Sacrifice

Sacrifice means to ‘make sacred’ or ‘make holy’.
The view of the path of sacrifice is a curious one. Living as I do in a Catholicism infused society, a corrupted concept of sacrifice has become acceptable. Those who have aligned with this idea seem to value their sufferring as their primary offering to their family, partner or collective community.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you; My Pain!
Such as it is wonderful to be able to offer up ones blood and ones body and that fixes everything.
Ahem.

This is a corruption of a mystery school teaching that had a metaphorical weight completely manipulated by those who wished to control a population through shame and guilt (you do not need to delve to deep to know that the catholic church really fucks everyone up.).

The teachings of Jesus (or Yeshua) are in essence spiritual anarchist radical teachings. Yeshua in himself would count as a sanyassin yogi (one who seeks union with the divine through renouncing the self) comfortably. To be anarchist means to be self governing, which he preached. Radical comes from the latin word for ‘root’. The Christian movement as it began was a roots movement, it sought to change the fundamental nature of society from the ‘lowest ranking’ up to the most powerful through right action and compassion (tenets of yoga and buddhism also).

It’s no secret that many modern sects and cults of Christianity are obessessed with the crucifxion and the period that preceeded it, rather than the core and quite basic teachings of Yeshua and his followers.

So how are the teachings corrupted?
Yeshua was teaching unity consciousness when he spoke of the wine and bread of his blood and body, that his love is in everything and that all is connected in the web of life. There is water in the blood and soil, which is dead organic matter, and light grow the wheat for the bread.

This has been comingled with his horrific yet impactful absolution from his body through crucifixion as being the crucible of the Christain teachings.
As a student of mine said ‘the chap died on the cross, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO. So get down off the cross ffs!’

Legitimately the paradoxical appropriation of the Christian teachings has left many believing that unconditional love is self-sacrifice and gruesome suffering. That the feminine is only holy if she is a virgin who offers her self unconditionally as being solely an eternal mother, not a lunar being with many phases and faces, such is nature.
This appropriation of these teachings has left a conditioning scar on many about what sacrifice really is.

Let’s now practice absolving sacrifice from Christianity’s Crucifixion story, and also from World Animist Religions that sacrifice animals as property. That is simply torture. Animals cannot consent to sacrifice and therefore they have no magical bearing unless you are occulted to see them as property which I do not espouse.

Sacrifice as a Path of The Heart.

The Unaware Path of Sacrifice, is usually mired in self-sacrifice and the expectation of the other to sacrifice to you as ‘love.’ This is a manipulative performative suffering or the creation of murky agreements (‘I’ll do this for you but I’ll expect you to do something for me when I need you to with no clear agreement’).
Those on the unaware path of sacrifice do not believe in being supported, instead they see care love and solidarity on a conditional and exchange basis that they must qualify for to get their needs from others met. They do that by performing suffering or lack to provoke care or exchange.
I know; I’ve been there.
When unaware this person on this path offers up ‘sacrifices’ of ‘poison apples’ or demonstrations of suffering as ways to entice people into their control or service rather than risking that they will be cared for if they simply asked.
Unaware Path of Sacrifice is the martyr as discussed above, that refuses to receive help and connection to avoid their true vulnerability.

The Aware Path of Sacrifice is one of surrendering ones attachments and limitations in order to be of greater light in the world and to occupy the role of a guide or beacon through embodied presence and compassion. To make oneself sacred is to offer up all that we self-identify with through fear.
That is the loving or aware Path of Sacrifice is to willingly offer up your limitations and live vulnerably as yourself stripped bare and to know love in that form, beyond the qualifying merits of service you believe yourself to ‘possess’ or the performative exchanges used to ‘get’ love.

I have walked the path of Sacrfice as my Heart’s Path and it is certainly challenging. Although it seemed to be about true love of the other in fact it was never about anything other than self-commitment and receiving the nature of infinite unconditional love.
A process I encountered on this path was to shave 7 years of hair growth bald and give away my belongings, my phone and cash and ditch my passport in the Himalayas. (Note, I am a shamanic practitioner initiated by spirit, this is somewhat par for the course for me. I don’t suggest this to anyone as a process at all.)
The hardest part of that was the head shave. I felt like I would never be loved without my armour, my shield. The reasons why I am ‘good enough’. The signals for other crusties to notice me and for men to find me attractive.
As I walked bald in basic cotton clothes having discarded my phone with my music on it, my ‘me’ clothes, my money and my passport hidden underneath a drawer in a guesthouse room I had checked out of, I tearfully walked around and the voice of the spirit guide who had brought me through the process directed my gaze to the people around me and said in my thoughts ‘does she deserve love?’. I answered ‘yes’. ‘Does he deserve love?’. ‘Yes!’ ‘Then why don’t you?’
I couldn’t answer. I had looked at maimed people, hawkers, people of all shapes and sizes, demeanours and ethnicities, rich folk, loud tourists, sneaky street folk, hippies, yoga bunnies, boisterous families of 15 crowding through the streets and all of them deserved love. Uncondtionally.

I had to learn that lesson through ACTUAL sacrifice. I had to learn that love was not because of what I listened to, how I looked, or what I coud ‘give’ someone so they could love me, what I choose to do or say or eat or read. Love was in and with and for everybody. I had been using my interests, my appearance, my accent, my body, my hair, my money and my wounds to say ‘No, love is not for me, it is for these things I am accumulating, but it is not for who I am beyond those things. No one could ever really love ‘me’, they simply love the idea what I am giving them. ‘

This is what I mean by sacrificing your attachments and limitations.
I had made it so that there were barriers around me only allowing conditional forms of love in, and it was love of my masks and created identities.

As I gave up those barriers I let love in, and I accepted myself as sacred. As beloved.
Beyond the perception of human reality but in the infinite nature of ‘giving up ‘everything’ and remaining ‘me”.
As deserving. Without any qualifier.

The Aware Path of Sacrifice is One of Compassionate Vulnerability in Self.

To be oneself truly, difficult or temptestuous, apathetic or anxious, fat, skinny, spotty, silly, needing of support or help and still offer oneself up to be loved, with no qualifiers or caveats is to sacrifice. You no longer allow any part of you to be profane.
It is often powerfully expressed as the path of the artist, the poet, the muse or the dancer.
The mother who strives to accept herself so she is a good example to her daughter, the person who gives up their anxiety to commit to accepting the role in the project they truly believe in.
The ones who offer up their attachments, their wounds and their masks, their experiences for love of creation. These lights shine the way for others to be here, now, fully as they are.

Another Path of the Heart is the Path of Power.

It is also corrupted in this era, and is simplier to identify as it is more overt and less popularly seen as benign when corrupted (at least in the west). The Path of Power when unaware compells a being to seek someone, somewhere or something to control. The person who walks this path unaware will desire domination over other beings, nature and consciousness and a sense that they ‘know best’. They will exploit and take advantage rather than reciprocate. It is the Patriachal Path in it’s corrupted form. Much like a vengeful father or the old testament male deities.
Needless to say this path is prevalent and often walked unaware. The shadow of this path is to be powerless. Power comes from the root word to be ‘able to’, and it is the beings who cannot do something crucial in their life themselves who are learning this path. Many people with learned helplessness are attracted to the Path of Power. These people, when unaware, are likely to be controlling partners or empolyers when given authority and stubborn or un-cooperative when not in power.

This path has the potential for a lot of self sabotage. Where the Path of Sacrifice when unaware pushes love and life away through masking vulnerabilities with self harming behaviours and poison offerings of love (conditional offerings). The Path of Power pushes life and love away through ‘Managing and Rejecting’ offerings of love.
Often if the person cannot ‘manage’ or control something they simply disassociate, therefore only ever receiving on their ‘own’ terms. So depending on the limitations of their self-worth, they may only receive money, sexual attention, or responsbility or whatever they deem themselves worthy of. When unaware they are too controlling to expand their view on love as they are also fundamentally afraid of their vulnerability in the form of lack of control of the other’s autonomous view and giving to them.

The Aware Path of Power is one of Compassionate Self-Mastery and Appreciation of the Other.

To traverse this path of the heart with awareness, you must take responsbility for your insecurities and act to heal them. To see what you reject in others as fundamental in yourself, and to see how you wish to control others as how you are repressing yourself. When the Path of Power becomes compassionately aware it is a wonderful companion in encouraging and believing in the autonomy and power of the other to co-create with the autonomous self. This path makes excellent mentors, guides, and community organisers.

The Path of Power requires absolute self responsbility to remain uncorrupted. There are no shortcuts on this path. Only when you have walked through all insecurities and self-imposed repressions and limitations is the Heart open enough to co-create without domination.
As on the Path of Sacrifice, only when one has experienced the absolute beauty and power of their vulnerability is the Heart open enough to co-create without manipulation, the Path of Power must first experience the Awe of the Other in the form of Consciousness and Nature in Other beings and then they can co-create with humble appreciation beyond their competetive conditioning.

These two paths are in a process of merging at moment and it’s tumultuous time. Awareness of The Path you are on empowers you to actively walk in Love.

There are many Paths of the Heart. These are two that I see the most often playing out their story in the world I am connected to. If you wish to learn more about other paths I have encountered feel free to comment below or direct message me.

In love and kidness,

Katie.