Written by Lately, most of you may have noticed that the particular type of storm named tornadoes have been especially active. This is indeed the season for them to occur. It is commonly known that “tornado season” is usually from early Spring, and continues until late summer or so.
Years ago, when just a boy, I used to visit my grandmother who lived in the state of Texas. I would go there in the summertime, and after spending most of the season there, I would return back home in time to attend school. One thing that always fascinated me there were the unusual weather patterns that were so different from those I was used to.
She lived in a small town in the western part of the state, and technically, this is known as the “ high desert”, with its own types of weather patterns. These included such things as dust storms, and large hail at times, the type that would tear the screens from the windows totally. So much more violent than what I was used to, and so, for a young man like myself, these were all so fascinating, as were the animals that lived there. Things like rattlesnakes and “horned toads”, and other creepy crawlies, like scorpions, tarantulas, and even large centipedes were commonly seen, especially after a summer shower. So all of this kept me quite occupied and happy during my stay there in the summertime. for I’d always been interested in the animal kingdom. There, I had a chance to investigate these things firsthand.
As to the weather patterns, there were such things as “dust devils” too. These are large whirlwinds that seem to come out of nowhere, and suddenly you’d see these tall columns of darkness crossing the plains of that place. I often wanted to get closer to them, but couldn’t usually, for they moved rather swiftly, and were hard to catch.
Only once did I achieve this feat, but found that they were unusually powerful as to their wind velocity, was quickly toppled me to the ground. All I had to show for it was a mouth full of dust, and some small lacerations, where the stones it was full of had scratched me on my face and arms. So after this event, I simply abandoned this practice and was better off for it too. I came to know later that these elusive “dust devils” were commonly seen moving across the fields and plains of the Southwest in our country, and that was that – for a while.
Many years later, I found myself living in downtown Honolulu, in a tall building known as Kukui Plaza. I lived on the 29th floor, so had an expansive view all the way from there to the leeward side of the island of O’ahu. It was while I living there that a hurricane visited us in Hawaii. It was the year 1982 I believe, and it was given the name of hurricane Iwa. It came late in the year, around Thanksgiving time, and was very devastating to the island of Kauai, as was the next one that came in 1992, given the name of Iniki, meaning “piercing winds, or screeching winds.”
It was about this time that my old interest in violent wind storms like tornadoes resurfaced. I found myself buying a video about these very storms, and tornadoes, and would watch in awe and wonder at the intensity of these “freaks of nature,” as some people called them. I also pondered the hurricanes that had struck our islands as well. Fortunately, I have a basic under-standing of how this all works, so I was not so prone to just sit there and feel sorry for the so-called ‘victims’ of these tornadoes.
So, it follows that this recent outbreak of tornadoes across the usual places on the mainland of the states has also caught my attention. I’ve mostly bemoaned the fact that they leave so much destruction and injury in their wakes. These last few have even claimed some human lives, due to their difficulty to predict.
Some of you who are familiar with my work may recall that I am blessed to have an American Indian guide, Golden Eagle by name, who functions as my “gate-keeper”, the guide who protects a medium, especially when they are in trance. It always used to fascinate me when I learned that many mediums had Indian guides, but later I found out why. They, like the native Hawaiians, had a close connection with the land, the ‘aina’ as we call it, and so it also happened that they also had a great belief in the spirit world, and communed with it frequently.
In fact, it was while reading the classic work, “The Polynesian Family System,” by the respected authority and expert on Hawaiiana, Mary Kawena Pukui, that I found out about this way of life. The Hawaiians, like the native Americans, had a relationship with those in spirit that was very similar in essence. For instance, it was common practice when there were some recurring difficulties, such as a downturn in the crops, or difficulty in conception among the women, “bad luck” when fishing, or too many “accidents”, – called “pilikia” in Hawaiian, that would have someone going to the family or tribal medium, known as the “haka” in Hawaiian, and the medicine man or woman in the Indian culture, to inquire what was wrong, or out of balance, so that it could be corrected.
Both ethnic peoples were so convinced that this must be the case, that this was a common and accepted practice. And it should be noted that in both cases, from the information that has been passed down to us, these techniques WOULD usually work. Something or someone would be shown as the “culprit” or source of the imbalance, and after the correction was accomplished, all would be well again. Delightfully simple, and I hope we can return to this mode of living again sometime in our lifetimes.
Well, one time when I had the chance to converse with that Native American guide, Golden Eagle, I thought to ask him about these storms. You see, he was one of the Lakota tribes’ medicine men in his last lived there, and this tribe lived in the place that today is known as “tornado alley” for the large number of tornadoes that often occur there. In fact, up until recent years, these violent storms rarely happened anywhere else but right there, in the “heartland” of the U.S., including the states of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, (remember little Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” movie, who got taken by a tornado to the magical land of Oz?) Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and other states in that general area. Also, lately, states in the deep South have also been targeted by these huge windstorms.
So, I figured that GoldenEagle must have some familiarity with these storms too, and wondered how they dealt with them. So when I asked him this, his answer startled me.
First of all, he seemed to me to take a long time in giving me an answer to this query. That was a bit unusual for him, who always seems to answer rather quickly, and sometimes bluntly too. So I was taken aback, when he informed me that during the times in which he lived, (I’ve estimated to be the early 1800’s) there weren’t such storms happening, at least, not as often as they do today. He reminded me that everything has an element that it is often associated with. And that in this case, it obviously is the air element that is out of control, and doing the damage to the earth plane. The air element again, meaning our minds, and the mental plane itself, where all our desires and hopes tend to be housed, to be fulfilled soon enough, at least as soon as possible.
I recalled that in my own studies, metaphysically speaking, the elements indeed are divided up into four or some even say, five categories. The air element is often connected with the mind and the mental plane. The water element is connected with the emotions and the astral plane, and the earth element is usually connected with the physical plane itself. The Fire element is therefore considered to be in tune with the spiritual planes above these others. This being the case, it indicates that the disturbances that culminate in such violent storms are therefore generated by our collective mental activity, such as aggressive negative thought forms, hatred for others, and the like.
Suddenly, it all began to make more sense to me. I listened as he went on about how in his time, such storms were very rare, and when they did occur, usually the medicine people of the tribes would often have gotten some warnings that this might happen, and so they would warn the people and they would seek safe ground, often causing them to pack up their homes, and move into the forests or some other protected land features.
He also explained that due to his people being in tune with the elements themselves, these storms were rare occurrences. He also didn’t have to point out that today, we have a very different state of affairs on earth. Too many people living today tend to allow their thoughts to go wild, seldom making any attempts to control them, believing them to be powerless to do either harm or blessing to others. This opinion is born out of deep ignorance of cosmic laws under which we are all evolving.
This point of view is very wrong, and simply not true. Our thoughts do indeed affect all that we experience on earth, so much so that when we understand the basic metaphysical principle that “As Above, So Below,” we can begin to understand how very much we do affect all things by our thoughts and moods, for good or ill. In other words, and to put this principle a bit simpler, “Thoughts are Things.”
Continuing along this line of inquiry, it is manifestly true that we are growing into the awareness that our thoughts and the forms they create- when persisted upon, do affect us and even others who we may happen to think about, – for good or ill.
To return to GoldenEagle’s way of thinking, he also said that whenever these storms would happen, his people would take this very seriously as an omen that something needed to change.
To this end, there would at times be very large gatherings of the tribes that had been affected. Out of this tradition, later grew the “sun dances” and powwows so popular, even today.
The medicine people would gather unto themselves to decide what they could about these storms, and what to do to diminish their visits to earth. He also said that they believed that behind every such storm, a very negative, malevolent spirit was to be seen. These dark spirits only had a chance to affect those on earth, when these folks had allowed their thoughts to turn to the lower things in life, such as anger, resentments, jealousies, unreleased feelings of injustices, held for long periods of time, and other such negative uses of our thoughts and wills.
To this end then, the medicine people would apply their powers, bringing them all together, and acting in unison for the common good. At times, it would be revealed that some of them previously had dreams foretelling these hard times, while others had known of the same by the use of omens or other such devices that were to inform of the coming things, such as an unusually harsh winter, etc. It might also serve a purpose here to draw the similarity between these soothsayers and the Prophets of the Bible. They also had their ways of communing with the great Spirit, and out of such communions often came life-saving information.
He went on to explain that once such things were accomplished, then the tribes would usually go back to their own parts of the land, and all would be better after that. When I pressed him to get more specific, he especially cited things like the prejudice and racism that he sees today as the most common offenders, mentally speaking, as they are the cruelest.
He had come to me on the night that our current President Obama was elected, and showed me then some of the rage coming from some groups such as the KKK, and other hate groups, who were outraged at the thought that their President would now be an African American person. There came a moment after his acceptance speech when the family turned to leave the podium. And it was then, that the prospect of these people being the first black people to occupy the White House, dawned upon me. At that moment, I felt a cold chill.
I recall that night very well. I had voted for Obama myself, and so was very surprised to be reminded that not all Americans felt the same way that I did. Many of these “feeling betrayed voters,” many of these people had voted purely for racist reasons, having nothing at all to do with the ability of the man himself to govern our great country. His race became the mode by which too many of our fellow countrymen and women had judged him and his family too.
Golden Eagle asked that I organize some protection prayers to be given for his protection and that of his family, which I hastily did. As we gathered to do that praying, those of us involved were all convinced of and saddened by the reality of these conditions. Certainly, this couldn’t be happening in our country, not here, in beloved America, “the land of the brave, and the home of the free.”
I also had another vision directly, one time when I was asking for his protection after the FBI had uncovered a plot that was a death threat to the lives of the entire Obama family, hatched by some members of some hate group in the south. I recall being at once shocked and outraged that such groups still exist and flourish among us. Frankly, it boggles my mind that such people can still exist in our world. How is it that modern times, along with their accompanying “sophistication,* have made our modern and current world a place where such small-minded people can even exist comfortably?
After all these years since that infamous group, the KKK first was formed, it still exists in some places in our own country, as strange or shocking as it appears. It also speaks volumes about how different and diverse we are in this country, spiritually speaking. Maybe we’ve been too tolerant, not so much of outsiders, but of those who are full-blown and homegrown Americans, but who don’t really seem to know what end is up.
And so when Golden Eagle showed me all this, it simply served to show me why these storms may still be happening. And I did notice that most of them are centered in those parts of our beloved country where such mindsets are commonplace.
Not so long ago, was it not the racism that still endured there that caused Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. to go to the South to organize against such outdated racism and evil practices?
The occasion was the very celebrated case of Mrs. Rosa Parks, a black lady who refused to give up her seat when a white man wanted to sit there. It should be known that at that time, just about 40 years ago, people of African American descent had to sit in certain specified areas of the bus, at the very back too. Shocking, yes?
When I first visited Alabama, back in the year 1970, I was shocked to see with my own eyes, closed down restaurants that still had signs in their windows, saying “White Trade Only”. I also saw a water fountain that made it very clear who was to drink from it, not everybody. Most of us will never see these things, as they are mostly gone by now, and that is good. But the thought that fairly recently, up until the 1960s, these things were still quite common in the South still causes me uncomfortable feelings. The fact that as a country, we’ve not been able to outgrow such spiritual childishness and cruelty still amazes me.
“When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?” taken from the folk song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
What to do about it though? That is the question we all should take a look at, from within ourselves. This isn’t a question of trying to change others, but instead of trying to find such things within ourselves, and pull these weeds of intolerance, in our efforts to be more Godlike and Divine, our true natures.
In places like Hawai’i, we haven’t had to be subjected to such things too much, probably owing to the fact that Hawai’i has evolved into such a multi-cultural and multi-racial place. I am glad that in the Hawaiian Islands something by the name of Aloha*3 is still alive and well, and thus, keeps us not only tolerant of each other but actually getting along very well. Mahalo Ke Akua*4 is all I have to say about that.
Footnotes:
1 – a basic metaphysical principle that all things begin with a thought. One time, our beloved Guide ACD, who was previously the author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and who later in that same life, became the most famous and outspoken person in the cause of Spiritualism, (the belief that life is ongoing, and therefore, it would and does follows that communication with the so-called “dead” is not only possible, but also, desirable, now that those whom we are likely to contact are back Home, in Spirit, and from that place, can and often do impress really good ideas upon our own mental rivers, such as the solutions to our problems, and other very valid pieces of advice, coming directly from the heaven worlds above us.) Sir Arthur, as we call him sometimes, made it plain that it is this principle, thoughts are things, that makes such unpleasant things as voodoo and black magic possible. For it is the law of the universe that we do create thought forms, whenever we ponder on the same ideas over and over, and can then bring these forms into physical reality over time.
2 – Here, I am merely suggesting that we each take some time to seriously ponder what we ourselves are holding as our own inner beliefs, and change the ones we aren’t proud of.
3 – Aloha. A word we are all pretty much aware of, even if we don’t live in Hawaii. It has many meanings, the most common of which are in greetings, Hello, Goodbye, and other things like a feeling of love or warmth that is felt in most Hawaiian homes, due to this “tradition” left to us by those who lived here previously, the Hawaiians themselves, some of which are our elders still.
4 – Mahalo ke Akua – a Hawaiian phrase meaning Thanks to God, or to the Gods Themselves Who has helped us in some ways.
Feel free to leave a comment, ask a question, or request a new topic below.