Editor's Note: This is the fourteenth 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.

All Nations: The Dream Catcher Of Peace

by Allen Aslan Heart/White Eagle Soaring

Black Elk, the Lakota holy man, described his vision of the races of all people coming together into the circle of life and living in harmony and joy. From the four corners of the earth came the Red Nation, the Black Nation, the Yellow Nation and the White Nation. All paths lead to the Creator and interweave one with another. Each nation has its own ways of being and its own way that leads back to the Creator. Truth can be seen from many points of view. We are to honor the ways of being of each nation and their special way to see the Creator. In so doing we will bring honor on ourselves and our own nation. To accept and allow is the heart of peace.

The All Nations Dream Catcher shows that the Creator is at the center of the universe by the placement of a turquoise stone at the center of the sphere. All the weaving passes through this center, the strands representing the many nations – four-leggeds, finned ones, winged ones, the trees, grasses and flowers, the rocks, waters, and the air. And, of course, the many tribes of two-legged, the races of human beings. The weaving shows that all of these nations are interconnected and interdependent in the fabric of life. They are all ONE being in many manifestations.

Woven through the center of the dreamcatcher is the ancient sign of infinity, a figure 8, that shows that the promise of peace in the Land of Souls can become the reality of peace on Mother Earth. It is our heritage. Peace will come as we learn to see our underlying connection to each other and to all nations, and as we learn to accept and allow the ways of others and their own special connection to the Creator. Tolerance of others is an expression of love, the love we receive each moment from the Creator, with whom we are one.

Creator has many names and expressions. Some call the Creator, God. Others say Allah, or Yhwh, or Jehovah, or Giidzhii Manidoo, or Tunka-shila, or Wakan Tanka, or Vital Principle. Some see the face of the Creator in the face of all creatures, in the forms of all creation. They know that the Creator is present in all things and so they honor all things. Some know that the Creator is everywhere, in everything, including themselves. Some see the Creator in the working of the universe and speak of the Creator with the language of quantum physics, using words such as gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong or weak nuclear forces. Many of these same scientists see the hand of the Creator, and so the circle of knowledge becomes complete, a unity.

Quantum physics is, for most people, a hopelessly confusing morass of mathematics and weird concepts that don't have any connection to the world we experience. So I wrote the following rap and had it checked for accuracy by a university physics professor:

The Nonsense of Reality: A Quantum Physics Rap

The universe before me now
is what I merely see,
for I construct my world to know
the face of reality.

Beyond the realm of common sense
the atom is a dance
of "could be-s" playing funny games
ruled by laws of chance.

The physicists have all agreed
that particles are not stuff,
that electrons live as maybe,
statistics are good enough.

Reality is made of quanta
that fitted hand to glove
move by nonlocal forces
connected by infinite love.

Quanta are hunks of potential,
masses of "maybe-could be,"
that create the living potential now
we define as reality.

I swim in a sea of knowing,
an infinite database,
splashing about in quanta
immersed in time and space.

Like TV and radio waves
speeding through and around my head,
worlds of wisdom and healing
infuse me even in bed.

So if I have need of knowing
I tune my radio dial,
pick up the needed broadcast
and wear my knowing smile.

The All Nations Dream Catcher can become a symbol for all the world to take into their hearts and minds. There is no need for struggle, conflict, greed, poverty, despair, fear, or hatred when we acknowledge our expansiveness in the seamlessness of the universe. When we were children we played the game of "so big" as some adult spread our arms wide. Now as adults we can stretch still farther and see that all things are connected in the Circle of Life. "So big!" This is a gift from a very advanced culture, the many cultures of the many tribes of Native America.

The spirals danced and sang.

So….be light.

©Copyright 2002 Allen Aslan Heart