Shannon McArthur

Spoken in English. Their words, as they said them.

I walk in beauty before me. I walk in beauty behind me. I walk in beauty all around me.

I walk in beauty above me. I walk in beauty below me.

I walk in beauty within me.

All that is is beautiful and all that is is within me. Blessed be.

And I open my eyes.

It's been a long trek getting here.

That poem has given me great solace and a grounding when times were tempestuous.

I know life is hard for all of us. I carry my own burdens. But having the wisdoms of people who have walked before has given me a strength that has enabled the joy of a a life of joy, and deep love and reverence for the experience of others.

Science and consciousness has been, an awareness of mine since I was was a child. At eight years old, I was reading from Love Sang Rampa, a Tibetan monk who translocated his spirit from, the the llama he was into an Englishman who wrote the book of his life story. And it was during, reading his book that my mom came to me one day with, a question that I had to sit with. My ask for time to consider the possibility of opening my my new China piggy bank with the flowers on its back for the very first time to buy a dog for my brother who had been my nemesis all my life, my short life.

But he had lost the will to live as his grandfather had died from the same illness that he had asthma. And so I considered the possibilities. And I don't remember the, the process that I went through. But in the morning, I went to my mom and I said to her, yes, I will open my piggy bank to buy dog for my brother because later on in life, I will get my very own dog. And I can't make it happen any sooner. He will come and find me. And forty years later, he did.

I came home from work one day, and the the dog that we had babysat off and on for the last three years, a little Shih Tzu puppy, had made his way from the lady next door's house through, the fire doors between us. It scratched on the door and was there when I opened the door, and I could hear him say, where have you been? I came to find you. And he never left. The lady came, looking for him and said, he obviously knows where he wants to be. Would you like me to go and get his, his bed and his food dish? And and so he stayed, and it was an amazing relationship during a very difficult period of time.

I had been diagnosed with clinical depression, and so was medicated.

The thing about that medication is even if you don't have that illness, you have that illness after you take the medication because that's how it works. And so each time over the fifteen years that I took the medications, each time I had an episode, they would up my meds and it I became more and more debilitated, and unable to cope.

When the break finally happened, I had to leave my dog behind.

He was well cared for. He was well loved. He was needed where he was. And I needed to pay attention to me.

While I was in a hospital for the breakdown, I went for a walk around the block and that block included a piece of raw land at the back of which was, a stream and bushes along the stream. And I couldn't see a way to get to the stream and I just wanted to sit beside it. And as I looked, I saw a skirt hanging on a bush and, and the skirt is just like mine. I wear a black tiered long skirt, as I have it. And there it was, and, and a black bra tangled in the, in the branches. And I thought, I don't know what happened here, but I care. Help me. Help.

And I was led to, a building across the street. It had a phoenix at the top that we'd talked about in the, the award earlier that day. And it had a flower shop in the bottom corner and it was closed, but the beauty of it pulled me around the corner. And I noticed Portland University written on the, etched on the glass. And I wondered what they taught there. It didn't seem like a campus. And as I went in and I talked about the bulrushes that, I envisioned to be a part of how humanity could actually feed itself, plant, that is one of the sacred plants of the indigenous indigenous people of, North America.

And I the words tumbled over themselves as I this, this information that I had came out and I told this woman all about this and and she said, do you know what we do here? And I said, no. And she said, just a second. And she went off and she found a sheaf of papers and handed it to me. And it was sweat lodge. I was like, wow. Right out of my childhood, my grandmother used to tell me stories of Hiawatha and the peacemaker. And I was enchanted by the story of the indigenous people in their long houses with names that meant something and and the sweat lodges and the and the morning, exercise routines that they did to greet the morning sun. And and those seeds had been planted deeply within me. And when she said sweat lodge, I knew that I had to be a part of this. And for a week, for for a year of Sundays, I went to the sweat lodge there and I was welcomed by the community. It was deep in the heart of, Surrey, British Columbia, in some of the roughest neighborhood, around.

And I was pulled from doctor's appointments to group therapies to this and to that, and and they managed to give me a lifeline that I could cling to as I was buffeted by the winds of change that were going through my life.

Mother Earth has a remedy for clinical depression. In fertile soil, there is a bacteria that off gases the, the medicine. And if you if we create, conservatories, greenhouses full of fertile soil and good vegetables, and we work together to create the crops we need in our communities. We can feed each other. We can help each other heal, and we can grow good kids and good food together. The plan was a gift from, mother earth. It's called our heart gardens. And it is the the gift that I've been given to give to humanity.

Back when I was working, it was difficult, and that day I was wasn't feeling well and deep in the clinical depression thing. And and and so I I left work early and pulled myself onto a bus. But as I walked through the, corridor of these, of people on both sides, it wasn't what I expected. People were laughing and it was joyful. It was warm. And, I, this was very rare. I had never felt that before on a bus. So I only went halfway back so I could see what was going on. And a woman was sitting on the bench seat behind the bus and she was, had people all paying avid attention to what was going on with her. And, and she, she had a deck of cards and she would hold them out and say, pick a card, any card. And they would pick a card and they would, they would read it out. And the reactions were beautiful. And I decided when I realized what had happened, that I had to go and tell her that she had changed my day, perhaps my life. And so I got up a couple of stops early, and I went to talk to her. And I said to her, before I started talking to her, I noticed that there was a wheelchair tucked in behind her. And so I'm kind of distracted by that and and and trying to talk to her as well. And and what I'm saying to her, you know, you changed my life. Thank you so very much. And and she's she broke in. She said, you know, I do this on my good days. When I feel good enough, I go out and I ride the buses or I sit in the mall and I engage with people. And it takes me outside of myself.

And I realized that she had taken me outside of myself and the interaction lifted both of us.

This was another element of what I realize is part of the, our heart gardens plan is that when you are helping someone else, you forget your own problems. You forget about worrying about your own problems. You start to live your life as part of the greater community and your life has meaning within the community that is bigger than the problems that weigh you down. And so I, I'm seeing the value of the Our Heart Gardens concept that came through me, not from me. And and I see the, the beauty of the synergy of the plan, where we help each other and and help ourselves by helping each other and and lift the whole when you raise the level of the water, all ships rise.

I'm going to Mount Sinai on November 8 to take the stones of peace up the mountain, down which the tablets of stone were brought down by Moses, thirty five hundred years ago. The first pair of stones he brought down, were shattered when he dropped them, when he saw that the people had started to worship, golden calf Hathor.

He had all the goddesses, all of the priestesses, all of their supporters, all of them killed. And that trauma changed the world.

I would like very much to think that taking the two stones of peace up the mountain could be as powerful.

Mother Earth gave me those two stones in a moment of epiphany. When I was walking some raw land where they were going to build a new house, I was going to see what, the new house would have as a view. But the conversation that I was having was very upsetting. And I said, that's enough. Let's talk about something else. And I planted my feet and said, going forward.

And I looked down to take my next step. And there between my toes was a little round white rock with an arrow on it pointing forward, just like a button on a computer screen. And I laughed and I felt like butterflies in my stomach, and I thought I didn't think. I just I acted. I I I pranced a big step, and I said, there. And another big step and said, shall be. And and there I stood on one foot looking for the rest of the statement because I knew there had to be one. And I looked on this side, nope. And I looked on the other side, nope. And I looked down the path and the path went off that way, and I looked closer.

No, it couldn't be. I walked up closer. It is. In amongst all the walks and the weeds was a big round rock with a peace sign in it. Folds of the rock and color changes that described the peace sign that mother earth wanted us to see. Going forward, there shall be peace.

Message is not just for me.

Because mine isn't true unless it's true for you too.

Going forward, there shall be peace. I'm taking those stones up. The words of our mother. The promise that a mother makes and the encouragement. Come on. Going forward, there shall be peace. And when you search for it, you will find it. Peace is there waiting for you.

It manifests through your intentions.

I am deeply grateful for the magic that has infused my life. I am deeply grateful for the difficult path I have had to walk.

Homeless at times.

Inspired.

And the mother of a son I gave up for adoption at 22 years old when I was 22. He was just born. And they insisted that he have two names And so I I used the name of the young boy that I had been in contact with. I I corresponded by snail mail talking about my dog that would come and find me later on in life. I told him and he gave me a going away present and it was a Shih Tzu, that, a stuffed Shih Tzu that I could put on my bed. And because of that correspondence and that gift, I remembered that. And that's why I remembered the prophecy that I got about Jake. And so that magic happened. And so I gave my son that name, Michael Christian MacArthur. And then they took away the papers to get that name typed in, and the papers came back to me and they said Eric Christian MacArthur, and that was wrong. And I didn't have enough fight left in me to make it get changed. And so he thought all his forty years before he met and found me on Facebook, he thought I had given him that name and he was grateful because in his family, he had a cousin by the name of Eric, and that wove him into his new family.

And I realized that was mom working for him. And I was deeply grateful because this isn't all about me. Each one of us has magic in our lives. Lives. We just need to be able to see it. My life, I feel, was designed so that others can start looking at their own lives and begin to see the magic in their own. And there's just one more thing I want to mention, especially because it has to do with my son. His new parents, they gave him everything that I could not. They also gave him everything that I would not.

When I met him, he carries the name of my father my my brother and my grandfather. And they could not have known. He is Ian Son of the Reed family and I am deeply grateful to know him This has been an amazing life and I'm grateful to carry the stones.

This is what I came here for. Thank you for listening.

I'm done.

I have wanted to be able to express all of it in a cohesive piece. The stories have come, and I've lived through bits and pieces, and, and, and to actually be able to allow them to all fold into one piece is a joy beyond measure.