Today feels different. I feel more optimistic. Perhaps the total acceptance that I am a dreamer has helped add colour to the current gloom. Perhaps a deep recognition that the world needs soul-dreamers, Earth-visionaries and consciousness-pioneers, has lifted my spirits. We artists, poets and writers hold the dreamscape until there is enough energy to manifest our creative ideas into material form. We fashion it from imagination into the material. It’s important work and it resonates with one of the core principles here at UPLIFT —

We are ALL needed just as we are — in service to the greater whole, and with flexible-attachment to outcomes … curious, willing and listening for guidance in flow.

Creativity does not have to come in the shape of a finished piece of art, poem or sculpture. People can be creative forces in their progressive heart-thinking and their courageous words and deeds. Lately, I often think of all the creativity that was running through Martin Luther King. How his creativity came through in his speeches, in his emphatic belief in the goodness of humanity, his fierce determination to shine light into the darkest places, only to reveal that the darkness also is held within the light. That’s how fierce his faith in the goodness of Human KIND was. He had an unwavering conviction that all men are equal. He was a leader of hearts and right action, a compass for compassion. His creative force could impassion those who identified with injustice and also soothe those who had perhaps fallen into hopelessness. He sat like the great flame at a temple, the flame that all other flames borrowed their light, heat and aliveness.

I Dream of a Faded Echo

His most famous speech continually echoes and permeates so many aspects of world culture. I imagine there will be a day when the echo will fade, no longer needed. A day when his vision is realised and normalised, so much so, that it becomes inconceivable that a world with culture and colour divisions feels implausible, too far in the past, too abstract and too absurd. Martin Luther King’s speech will become a distant glint harking back at a broken world, a papery reminder of just how far we have come, just how far we have come home.

I’d like to share some of his speech that brings me hope in these times. His words comfort me out of despair and into an energised resonance of a firm conviction that we are heading in the right direction. I want to lean into optimism and faith when I raise my vibration for change. Recognising injustices and recognising the need for action are great catalysts for change. But If I sit too long inert in the quagmire of injustice, I can feel powerless and hopelessness seep in. So, I gently take the myriad of ‘unfairness’ feelings and place them all in a container of LOVE. I ask that my vibration of complaint be alchemised into a vibration of hope and right action. I ask that I be a vessel for good, a channel of peace and a servant of kindness. 

Fragments of Martin Luther King’s Speech, first delivered 28th August 1963:

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends … Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have a dream today!

This is our hope, and this is the faith … With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. 

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

~

Beloveds,  where can you help in raising human consciousness? Of course by raising your vibration of Unity, Peace and Love … but is there anything you can do as an act of humanitarian kindness? Is there a soup-kitchen that needs your help? Are there any local community groups that need your support? Are there unused items in your house gathering dust that less privileged people might need? Do you have the means to buy something new for a family of refugees – a sofa, blankets, food? Get creative here as you liberate yourself into kindness and enhance the freedom of others. 

We love and appreciate you so very much …

Paul and Team UPLIFT