outspoken famous person, a lot of these thoughts and injustices go unnoticed every day. However, it is truly possible to be part of a larger fire and create a movement to alter the social system. Often lives are threatened or lost in a rebellion, but it does change the course of history.

7. There is also one other trend in the World today. The more groups of us become educated and enlightened, the more there are groups that become hateful, promote prejudices and separate themselves from the natural progression of thought, community, technology and fight so adamantly against Oneness. The bully still exists to control the people. The underlying message of faith and hope among those who truly love and believe in the Higher existence is often undermined or altogether pushed down by those that want to stay in power, have resources to lord over others, and refuse to look at their own atrocities or behaviors. Folks, guess what? This is not any different from the earliest beginning of human civilization. But it has become super-intensified and blatantly obvious. The common citizen is well aware of the oppressors.

What is most fascinating is that I was angry at the World, not at my system around me. I became educated on foreign affairs and war crimes and human injustices and abuses. I saw killings in Africa, Communism in the U.S.S.R. and China, and human rights abuses in South America all as horrific atrocities to which I wanted to fight. I also joined a group against Apartheid in South Africa while I was in college for the same reason—I was aghast at how human beings could belittle and destroy each other so terribly based on race, class and governmental corruptions.

Now my fire is strong and I breathe it hard. It is the age-old fight against corruption and hierarchy and the desire for peace and a Common Consciousness. I am one of many. I am humble that all my life lessons have allowed me to see these truths. The “ah-hah” moment of enlightenment comes for those of us who are aware of who we are and know we all have a Shadow side but choose to live in Love and Light. The more I read, the more I see, the more I come across daily information from the internet and in my studies, the more I want to shout out to those around me about what I have learned.

Modern Cases of Righteous Fire

Today, we have seen thousands of wars in human history and a large number internationally in our own lifetimes. We read about bombings in train stations and in crowds everywhere in the World. Our friends and family are losing loved ones to major diseases and illnesses, such as cancers and AIDS and auto-immune disorders. We see the population of the World at an all-time high, but the incidences and crimes against humanity and the Earth are thus just as prominent. We have WMDs and military technologies that far exceed and cost more of our resources than medical care, feeding our people and education combined. We are relying on pharmaceutical companies and nursing homes to take responsibility for our elderly and their conditions. We are watching a record-number of children being born with genetic and environmentally-based abnormalities. The future looks very bleak.

You should be angry. I am. I can say this: be grateful for our current freedom of connection with the internet, by cell phone, and even connecting openly in person in groups and social clubs. Free speech can be poisonous, yes, and divisive, yes, and can corrode our society. So don’t allow it. Instead, keep your own personal connections with others. Continue to spread the words of hope and community. Remain loving and brag about your family, your children, your friends. Connect with those who you don’t often hear from online. But don’t allow this “box” to be your only source of connection!! Please, reach out and be a part of the bigger picture in your groups. And not just as a sports fan or an entertainment junkie. Be an actual member of society. We can continue to spread our knowledge, call out the leaders who are corrupt and unfair, and reach out to a hurting and fearful world around you.

Most recently, here in Colorado, a young man, seemingly “normal”, walked into a movie theater and gunned down 58 people, killing 12 innocent victims, including a 6 year old child. I am flabbergasted. He apparently tried to reach out, sending his entire plan and manifesto to his university that apparently was never opened or read by anyone. How could this have come to pass? Crazy thing is: he could have been any of us. Or one of our children. Is it so unlikely that with our 3D video portrayals of blood and gore that it is any less likely for someone that plays an obsessive game like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto could easily find a way to transfer hate and fear into using real weapons and take out real people? But this incident has superceded all current injustices and the most news-worthy of the day.

But there are so many more injustices. I recently left Chicago and found out the average rate of shooting deaths is between 20 and 40 people per month in the City!! We also learned that in the city of Chicago, you are not allowed to have a gun to protect yourself and often concealed weapons permits are not honored. We are arguing gun control, but in reality, who is watching what our children’s minds are absorbing from film, television and the internet? What are we mentally feeding our youth?

In our travels this past now-7 months, we have lived among the homeless and there are an inordinate number of them that have served in our war with Iraq and Afghanistan and have severe PTSD. Why is this phenomenon not addressed? We also saw a plethora of families that lost their homes to the banking system’s corruption of taking our tax payer money but not forgiving debts to starving families. Food bank and meal lines are packed. Yet our U.S. Congress continues to cut back financial aid to the poor and downtrodden. We were lucky. If we ever needed help along our journey, I would ask the Universe to provide it and it came in so many different forms. And I am grateful that for many years I helped and volunteered and provided for others because I honestly believe that is why the favor was returned. But I am angry and hurt for others.

On the flip side, we met a number of people with plenty, many of whom we were able to become acquainted. We met other networkers like ourselves in our producing and filmmaking community. New Orleans is teaming with work because of the tax incentives Louisiana has provided for feature films. This came about by the vision of the community. We were on set with many amazing people, from lawyers and doctors to those who were retired and now act as extras in films. And I often encouraged any of the homeless families we met along the way to apply for positions in Louisiana as extras and crew. We were blessed to be in movies and television shows. And we were able to make a little money along the way to help our own cause. As a filmmaker, I encourage everyone to write to their Congress members to include tax incentives for other states as well. It can really help bring jobs to a community. So there is a solution for every little injustice, like our increasing unemployment rate, if we just find those answers among ourselves.

Igniting Your Own Fire

What can you and your friends do in your own community to create jobs? What are we doing to help the homeless and the displaced in your own backyard? What can you do in your own family to help an elderly relative? What can you say to encourage someone around you during a hard time? What can you offer in your own social groups to educate, provide for or ignite the passion of those around you? What are you teaching your children about the World? And what are you willing to change within yourself to ignite your own Righteous Fire?

As I come to the end of this treatise today, I realize I could easily spend my time on a soapbox and stand on a street corner and yell “the sky is falling” and it won’t do any good. We already know the dire situation of our own country, the poverty and the depression and the bullying by large corporations that led to overseas hiring and unfair trade practices…this didn’t happen overnight. I could go on about pharmaceutical price gouging and insurances not covering wellness and GMO food production that is destroying the nutritives in our foods. But you can read about these injustices every day, sandwiched between the massive press coverage of reality television stars and who in Hollywood is getting divorced this week.

So regardless of my good intentions to expound upon Righteous Anger, it is inevitably a part of our human nature. Power and control and abuse are an everyday event in our World. So the best thing to do is pray to your Higher power/Creator and to continue to connect with the Spirit and with your community. Inform everyone about these injustices in your daily world on the internet, in the office, in your mother’s groups, or at the gym after work. Do not hide from them. Do not ignore them. Be grateful for them.

Whatever you do, feel the fire. If you have gotten to the end of this reading, do not ignore the call to do something. Allow it to transform you as it has me. And we can all connect together to break the cycles of anger that are ingrained in our humanity, one person at a time.