 Welcome to the Spark of Humanity Network series on feeding our roots or seeing that our roots get the nutrition they need to feed our sparks. Why do we care about this? Axie is going to read a book. Oh, I'm Martha Holden and with me today are Anne Wade and Axie Noyes and we will be talking specifically today about one of the resources that's on the Spark of Humanity Network website, which is Pilgrimage of Love, but we'll get to that, but let's first create the context. Axie, would you read the? I will. This is a lovely book that Martha created with the drawings that we're all very proud of. Spark, a contemplative way to effective engagement, and here we go with page one. In everyone, in each one of us, there is a spark of humanity. Sometimes we are afraid that something might damage our spark. We are afraid it might be put out. It cannot be. Even though at times we are not feeling it, sometimes our sparks are defended. Sometimes they're distorted. Make sure you look at this little book on the website because the drawings are great. Sometimes they're distorted. Sometimes our sparks are baffled. Sometimes all three. And so much we're not aware that we even have one. Regardless, in every one, every one we meet, we think of, anyone we can think of, there is a spark of humanity in us too, regardless how baffled or distorted or defended. All sparks are made of some of the same stuff. Sparks have a natural affinity for each other. This is a good thing. When you, through your spark, affirm and connect with the spark in another, regardless how defended or distorted or baffled they are, their spark is strengthened. This is the truth now, folks. That changes things. It seems that the strength and spark acts to erode the defenses, release the distortions, clarify the bafflement. From the inside, it is very good. How might you claim your spark? That's the question. Thank you, Axie. So our sparks that we each have are powerful and effective agents of transformation, right? But they have needs and they need to be, we want them to be strong so that we can have a constructive positive impact in the world. And they have needs which I at least in some of us visualize as roots, reaching out to draw in what our spark needs in order to be strong and willing to engage with and confirm and affirm the spark in another. Am I right so far, Axie? Yeah, I think so. Okay. It's important that roots are usually not seen. Right. Right. So we're talking about things that function, as you can see from the upper part of the oak tree, they do a good job, roots. But you don't see or necessarily witness the action. You see the result. Right. And I think also it's important for me, at least in my experience, my spark communicates to my roots to reach out to get what the spark needs. This is not a cognitive cerebral process. My brain is a, at least the part I'm in, access is of no help here. Yes. Right? Very important. Very important. Out of the rational mind please. Just right. Let the rational mind go. Let the spark communicate to and get what it needs so it, my spark may need things that it's not used to needing as I continue to do this work, to reach out into the world and work to affirm the sparks of others. So on the Spark of Humanity Network website, we're offering a variety of resources that may serve to feed people's sparks through their root systems or may not. We're just offering them. And today we are here to, in two sessions, talk about one of the resources we're offering, which is something called the pilgrimage of love. Well, I'm very interested in learning more about the pilgrimage of love. I'm just a newbie in the spark of humanity, but I'm already feeling, I've seen it working in my life with my relationships with others and it's really been fun to get involved. So I'd like to ask you, Martha, about how did this pilgrimage of love become, how did it start? How did it start? Right. It's, my theory, and I think it says it on the website, that love has always been in pilgrimage. But I became aware of it. I made a physical pilgrimage in 2006, which I called pilgrimage of hope. And I made a pilgrimage of 2007, which I called pilgrimage of faith. And because I have roots that draw from the Christian tradition, when I think of hope and faith, the next thing I think of is love. So I knew, and I had an idea to do a pilgrimage of going around the world. I wanted to meet with the women in Gaza who were ground down and having a hard time and connect with them and have them develop a prayer connection with the women in other places around the world that were having a hard time. Somebody needs to read the prayer. Who wants to? Ann? Sure. Sure. Do you have it there? I think I do. Okay. All living, ever loving, you who breathe in us the sense of your presence and desire of us only your wholeness. We bring before you the pilgrimage of love, a communion of prayer through the underside. Form and flow through it as you will. Bless those within its embrace, fostering them in wisdom, strength, stamina, and joy that it may embody your desire and renew us all for your service in the whatever, for the whatever, amen, whatever. We're going to be talking about prayer later, but this is the idea that the pilgrimage of love I envision as a communion of prayer through the underside. The underside is a concept I picked up from the work of the Quaker sociologist Elise Bolding who wrote a book about women having the great impact in history, but they didn't write the history, so we don't hear about it, but they were the ones that when they were traded off to the neighboring king in marriage would make sure that there was peace between the kingdoms, but they weren't seen, so Elise had the idea of underside, so it's a communion of prayer through the underside. I didn't do the pilgrimage because some friends came to visit me from South Sudan, and as they were leaving me, I was seeing them off at the airport, I asked them to please have the mothers in a cobalt of South Sudan pray for the mothers in the Gaza because that at least would start because the Gaza was where I wanted to start. As I was walking away from the gate, I realized that I didn't physically need to do the pilgrimage, that love was doing the pilgrimage, and that this prayer energy, this connection of solidarity between the women who were in difficult situations who were not visible to the conventional eye in South Sudan and Gaza, South India, Myanmar, South Korea, Hong Kong were the places I was thinking of going at that point, that love was sort of like a crystal, like a seed crystal and a super saturated solution. Suddenly this pilgrimage of love began to form conceptually, and then the prayer came later, and so I offered it to people and people have liked it, and I thought that it might be useful for people, and the version that Anne read is not in some ways the same as the one on the website, it doesn't make any difference. The whole point is to make it so it works for you. In that regard, could you talk about the brackets that they'll find in the prayer? There are suggested words, but there's a lot of flexibility. The idea is that, at least for me, that people come from different faith traditions and some people adamantly disavow any faith tradition whatsoever, and the point is because our sparks don't have any dogma or doctrine or traditions, they just are, so whatever the sparks need, we want to make sure that the language of what we offer is open enough for people's sparks to be fed without putting them in any particular category. We'll talk about that more in the second segment about the brackets and the prayers and what people might put in there and how they might spell it and all that. Now, how does this relate completely into the spark of humanity? The spark of humanity network, I don't know, that's my honest question. I have no idea. The idea of the pilgrimage of love and my sense of it growing and developing began in 2010. The spark of humanity network began to form in 2017, so although it may have, you know, what do I know? The thing I like, one of the things I like about the spark of humanity network is I have no idea who the members are. I can walk down the street and I may be bumping into members of the spark of humanity network all over the place and have no idea who they are. And they may not know who they are yet. And they may not know who they are yet. And it's the same thing with the pilgrimage of love. I pray one of the benefits of signing onto this, if you think there is a benefit, is that I put spiritual energy into the pilgrimage of love as powerfully as I can every day. And so it's gone, this sort of crystal in the structure that's formed from that first sensation leaving the gate at Logan Airport after seeing my Sudanese friends into security. I've felt it moving, so it goes, it's intergalactic. It may be intergalactic. I don't know. I don't trace it outside the galaxy. It may go through the veil that we call death. I don't know. But it's, yeah. And the spark of humanity network, same thing. And when we're doing roots meditations, often we're finding that the roots are reaching through conventional, what seems like barriers to gather nourishment and connection with other people and their sparks. Can I talk a little bit about my perception of pilgrimage? Because, Martha, your vision, it went so big that it might intimidate, and I don't want that to happen. I mean, you ended up literally in Sudan. Not all of us may end up there, nor need we have to. My pilgrimage is more of a householder. But I'm inspired by you. I mean, I am really glad you went to Sudan. And the story inspires me. But it is not necessary to travel that far to do this work at all. One can do it within the confines of their home in a very humble way. And that's what I, when you talk about from beneath, that also echoes, to me, it's anti-hierarchical. It is from where you are right now, from the ground for you, stand or sit or lie at this very moment in time, is where this next movement and any action you take, whether it's to feed the birds or wash a dish, this is a pilgrimage. And it's more of what's going on up here in concepts that help to foster the good. So it can be small, and it can start small, and whatever. It's just, or it might get really big. Or it could be very physically small, because my life now is very physically small. But that doesn't mean that the love, the pilgrimage of the love with which I choose to associate myself is not very big. Trust me, I'm very grateful that I didn't need to physically go to the Gaza. Yes. You know, I'm old, and I like my country here. Not yet. Not yet. So it's, yeah, it's a good point. That's not, it's not about physical movement. It's not about the people. It could be. Well could be. But it's about what the spark needs. This is the change, the shift in me, is that I'm realizing, and I think in general, that what does my spark need to be fed? And if it needs to be here, fine. But if it needs to go to Machu Picchu, well, you know, we'll see what happens. Well, I think too, in a couple of our last episodes, we tried to incorporate how using this helps are just everyday interactions with people. Right. And just, I found that very helpful just in dealing with difficulties, dealing with uncomfortable personalities. And we all have that in our lives, no matter where we go. And so it's a tool for me to. The spark of humanity. Yeah, the spark of, yeah, to help me to slow down and to think about the other persons knowing that they have a spark too, and trying to get in touch with their spark, and also, or that's not really. It's connecting, whether it's comfortable or not, just making that connection with the spark. And that's. And realizing if you're talking to somebody who's crabbing at you in the grocery line, this person has a defended spark. Right. And that's, oh, and do I need to get that? No, let's see if maybe I can send some melting energy from my own spark to theirs to help. And if not, you know. Or maybe my spark is baffled. Right, exactly. Yes, so to recognize it's right, and making sure that my spark is fed. That's the thing to watch out for, to make sure that I'm aware that my spark can't just be doing this stuff in the grocery line. And that's where this pilgrimage of love, too, helps to feed and fuel and help our roots. Feed our spark. Feed our sparks. Right, and give our roots. So we were going to maybe talk about, because this is a prayer. What does prayer mean to you, Anne? Well, my religious background is not very good, because I was kind of yanked around. My mother was somebody who was born Protestant, but then was disowned by her church when she fell in love with a Catholic. And so I have just seen so much turmoil in my religious upbringing. So I've, to me, prayer is relatively new in my life that I'm incorporating. Have you been able to free it from religion? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. And so it's more, now for me, it's a centering. It's a calming, a soothing. It's a practice, and I'm still working on developing it, but it's been very helpful. Good. Yeah, and Axe, what do you? Well, about 25 years ago, I started in a recovery program, which is anonymous, so I won't go any further. But it's a 12-step program, and part of that program, there were some prayers connected with it that a friend of mine very strongly suggested that I learn and practice. And up until that time, I had decided prayer was not for me. It was, I basically rejected my Christian upbringing. And, you know, more Native American and one of the people who helped me the most in those early times 25 years ago was a Native American woman. And so the way that we prayed there with her and she taught me to pray was totally improvised. There were no set prayers, there were no books. It was whatever was on your heart and mind and weighing on you. So you prayed directly without any form. Then later I learned some prayers that I was initially resistant to, but this is what I've learned, is that those prayers that we share with other people and don't change. If you say this prayer the way it is, leave it alone, you're saying it with multitudes of other people, exactly the same thing. Things are occurring to us in that rooted, invisible world. And things happen because of that. And the only thing that I'm totally aware of is that prayer, excuse me, is transformative. There are some prayers that will, you know, basically build a little chrysalis around you and you start to change as you practice and continue to say those prayers. I mean this is my, you know, my reality. The other part that I was sort of always thought, well prayer is airy-fairy and there's nothing very practical about it. You can't really get your hands on it but that's not the case. It turns out it's very nuts and bolts because we are not just material beings, we are spiritual beings and this is where the real transformation happens. It's in that part of ourselves which in this society is really not, you know, valued or acknowledged so much and I'm hoping that this kind of work that we're talking about today can change that. So prayer, that's what it means. It's wonderful. I mean I really, it's sort of like a turning on a fan or something that moves air, moves things and you don't know where you're going to, where you're going to end up once you start the practice but it's been very positive in my life, yeah. Is there any, what are you praying to, if anything? Well that's it. We talked about a loving power greater than ourselves that is of our understanding. So initially my friend in this 12-step program her words for it were the great mystery which I really loved because it meant that I didn't know what it is and that was right. And since then at one stage I realized I was acting on a power greater than myself that was not loving. It was an old idea of this entity, it's not really an entity of this energy that was not loving and it came from old ideas that I picked up from my childhood at Christianity of a judgmental and punishing God. And it was suggested that I drop that and it never occurred to me that I could fire a higher power. And then find another one that's loving and that's what I was encouraged to do. So it's an evolving, some days it's an understanding where I understand that I don't understand and some days it's not so much a mental understanding but a feeling of connection that is very much connected to that whether the spark is being fed or I've forgotten it and left it abandoned on the doorstep unfed for three days. That can make a big difference in how I perceive this being that I pray to. Whether it's inside also or outside, external to myself I like to try to understand that it's within me. It's very important. Sort of like your spark. Yes, exactly like G. So it's prayer is a way, it's a way your spark reaches out for nutrition. Well let's think about, for me prayer is like song. It's like him, it's like Psalms, it's like poetry. It's trying to, sometimes just trying to reach out the same way the roots reach out for that nourishment. That is in the improvisational prayer of when I'm praying on a very personal internal level. When I'm using a prayer that is a prayer that other people are saying, I feel that I'm on a path that's well-worn. There are places where I might stop and look at the view and it's familiar to me. And then I'll see something that I've been walked on this path a hundred, hundred times. And I've never seen that before. And that is right there within the prayer. So somebody tucked something in that I had not seen before. So there's a lot of, this is the thing when you start, rep, there is charm. Native Americans and other primary cultures know there is charm and repetition. And I mean magic and repetition. Repetition has power. It has power. So there's, you know, do you just repeat these, some things, prayers are repeated, some things are said and may never be said again, you know, the same way. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not sure what isn't prayer tell you the truth. Yeah, okay. And there's some prayers that are really pretty vile. You know, but all prayer is not good. Okay. You have to be careful what you pray for. Do you want to just expand on that a little bit? Well, I don't actually come to, you know, it's pretty, because all of this stuff is, we can get kind of fuzzy and warm, but you know, I've found myself, you know, having unkind thoughts about people. Really? Yes. You know, maybe not wishing them dead, but wishing them far away in a cold place without a blanket. Far away. And that is a prayer. And you know, I don't really want to go there. To this loving, to this loving presence that you're connected with. That is not the loving presence. Right, that you're praying with that word. But it's very much me and I'm a human being. Right, yeah. So then what do I do when I find myself praying like that? Well, then I say, wait a minute. Is this what you really, you know? Right, yeah. And then sometimes it's confusing, because we're human beings. I mean, there's such thing as satire and comedy and things that make you laugh when you're just identifying some horrible warp that you have in your own personality that makes you laugh when you recognize it in another. Right, yeah. So it can be, and you shouldn't judge, I don't believe you should judge yourself for that. Okay, good. This is a good place to take a pause. Yes. Because then we'll come back again. Thank you very much, both of you. Thank you. See you all soon.