"Wansaka - A New Sacred Community" is a series of articles written as an inquiry about creating sacred community. I asked myself what we would need in place to fulfill a dream of living in profound relatedness and personal fulfillment. Who would we need to be? How can we grow into our greater selves? What can we bring to our world that will inspire and uplift and yet be grounded and whole?
As you read these articles, I encourage you to explore the possibilities. Imagine and engage with a dream of new ways of being and relating. Perhaps, through this exploration, we can create the opportunity for Sacred Community to awaken within each of us.

Community is a collective agreement to be in a harmonious relationship to foster common goals and ways of life. It is a natural state of living.

Wansaka means Sacred Sanctuary in Alawashka, the Original Language of Creation .

Wansaka Sacred Community is the collective agreement to be in a harmonious relationship to the Divine and each other through Honor, Truth and Love as a common goal and way of life. It is a co-created way of living.

Wansaka - A New Sacred Community: Part Two
"Creating Honor As A Context For Living"

Qualities As A Context for Living
Sacred Community is an open hearted relationship based on specific qualities which then become the templates of experience. These templates provide the context through which and upon which the community expresses itself. These qualities are the underpinning, the foundation for experience. By living a life dedicated to portraying and embodying these specifically chosen qualities, the individual and the community co-creates a shared expression. It is more than a vision. It is qualities in action. These qualities become a way of being. They become a way of relating. The qualities become an axis point for both personal and group participation. They become a context for living.

Honor As A Context for Living
I feel that honor is the foundation of all. Without Honor, nothing else can be held or revealed. Without honor, without the appreciation, respect and acknowledgment of the inner self, the people and the community, relatedness is empty. Would we want to share the beauty of our gifts, the generosity of our spirit and the wisdom of our hearts if we were not honored for who we are? Of course not. In a true sacred community, our dream is to share all of who we are and through the sharing and support, blossom into fullness. Through sharing our own fullness we would be encouraging everyone to share theirs. Our community would flourish in beauty and joy. It would be a co-creation filled with the beauty of our gifts, as individuals and as a collective. In honor, we grant each and every part of our lives and our community the opportunity and support to become more.

Honor is the acknowledgment, recognition, respect and appreciation that is extended to oneself and to others. It is a subtle and profound quality. As each of us moves into a greater understanding of honor and honoring, we can see what the world would be if each and every one were honored for who they are as a vital source of spirit and life. The vibrational patterns of Honor as a frequency and template, moves like a geometric, geo-centric heartbeat of expansion. As each distinction of honor is revealed, honor grows in several directions at once. Certain aspects of it expand outward. Other aspects expand inward. Honor is a living, breathing essence. As we extend and express honor, we resonate in harmony with its blessings.

Distinguishing Honor
To be in honor, to act honorably and to honor yourself, requires that we distinguish when we are in its frequencies and when we step out of them. Honor holds harmony, celebration, acknowledgment, respect, joy and appreciation within its vibratory essence. When we are in honor, when we act honorably and when we receive an extension of honor towards us, we can relax and celebrate the beauty of our own life. We are supported and empowered. We become more of who we are simply because we are honored for who we are. Imagine what your life would feel like, if that was the operating context in the world and with your peers.

Sometimes it is easier to see how honor generates the Sacred Community, by understanding what is produced when it is missing. When you can distinguish when honor is present, you can choose to stay within that energy. When you can distinguish when that quality is missing, you can choose to move back into it. Without honor, there can be no love. You cannot fully love without honoring the beloved and yourself. Without honor love becomes a desire which cannot be fulfilled, since the emotion does not share the depths of relatedness. Without honor, truth becomes shaded in cruelty. You cannot hold the fullness of Truth, of Divine and personal clarity, without honoring the deeper aspects of being for yourself and others. Without honor, truth is used against another as a sword of justification and false righteousness. It no longer holds the clear frequencies of perception and becomes a distortion. Love and Truth are awakened and exalted through Honor. When honor is expressed and known, then love blossoms and truth lights the path of living.

Honoring Self
When honor is the foundation for knowing yourself, then you begin to understand the true beauty of your own being. If you honor yourself, you see your gifts as true and genuine. You hold your own path as dear and precious. Honor asks that you look deeply into yourself, that you look at who you are and what you are doing. It asks that you recognize your talents and gifts. It asks that you appreciate what your life is, at this very moment. It asks that you come from and act from a recognition of your life and your talents and your being, so you may know that you are acting honorably. Participating in and generating Sacred Community requests that you honor yourself.

When you honor yourself, there is no need to covet another person's gifts, path or life, because you know and honor your own gifts. You may appreciate their talents. You may admire their life. You may aspire to be more like that person, because they bring forward aspects that you would like to incorporate, as well. When you honor yourself, you do not need to copy or steal someone else's path or job. You can admire and appreciate someone's relationship, but you do not need to steal it. Perhaps their life and loving relationship is beautiful and truly expresses a love you wish to experience. You can admire that loving relationship and aspire to attain that in your life. That does not mean you steal that person's partner because you want that relationship in your life. You do not try to corrupt that love so you can take that partner for yourself. That does not honor you. When you honor yourself, you recognize your own worth. You explore your true motivations for your actions and speech. You work to eliminate feelings and assumptions that dishonor you. You have no need to undermine another person to compete with them, to get what they have or to be who they are, because you honor, respect and appreciate the gifts that you have and the person you know yourself to be. You honor and appreciate who you are with all of your talents and qualities and you let yourself recognize the beauty of your own being.

Honoring Others
When you approach others with honor, you pave the way for their own expression. We are complimented by other people. We could not do what we do, have what we have or be what we are without other people. It's really that simple. If the people of ancient times had not collectively decided which of these letters sounded a certain way and which of these words meant certain things, then I wouldn't be able to write this article. If the combined contribution of many thousands of people across many ages had not created the hundreds of functional systems that finally generated computers and the internet, you couldn't receive this message. Their gifts and their lives have fully contributed to and empowered my life and yours. It is so with everything. Honor softens, empowers and supports. It's energy reverberates outward.

Expressing honor is a recognition of the sanctity of being. It must be practiced and explored. It is a natural expression of the Divine, but for humanity it is a learned trait. When you express honor, you speak and act from that quality. You approach each person with honor. You recognize their gifts and contribution to the universe at large, and people in specific. When you embrace and act from the vibrational patterns of honor, you extend honor outward to all people. This frames a context of who you are in the world.

Understanding Dishonor
Naturally, lying, cheating and stealing are dishonorable. When we do this, we not only take something away from the other person, we also reveal the level of honor we have for our own life. When we lie, we take away the truth and replace it with a falsehood, a negative frequency intended to distort the energies for personal gain, misdirection and manipulation. You send this into the other person or people and implant them with this lie. In effect, you have given them cancer. You are intentionally making them ill. You are intentionally poisoning them. In the example of lying, you made a decision, prior to your conversation, to distort and manipulate the truth or create a complete falsehood to sway that person to a particular conclusion that is wrong. You know it is wrong. You do it anyway, and you harm another person intentionally. You have also, completely dishonored yourself. You have made a decision to demean yourself and take yourself out of the presence of honor, and bring in the energies of deceit, lack, and corruption to perpetrate a lie. It doesn't matter whether a person discovers the lie. The poison is already in place. First, you poisoned yourself. Then you decided to poison someone else. You had another choice. That choice was to honor yourself and treat others honorably.

Treating others with honor is just as subtle as it is to treat yourself with honor. The example above, showed what happens to vibrational frequencies of honor when you lie about something or someone. It shows how you step completely out of the frequencies of honor and resonate with the energies of deceit. The same holds true when people gossip about another person. When people gossip, they infuse doubt and negative energies about another person into the minds of other people. They make up lies, manipulate the truth or share information that distorts another person's image and relationship with the person about whom they are speaking. It is an intentional act. That person made a decision to hurt the person about whom they are gossiping. In reverse, when you listen to gossip, when you allow another person to manipulate the truth and perpetrate lies and ill will against another person, you are participating in the gossip. You are perpetuating the poisoning. You are allowing another person to poison you, by distorting your mind and energy fields with falsehoods or negative images of a person that you know, see and relate to in a completely different way. Then what often happens is, because this poison is contagious, you spread that poison to other people. You cannot hold this energy. You cannot hold it because gossip pollutes you and you have to get it out. So, you give it to someone else. You share what you heard with another person. It does the same to them.

Further, by perpetuating this gossip, you have agreed to murder another person. You are a co-conspirator in murder. Gossip takes way another person's life. Several years ago, at the Olympics in Atlanta, a man was under investigation for a bombing. He had nothing to do with the bombing and was completely exonerating from any implications of involvement whatsoever. Yet, because of gossip, innuendo, manipulation and lies, that continued to escalate over time, making him a scapegoat, he lost his job, his home, his friends, his associates and his good name. He lost everything. His life was taken away from him. The honor of who he was in his life and in his community was replaced with poison. He was murdered. He was murdered by everyone who believed the lies. He was murdered by everyone who spread the lies.

Restoring Honor
So, in the true vibrational patterns of honor, what can you do? How can you be in the light filled presence of honoring yourself in situations like this, in situations of the old paradigm? You can simply refuse to engage in them. If a person is lying to you, you can excuse yourself from that situation. If a person is gossiping to you, you can ask them to stop. This halts the energies from poisoning you. The first step is to protect yourself from an overt act of poison. If you saw someone putting poison in your orange juice, would you drink it? No. Don't drink the poison that someone is offering you.

What do you do to honor the person who is the focus of the gossip? Now you have information that specific lies, manipulations of truth and insidious innuendoes are being spread about someone you know. You know that these are created and spread to harm that other person. In the honor of your own being, in the honor for all beings, in the honor for this particular person, what do you do? Imagine what it would be like for that person, if they were invited to a party, expecting to have a wonderful time with friends. Little did they know, that someone was spreading lies to everyone is in that group. Now, the whole energy is poisoned against that person. The relatedness of the whole group towards that person is tainted. Love and respect is replaced with doubt. This person has no idea what has happened, but he or she feels those horrible energies. They are isolated from the group. It was all intentional. That's what the gossip wanted to happen. But, what about that person? If they had known about it, would they have gone to the party? Could their knowing have helped them? This is not about taking sides. The spreaders of gossip want you to take sides. They want to create a specific polarity to hurt this person. They want to be right about something to fill a void in themselves and hide the dishonor they have created by bringing everyone else into it. What do you do? How can your words and actions show honor?

Honor is part of the new paradigm. To be in honor and to treat others with honor is a requirement of the new paradigm. It is a prerequisite of being in Sacred Community. Sacred Community is a new paradigm. When you honor others you include them in the new paradigm. You also bring yourself into the new paradigm. This is a choice. Every moment provides the opportunity to decide to live your life in honor, to extend honor to others and to eliminate the dishonor in your life. It is a learned process, that grows in clarity with each level of awareness. To choose to be in a new paradigm, to choose Sacred Community, is to choose to live and express honor for yourself and for others.

Honoring Community
Sacred Community is a living experience and, as a community, it contains each member within its attunements. Creating Sacred Community with Honor as its context, holds the individual - you and every other person in their individual self. It is the frequency of honoring within, the flow of honor that each individual can extend to themselves. The vibrations and actions of honor also holds others - each person who radiates out from your personal sphere. It is the frequency of extending honor to those with whom you relate and interact. You come from your own being, and reach out toward another person with recognition and appreciation. Honor in Sacred Community includes the collective wholeness. The collective is the flow of harmony amongst all people. It is inclusive of the individuality and the relatedness. It is the wholeness through which the New Paradigm is created and manifests. It is a space of honor into which people can choose to flow and through which people can create and share and receive the blessings and relatedness of life.

Each person will always have their own personal issues. They will respond to life, to people and the community through those issues. Often times issues are a reaction to feelings or past experiences. They can come from lack or want or pain or fear. They can even appear to be true. Inside a resonance of honor, those personal issues can be seen for what they are, and then cleared. If the individual honors themselves, then they can see which issues are actual and which are personal insecurities projected onto others or the community. Again, there has to be a genuine willingness and capacity to do this. Then, through their own inner process and with the support of the community, if they choose, they can restore their own well-being and clear the issues that disrupt their personal harmony and which may disrupt the harmony of the collective, as well.

When the community is based in honor, then the person experiencing this discord, can receive the help and clearing they need or they can leave the community with their honor still intact. Either way it is a healing, empowering experience. If honor is not a context for the community, then those issues cannot be cleared, released or reorganized. Without honor, those same personal issues, which may even be shared by others, become polarities. They become forces to collect around instead of to heal. They become weapons of dissension that undermine relatedness and cause destruction. With honor as a context for Sacred Community, the individual can examine and explore the issue, release the disharmony and take the actions necessary to rectify any actions they took that caused harm or discordance within the community. Honor and relatedness is restored to all.

To me, honor is the most important aspect of life and sacred community. As you engage in this exploration of Sacred Community, notice how you extend and receive honor in your life. How do you honor yourself by enjoying and acknowledging your own gifts without comparing them to another's? How do you honor other people who have contributed directly or indirectly to your life? What simple steps can you take to eliminate the frequncies of dishonor in your own life? Can you express your honor freely? Can you take just one day of your life and extend honor in all directions to all people, just as an exploration of what being in that energy feels like?

May you be ever-present to Receive and Create Miracles