Peace, Inside and Out by Norma Gentile

reprinted from The New Times Seattle, WA April 2001

As a child, I saw auras. Not the huge colorful ones that many describe, simply a vague color surrounding people here and there, but enough so that I asked why people were different colors. My mother, painfully aware of the racial tensions in the area where we lived, tended to dismiss my questions and send me from the room. Eventually I was taken to get glasses, which taught me that I shouldn't say or do anything that others weren't already saying or doing.

I share this experience because too often I find the unique quality of expression stifled in those I meet, especially those qualities associated with compassion. How often in our society do we support humility? I wonder if we could offer Olympic medals in humbleness and surrender to Spirit.

For me, healing isn't an act of power; it is an act of resonance with Spirit. The more I allow myself to feel my own connection to Spirit, the greater the connection another person is apt to experience. As I resonate with self-love, those around me have the opportunity to resonate with their own self-love.

Much like the strings of a piano, I find that I will "tune" myself to a situation. Learning to acknowledge that certain notes are being played and that I need not play them myself has been a part of growing into spiritual maturity. Initially I wanted to resonate with everything, every idea, and every semblance of truth and have everyone around me do the same.

Now I understand more deeply that it is only with the total and complete honoring of each person's self-expression that a culture of peace grows among us all. One major element is the role of the feminine. From my vantage point, it is only when all women and men are free to express the power of the sacred feminine that lies within them that the physical plane will come to balance and final peace.

Not only is healing an act of resonance, but so too is honor. It is the honoring of the sacred feminine within each one that allows the sacred masculine to flourish, and vice versa. An act of creation always includes both masculine and feminine energies. Creation, by necessity, includes both poles in order for the connecting continuum of life to emerge. Why would I honor one pole without honoring the other? Only because I judge it.

As I pray for peace in the Middle East, in my own neighborhood, or in my own emotions, it would be perhaps more fitting and useful to pray for the balancing of relationships between men and women, between my own female and male natures, and between the masculine and feminine elements that reside within me.

No lasting peace comes to my body until it comes between me and my judgement of myself. No lasting peace comes to the earth until it comes between men and women. No lasting peace comes between the two genders until it comes between the profane and sacred natures.

No lasting peace occurs by thinking or even doing. It occurs by accepting those parts of myself that I deem unacceptable. Then the profane and the sacred merge. White light and dark light blend into clear light. This is the clarity of vision that allows compassion.

It is not by treaties or political ends that wars cease, but rather due to the hearts of those worldwide encompassing each other in deep compassion. As I learn to honor those aspects of the sacred and profane nature within myself, I will honor those qualities in others. Then shall peace come.

It is in the asking that my heart opens. It is by the depth of desire and openness to Spirit that the abilities of those who surround and support me are drawn into my life, and yours. "Ask, and you shall receive."

Norma Gentile is both a clairvoyant sound energy healer and professional recording artist. As a teacher, she leads people into a greater understanding of their own healing abilities. As a singer, she creates a space of compassionate stillness. Her latest recording is Unfurling Love's Creation, chants by Hildegard von Bingen. http://www.healingchants.com, P.O. Box 971020, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, (734) 330-3997. For her schedule see her Itinerary.