Last year at Christmastime, I gave an interactive presentation on exploring the personal meaning of
Peace On Earth to Human Souls of Goodwill
I find this translation from Rudolf Steiner, the most empowering of the individual and the most meaningful in awakening the forces of community. Do you?
Let me give you two contrasting translations,
"Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men." King James version and the one I grew up with.
"...on Earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." New International version
(which I feels leads to war - one group feeling another group is in disfavor and therefore unworthy of the respect and safety of peace)
Whatever translation you feel most comfortable with or most engaged in, I encourage you to seek the deepest personal connection to the declaration. Is this wording the right wording for what lives in your heart?
I thought I would share with all of you the basic questions and thoughts I explored with my audience.
I took them through each word and asked them to meditate on the meaning.
How do you experience "Peace"? How do you experience "Goodwill"?
These are words of great mystery and live beyond personal definiton. What is the thought behind each word?
I led my audience through brief meditations on each word asking them to let the meaning of the word speak to them in their hearts rather than thinking a definition in their heads.
As everyone shared their imaginations of Peace and Goodwill, I captured them on the whiteboard. "Seeing" these heartfelt meanings brought a warming energy to the group.
Perhaps each individual expression of Peace and Goodwill was filled with the resounding voice of an angel. Certainly there was a sense of a host of meaning.
How does Peace live in your soul, your actions, your conversations? How do you practice goodwill. When in the last year have you been the beneficiary of the goodwill of another? I hope this stimulates deep thoughts. This is the time of year when our souls call out for these questions.
Ask your self, your friends, your family members to meditate on these words. What a Christmas gift. Remember these words were spoken to simple shepherds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have spent some time considering our Christmas music and the relationship of Christmas carols and songs to each of the six Christmases. In looking at the Christmas of Nativity and the Shepherds and the Kings, I was surprised to see most Christmas music relates to the experience of the Shepherds.
Interestingly, most paintings of the Nativity focus on the Kings.
The shepherds hear the voices of the host of angels. The kings see the Star. Magi share the same root as image. The shepherds and the kings reflect on the two gestures of our brains. The left hemisphere is auditory and analytical and the right hemisphere is visual and intuitive. I see the shepherds as auditory and intuitive and the kings as visual and analytical. I find this fascinating. Do you?
With all my heart, I wish you peace and goodwill.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Connecting with The Dead
Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day, October 31 - November 2, are Holy Days devoted to the dead. This time of the Inner Year we seek to understand and evolve our relationship with the dead. How do we show devotion to those who have crossed the threshold of death?
My cousin died of leukemia when I was five. I only heard about his death. I did not go to his funeral. Not even his sister was allowed to go to his funeral. We were “protected” from the death process by our parents. Death and grief were not appropriate or not seen as significant for young children.
Someone I knew shared a bedroom with her beloved grandmother and found her dead one night. She, too, was not allowed to attend the funeral. She never felt like she had said goodbye to her beloved granny.
Why did our parents want to keep us from death? Children, who are filled with life and love, have such a natural, fearless connection with the dead. Often children tenderly remain in active contact with the soul of the dead. Do you have a childhood experience with a dead soul?
Around 9, I learned about the festivals of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. At the same time, I first saw a dead body in an open casket.
I found these feast days, and the dead body, fascinating but not meaningful. I didn’t know how to make meaning of death and no one in my life seemed to have any ideas that spoke to my young heart. Was death an end or a beginning? Was death really a time when we faced judgment? I rarely thought about dead souls. Heaven was filled with angels, not the souls of the dead.
Fast forward fifty years. Every, well almost every, night before falling asleep, I engage with the dead. I relate to them with a reverent and open heart. I call out their names to let them know I remain connected to their being.
I don’t mean I remain connected to the memory of their earthly existence. Even though they have physically disappeared, I still sense the ongoing reality of their spirit. I am aware that they live on beyond the threshold of death and that I need only reach out with the force of my unselfish heart to touch them.
With the festivals celebrating the dead falling almost six weeks after the Fall Equinox, does the growing darkness in our earthly world give us a clearer vision of the other world and all its inhabitants?
If we did not have electricity, we would be dependent on the soft glow of candlelight after nightfall. The flickering shadows at the edge of the light might give us a sense that the dead were living nearby. But the harshness of mechanical light does not create the mood of the threshold and leads us to feel only the physical is real.
During these festival days of the dead, do your best to resist the soul-killing energy of the mechanical and technical world. Find your way to the life of spiritual perception and sensitivity. Most of all keep your thoughts pulsing with newness. Spiritual beings, including “dead” souls, connect to living thoughts. They cannot experience mechanistic thoughts, thoughts that lack our own spiritual creativity.
If you have wondered how to stay connected to your loved ones after death (beyond dwelling on your memories) reach out in three simple ways.
As you call out their names, feel their presence. This feeling of presence is the bridge of connection between the earthly here and and the heavenly there.
As you read aloud from a sacred text, feel the spiritual nourishment. Sacred texts feed both the living and the dead. You share a meaningful spiritual meal with your loved ones.
As you pray, feel the music of the heavens living in your heart. The resonating tones and meanings of love, harmonize the relationship between you and all the dead.
You can make this a daily, weekly or monthly practice. You can even invite your friends and family to join you in a monthly gathering of the living and the dead.
As I wrote earlier, I call out the names of the dead nightly. I know in my sleep, my soul and spirit are freed from the limitations of space and time. Calling out the names of the dead before I fall asleep, is a way of saying “Here I come for my nightly visit.”
These nightly visits bring many blessings. I wake up with clearer thoughts, designs for deeds of goodness, and a sense of emotional balance.
The more we connect with the dead in their continuing life in the spiritual world, the more alive our earthly lives become.
If you want to read more about our work with the dead, I strongly urge you to get a copy of Staying Connected, a wonderful book of Rudolf Steiner’s insights about death, dying and the dead. Christopher Bamford introduces Steiner’s work with warmth and intelligence. Here is a link to purchasing the book through Amazon.
My Childhood Experiences
My cousin died of leukemia when I was five. I only heard about his death. I did not go to his funeral. Not even his sister was allowed to go to his funeral. We were “protected” from the death process by our parents. Death and grief were not appropriate or not seen as significant for young children.
Someone I knew shared a bedroom with her beloved grandmother and found her dead one night. She, too, was not allowed to attend the funeral. She never felt like she had said goodbye to her beloved granny.
Why did our parents want to keep us from death? Children, who are filled with life and love, have such a natural, fearless connection with the dead. Often children tenderly remain in active contact with the soul of the dead. Do you have a childhood experience with a dead soul?
Around 9, I learned about the festivals of All Saints Day and All Souls Day. At the same time, I first saw a dead body in an open casket.
I found these feast days, and the dead body, fascinating but not meaningful. I didn’t know how to make meaning of death and no one in my life seemed to have any ideas that spoke to my young heart. Was death an end or a beginning? Was death really a time when we faced judgment? I rarely thought about dead souls. Heaven was filled with angels, not the souls of the dead.
My Present Relationship to the Dead
Fast forward fifty years. Every, well almost every, night before falling asleep, I engage with the dead. I relate to them with a reverent and open heart. I call out their names to let them know I remain connected to their being.
I don’t mean I remain connected to the memory of their earthly existence. Even though they have physically disappeared, I still sense the ongoing reality of their spirit. I am aware that they live on beyond the threshold of death and that I need only reach out with the force of my unselfish heart to touch them.
With the festivals celebrating the dead falling almost six weeks after the Fall Equinox, does the growing darkness in our earthly world give us a clearer vision of the other world and all its inhabitants?
If we did not have electricity, we would be dependent on the soft glow of candlelight after nightfall. The flickering shadows at the edge of the light might give us a sense that the dead were living nearby. But the harshness of mechanical light does not create the mood of the threshold and leads us to feel only the physical is real.
During these festival days of the dead, do your best to resist the soul-killing energy of the mechanical and technical world. Find your way to the life of spiritual perception and sensitivity. Most of all keep your thoughts pulsing with newness. Spiritual beings, including “dead” souls, connect to living thoughts. They cannot experience mechanistic thoughts, thoughts that lack our own spiritual creativity.
Ways to Stay Connected
If you have wondered how to stay connected to your loved ones after death (beyond dwelling on your memories) reach out in three simple ways.
- Call out their names.
- Read aloud a passage from a sacred text. Read with your heart, not just your head.
- Speak a prayer or a verse aloud. Speak with your heart in your voice.
As you call out their names, feel their presence. This feeling of presence is the bridge of connection between the earthly here and and the heavenly there.
As you read aloud from a sacred text, feel the spiritual nourishment. Sacred texts feed both the living and the dead. You share a meaningful spiritual meal with your loved ones.
As you pray, feel the music of the heavens living in your heart. The resonating tones and meanings of love, harmonize the relationship between you and all the dead.
You can make this a daily, weekly or monthly practice. You can even invite your friends and family to join you in a monthly gathering of the living and the dead.
As I wrote earlier, I call out the names of the dead nightly. I know in my sleep, my soul and spirit are freed from the limitations of space and time. Calling out the names of the dead before I fall asleep, is a way of saying “Here I come for my nightly visit.”
These nightly visits bring many blessings. I wake up with clearer thoughts, designs for deeds of goodness, and a sense of emotional balance.
The more we connect with the dead in their continuing life in the spiritual world, the more alive our earthly lives become.
If you want to read more about our work with the dead, I strongly urge you to get a copy of Staying Connected, a wonderful book of Rudolf Steiner’s insights about death, dying and the dead. Christopher Bamford introduces Steiner’s work with warmth and intelligence. Here is a link to purchasing the book through Amazon.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Michaelmas - The Soul's Season of Dragons and Courage
Michaelmas is September 29th and in the Christian liturgical year reflects the Equinox in the natural cycle of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere it is the beginning of Autumn and the overcoming of light by darkness. Our soul's natural task at this time of year relates to the inner experience of the struggle between inner light and inner darkness.
This is the festival of the Archangel Michael. Michael is the Protector/Warrior, the Dragonslayer and the being of Cosmic Intelligence. He is the Face of God. Islam, Christianity and Judaism revere Michael.
Sadly, in our modern world little attention is paid to Michaelmas and our souls suffer for it. Michaelmas gives us courage. Michael protects us. Michael is a model for facing the darkness, demons and dragons within our souls and our material world. Michael represents the intelligence to move out of our personal stories and into a pure relationship with our destiny. Michaelmas gives us the strength of will to face moral development, inner growth and the incredible redemptive power of forgiveness. We can slay dragons and we can tame dragons and we can actually know the difference between the two deeds.
I became aware of Michaelmas when I was 37. My children had just begun their Waldorf Education and so had I. Waldorf Schools celebrate Michaelmas as a festival recognizing the strength of will in the human spirit. The celebrations reflect on the slaying of the dragon. I didn’t quite know what I thought about this festival or the Archangel Michael but part of me, my soul, wanted to pay attention. Now 23 years later, I am writing about Michaelmas and the Soul here in my blog and this Tuesday evening, I will be giving a Michaelmas talk in NYC.
As this blog indicates, I feel the importance of awareness of the cycle of the seasons of the soul. The soul’s reflection of Nature gives our inner life and our practical life in the world an invaluable organizing principle, grounding framework and cosmic flow. There was a time when the human soul was innately and naively sensitive to the spirit living behind and within nature. We then evolved a capacity for the intellectual mastery of the world, the denial of the creative forces of spirit and the domination of nature. Now we seem to have evolved to a place where we are willing to consciously reconnect, to choose to attend to the spiritual forces living in nature and the spiritual freedom living in our own souls.
I live in Jersey City. It is urban with a capital U. Jersey City is an extension of New York City. But Jersey city is also the home of Liberty State Park - 1,212 acres of nature on New York Harbor. The park faces the Statue of Liberty. Liberty State Park is one of the amazing places on the planet. Earth - water, air and fire (the sun and the torch in Lady Liberty's hand) are present in vast expanses and surrounded by spectacular manmade, earth bound structures and institutions.
At least five mornings a week I spend an hour walking in the park - the boardwalk along the bay and into the salt marshes and meadows. Nature nurtures my senses and my soul on these mornings. Now the meadows are filled with Michaelmas Daisies and the rich golds, reds and purples of early fall.
How aware are you of the relationship between the thresholds of nature and the thresholds of soul that exists at this time of year? What do you feel living in your soul? What kind of energies and emotions do you feel? Nature is beginning to drive you away from the outer environment and into the inner environment of your soul life and your relationship with darkness. How do you meet your inner dragons, your inner darkness? What kind of Cosmic Intelligence can we connect with to move us compassionately and courageously through this inner journey? Michael waits to give us some guidance and direction.
Here are some thoughts I have on these questions.
What are your dragons? How do you slay them as protector or tame them with cosmic intelligence?
How does the Michaelic Spirit live in you as courageous will?
Many of you are warriors. You are fighting battles, moral battles with moral dragons. You will attack lies and oppressions and you will defend rights and innocence. You do noble, incredibly noble, deeds, or, perhaps, you only think noble deeds and for some reason find little force to carry out that which you feel such a strong impulse to achieve.
Often you are one of the wounded warriors. You were wounded in your initiation into the battleground of the soul or you are wounded in the course of your moral and personal battle engagements. Yet, somehow, you sustain your inspiration and your commitment. Your heart rings true even though your actions fail to give evidence or truth or power to your imagination.
Before you condemn yourself, find self-compassion. Look at your wounds. Look at your needs. Michael is a friend of our souls. He represents self-compassion and urges restorative gestures. Michael’s sword serves self-compassion. You can ask Michael for guidance.
With our economic drama and potential devastation, in the US and worldwide, how do we restore our moral economy? Is this not a time to call upon the Michaelic forces of courage and cosmic intelligence?
We are facing challenges and questions that many of us have never considered. Our times are making moral and inner demands of our consciousness and soul life so that our material life begins to reflect our inner truth, beauty and goodness.
Michael can give us guidance as we think about materialism, greed, consumerism. Michael can give us courage as we wonder how we adapt to the threats and realities of dramatic changes in our material lives, how we witness and respond to changes in the material realities of our neighbors and the world. We, the world, are on a threshold right now. How we cross this personal and global threshold will be a Michaelic tale of strength or weakness.
So I realize I have moved between the personal, the collective and the cosmic in my writing. I have not made it easy or comfortable for you. I wish that Michaelmas was a time of comfort. It is not. Michaelmas is a time when we confront dilemmas and confusions. We must face dragons, inner dragons in our soul and outer dragons in our social, political and economic environments. But Michaelmas also declares the role of intelligence, compassion and courage.
Take time this season to consider your relationship to Michaelic courage, Michaelic compassion and Michaelic intelligence.
Here is a video I created for the International Day of Peace - September 21. From a Michaelic perspective every day is a day we need to bring a conscious sense of peace to our thoughts, feelings and deeds. The audio on the video is a beautiful expression of John Lennons's Imagine. I tried to capture the mood of the lyrics in the visual images. Look at the video and bring an awareness of your sense of the making of peace during the Michaelic Season.
}
This is the festival of the Archangel Michael. Michael is the Protector/Warrior, the Dragonslayer and the being of Cosmic Intelligence. He is the Face of God. Islam, Christianity and Judaism revere Michael.
Sadly, in our modern world little attention is paid to Michaelmas and our souls suffer for it. Michaelmas gives us courage. Michael protects us. Michael is a model for facing the darkness, demons and dragons within our souls and our material world. Michael represents the intelligence to move out of our personal stories and into a pure relationship with our destiny. Michaelmas gives us the strength of will to face moral development, inner growth and the incredible redemptive power of forgiveness. We can slay dragons and we can tame dragons and we can actually know the difference between the two deeds.
I became aware of Michaelmas when I was 37. My children had just begun their Waldorf Education and so had I. Waldorf Schools celebrate Michaelmas as a festival recognizing the strength of will in the human spirit. The celebrations reflect on the slaying of the dragon. I didn’t quite know what I thought about this festival or the Archangel Michael but part of me, my soul, wanted to pay attention. Now 23 years later, I am writing about Michaelmas and the Soul here in my blog and this Tuesday evening, I will be giving a Michaelmas talk in NYC.
As this blog indicates, I feel the importance of awareness of the cycle of the seasons of the soul. The soul’s reflection of Nature gives our inner life and our practical life in the world an invaluable organizing principle, grounding framework and cosmic flow. There was a time when the human soul was innately and naively sensitive to the spirit living behind and within nature. We then evolved a capacity for the intellectual mastery of the world, the denial of the creative forces of spirit and the domination of nature. Now we seem to have evolved to a place where we are willing to consciously reconnect, to choose to attend to the spiritual forces living in nature and the spiritual freedom living in our own souls.
I live in Jersey City. It is urban with a capital U. Jersey City is an extension of New York City. But Jersey city is also the home of Liberty State Park - 1,212 acres of nature on New York Harbor. The park faces the Statue of Liberty. Liberty State Park is one of the amazing places on the planet. Earth - water, air and fire (the sun and the torch in Lady Liberty's hand) are present in vast expanses and surrounded by spectacular manmade, earth bound structures and institutions.
At least five mornings a week I spend an hour walking in the park - the boardwalk along the bay and into the salt marshes and meadows. Nature nurtures my senses and my soul on these mornings. Now the meadows are filled with Michaelmas Daisies and the rich golds, reds and purples of early fall.
How aware are you of the relationship between the thresholds of nature and the thresholds of soul that exists at this time of year? What do you feel living in your soul? What kind of energies and emotions do you feel? Nature is beginning to drive you away from the outer environment and into the inner environment of your soul life and your relationship with darkness. How do you meet your inner dragons, your inner darkness? What kind of Cosmic Intelligence can we connect with to move us compassionately and courageously through this inner journey? Michael waits to give us some guidance and direction.
Here are some thoughts I have on these questions.
What are your dragons? How do you slay them as protector or tame them with cosmic intelligence?
How does the Michaelic Spirit live in you as courageous will?
Many of you are warriors. You are fighting battles, moral battles with moral dragons. You will attack lies and oppressions and you will defend rights and innocence. You do noble, incredibly noble, deeds, or, perhaps, you only think noble deeds and for some reason find little force to carry out that which you feel such a strong impulse to achieve.
Often you are one of the wounded warriors. You were wounded in your initiation into the battleground of the soul or you are wounded in the course of your moral and personal battle engagements. Yet, somehow, you sustain your inspiration and your commitment. Your heart rings true even though your actions fail to give evidence or truth or power to your imagination.
Before you condemn yourself, find self-compassion. Look at your wounds. Look at your needs. Michael is a friend of our souls. He represents self-compassion and urges restorative gestures. Michael’s sword serves self-compassion. You can ask Michael for guidance.
With our economic drama and potential devastation, in the US and worldwide, how do we restore our moral economy? Is this not a time to call upon the Michaelic forces of courage and cosmic intelligence?
We are facing challenges and questions that many of us have never considered. Our times are making moral and inner demands of our consciousness and soul life so that our material life begins to reflect our inner truth, beauty and goodness.
Michael can give us guidance as we think about materialism, greed, consumerism. Michael can give us courage as we wonder how we adapt to the threats and realities of dramatic changes in our material lives, how we witness and respond to changes in the material realities of our neighbors and the world. We, the world, are on a threshold right now. How we cross this personal and global threshold will be a Michaelic tale of strength or weakness.
So I realize I have moved between the personal, the collective and the cosmic in my writing. I have not made it easy or comfortable for you. I wish that Michaelmas was a time of comfort. It is not. Michaelmas is a time when we confront dilemmas and confusions. We must face dragons, inner dragons in our soul and outer dragons in our social, political and economic environments. But Michaelmas also declares the role of intelligence, compassion and courage.
Take time this season to consider your relationship to Michaelic courage, Michaelic compassion and Michaelic intelligence.
Here is a video I created for the International Day of Peace - September 21. From a Michaelic perspective every day is a day we need to bring a conscious sense of peace to our thoughts, feelings and deeds. The audio on the video is a beautiful expression of John Lennons's Imagine. I tried to capture the mood of the lyrics in the visual images. Look at the video and bring an awareness of your sense of the making of peace during the Michaelic Season.
}
Thursday, June 19, 2008
St. John's Tide - Loving the Other
Dear Friends,
On June 24th, the birth of John the Baptist is celebrated. It is called St. John's Tide and is celebrated with bonfires all over the world.
I seek to share with you an understanding of the personal meaning and personal application of the gesture of John the Baptist. John's life is given great attention by the the Gospels. John had a personality and life of complex significance and I would need to write a small book to address the meanings and applications of all that we are told about John in the Gospels. Since this is a brief post, that I hope will inspire reflection and growth, I will only address two of John's gestures. These are his two gestures of recognition of Jesus. In our modern consciousness of intense individuality and isolation, the ability to find in our souls the willing recognition of what lives in another soul is essential and challenging.
The two responses John has in relation to Jesus can inspire similar responses as we interact with all others. The first recognition is the
The first recognition occurs when the newly pregnant Mary visits her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth, John's elderly mother. The child in Elizabeth's womb, John, joyfully leaps with life, when the two women greet each other. The John fetus recognizes existence of the Jesus fetus.
When have you felt in your soul a joyful leap of life at meeting another? We speak of "love at first sight." If we take this "love at first sight" experience out of the romantic context and put it into a spiritual context, we begin to get a sense of this "John the Baptist" moment of recognition. This moment is a response to the other's divinity coming into being. The nascent divinity of this other person you are meeting for the first time fills you with joy, crystalizes your life force and energizes your soul.
Recall the moments of your life when what you recognized in another caused you to fill with joy and leap with inner aliveness. It might also be the recognition of a phrase or a paragraph of thoughts that sparkle with truth and wisdom. Or a work of art that is filled with beauty. The more you allow yourself to recognize what is both new and ageless in another's soul or the manifestation of this soul in word, art or deed, the more you build and refine your sensitivity to the divinity in others.
The "other" may be a family member, a friend, a colleague, a stranger. or a lover. The recognition may be subtle or profound, brief or lasting. You could have this experience of nascent divinity once in your lifetime or thousands of times.
Now we will imagine the 2nd gesture of John the Baptist:
Thirty years later at the River Jordan, John recognizes Jesus of Nazareth and declares His Presence to others. This declaration initiates the three years of the full expression of the Destiny of Christ Jesus. Jesus requests that John baptize Him. John is humbled at this request. Baptism was a cleansing of the body and John could not imagine that this Being in front of him needed cleansing, but he did as he was requested.This Baptism is the Birth of the Great Deed for humanity's future.
What in your soul is capable of recognizing the time has come for deed of another to manifest? Are you willing to call out to others that something needed has arrived? Are you willing to humbly serve the individual and her or his destiny?
In each of us, divinity dwells waiting for recognition and support. This is the Jesus within. In each of us, recognition rests waiting to declare and to serve the divinity of the other when their time has come. This is the John within.
At Christmas time we go into ourselves seeking our own divinity. At St John's Tide, we seek our ability to recognize the divinity in others and imagine how our own divinity can serve what we see as their divine deeds for serving humanity's future.
I find such fulfilling delight in these two aspects of the John within: To know the empowering joy of seeing the spiritual seed germinating in another's soul and then seeing and serving the flowering bloom of that seed.
Do you see the germinating soul seed? Do you resonate with the new life you experience in another?
Do you ever feel your heart calling out - I see you! You have come! I will serve your requests!
Take some time on St John's Tide to recall all you have recognized in others over the last year - the germinating seeds and the blooming flowers? Gaze at those around you today and let your heart tell you what you recognize.
St John's Tide is a joyful time. Enjoy.
Lynn
On June 24th, the birth of John the Baptist is celebrated. It is called St. John's Tide and is celebrated with bonfires all over the world.
I seek to share with you an understanding of the personal meaning and personal application of the gesture of John the Baptist. John's life is given great attention by the the Gospels. John had a personality and life of complex significance and I would need to write a small book to address the meanings and applications of all that we are told about John in the Gospels. Since this is a brief post, that I hope will inspire reflection and growth, I will only address two of John's gestures. These are his two gestures of recognition of Jesus. In our modern consciousness of intense individuality and isolation, the ability to find in our souls the willing recognition of what lives in another soul is essential and challenging.
The two responses John has in relation to Jesus can inspire similar responses as we interact with all others. The first recognition is the
joyful recognition of new existence - the germinating seed
The first recognition occurs when the newly pregnant Mary visits her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth, John's elderly mother. The child in Elizabeth's womb, John, joyfully leaps with life, when the two women greet each other. The John fetus recognizes existence of the Jesus fetus.
When have you felt in your soul a joyful leap of life at meeting another? We speak of "love at first sight." If we take this "love at first sight" experience out of the romantic context and put it into a spiritual context, we begin to get a sense of this "John the Baptist" moment of recognition. This moment is a response to the other's divinity coming into being. The nascent divinity of this other person you are meeting for the first time fills you with joy, crystalizes your life force and energizes your soul.
Recall the moments of your life when what you recognized in another caused you to fill with joy and leap with inner aliveness. It might also be the recognition of a phrase or a paragraph of thoughts that sparkle with truth and wisdom. Or a work of art that is filled with beauty. The more you allow yourself to recognize what is both new and ageless in another's soul or the manifestation of this soul in word, art or deed, the more you build and refine your sensitivity to the divinity in others.
The "other" may be a family member, a friend, a colleague, a stranger. or a lover. The recognition may be subtle or profound, brief or lasting. You could have this experience of nascent divinity once in your lifetime or thousands of times.
Now we will imagine the 2nd gesture of John the Baptist:
the recognition that the time has come
Thirty years later at the River Jordan, John recognizes Jesus of Nazareth and declares His Presence to others. This declaration initiates the three years of the full expression of the Destiny of Christ Jesus. Jesus requests that John baptize Him. John is humbled at this request. Baptism was a cleansing of the body and John could not imagine that this Being in front of him needed cleansing, but he did as he was requested.This Baptism is the Birth of the Great Deed for humanity's future.
What in your soul is capable of recognizing the time has come for deed of another to manifest? Are you willing to call out to others that something needed has arrived? Are you willing to humbly serve the individual and her or his destiny?
In each of us, divinity dwells waiting for recognition and support. This is the Jesus within. In each of us, recognition rests waiting to declare and to serve the divinity of the other when their time has come. This is the John within.
At Christmas time we go into ourselves seeking our own divinity. At St John's Tide, we seek our ability to recognize the divinity in others and imagine how our own divinity can serve what we see as their divine deeds for serving humanity's future.
I find such fulfilling delight in these two aspects of the John within: To know the empowering joy of seeing the spiritual seed germinating in another's soul and then seeing and serving the flowering bloom of that seed.
Do you see the germinating soul seed? Do you resonate with the new life you experience in another?
Do you ever feel your heart calling out - I see you! You have come! I will serve your requests!
Take some time on St John's Tide to recall all you have recognized in others over the last year - the germinating seeds and the blooming flowers? Gaze at those around you today and let your heart tell you what you recognize.
St John's Tide is a joyful time. Enjoy.
Lynn
Thursday, May 8, 2008
More thoughts on the Southern Hemisphere
Festivals are spiritual celebrations that live in our Imaginations.
I live in an urban environment and there are no flowers around me, just cement, steel and glass. For Whitsun, I must imagine blooming flowers, just as I must imagine the circle of apostles, the Virgin Sophia and the Holy Spirit.
So it doesn't matter if you are in the Southern Hemisphere or the Northern, what matters is how alive your spiritual Imagination is. Your environment, your relationship to the sun may align with the imagination or not. You can pay attention to the sense perceptible seasonal realities or not.
We must realize that each of the festivals lives within the human spirit and can be celebrated and experienced any day of the year and on any place on the planet.
I live in an urban environment and there are no flowers around me, just cement, steel and glass. For Whitsun, I must imagine blooming flowers, just as I must imagine the circle of apostles, the Virgin Sophia and the Holy Spirit.
So it doesn't matter if you are in the Southern Hemisphere or the Northern, what matters is how alive your spiritual Imagination is. Your environment, your relationship to the sun may align with the imagination or not. You can pay attention to the sense perceptible seasonal realities or not.
We must realize that each of the festivals lives within the human spirit and can be celebrated and experienced any day of the year and on any place on the planet.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Inner Whitsun
Hello dear Friend,
49 days after Easter and the Resurrection is a day known as either Pentecost or Whitsun. This day celebrates or acknowledges a mysterious event: the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Here is what happened about two thousand years ago. All those who had been with the resurrected Christ in the 40 days before the Ascension had gathered together. These included the Twelve Apostles and maybe 144 others. The Holy Mother or Virgin Sophia enters the gathering and everyone forms a circle around her. A mighty wind rises and a dove appears bringing a new force of spiritual energy. This dove is the way we experience the Holy Spirit and have come to recognize as a symbol of peace and new beginnings. This sacred energy radiates into the Virgin Sophia and out to the Apostles causing tongues of fire to appear on their foreheads at the place known as the Third Eye. Following this event those present found the Apostles could speak to and hear each one of them in the language of their birth.
What is the meaning of this event for the human soul and the evolution of consciousness and self-awareness? Why does it occur at this time of year? Why should anyone, not Christian, be interested in this celebration? And how can we celebrate Whitsun in a modern and meaningful way that cultivates a desirable experience in our souls?
I have such a feeling for this holy day. I love it like I love the flowers of late Spring. The joyful love of and for all souls blooms irrepressibly within our being.
If Easter is about redemption and resurrection, Whitsun is about universal and intimate love. When you know through loving another soul intimately enough to speak the language of their being or are the object of such a love, you know the gift of the Holy Spirit. This speaking of the native language has nothing to do with the geographical place of birth. It is the language of the self, of the native essence, of the truth of the individuality.
Whitsun reminds us to know one another intimately. I mean deeply, compassionately, unconditionally, completely, unselfishly. The flame of Whitsun is the energy of the Third Eye chakra, the two petalled lotus seeing wisely and without prejudice all that lives in another’s soul.
Pentecost in the Hebrew tradition was a feast of the first harvest. What can you harvest from your Inner Year practices? We began with the new seeds of selfhood of Inner Nativity and Inner Epiphany. We cultivated the soil of our soul through Inner Lent finding new freedom. We brought new life to our soul through Inner Easter. Now with Inner Whitsun we begin to harvest the fruit of Inner Living, new love.
What are the practices of Inner Whitsun? How do we grow wise in knowing/loving the other?
Read a great biography or autobiography. Study another’s life. Do a google search on an individual, read a number of posts, look at the images - not out of curiosity, but out of willed love or devotion. Invite a friend or several to do the same. Get together and share your perceptions, perceptions arising out of reverence for the individual.
Write a poem about a friend. Could you describe the true nature of your friend in 13 lines or 13 stanzas? Twelve lines or stanzas each presenting a perspective of your friend and the thirteenth being a metaphor for the place where all twelve perspectives meet. Don’t write this poem from your intellect, write it from your heart — your heart’s wisdom. Like the Virgin Sophia, the heart is both wise and innocent at the same time.
Have a love feast. I do this at the end of the biography workshops I lead. I have a love seat that each participant sits in silence, with arms and legs uncrossed. All the other participants take turns speaking of their admiration, respect, and love for the person in the love seat. So invite a few of your friends over and give them each and yourself a chance to sit in the Love Seat and receive the language of love that arises out of their friends wise heart.
Pick a place on the planet and love it. Yes, choose a different culture/language and bring love to it. Pick your place and do a search online or at the library. I suggest you just work with images as text tends to drive us from our heart into our head. God bless Google and Wikipedia for giving us quick access to the strange, the different, the other. Another possibility, much more difficult, is to lovingly speak and lovingly hear the language of an opposing political perspective. Somehow I feel that both Hillary and Barack would love to be actively loving each other rather than competing and attacking. What would at Whitsun election look like in the USA or any other country?
Practice ho’oponopono. Have you heard about ho’oponopono? This is very much a “Whitsun deed.” that works with the language of the shadow. Here is a link to a brief description of the work http://www.reuniting.info/wisdom_hooponopono_buddy_system. Just doing this practice for five minutes feels good (good as in goodness, not good as merely a pleasant feeling).
The next festival I will be writing about is St Johnstide which falls on June 24th and is connected to the Summer Solstice.
If you just read these thoughts on Whitsun you will be opening up to a very sacred part of your being. Having a sense of the cycle of the Natural Year and its impact on the Inner Year is a great step in self-awareness and personal development. Do what you feel capable of doing and love yourself.
Feel the power of the Third Eye, not just to see, but to love.
49 days after Easter and the Resurrection is a day known as either Pentecost or Whitsun. This day celebrates or acknowledges a mysterious event: the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Here is what happened about two thousand years ago. All those who had been with the resurrected Christ in the 40 days before the Ascension had gathered together. These included the Twelve Apostles and maybe 144 others. The Holy Mother or Virgin Sophia enters the gathering and everyone forms a circle around her. A mighty wind rises and a dove appears bringing a new force of spiritual energy. This dove is the way we experience the Holy Spirit and have come to recognize as a symbol of peace and new beginnings. This sacred energy radiates into the Virgin Sophia and out to the Apostles causing tongues of fire to appear on their foreheads at the place known as the Third Eye. Following this event those present found the Apostles could speak to and hear each one of them in the language of their birth.
What is the meaning of this event for the human soul and the evolution of consciousness and self-awareness? Why does it occur at this time of year? Why should anyone, not Christian, be interested in this celebration? And how can we celebrate Whitsun in a modern and meaningful way that cultivates a desirable experience in our souls?
I have such a feeling for this holy day. I love it like I love the flowers of late Spring. The joyful love of and for all souls blooms irrepressibly within our being.
If Easter is about redemption and resurrection, Whitsun is about universal and intimate love. When you know through loving another soul intimately enough to speak the language of their being or are the object of such a love, you know the gift of the Holy Spirit. This speaking of the native language has nothing to do with the geographical place of birth. It is the language of the self, of the native essence, of the truth of the individuality.
Whitsun reminds us to know one another intimately. I mean deeply, compassionately, unconditionally, completely, unselfishly. The flame of Whitsun is the energy of the Third Eye chakra, the two petalled lotus seeing wisely and without prejudice all that lives in another’s soul.
Pentecost in the Hebrew tradition was a feast of the first harvest. What can you harvest from your Inner Year practices? We began with the new seeds of selfhood of Inner Nativity and Inner Epiphany. We cultivated the soil of our soul through Inner Lent finding new freedom. We brought new life to our soul through Inner Easter. Now with Inner Whitsun we begin to harvest the fruit of Inner Living, new love.
What are the practices of Inner Whitsun? How do we grow wise in knowing/loving the other?
Read a great biography or autobiography. Study another’s life. Do a google search on an individual, read a number of posts, look at the images - not out of curiosity, but out of willed love or devotion. Invite a friend or several to do the same. Get together and share your perceptions, perceptions arising out of reverence for the individual.
Write a poem about a friend. Could you describe the true nature of your friend in 13 lines or 13 stanzas? Twelve lines or stanzas each presenting a perspective of your friend and the thirteenth being a metaphor for the place where all twelve perspectives meet. Don’t write this poem from your intellect, write it from your heart — your heart’s wisdom. Like the Virgin Sophia, the heart is both wise and innocent at the same time.
Have a love feast. I do this at the end of the biography workshops I lead. I have a love seat that each participant sits in silence, with arms and legs uncrossed. All the other participants take turns speaking of their admiration, respect, and love for the person in the love seat. So invite a few of your friends over and give them each and yourself a chance to sit in the Love Seat and receive the language of love that arises out of their friends wise heart.
Pick a place on the planet and love it. Yes, choose a different culture/language and bring love to it. Pick your place and do a search online or at the library. I suggest you just work with images as text tends to drive us from our heart into our head. God bless Google and Wikipedia for giving us quick access to the strange, the different, the other. Another possibility, much more difficult, is to lovingly speak and lovingly hear the language of an opposing political perspective. Somehow I feel that both Hillary and Barack would love to be actively loving each other rather than competing and attacking. What would at Whitsun election look like in the USA or any other country?
Practice ho’oponopono. Have you heard about ho’oponopono? This is very much a “Whitsun deed.” that works with the language of the shadow. Here is a link to a brief description of the work http://www.reuniting.info/wisdom_hooponopono_buddy_system. Just doing this practice for five minutes feels good (good as in goodness, not good as merely a pleasant feeling).
The next festival I will be writing about is St Johnstide which falls on June 24th and is connected to the Summer Solstice.
If you just read these thoughts on Whitsun you will be opening up to a very sacred part of your being. Having a sense of the cycle of the Natural Year and its impact on the Inner Year is a great step in self-awareness and personal development. Do what you feel capable of doing and love yourself.
Feel the power of the Third Eye, not just to see, but to love.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Living in the Southern Hemisphere
Dear Friends in the Southern Hemisphere,
With Inner Christmas and The Inner Year I am always thinking about you. I know your natural world meets the Sun in the reverse of my Northern Temperate experience. I wonder about your experience and how my thoughts meet your feelings.
The individuals who determined the dating of the Christian festivals lived in the Northern Hemisphere long before there was awareness that the Earth was a globe. They made their dating decisions based on the Gospels and the seasonal Pagan Festivals (which in so many ways reflected the unfolding of the events of the three years of Jesus).
Your intuition and the strength of your soul's connection to the seasons of Nature or to the Christian traditions will guide how you work with the thoughts on the Inner Year.
I encourage you to explore your inner experience. Develop your own way of following your Inner Year. Try reversing the festivals and see if it feels "right." Remember in the Spiritual World there are no calendars.
All things are relative in your imagination and in your heart. If you work with Inner Easter and the mood of the vernal equinox (when light overcomes darkness) when your days begin to darken, you may find that in six months your soul will awaken in some new and meaningful way. Perhaps it is your destiny to find spiritual growth in dealing with paradox and reversal.
Please post your experience as I know so many of my friends in the Southern Hemisphere wonder and even struggle with this question.
With Inner Christmas and The Inner Year I am always thinking about you. I know your natural world meets the Sun in the reverse of my Northern Temperate experience. I wonder about your experience and how my thoughts meet your feelings.
The individuals who determined the dating of the Christian festivals lived in the Northern Hemisphere long before there was awareness that the Earth was a globe. They made their dating decisions based on the Gospels and the seasonal Pagan Festivals (which in so many ways reflected the unfolding of the events of the three years of Jesus).
Your intuition and the strength of your soul's connection to the seasons of Nature or to the Christian traditions will guide how you work with the thoughts on the Inner Year.
I encourage you to explore your inner experience. Develop your own way of following your Inner Year. Try reversing the festivals and see if it feels "right." Remember in the Spiritual World there are no calendars.
All things are relative in your imagination and in your heart. If you work with Inner Easter and the mood of the vernal equinox (when light overcomes darkness) when your days begin to darken, you may find that in six months your soul will awaken in some new and meaningful way. Perhaps it is your destiny to find spiritual growth in dealing with paradox and reversal.
Please post your experience as I know so many of my friends in the Southern Hemisphere wonder and even struggle with this question.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Inner Easter
Saying Goodbye to Winter
Easter is the time of Balance. We find the balance of life and death in the soul and the balance of light and dark in nature.We have moved into another Spring. Winter has ended. You have lived 13 weeks or 91 days. Your soul has thought, felt and willed a season of life.
Spend a few moments reviewing your Winter. What thoughts stand out from the ordinary and the forgotten? What feelings colored your soul with shades of light and dark and warmth and cold? What deeds moved from thought to loving action? What did you learn about yourself? About those you love? work with? admire? resent? What happened in this season that you need to grieve or need to celebrate?
Easter, Nature and Your SoulSpend a few moments reviewing your Winter. What thoughts stand out from the ordinary and the forgotten? What feelings colored your soul with shades of light and dark and warmth and cold? What deeds moved from thought to loving action? What did you learn about yourself? About those you love? work with? admire? resent? What happened in this season that you need to grieve or need to celebrate?
Wikipedia has a beautiful description and some great images of equinox. I urge you to spend a few minutes reading the article.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox
After reading this article on the Equinox, reflect on how much the experience of the Equinox is dependent on your place of observation.Where in the world are you? Which hemisphere do you live in? Between the equator and the pole - where is your latitude?
How you experience your life depends on where you are in your life. How you experience the light and dark of your inner life is so relative and so mysterious. Bringing your Inner Sun, the spiritual experience of "I am," to the equator of your soul and dwelling in the eternal moment of self-enlightenment is the goal of spiritual practice.
Nature's equinox occurs for a moment twice a year. Solstice occurs twice a year giving opposing experiences at the poles. Equinox is the perfect moment of "in between." Have you known the perfect between" in your soul? Or are you always seeking a polar moment? Where in your soul life do you find seemingly endless soul light? What do you find there? What about seemingly endless soul darkness?
In the seasonal mood of the Vernal Equinox, can you feel the natural fit of the Easter imagination? Out of the "dead" earth, new "life" sprouts in spring. With Easter we are drawn to the mysteries of death and of resurrection.
Death and Resurrection
How does your soul experience death? Is it the disappearance of a living thought of truth, a living feeling for beauty, a living intention for goodness? Is it the death of a loving and responsible relationship to the world, to the past, to the future, to another, to yourself? And is the death such a profound loss that you are willing to walk through hell, a deep personal hell, to find a greater inner sense of self that will resurrect or restore the dead to new life, meaning, purpose, significance?One image illuminating Inner Easter is unselfishness. The Resurrection of the Christ is not selfish. It is a deed of cosmic devotion and cosmic destiny.
Resurrect only what lives in your soul to serve others and the future. Resurrect the thoughts, feelings, intentions, relationships that bear your "I am," not those that merely provide the pleasure of "me, my, and mine." Resurrection for selfish and egotistical reasons is cloning and not resurrection. Cloning of the soul stops inner evolution and personal growth.
Celebrating Inner Resurrection
In the course of every year, we make choices that crucify our higher self and true destiny. We crucify our higher self and our life's noble destiny with inner attachment to the superficial, the transient, the habitual, the easy, and the selfish.Easter is a time to reflect on those choices, not to recrucify ourselves, but to resurrect ourselves. We can resurrect our devotion to the profound, the lasting, the creative, the challenging and the loving.
How long would it take to deepen your awareness of the superficial, the transient, the habitual, the easy and the selfish attachments in our daily lives? Perhaps we could make lists of the aspects of our lives that deaden our spirit. Consider how these attachments kill the True, the Beautiful and the Good in our souls? Write journal entries or poems about the crucifying and the resurrecting choices of your life.
As I work with the possibilities of the Inner Year, I am amazed at the graceful connectedness between the esoteric meanings of the Christian Festivals and the moods and questions supporting a rich and healthy unfolding soul life. What other time of year would nurture the soul's reflections on death and resurrection?
Bring the dawning of new life to your soul. Live into the mood of Easter.
One Woman's Death and Resurrection - An Easter Inspiration
Jill Bolte Taylor shares the story of her death and resurrection in an 18 minute video - http://www.ted.com/talks/view
In this inspiring video, Jill shares how she lived her "death" and her "resurrection." Whether you are more of a scientist or a spiritualist, you will find her talk amazing. It is truly an Inner Easter story.
Comments, please!
Inner Easter awakens many complex and personal thoughts and feelings. Please share your experience, your imaginations and your hopes. I will offer another posting in time for Whitsun or Pentecost, 50 days after Easter.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Inner Lent
Lent is the Christian festival of fasting and denial in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. As a young child I was fascinated with the idea of giving up something for Jesus. But, as I grew up I found myself thinking of Lenten denial more as a religious diet, a Weight Watchers for the Soul. Dieting and other disciplines have always been difficult for me so Lent became a time of failure and meaninglessness. I didn’t quite understand how giving up chocolate, pasta or going to the movies for forty days connected me to the Spirit or my spirit. How did it serve my moral and spiritual development? How did it serve the world and the future?
Working with Inner Christmas over the last four years has opened me up to the personal and intimate possibilities living in the rest of the Christian Year. As a counselor/healer/educator, I find the calendar of the soul very important. If I contemplate the life of the soul in relation to the seasonal flow of Nature and the esoteric imaginations of the Christian festivals, what do I see?
Inner Christmas ends with Epiphany. Epiphany is the Baptism of the Christ - the incarnation of the Christ Being into Jesus of Nazareth. Following Epiphany, the mood of the soul is one of seeking knowledge. Winter supports a time of inner reflection on the questions “Who am I?”, “What do I want?” and “What am I doing?” These are destiny questions. We look at our life path of self-expression, of self-manifestation and of self-management. We consider our potential to contribute and to grow. And we attend to the big question of “What gets in my way.”
I believe Lent is the time to work with what gets in our way - the obstacles to our desire to fulfill our destiny. Lent finds its inspiration in the forty days in the wilderness that follow the Baptism. Christ Jesus goes off to be alone - to struggle with gravity, hunger, limitation - the challenges of being human before taking up His Deed for humanity. Each year the calendar of the soul gives us the mood of the wilderness, a yearly time to look at our personal deed and the temptations that seductively promise an existence free from pain, responsibility and discipline.
During the forty days, Christ is tempted three times by Evil. (You can do a google on “three temptations” and find much to read.) In the modern wilderness of soul, three temptations seduce us, individually and collectively. They are very powerful and we often succumb to them. The temptations are prejudice, fantasy and addiction.These are three ways in which we cripple and corrupt our thinking, our feeling and our willing and we distort the flow of time from past to present to future. Inner Lent is the time when we can face and overcome these 3 temptations of our soul.
Prejudice
Prejudice is thinking trapped in the past. Prejudice is pre-judgment. Most of us think of prejudice as being harmful, but prejudice can also be positive. The quality of prejudice is not the temptation. The temptation is the absence of living thinking. A thought that had validity in the past is carried forward, whether or not it has any relevance or meaning in the present. We don’t think - we remember an old lifeless thought. We assume a momentary perception, or concept, is forever.
The Lenten challenge is first to recognize your prejudices. Recognizing your prejudices is so difficult - it is like going into the cemetery of your soul and digging up dead bodies; Or ghost-busting in your soul; Or finding the thought vampires or living dead and driving a stake through their hearts; or shining the light of Spiritual Sun on them.
Make a list of five dead thoughts. These are thoughts that are very familiar in their comfort or discomfort. Consider,: a thought about yourself, a thought about someone you interact with, a thought about your work, a thought about your belief system and a thought about your future. Now explore the truth of each thought in the present moment. Is there any truth or relevancy?
Can you notice your prejudices during the forty days of Lent? Most of us have little awareness of how old our thinking is. Every prejudice is the absence of Spirit. Overcoming the temptation of prejudice means questioning the newness of your thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. What among these prejudices can you make new and imbue with freedom? What likes and dislikes can you examine? What dead thoughts can you give up for Lent?
You might find it less challenging to explore an impersonal thought. We all know the Sun rises in the East. This is a truth that we once thought with living interest. For most of us, it has become information and a dead thought. However, during Lent, wake up every morning and have a living experience of the newly rising Sun.
Addiction
Addiction is the avoidance of pain in the present. With an addiction we take in a substance to create an artificial and temporary harmony in the present. As a society, we tend to think of negative addictions, but there are many more positive addictions to consider. I used the addiction of reading spiritual and self-help books for years and years. I received great value out of my reading but I used it like a drug. I was in pain and, when I read, I was avoiding my pain.
Being in the wilderness is a time to face pain. What you resist, persists. The writer Joseph Conrad wrote “In the destructive element immerse.” Lent is the time to feel the pain of the present. Your Spirit will sustain you through this agony. Whether you suffer with the weight of the past, your hunger for the future or the limitations of the present, your forty days of Lenten suffering will strengthen you. You will spring forth at the end of Lent with a new understanding of your destiny.
Do not forego your biggest, most soothing addiction. Find your small, or medium-sized, addictions. In our age of comfort and anxiety, we need to modulate our inner lives. We go into the wilderness to find wisdom - not torture.
Do you have an addiction for information? Do you face fear when you don’t have all the answers? Can you give up reading the newspaper for forty days, or even five days? Do you avoid anxiety or sadness with addictive physical activity? Can you give up exercise for a week, or moderate your fitness program for forty days? And consider modifying spiritual practices or beauty routines? Spiritual practices can be about avoiding discomfort with material existence and beauty routines can mask the pain of aging or anxiety over feeling desirable. Your inner Spirit is filled with equanimity and compassion and will not abandon you in the wilderness of your pain.
Look at your life and determine which practices, activities, consumptions are motivated by avoidance of pain, of anxiety, of sadness, of self-disgust. This is the real challenge and gift of Lent - recognizing your motives of avoidance and finding the courage to immerse in the destructive elements of your soul.
Fantasy
Fantasy is will trapped in the future. Fantasies are so comforting because we do not need to do anything. We can fantasize the most amazing results and outcomes of our efforts and never take the first step. We don’t need to be in the reality of life. We create worlds and powers and benefits with fantasy. Fantasy is the future that will never come.
Thinking about doing good is not doing good. Good thoughts are not good deeds. Dreaming about possibilities is not fulfillment or contribution, it is just dreaming.
With so much powerlessness in childhood and so much emphasis on being freed from our enchanted castles and witch’s lairs, we learn to deal with the entrapment of our will forces by fantasizing all kinds of happy endings and wild adventures.
Our will needs to be active in the present. We need to free ourselves in the reality of the moment through responsibility and courage. If the work of the wilderness is to have any redemptive or creative power we must pull our will out of the future and act now.
What is the dream of the future that has no present action? What horizon do you see, yet fail to take any step toward? If you were to take just ten steps over forty days, what would those steps be? You cannot be in fantasy when your will is active in the present.
Closing thoughts
In facing the three temptations, do not be grandiose. Be successful in small ways. Just as God is in the details, find your radiant strength of spirit in the elegance and humility of the simple. Self-compassion is about being gentle and tender with your soul development.
Please think about commenting. To leave a comment click on the word "comments" below.
Working with Inner Christmas over the last four years has opened me up to the personal and intimate possibilities living in the rest of the Christian Year. As a counselor/healer/educator, I find the calendar of the soul very important. If I contemplate the life of the soul in relation to the seasonal flow of Nature and the esoteric imaginations of the Christian festivals, what do I see?
Inner Christmas ends with Epiphany. Epiphany is the Baptism of the Christ - the incarnation of the Christ Being into Jesus of Nazareth. Following Epiphany, the mood of the soul is one of seeking knowledge. Winter supports a time of inner reflection on the questions “Who am I?”, “What do I want?” and “What am I doing?” These are destiny questions. We look at our life path of self-expression, of self-manifestation and of self-management. We consider our potential to contribute and to grow. And we attend to the big question of “What gets in my way.”
I believe Lent is the time to work with what gets in our way - the obstacles to our desire to fulfill our destiny. Lent finds its inspiration in the forty days in the wilderness that follow the Baptism. Christ Jesus goes off to be alone - to struggle with gravity, hunger, limitation - the challenges of being human before taking up His Deed for humanity. Each year the calendar of the soul gives us the mood of the wilderness, a yearly time to look at our personal deed and the temptations that seductively promise an existence free from pain, responsibility and discipline.
During the forty days, Christ is tempted three times by Evil. (You can do a google on “three temptations” and find much to read.) In the modern wilderness of soul, three temptations seduce us, individually and collectively. They are very powerful and we often succumb to them. The temptations are prejudice, fantasy and addiction.These are three ways in which we cripple and corrupt our thinking, our feeling and our willing and we distort the flow of time from past to present to future. Inner Lent is the time when we can face and overcome these 3 temptations of our soul.
Prejudice
Prejudice is thinking trapped in the past. Prejudice is pre-judgment. Most of us think of prejudice as being harmful, but prejudice can also be positive. The quality of prejudice is not the temptation. The temptation is the absence of living thinking. A thought that had validity in the past is carried forward, whether or not it has any relevance or meaning in the present. We don’t think - we remember an old lifeless thought. We assume a momentary perception, or concept, is forever.
The Lenten challenge is first to recognize your prejudices. Recognizing your prejudices is so difficult - it is like going into the cemetery of your soul and digging up dead bodies; Or ghost-busting in your soul; Or finding the thought vampires or living dead and driving a stake through their hearts; or shining the light of Spiritual Sun on them.
Make a list of five dead thoughts. These are thoughts that are very familiar in their comfort or discomfort. Consider,: a thought about yourself, a thought about someone you interact with, a thought about your work, a thought about your belief system and a thought about your future. Now explore the truth of each thought in the present moment. Is there any truth or relevancy?
Can you notice your prejudices during the forty days of Lent? Most of us have little awareness of how old our thinking is. Every prejudice is the absence of Spirit. Overcoming the temptation of prejudice means questioning the newness of your thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. What among these prejudices can you make new and imbue with freedom? What likes and dislikes can you examine? What dead thoughts can you give up for Lent?
You might find it less challenging to explore an impersonal thought. We all know the Sun rises in the East. This is a truth that we once thought with living interest. For most of us, it has become information and a dead thought. However, during Lent, wake up every morning and have a living experience of the newly rising Sun.
Addiction
Addiction is the avoidance of pain in the present. With an addiction we take in a substance to create an artificial and temporary harmony in the present. As a society, we tend to think of negative addictions, but there are many more positive addictions to consider. I used the addiction of reading spiritual and self-help books for years and years. I received great value out of my reading but I used it like a drug. I was in pain and, when I read, I was avoiding my pain.
Being in the wilderness is a time to face pain. What you resist, persists. The writer Joseph Conrad wrote “In the destructive element immerse.” Lent is the time to feel the pain of the present. Your Spirit will sustain you through this agony. Whether you suffer with the weight of the past, your hunger for the future or the limitations of the present, your forty days of Lenten suffering will strengthen you. You will spring forth at the end of Lent with a new understanding of your destiny.
Do not forego your biggest, most soothing addiction. Find your small, or medium-sized, addictions. In our age of comfort and anxiety, we need to modulate our inner lives. We go into the wilderness to find wisdom - not torture.
Do you have an addiction for information? Do you face fear when you don’t have all the answers? Can you give up reading the newspaper for forty days, or even five days? Do you avoid anxiety or sadness with addictive physical activity? Can you give up exercise for a week, or moderate your fitness program for forty days? And consider modifying spiritual practices or beauty routines? Spiritual practices can be about avoiding discomfort with material existence and beauty routines can mask the pain of aging or anxiety over feeling desirable. Your inner Spirit is filled with equanimity and compassion and will not abandon you in the wilderness of your pain.
Look at your life and determine which practices, activities, consumptions are motivated by avoidance of pain, of anxiety, of sadness, of self-disgust. This is the real challenge and gift of Lent - recognizing your motives of avoidance and finding the courage to immerse in the destructive elements of your soul.
Fantasy
Fantasy is will trapped in the future. Fantasies are so comforting because we do not need to do anything. We can fantasize the most amazing results and outcomes of our efforts and never take the first step. We don’t need to be in the reality of life. We create worlds and powers and benefits with fantasy. Fantasy is the future that will never come.
Thinking about doing good is not doing good. Good thoughts are not good deeds. Dreaming about possibilities is not fulfillment or contribution, it is just dreaming.
With so much powerlessness in childhood and so much emphasis on being freed from our enchanted castles and witch’s lairs, we learn to deal with the entrapment of our will forces by fantasizing all kinds of happy endings and wild adventures.
Our will needs to be active in the present. We need to free ourselves in the reality of the moment through responsibility and courage. If the work of the wilderness is to have any redemptive or creative power we must pull our will out of the future and act now.
What is the dream of the future that has no present action? What horizon do you see, yet fail to take any step toward? If you were to take just ten steps over forty days, what would those steps be? You cannot be in fantasy when your will is active in the present.
Closing thoughts
In facing the three temptations, do not be grandiose. Be successful in small ways. Just as God is in the details, find your radiant strength of spirit in the elegance and humility of the simple. Self-compassion is about being gentle and tender with your soul development.
Please think about commenting. To leave a comment click on the word "comments" below.
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