Bodhisattva

A Tribute To Parker Sherry

Soul Wisdom is a weekly newsletter. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or send to someone you love. A special shout out to all the new subscribers who joined since the last newsletter. Thank you for valuing my work when there are so many things that can take your attention online. I appreciate you. It means everything. 🖤

If you’ve been reading my newsletters recently you may know that I’m doing a free workshop happening tomorrow Monday 3rd July at 6PM UK time on Zoom.

I’ll be sharing my journey of how taking off my masks one by one is helping me live a more spiritually rich, balanced, and purposeful life.

Think of a mask as an identity we pick up along the way to help us feel safe and protected in life. It’s not always in alignment with our highest calling, but we do it because we’re trying to cope with what life is presenting to us.

Taking them off will free you.

This workshop will be for you if you want to:

• Reconnect with your intuition so you can make decisions aligned to your soul

• Deepen your confidence to show up more authentically in life

• Better understand your emotions to remove the blocks stopping your progress

• Expand your relationship with self-love for more inner peace

• Explore your purpose and the impact you were born to create in the world

I’ll spend 45 minutes personally sharing and then open the space for 30 minutes of Q&A. This will be an great opportunity for us to connect!

Ok now for today’s newsletter…

Chacaruna

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” - Lao Tzu

The word chacaruna is a Quechua term meaning “bridge person”.

Earlier this week on Wednesday 28th June it was Parker Sherry’s birthday.

He was my soul brother and spiritual mentor. His journey on Earth in his physical body had come to an end on 4th October 2022, at which point he ascended and left his body.

Picture of Parker that he included in one of his emails. No surprise that the Sun is hovering over him like a Halo!

He was a bridge for connecting kindred souls and for connecting us to higher states of consciousness.

His light shone brightly upon those who were fortunate to cross paths with him.

Last year I did a podcast tribute episode for him on death, friendship, grief and love, which you can listen to here. In this newsletter I want to share a few nuggets of wisdom I learnt from him.

Bodhisattva

“Rivers do not drink their own water. Trees do not eat their own fruit. Clouds do not swallow their own rain. What great ones have is always for the benefit of others.” - Hindu Proverb

Although Parker would’ve been in his mid-40s his soul was a thousand years old.

The cover photo of this newsletter is one of Sage and Paolo Santo. They are burnt to cleanse and purify a space whilst opening the portal of wisdom—Parker did the same wherever he went.

I call this newsletter ‘Bodhisattva’ because I feel he is one of the few people I know that represented this ideal well.

The word “bodhi” means “awakening” and “sattva” means “being”.

It is a Buddhist term that describes a being who chooses to stay on Earth as an accessible example for walking the path of enlightenment. A being who has compassion for all things because they know that all things come from One Source. They try to alleviate suffering in their own way whilst they are here.

A Pratyayaka Buddha is someone who lives in the enlightened state privately, while a Bodhisattva comes back from that state to serve.

I have a strong sense that Parker came back to serve in his own way. He introduced me to the phrase Para El Bien De Todos (which in Spanish means ‘for the good of all’). His life was dedicated to serving others.

I initially met him in 2019 when I was intuitively drawn to spend time in the Amazon in Peru for an Ayahuasca ceremony. Ever since that first meeting we knew this wasn’t the first time we’d met - we were soul brothers who were continuing a journey, a mission, that we had embarked on long before we came into this incarnation.

I recently came across a poem that depicts the quality of a Bodhisattva well:

May I be the doctor and the medicine

And may I be the nurse

For all sick beings in the world

Until everyone is healed.

May a rain of food and drink descend

To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger

And during the aeon of famine,

May I myself change into food and drink.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure

For those who are poor and destitute;

May I turn into all things they could need

And may these be placed close beside them.

- Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life

Timeless Wisdom

“When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is a sage; when a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man.” - Zen Proverb

Humble, compassionate, wise, kind, loving, and committed, are a few words to describe this ascended master who was hidden in plain sight.

Below are 8 lessons I learnt from Parker. I’ve included some snippets from his emails that I found really helpful:

1. LIFE IS A CEREMONY

   “Everything is one continuation. The next step is a natural extension of all the previous steps. There’s no line of demarcation between the end of one ceremony and the next one. As the Osho tarot deck I use emphasizes, “The pilgrimage itself is the sacred place.” The journey never stops. Looking for the ultimate ceremony? I offer you the ceremony of life!” - Parker Sherry

2. BE INTENTIONAL

   Parker was an extremely intentional being. He prayed before eating and talked about only speaking if it was sweeter than silence. When he did speak, he chose his words carefully. His intentions for life were simple yet powerful; Surrender, Healing, Higher Consciousness, For The Good Of All.

3. TRUST YOUR INNER CALLING

   Learn to listen to the whispers of your soul. Parker tried his best at listening to what Spirit was telling him each step of the way—and that can be scary because it requires us to surrender. He said, “I’ve been a diligent student. I’ve done my level best to take copious notes from true Maestros. My mission now — which I’ve chosen to accept — is to weave all of those collective threads together and step into my own mastery and service.”

   He recognised that walking in the dark wasn’t always easy; “More often than not, I appreciate the enhanced spaciousness. Sometimes, though, the uncertainty of the unknown and the unknowable feels uncomfortable. Twice in the last 15 months, I've been through the wringer of giving something my absolute all, only to find out that it's not in the cards. Of course, that doesn't mean I've come out of things empty-handed. There are lessons to be learned. What kind of fruits have I harvested with that process? Evolution. Unification. Transformation. Ascension. Construction of character. Growth. Quality. Lineage. Resiliency. Spiritual advancement. Refinement. Expansion of the heart.”

   Ultimately, his view on surrender was this; “The ultimate surrender is to surrender to trusting life. I've realized how things have always worked out for me and in support of my evolution and growth. Why would that all of a sudden stop now?”

4. CELEBRATE OTHERS

   Parker was always cheerleading the successes of others. He knew that by supporting and celebrating others it wouldn’t take away from his own. He said; “Compersion — roughly defined as the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being — made perfect sense. Of course I want you to experience pleasure and bliss. Of course I want to be a positive influence in your life. Of course I want to help illuminate your path however I can. I am you. And you are me.” - Parker Sherry

   I find celebrating and supporting others a spiritual practise. It’s a reminder that we are all one. That by me celebrating you, I am also celebrating and supporting me—because we are one.

5. HUMILITY

   For Parker the line between teacher and student was continuously blurred. Everything and everyone was a spiritual teacher in his eyes. He saw everything as divinely placed there to teach him something. He saw life as happening for him instead of to him so he consciously tried to find the silver lining in every situation.

   “I strive to be a clean instrument. I do a lot of yang practices to be a clean instrument. I've also recognized that once I become clean, the instrument does not play itself. The instrument is played by God. It is being an empty chalice and allowing that receptive, yin energy to fill my cup. In that respect, my best ability is my availability to be open to Spirit. The essence of that is: “Fill me Spirit and play thy tune upon me.” - Parker Sherry

6. BE A BRIDGE

   Each of us are bridges to something. We connect people to certain experiences and memories each time they interact with us directly or through the work we birth into the world. Want to do you want to connect people to?

   “Fundamentally, I know who I am. I’m a chacaruna, the Quechua term for a bridge person. But a bridge to what? I aim to be a bridge to healing and higher consciousness. When we're not happy, when we're not healthy, when we're not vibrant...we need healing and higher consciousness. We live in a world that so desperately needs healing and higher consciousness. Healing and higher consciousness are the cheat codes to all of our problems.” - Parker Sherry

7. INTEGRITY

   As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say”. Being impeccable with our word is the only true currency we have. Having our mind, tongue, heart, and actions in complete alignment is how we build trust with ourselves and the world.

   “This next chapter in my Book of Life is all about embodiment. Walking the talk. And walking the walk. A lot of people talk a great game. I like folks who walk the talk.” - Parker Sherry

8. BECOME NOBODY

   He had deep respect and reverence for the plant medicines. He viewed them as tools for healing and higher consciousness that would help you, as he would call it, “restore to factory settings” so that you could remember who you really are before all the garbage came in. If we peel back all of the identities we have picked up along our journey, we would arrive back to a clean, silent, unfiltered, and unscathed state of being—which is who we really are.

Para El Bien De Todos

“If you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path” - Buddha

I’ll end with a few words directly to Parker:

Brother, you brought the experience of the Sun to the hearts of those who were lost in the darkness. You ignited their spirit just enough to awaken them to a slightly higher reality. Talking with you was an experience of remembering. You gently lifted the veil and reminded us of the Truth.

Below is one of the last images he shared with me on WhatsApp. It portrays his energy so well.

Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit) in the Lakota tradition. Potential source of image can be found here.

May we all strive to live with a little more recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. To open our heart more each day and to lean into courage to do what we are called to do.

One love,

V

I pour my soul into each of these pieces of writing every month with prayers of healing and love to anyone it reaches. Please consider supporting me by becoming a paid subscriber.

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Podcast

I regularly share short solo episodes and longer guest conversations on my podcast Soul Wisdom Stories. You can listen here