We have been meditating on the 7th chakra and its capacity, when healthy, to extend light into building community and linking up with allies, whether ancestors, other community builders, or angels to do so.
There is a shadow side to this chakra too that includes envy and violence and hatred that threaten to kill community and make it unravel. Hildegard of Bingen identifies that with the anti-Christ and illustrates it in the painting at right.
The sloppy and embarrassing work of five members of the Supreme Court in overthrowing an established law and taking back rights for women to decide what to do with their own bodies is clearly going to unravel the American society, its respect for law and the supreme court (which before yesterday was at an all-time low of 25%).
My sister wrote me some thoughts about the Supreme Court decision. Says she, my own thoughts besides despair are best summarized here. Government does not belong in these decisions.
The only good I’m seeing is maybe, just maybe, Democrats will win in the midterms now. We need a new Supreme Court. Add members. Be tough.
She shared this piece by Rebecca Solnit who reminds us that today is George Orwell’s 117th birthday and in honor of said birthday we can say this:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
A cluster of cells invisible to the human eye is a person and a woman is not.
Ignorance is strength.
To which I add my own birthday greetings to George Orwell:
A Corporation is a person and a woman is not.
Setting women up to die in childbirth is Pro-Life.
Telling women to carry a rapist’s fetus or a father, brother or uncle incest perpetrator to term is pro-life.
Telling an 11 year old child to carry a rapist’s fetus to term is exactly what supreme court judges should be telling 350 million American citizens in the year 2022.
And this from my sister: Be sure to set your clock back 50 years before you go to bed tonight.
But I ask whether we should set our clocks back 450 years to the 17th century because Alito actually cites two jurists from that time who endorsed the trying and burning of witches!!!! Real historians (none of whom Alito bothered to consult and Alito is not one himself) inform us that even then in the 17th century other jurists dismissed those two misogynists for what they were. But Alito, who had this section in his leaked version of his document, proudly left them in the final version of his embarrassing document.
To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 359-374.
Also see Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: Prophetic rally: Illinois Handmaids “Stop Brett Kavanaugh” Rally, Downtown Chicago Illinois 8-26-18. Photo by Charles Edward Miller on Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
Take the list created in honor of George Orwell’s birthday and add your own words. Which statements in the current two lists speak most deeply to you?
Recommended Reading
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations–24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them.
“If one person deserves credit for the great Hildegard renaissance in our time, it is Matthew Fox.” – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, author of Sacred Voices.
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15 thoughts on “The Un-Supreme Court and the Unraveling of America”
Matthew, There are a few things I want to say before getting to our Queries for Contemplation today. First of all, you say that, “There is a shadow side to this chakra too that includes envy and violence and hatred that threaten to kill community and make it unravel.” Hildegard of Bingen identifies that with the anti-Christ. And you apply this unravelling of community as something that the Supreme Court is contributing to. Then you say in this regard, “My sister wrote me some thoughts about the Supreme Court decision. Says she, my own thoughts besides despair are best summarized here. Government does not belong in these decisions.” Then you ask us to:
“Take the list created in honor of George Orwell’s birthday and add your own words.” She shared this piece by Rebecca Solnit who reminds us that today is George Orwell’s 117th birthday and in honor of said birthday we can say this: “War is peace.” Is an absurd comment.
“Freedom is slavery.” Definitely not according to the Existentialists.
“A cluster of cells invisible to the human eye is a person and a woman is not.” Is another absurd comment.
“Ignorance is strength.” Is an ignorant statement.
“A Corporation is a person and a woman is not.” That is a plain lie!
“Setting women up to die in childbirth is Pro-Life?” YES–at least; that what they ask of a woman.
“Telling women to carry a rapist’s fetus or a father, brother or uncle incest perpetrator to term is pro-life.” YES–at least this is what they ask of a woman.
“Telling an 11 year old child to carry a rapist’s fetus to term is exactly what supreme court judges should be telling 350 million American citizens in the year 2022.” Yes–at least this is what they they think a woman should do.
Then you write: “And this from my sister: Be sure to set your clock back 50 years before you go to bed tonight.
But I ask whether we should set our clocks back 450 years to the 17th century because Alito actually cites two jurists from that time who endorsed the trying and burning of witches!!!! Real historians (none of whom Alito bothered to consult and Alito is not one himself) inform us that even then in the 17th century other jurists dismissed those two misogynists for what they were. But Alito, who had this section in his leaked version of his document, proudly left them in the final version of his embarrassing document.” Then you ask of us: “Which statements in the current two lists speak most deeply to you?” The statements that speak most strongly to me are: “A cluster of cells invisible to the human eye is a person and a woman is not.”
“Setting women up to die in childbirth is Pro-Life?”
“Telling women to carry a rapist’s fetus or a father, brother or uncle incest perpetrator to term is pro-life.” These statement strike me as totally in disregard of women.
Hi Richard,
I don’t know if you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984 – but Matthew’s list of statements is directly drawn from the three slogans of The Party in the novel, and expanding upon them in the same dystopian spirit.
Appreciation,
Phila
Yes, I read 1984 back in high school, and not again in the 50+ years since, but in light of Orwell’s comments I’ll have to give it another read. I just read a biography of the French philosopher, Simone Weil– and she fought with Orwell against Franco’s Spain…
Yesterday, I gathered with other lightworkers to drum and sing the ancient healing Sundance prayer chants. For four hours, we four women and four men… stood in solidarity… taking a stance for the healing and rebalancing of the feminine and masculine energies of humanity. We were not alone in this… for we all sensed in various ways, the presence and essence of many of the Allies, Ancestors and Angels, whom are with us not only during these sacred ceremonial moments… but always… assisting us in these dark times. We are partners of co-creation… lightworkers.
Suprisingly as I read todays DM, there was offered validation of what we experienced during this ceremony, regarding the dark energies of the seventh chakra, which Mathew relayed today, through the teachings of Hildegard… and what we saw and felt, as we began and continued to drum and sing. What was experienced and physically felt, was a very dark energy of heaviness… the collective karmic weight of centuries of oppression and suppression, through the misuse use and abuse of power and authority given, as apart of our Original Blessing. What was revealed, was an image of the 7th chakra fibourous chord, that connects and transmits light… conscious awareness… the infilling and outpouring of Divine Love, compassion, mercy and justice… was being tightly constricted… cutting off the natural flow of this spiritual energy.
Metaphorically, it’s as if the spiritual umbilical chord that provides sustenance to the new birth of Christ Consciousnesss within humanity, is getting entangled, due to the influence of dark forces, applying pressure and tension… an attempt to abort this new birth from unfolding, evolving and emerging from within the collective of humanity.
However, as we continued to drum and sing these ancient healing Sundance chants, this chord began to unravel, expand, pulsate, osolate, undulate and radiate… dispersing and fragmenting the weighted heaviness of dark energy. The light within this chord was strengthening and empowering humanity… connecting and binding the lightworkers together.
I share this with this community of lightworkers, to remind all… that engaging together in sacred ceremony… in prayer, chanting, singing, drumming… as well as taking responsibility for our own deep inner soul work… that in and through these sacred acts, we partner in a co-creative and powerful way, with our spiritual Allies, Ancestors and Angels, whom are here with us, working with us in the spiritual realm, during these dark night of the soul times we are living in… for all of humanities highest and greatest good. We don’t neccessarily need to comprehend how all of this works… but rather we simply are asked to trust that it does, that it matters and that our part is needed.
Amen to Jeanette’s words and spiritual response representative of all lightworkers… God’s Spirit of Love~Wisdom~Peace~Justice~Truth~Healing~Justice~Strength~Joy~Faith~Hope~Mercy~Compassion… are always within, through, and among us in our Diverse Loving Oneness of our evolving eternal souls’ journeys on Mother Earth (with all its’ blessings and difficulties/challenges), in our spiritual multidimensions (with our spirit guides, Allies, and Angels), and in our co- Creation/Evolution of our multiverse Cosmos with-in our Loving Creator…. Beloved Cosmic Christ Consciousness….
🔥❤️🙏
I have been sitting with the primordial rage that is wanting to be voiced. God is with us in this place of utter disbelief, rage, grief, and horror — however, we each can do something now. Below is what I have sent to every senator, congressman/woman, news outlet, talk show host, White House, Democratic National Party, and anyone else that I can get a message to. I choose to channel my primordial roar in this way. Please pass along!
Please consider this … From this day forward we must change our language and call the MAGA party what it truly is … a radical christian nationalist party.
For every candidate who is aligned with the MAGA party, the Supreme Court members who seek to instill their religious beliefs into politics and to all those white supremicists should no longer be called Republicans but members of the (radical) Christian Nationlist Party.
If every reporter used this language, if every newspaper qualified every candidate with CP not R when talking about them, if every talk show host shifted their language and no longer referred to MAGA followers as Republicans, if every Democrat used Christian Nationalist Party to distinguish those who are of this party, we would create a separation between Republicans and Christian Nationalists and when it came time to vote, the vote would be split between true Republicans who do not cowtail to the MAGA/Christian Nationalist Party (and don’t want to be known as a Christian Nationalist) and those who do.
We must be ruthless in distinguishing these two parties – they are and never will be the same!
Language matters and right now we have the power to control the conversation, change the narrative, and this can win the elections in November!
This is way over dramatic. The Supreme Court merely left the decision up to communities. You all seem to not have respect and live for the 50 % of the population that want pro-life policies. Shouldn’t we be praying for all? And BTW, I am pro- choice but I have analyzed the SC decision and see the rationality of it. States or Congress should be legislating this decision and not leaving the decision to a judicial court. Remember that the court is one of our checks and balances. It should not be a law making entity. That is Congress or state legislatures.
Two key contrasting words in todays DM are “supreme” and “unravel.” History cannot be controlled, and at face value our world, overall, is not egalitarian. Never has been. I emphasize “our world” because the human world only harmonizes with God’s world (or will) in few relatively few places and on few points. Always has. There is little that qualifies as ‘supreme’ among humanity or its laws, politics, courts, and civilizations. Never has been. Scripture lists only two things as supreme; wisdom (Sophia) which is largely feminine, and God “on whose shoulders” sits, by contrast, His government and laws. Those laws and their spirit are indeed found as civil preservatives in our world, but only sparsely. It is only His world, including the angelic and advanced extraterrestrial one, that run circles around our world, not the reverse. “For his name alone is supreme; His glory and majesty are above earth and heaven” (Ps. 148:13). So anything ‘below’ that realm is subject to wavering flaw, including the insidious decline of Lincoln’s democratic ideal “of, by, and for the people.” As for “unraveling,” our less than supreme democracy is on life support. One need only consult phases of the “Tytler Cycle” (circa 1787), which, paralleling the predictable cycles in all of nature, states that the average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been around 200 years before they unravel, marked by apathy, indulgence, and the curtailing of civil liberties followed by dictatorship. Perhaps notions of evolution and progress as humanly defined, eternal ideals in themselves, minimize the sobering biblical reality that ultimately calls for direct and wholesale intervention of the divine on earth, including the second coming of Christ. Otherwise, in a global sense, what are redemption, salvation, and judgement for? Along human lines, notions of evolution and progress are always offset by their dark sides, devolution (unraveling) and regression (deterioration). Especially in America, whose unexamined shadow side, run amok since WWII, as in other failed democracies, is finally catching up to it. The only thing new in the world, is the history that we don’t know.
My 1990s poem, ‘this is my body’
Would you like a piece of me:
Let’s see…what shall it be?
Perhaps a clitoridectomy…
that dark offshoot of virginity
+++
She is raped of pleasure and
feels the measure of sorrow
a beast of burden
to bear
to bear
but not to share
Babies carried
babies nurtured
girls to the kitchen
boys to the service
of death?
+++
Nurtured sons grow large
with empty eyes and
rape earth and sky
+++
Will the shadow lift from
an ancient Virgin?
(her hymen was named the
material fact
the cost of foreskins no
longer intact)
+++
Dark hearts see but darkly
casting shadows in the light
plunging one glorious day into
ever-deepening night.
+++
Not eligible to proclaim
‘The Real’
she turns inward and
finds it there
she feels it grow
she sees it move
she looks around
it’s Everywhere
and when this birth has
taken place her Judges’
eyes are empty space.
Excellent!
Thank you Matt!
Any culture that does not value and protect it’s women and girls is lost for sure!
I’m sorry Judge Alito, but I fail to see how quoting men who thought burning women at the stake is a justification for banning abortion. The only connection I can make is that both kill women.
All of Orwell’s predictions are alive and well in the dystopian state of Florida. The governor pronounces freedom, when teachers are prevented from speaking of racism or any gender issues, when voting rights have been curtailed, when local governments are prohibited from any regulations or laws that might offend gun owners or big business—the list is endless. Bless your sister, Matthew, who speaks the truth. The Court is curtailing individual rights and has declared war on women, especially. There is a very, very ugly whiff of fire and brimstone in the hostility to and fear of women. The abortion laws in many states are nothing more than punitive. As has been pointed out, they have nothing to do with the health and well being of babies. I have read that the state of Mississippi has the worst infant and maternal mortality rates, which the draconian abortion laws will only add to. The state of Florida refuses to accept an extension of Medicaid. The Division of Child and Family Services can’t even keep track of the foster children under its care and is woefully underfunded and understaffed. The gratefulness Word for the Day talks about hope as a way that makes its own path through the wilderness. I think that we must continue to take action in getting out the vote to release our local governments from the haters and fear-ridden men and women who lust only after power. And some of us must be very brave and defy these laws however we can to help our vulnerable girls and women. The most insidious aspect of these laws in Texas and Florida, for instance, to me is the reliance on tattling against one’s neighbors. This is a famous technique for dictators and has worked well in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Stasi secret police in East Germany were infamous for the completeness of their records on just about everyone. We are in parlous times, but there have always been dangerous and challenging times throughout history.
Oh my God, Sue. I had not thought about how like the Nazi tactics, the tattling on one’s neighbors it. Thank you for pointing that out. I will remember that and share it with others who think the idea is just fine.
Overall, I certainly have taken my share of commentary space here, today included. But while reflecting upon today’s DM, and contemplating on the notion that no other western culture, and perhaps no other nation in history, has tried to live by an outlook that isolates the human species from its sacred matrix the way ours does, I came across an observation by Thomas Merton. Recall, Merton had a gift for best describing root the cause(s) of our malaise: “There is a paradox that lies at the very heart of human existence. It must be apprehended before any lasting happiness is possible in the soul of man. The paradox is this: man’s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing to settle his most important problems. If we follow nothing but our natures, our own philosophies, our own level of ethics, we will end up in hell.” With its penchant for turning human negatives into positives, and what’s worse into what’s better, perhaps divinity will again change the dim forecast for our society by seeing to it that one or more of these fetuses, otherwise unborn under Roe, will become a herald, nay a prophet, of higher truths and more lasting change. It wouldn’t be the first time in history that humanity “meant something for evil, but God meant it for good.” God always has his way in spite of our doings for good or I’ll. We can only pray for a similar outcome in this and other areas of injustice moving forward.