Editor's Note: This is the third of a projected series of 26 articles in which Allen Aslan Heart will pass along the spiritual wisdom found in the stories behind his dream catchers. Like many others, Mr. Heart feels that the time has come when we must get our spiritual and ecological acts together if we are to survive and evolve.

I AM A CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE: THROUGH MY EYES THE STARS CAN SEE

by Allen Aslan Heart / White Eagle Soaring

We need to celebrate childhood and children and keep alive the child in each of us. That's the creative, imaginative, and intuitive part. Creativity is the engine that drives business enterprise, the arts and sciences. Imagination expands our world beyond the base limits of logic and linear reason. Without it business would stagnate into number-crunching and bottom lines, art would become paint-by-numbers and color inside the lines, and science would become engineering.

There are many paths to knowledge. Rational, logical, linear inquiry can be immensely valuable, but it is not fully congruent with the way the universe operates. Research in the field of chaos, at the frontiers of science, has shown that the natural world primarily functions according to nonlinear principles. Among humans this can be experienced in its most natural state in children. When I travel, write, and teach, I remember that it is especially for all the children in the world that I do what I do. I tell the children, "Remember your dreams, learn from them, and always remember that what you see is truly what you see, it's not always what adults see. Keep your vision and your belief in the impossible because it's true, even if they've forgotten. All things are possible, even though adults have agreed to live and play in a much smaller world. The only thing bigger about adults is their clothing and their shoes. Teach your mother and aunts and uncles what you see so they can remember WHO they are and why they came here. This is your gift."

The most important role of parents and teachers is not to control or limit the children, but to help them remember their natural Self. Children are not empty vessels into which we must pour our knowledge and other limitations. They are born with an immense capacity to love and to Be. In our hurry to make them in our own image, fit for the common society, we teach them our own limitations, and dismiss their belief that "they can fly." As we employ our love to limit "WHO" they are, we demand their respect for our authority. We create a hierarchy of power filled with illusion in which respect and honor is unilateral. We need to reexamine ourselves, our motivations, our goals. Respect and honor should be circular, bilateral, multilateral, spherical, all-encompassing, spiralling.

I have been doing drumming and storytelling in public and private elementary schools to share the stories of the dreamcatchers and the stories of All My Relations. At Park Rapids Elementary in northern Minnesota, dozens of kids waiting in line for gym came over to me as I walked by with their teacher. They wrapped their arms around me, and hugged me. They had understood that they were in the presence of love. I had only been with them for a short time, but it had been enough. In one class I had done some drumming and storytelling and then asked for their questions. The first hand that shot up was that of a little boy who had Down's syndrome. I called on him and, seeming surprised to be recognized, he paused to consider what he would say and then blurted out, "I love you."

"I love you, too," I replied as my heart warmed in the simplicity and innocence of his loving kindness.

Treating children with equality and love will earn their respect and love more surely than any system of control and manipulation. When speaking to children I've learned to kneel or crouch or sit, whatever is necessary to be face to face on their level. Otherwise there is an implicit "looking up to" a figure of authority. The lessons of the path of the spirit dreamcatcher is that we all are one in the Web of Life, that there are none higher than another, to be aware of the illusion of "better than."

As you weave your journey through the earth experience, you will come to know that you are a Child of the Universe. To awaken your heart is to know WHO you truly are. Speak these words aloud to yourSelf with power and intensity:

I AM a Child of the Universe

Come world,
mirror to me
WHO I AM.
I would know what is true,
the face behind the mask
I think I see.
I see WHO I AM,
blood and bone and sinew--
substance moving among objects,
a thing among worlds.
Ticking like a clock.
Pumps
tubes
levers.
I feel WHO I AM,
warm
vibrating.
Pain opens me to my core
and I touch the real ME.
I hear WHO I AM
marking time with my heartbeat.
Yet in my dreams I fly
among the stars and beyond.
I stand firmly rooted
in the silence of mountain
to look upon the land
and the wave-tossed sea.
I play among clouds,
always changing
yet without form.
I AM more than I seem.
WHO then am I
to stand the turning of the days
cloaked in other men's inspirations
fed me by the dead bones
that masquerade as learning?
Unfold the child that hides
sacred in the heart
and whispers softly
in the wind of my soul!
Hear now, the soft and stormy musings
of the body of all being
that roars in its creation of the elements
and blazes forth its fields of possibility
across the limitless reach of my imagination,
a universe of light
and being.
And I know WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
Through my eyes the stars can see.
The brightness of a billion suns
the Cosmos knows through me.

I AM the Light of Peace.

Twenty billion years of endless growth and change,
particles becoming atoms drawn together in common fire
kindling the furnace of all the stars
and blazing elements into existence.
Since the beginning, I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
With my voice mountains speak.
The Truth of Oneness stills my soul
and echoes from each peak.

I AM the Sound of Peace.

Mountain stands patiently, silently.
She has been waiting for me to know and understand
the wisdom embedded in her rocks,
roots gripped deep into Mother Earth.
And I know WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
When I listen oceans hear
the gliding sea birds call of life,
a robin's song of cheer.

I hear the Sound of Peace.

Four billion years of endless growth and change,
through countless forms tried and tested,
a playful universe brought me out of the sea
to know its beauty in my special way,
to love All of WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
With my fingers clouds can touch
the loving softness of the Earth
that nurtures all of Us.

I touch the Heart of Peace.

Three million years of endless growth and change,
of knowing, forgetting, and learning again
to touch the Earth with gentleness
and loving reverence that honors the fullness,
the mystery of WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
Through my joy Earth celebrates
the passion of Creation--
the smile upon my face.

I AM the Face of Peace.

Through eons of endless forms and change
the universe has created many expressions of joy
and playful intelligences that have echoed
cosmic wit and grace beyond time and space,
the essence of WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
With my heart Creation loves,
reflecting all the peace and joy
that lives in All of Us.

I AM the Heart of Peace.

Beyond the atom the world is not material.
There is no substance, only energy,
a field of energy potential.
Through energy the universe expresses love,
the Love that I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
a flame of the Central Sun.
Circling 'round my starry home,
I know my world is One.

I AM the Flame of Peace.

The energy field of the WHOle universe
is a continuous unity of expression and possibility,
every part connected to every other part--unbroken, complete--
its wisdom and truth encoded in each of its parts.
It is written in WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
Other people are really me.
Becoming is our only path.
I have the strength to Be.

I AM the Way of Peace.

Uncounted years of growth and change
have created human beings, unique in the cosmos,
able to evolve in new directions with new visions
and immense powers of reason and intuition and imagination,
to become and be All that I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
My life I co-create
with other me-s WHO walk this path
to find a Heaven-gate.

I AM the Path of Peace.

All beings are my teachers, nature is my school.
The moon is my reflection, the heavens are my home;
the suns and galaxies, my true expression;
I AM whispered in atoms and particles.
In stars I AM the Light.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
The word of Truth I speak.
I find my home within my heart
and with my spirit seek.

I AM the Word of Peace.

In Truth I touch the heart strings of All That Is.
My spirit goes where my body cannot.
My heart knows what my brain cannot behold
and I find the Universe written in my heart.
All is WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
I dance and sing and play.
Asleep I learn of WHO I AM
and laugh throughout the day.

I AM the Song of Peace

The universe has brought me into being to be a Master of Play.
When I dance I move the stars and heal the Earth.
When I sing the winds are my song and the seasons my rhyme.
When I play the universe opens new dimensions, new realities.
Cosmic joy is WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
I follow and I lead.
My footsteps are the walking drum
connecting all I need.

I walk the Way of Peace.

In my being I touch the energy fields of true reality
and call forth substance created for my divine purpose.
My being transcends the calendar of time
and the prison of bounded space.
Beyond time and space I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
I honor what you believe
for what you know is true for you
is also true for me.

I AM the Truth of Peace.

That you and I seem to be separated in the time-space reality
is just an illusion we have learned and taught each other.
My skin is not my boundary and you are not bound by yours.
What I believe is not limited to me and what you believe is embedded
in WHO I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
wellness is in my heart
for when I send forth Truth and Love
my body knows its part

I AM One with Peace.

In healing, Love has its clearest manifestations in time-space.
Love is the energy of Cosmic Oneness and WHOleness
without which living systems cease function.
My heart is a river of Power and Passion
flowing through the being I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
My inner world is WHOle.
Projecting peace around myself
reaches deeply soul to soul.

I AM a Gift of Peace.

One integrated being, at peace within,
has the awesome power and passion to heal deeply
others WHO are ready to change their life stream
to flow with Love and Light,
the Healing Light I AM.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
My Mother is my Home.
My Father is my Source of Being.
I shall never be alone.

I AM a Child of the Universe.
I AM a Child of Peace.

I AM a Child of the Universe is a gift from Creator to assist your return to Source. Read it to yourSelf frequently. Let the sound of your voice become the carrier that reaches the innermost part of your Being with this message. It is your birthright, weave it into your Reality--become the Dream of the Earth. Dream the Spiral into balance and dance with the One. Soar with me.

Bawaudjigaeaun wae-ondji manitouwiyaun. In Ojibwe this means, "To dreams I owe the mystery."