11:11 Angels Message Board

I’ve been wondering: What makes something a gift? What is the difference between a gift and a privilege? What does it mean to be gifted? How can we help one another discover and develop our gifts? What would it mean to live in a gifted society?

To understand the essence of gift, it may be helpful to explore the shamanic notion of “medicine.” In various shamanic traditions, the word medicine is used to describe the unique combination of qualities that a particular living thing embodies. For instance, the medicine of a tree is the way it offers shade and shelter; the way it models the beauty that can arise from being rooted in a single place over time; the way it teaches flexibility: changing with the seasons, and bending without breaking in the breeze. Together, this combination of qualities constitutes what is known as tree medicine. By sharing tree medicine with non-trees, trees assume their unique identity as “trees” in the world. In the shamanic understanding, this is how everything works: rivers, eagles, roses, whales, forests, spiders, cliffs — each living thing embodying a unique combination of gifts, which are collectively known as its medicine.

Between Gift And Privilege — by Jonathan Harris

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php ... o&tid=2545

What if “identity politics” were re-imagined to focus less on external privilege, and more on internal gifts? Perhaps we could develop a system for supporting young people in identifying their own unique gifts, without being seduced by the shoulds of other people’s storylines.