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Meditation
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Seeing people through the serpent and dove

From Holly Roach Knight

Video Interview Transcript

Yeah. So in the Christian tradition we have the scripture of Matthew 10:16 where we talk about Jesus says to be as wise as a serpent and as peaceful as a dove. And my mentor Reverend Alexia Salvatierra talks about dove and serpent power. That serpent power serpent is being aware of the human nature of people and our kind of egoic structures that make us self-serving and make us you know perpetrate you know violence and oppression. And then the dove power being the the other part of our nature nature that is divinely connected that is wired for peace that is wired for love and for harmony. And then each one of us has this kind of dualism in our nature. And so in contemplative activism we look at humanity with this lens of having this dual identity that we expect the CEOs of corporations to have a serpent you know part of themselves where they are self serving. They are seeking to make as much money as possible. But then we also have to see the dove essence of them as well as people who are divinely connected to our Creator and have a, that are a part of kind of the spirit that animates all of us. And that when we do contemplative activism we're aware of the serpent nature of the oppressor but we're also aware of their divinely connected self and that's the self we're speaking to when we're asking them to desist from you know whatever it is that they're doing that we're asking them to stop. We're appealing to their dove nature and asking them and appealing them to be more connected to that. Okay, I'll do that again So the Christian tradition in Matthew verse 10:16 There's a verse about Okay Just one, one sentence, which I have no idea what that was So when we're when we have the opportunity to speak to the oppressor and to appeal to them we want to appeal, be aware of their serpent self, right, and their motivations that may be very much driven by that kind of serpent power. But we want to appeal to the dove power that's also present in them that there is that same spirit that animates us all that is divinely connected to all things exists in that person as well. And so that is the power with which we want to invoke from them we want to invoke a different response from them by appealing to their dove essence.

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