Yes, we are two in one. The small self and the immense SELF. I use lower case when I am referring to the small self that wants a linear life without complexity, with simple answers, clear choices and no confusion or ambivalence, yet finds instead endless dilemmas, wounds that resist healing, longings that never seem to be fulfilled and dreams that never die. I use all caps when I am referring to the immense SELF that contains endless paradoxes, contradictions, and riddles while remaining whole and integral and always has room for more.
My clients, readers and audiences are brave, creative and evolving. They embrace light and dark, the internal and external, (self)love and (self)hate, the constant and the ephemeral, matter and spirit, growing young and growing old, exuberance and restraint, stillness and movement, humanity and individuality and ultimately, dying and resurrecting. And they want to make sense of everything and find the right relationship to everything. They want to mature and ripen their thinking, feeling, and willing in finding deeper and often painful truths, forming more beauty and harmony and manifesting goodness unselfishly.
They are willing to devote time to imagining self/SELF - creating the image of the human being and the image of the constant and ever-changing "I." Being willing to devote time requires a discipline, particularly in our demanding and distracting times. Ideally, everyday you have a time to reflect, to engage, to ponder and wonder, to write, to study, and to converse on this imagining.
The benefits are worth the efforts of time and attention. Imagining self/SELF is the only way to know self/SELF. Little steps will get you there and sometimes the little steps , on reflection, will be giant leaps. It's fun and scary - like an outrageous rollercoaster ride where gravity intensifies and then disappears, where up becomes down and left becomes right and suddenly returns to a new normal.
Please send me your thoughts on self/SELF and let me know how you set aside time for nurturing and cultivating your imagination - for celebrating you. Email me.
Six Ways To Celebrate All of You!
Almost seven years ago, I began writing the Inner Christmas messages - a guide for a path of twelve small steps to take between Christmas and Epiphany during the Twelve Holy Nights. Two years ago I wrote my book, Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas & Celebrate You! describing how we can consciously and creatively experience the holiday and ourselves. I knew I was decribing the six ways we can celebrate every day. Six ways we can find and honor new personal meaning in our lives within every twenty-four hours. Each way of celebrating is a dialogue between self and SELF.
Beginning next Sunday, I will bring your attention to each of the six celebrations and offer some creative guidance on making every day meaningful. Here's a list of the six celebrations for you:
Nature - celebrate your new awareness of the natural world.
Divinity - celebrate your new experience of the spirit
Riches - celebrate new material and sensory delights
Relationships - celebrate new feelings about your many relationships to other human beings
Childhood - celebrate new insights into your personal history
Selfhood - celebrate your growing self-knowledge
This will take us through the first Sunday in November.
(I really want to encourage you to order the Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas & Celebrate You! now as it gives real examples/questions for each celebration - it is a wonderful book to use in a book club or study group. Between now and Christmas there are no shipping charges! Order here. http://www.store.lynnjericho.com/Six-Ways-To-Celebrate-Christmas-Celebrate-You-111CCCY.htm)
Michaelmas - September 29
I will be sending out a special message on Wednesday about this very meaningful festival - the celebration of the courageous human heart.
Much Autumnal Warmth...
Lynn
