Winter Stories
By Dr. Katherine Aaron
Oral tradition
among Native American tribes includes the winter stories,
which is the telling of stories
around a communal fire during the long winter
months. The winter stories aren’t about winter, they’re
just told in the winter when tribal members aren’t
busy with work allowing time for the stories to percolate
deep within the listeners. Winter stories contain the
beliefs and history that shape the tribal member’s
perception of the world.
Often times one
tribe’s winter stories clash
with neighboring tribes and always, they clash with
the white man’s perceptions of the world, which
of course are based on their own stories. In
most tribes today every young member is allowed
the personal journey
of making their own peace inside of this clash
of stories. Each person is the given free will
to choose what to
believe to be their truth, their story, and
to discard the stories that do not serve them
while still remaining
a full member of the tribe. You are empowered
with the same free will.
It takes a season
of stillness to examine the stories you were taught
in childhood. Unless you do this, the
stories you grew up with is what you’ll create
your life with and you’ll unconsciously base your
perceptions of yourself and the world upon
those stories throughout your entire lifespace. The
stories that you
grew up with are carved out neural pathways,
habitual thought patterns taught to you during those
tender ages
of your development. Now, as the adult, you
have the free will and the power to choose which stories
to believe.
What were the
stories taught to you? Which are the stories that
you still carry around unconsciously within
you? In my work the stories that most people
are embedded with habitual thoughts like: I’m not good enough
yet. I deserve punishment. I can’t do anything
right. I’m bad, wrong, or evil. I’m such
a loser. I don’t fit in. I can’t begin to
understand, much less do. I’m not worthy. I am
not loveable until I ‘fix’ myself, etc.
It’s easy for them to show love to others but
hard to allow themselves to be loved, much
less to love themselves.
Guidance says
that these and other variations of self-judgments
are purposefully what most Lightbeings are expressing
and experiencing while incarnating today. There’s
a big energy shift that’s going on, an evolution
of humankind, and this clearing regarding self-love
is a necessary part of it. If you’ve evolved to
a point where its time to remember who you really are,
to awaken, then you’re going through or have already
gone through this process of Knowing you are
the Love that you seek to experience.
We are constantly
creating. All things in our lives are manifestations
of the conscious and unconscious
stories that we tell ourselves. Painful life
experiences are not a punishment on any level; they
are there telling
you of unconscious stories that some part of
you is buying into. If you’re currently expressing
and experiencing poverty, unlovableness, ill health,
financial
worries, loneliness, or other unwanted experiences
let go of all judgments regarding it and look for
the stories
from your past that are manifesting these.
Most often your
Highself provides you with a season of winter to do
this work. Remember that when this lull
in your life feels barren and empty is not
a punishment. But, winter’s presence has been lovingly provided
for you to take out to time to examine the stories that
were told to you in childhood and to lovingly whisper
the clearer truths to every part of you that’s
still buying into those illusions. It’s time to
awaken those deeper parts of you that are still slumbering
away in a story that isn’t true.
The rewards of
examining your winter stories more than justify the
energy you’ll spend. ‘You are
always unconditionally loved’ will no longer just
be words that feel true but you aren’t experiencing.
With an immediate and profoundly deep awareness
you Know that you are always loved, worthy and acceptable.
It becomes your story, the reality upon which
all of
your perceptions of life are based upon. Life
expressions and experiences naturally change as it flows
with the
abundance that Love provides.
The next step, which oftentimes comes simultaneously,
is the Knowingness that not only are you loved, but
that you ARE the Love that you were seeking in the first
place. With that comes a life of dancing in that Love,
enjoying the limitless abundance, joy and purpose/contentment
is the expression and experience of this Knowingness,
this remembering of who you really are in every moment.
It is with this
that I end the winter story you’ve
given me the honor of offering to you, my tribe.
