I've been working on relationships, freedom and everything in between for over 20 years. As I work with my tribe to build our next retreat called 'Spiritual Sovereignty', the concept of consent obviously had to be discussed. My tribe is absolutely amazing and what follows is all our work, articulated the best I can. My Tribe Rocks!!! This is a summarization of what we discovered when we allowed spirit to guide us through this topic. If you are not familiar with the Spiritual, Physical and Fictional Realms, then I recommend that you read my book, which can be purchased on our Homesteaders Co-op store front or it can be found for free on the blockchain.
Before we get started in this topic, I think it is important to discuss the old paradigm of consent and why it has failed us all. Consent is a foundational principle within the legal system and a cornerstone for relationships within the fictional realm. Our intellect and ego loves these constructs and codified it within the legal systems. There is a bunch of info regarding the different types of consent which you can read here if you are interested in brushing up on them.
But I want to bring up the legal definition that I found in the Canadian Law Dictionary 5th Edition:
Consent: A deliberate and free act of the mind; an act of reason accompanied by deliberation. Thus an instrument such as a will may be invalidated if consent is obtained by fraud or undue influence. In tort law, the phrase informed consent is sometimes used with respect to the requirement that a patient be apprised of the nature and risks of a medical procedure before the physician can validly claim exemption from liability for battery or from responsibility for medical complications.
It is the deliberation, fraud and undue influence that often causes a lot of problems in our relationships. How many of us take the time to deliberate the choices we make in life? How many people try to manipulate others through shame, guilt, threats or actual violence to surrender to our will? How many people feel obligated or pressured through dogmatic social conditioning taught to us when we were children?
The discussions around these issues were pointed during our deliberation on this topic. We often make these choices without even consciously being aware of the process we are going through. As a result, I know many people who engage in sexual relations with others out of shame, guilt, feelings of obligation or even fear of being over powered. I know of people who consent when threatened by superior force as is the case with the state or thugs. There are cases where people consent out of desperation as their needs are not being met and they say 'yes' feeling they have no choice, as if their life depends on it.
I will also be the first to admit that I was a master at gaining consent during my younger years as I engaged in covert violence through passive / aggressive behaviours to manipulate others to my will. Until we bring these issues into our conscious awareness, it will be difficult to break these patterns.
The problems with this type of consent is that it is almost exclusively performed by our intellect and does not engage spirit or other aspects of our being. It is time to re-evaluate the process we use in our relationships with others and that includes Mother Earth, plants, animals, water, air and Creator himself.
Zaereth [CC0]
Hierarchy of Authentic Consent
When we consciously start to reflect on what authentic consent involves, we must take a holistic approach that goes far beyond the intellectual exercise that constitutes legal consent within the fictional realm. To fully explore this holistic approach, let's revisit the order of creation that I discussed in my book.
We are spiritual beings in command of physical vessels. Within that relationship, we have created a fictional world that we use to govern a lot of our relationships. Being stuck in that fictional construct is causing a lot of issues that we need to heal. Being consumed by the fictional constructs in our lives is literally turning us into slaves.
It is the fictional constructs that we use to govern consent. However, authentic consent demands that we fully engage all aspects of who we are. Again, let's dig into my book to reflect this relationship in a diagram that we can work on.
The fictional realm exists only within our physical mind, constructs created by others and ourselves. They were instilled in us since birth and that has happened for many generations over thousands of years. It is the least sovereign and the first step towards authentic consent. This is where we engage our intellect to evaluate, process and judge, however the answers are not found here and as such, the mind cannot give consent.
"The Mind Knows No Answers. The Heart Knows No Questions." - Buddha
The challenge here is that ego and our emotional plague reactions often get in the way and tries to sabotage or control the directions we take in our lives. When we acknowledge and heal our false ego and emotional plague reactions, as well as let go of the fictional realm, we can pass unbiased information up and connect to the next level. Within our physical vessel, we have access to physical feelings that our physical body has in order to interact with the physical world. These instincts, thoughts and feelings serve us well in regards to survival. Checking into our physical body and being consciously aware of what is going on within it can provide another layer of information and bio-feedback in regards to our decision making processes.
In order to connect with our bodies, we need to heal it and lighten the emotional load that it carries for us. Building an intimate relationship with our bodies is something that most people are consciously aware of now and work hard to reconcile. I see this process unfolding beautifully within our Level 1 Heart Retreats and Level 2 Spiritual Mind Retreats. When we connect to our bodies, our vessels are more than willing to serve us spiritual beings. However, it requires a great deal of work to learn the language of our vessels. When we learn that language, we can have intimate two way conversations with our vessel and provide it with the opportunity to participate in the authentic consent process.
The Spiritual Realm is of the highest authority and has the highest level of sovereignty. By healing our vessels, we open ourselves up to connect to spirit in an intimate way THROUGH our vessel. By opening up all our chakra points and balancing them through our hearts, we connect to spirit in ways many have yet to experience. We turn on gifts and super powers that many are now starting to explore. When we heal ourselves we really do become magical creatures in a world of muggles who have yet to experience these gifts.
Spirit is what guides our journey here on this Physical Realm and by checking into Spirit, we can determine if something is right for us or if we should move on. Spirit is what orchestrates life on this planet and in many ways, life here has gone through a level of consent prior to us even showing up. Now it is up to us to heal ourselves so that we can tap into Spirit and figure out what those consensual agreements actually are.
Those are the different levels, so how do we put it all together then?
Here is a diagram to show the levels in relation to another spiritual being. It does not matter whether it is a Man, (male or female), Mother Earth, a tree, moose, chicken, mouse, head of lettuce, cookie, glass of water or a breath of air. By consciously going through this process within all our relationships, we will find that we will make a paradigm shift towards true, authentic consent and bypass the problems with the fictional realms legalistic model of consent.
Here we have two spiritual beings, one is our self and the other is the spiritual being we are looking to gain consent for some sort of interaction, how ever it may be. When we go through the intellectual exercise to work out the details of that interaction, it now must be passed up the chain of sovereignty to ensure all aspects of our being consents to the interchange. When we get spiritual, emotional, mental and physical green lights for the agreement, then authentic consent demands that we check in with the other spiritual being to ensure they too found green lights.
When both parties have green lights across the board, then it is the responsibility to check in with one another to make sure that those green lights are authentic. This is an important step in the process to ensure that no coercion, false core beliefs, unhealed trauma, covert violence or any other manipulations is taking place. It allows for us to check in with each other to ensure we are not lying to ourselves or each other. We want to ensure that we are obtaining authentic consent rather than conceding or being coerced.
There is a lot of conceding taking place today because we fail to get a green light on all levels; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. By standing in integrity, we ensure that we are not violating other spiritual beings and walking the path of honour in the process. Ego will do everything it can to sabotage this process as authentic consent demands that Spirit communicating to our bodies through our heart space to make the final decision. Ego and intellect is not responsible for making that decision.
If it does not feel right, even though our mind says 'yes', it is not a valid authentication process.
Greed, power, conquest and other works of the flesh are not valid authentication processes either. The corporate and government institutions that we created can only function in the Fictional Realm and that is the primary reason why we all struggle so much in our lives today. It is also the reason why forcing our will against others, especially Mother Earth, plants and animals is so rampant in today's world.
In a way, we must learn the skills of the Jedi as we reach out with our feelings to connect with those who don't speak our language. Learning the one language that connects all life on this planet is paramount where few know this language. Yes, we can communicate with the air we breath, water we drink, food we use to nourish our bodies, or the resources we use to cloth and shelter ourselves. This demands that we quiet our ego so that we can feel our way through life and all these complex relationships. These are concepts that boggle our intellect as it does not comprehend what I speak of. It does not comprehend because it is the least sovereign component of who we are. It should be our servant, NOT our master. Spirit is where our sovereignty is found and where it must be exercised and expressed.
When we find our way towards authentic consent, we will find that our own spiritual sovereignty will start to manifest. This authentic consent can be expressed in ALL our relationships, especially with the fictional constructs we have built up all around us. Yes, I'm talking about governments, corporations and other stuff that manifests within our minds.
To accomplish this level of sovereignty requires that we heal ourselves and intimately explore the relationships in our lives. It starts within ourselves and is then expressed outwardly towards others in our lives. In many regards, we have consented to this process already as this is a spiritual journey and that consent was obtained before we even came to this Physical Realm through Mother Earth. Now it is up to each and every single one of us to explore what authentic consent is all about and start integrating it into our lives. It is rooted in the fact that there is only two authorities in our lives; Creator and us. We violate Spirit by handing over that authority and jurisdiction to others, especially to those struggling themselves. We violate Spirit by taking from others and violating their Spiritual sovereignty as well. When we exercise our sovereign spiritual authority and power, peace and freedom will break out as Spirit would not consent to anything less.
We face an epidemic where ego chooses the level of consent we participate in and almost always violates spirit. Spirit demands a much higher level of integrity, duty and ethical conduct from us all. If you are at all interested in learning how to gain Spiritual Sovereignty through authentic consent, then Spirit will rearrange the universe to ensure you are at our retreat next month. I hope to see you all there in April 5th - 7th near Battle Lake Alberta. Details of the event can be found by following this link.