Some further journeys you might want to do would be, say, to the spirit of White racism, or to the spirit of the kyriarchy, to see what can heal them—or, for some steady nurturing, to the spirit of healing, or the spirit of kindness.
There’s lots of room for invention. Whole alphabets have been invented by people who simply saw that there was such a thing as writing—people like Sequoyah, who invented the Cherokee syllabary. There’s a world of practices you already know, or can invent, or can find in any and all spiritual and religious traditions, that will work wonders in freeing us all from White racism; as Joe Miller said, the core teaching of all religions is Love. You’ll know it’s the real thing if it blows your mind so beautifully that you cannot anymore think what you thought, or fear what you feared before—consciously or unconsciously.
Just please don’t make a business of it. It’s a gift, and there’s not a whole lot of money in it anyway, so we can all relax about that. Plus it most definitely isn’t true that people don’t value what they don’t pay for. Let’s be honest: we all love a bargain, and we like free most of all. Did you think that sunset wasn’t much because you didn’t have to pay for it? For that matter, don’t you feel pretty happy that you can read this book for free, or do you wish you’d paid a bundle for it? And all those pearls of wisdom you’ve received from all kinds of people all over the place, all your life, without paying a thing for them? Tell the truth—you treasure them.
Years ago, I read a book called The Straight Path, by a doctor named Richard Katz who had gone to Fiji to study traditional Fijian healing modalities. When he came back and everyone wanted him to teach those modalities, he would only teach the ethics of the Fijian healers, which was what he wrote the book about—and he shared the proceeds from it with the people who had taught him. In Fiji, charging for healing is taboo. It’s relatively easy to live from farming and fishing in Fiji, and everyone has a day job, so they don’t need to charge for healing. This was very disappointing to Richard Katz’s audiences, but for those with ears to hear, it’s a revelation. I charged for a healing once, and felt so dirty afterward that I have ever since followed the Fijian way. Happiest cultural borrowing ever: when it turns into a business, the spirit gets cramped.
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