The reliving of this prebirth experience described in the last blog posting, The Spirit Speaks of The Soul, took place within the walls of a quaint and cozy white-clapboard farmhouse set in the beautiful foothills of the Berkshires. Stephen was attending a workshop held in Southern New England in the early summer of 1995. A small group of individuals participated in a modern version of a shamanic healing session. For nearly three hours, he lay on a rubber mat, breathing deeply, and listening to high-powered music. Shamans used drumming and breathing techniques to achieve altered states of consciousness. While in this state, a person could receive the healing he or she needed physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
The altered state of consciousness he achieved through the breathing and music helped him relive and heal an early trauma. In addition, with these shamanic techniques, he accessed these buried prebirth memories.
For Stephen, these memories confirmed that the essential being of each human has three core elements as Saint Paul described: “your whole being—spirit, soul, and body” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). A dozen years after this experience in the womb, he was astonished to hear Protestant minister Arthur Burk say of the soul and spirit in the womb: “the soul is inoperative . . . it is the spirit that hears, understands, and remembers.” However, to say the soul is inoperative is not to say it does not feel such things as hunger and fear.
* * *
Curiously, his experience of me was followed by one of the most controversial murder trials in the history of American justice. The night of June 17, 1995, when Stephen was reliving his soul memory of speeding through space, was the night that news footage of O. J. Simpson was broadcast nationwide. He was fleeing from the police in his white Bronco. It was interesting to Stephen how a spiritual experience was paired with a depraved one. The sacred was punctuated by the profane. There was a connection he didn’t see at the time. What each event had in common was that both revealed the intense hungers, desires, emotions, and passions that all embodied souls must face. Of course, in saying this, I am setting aside the criminal verdict of Simpson’s innocence, and considering the guilt assigned in the Goldman family’s civil suit.
With the passage of time, Stephen would revisit the experience in the womb, mulling it over again and again. Gradually, he would deepen his understanding of what happened that night when he was seized by the primal fear and hunger involved in being human.
He felt his mind reeling as he struggled to make sense of what had happened. It seemed to him that what he had experienced had taken place in a realm existing in between inner and outer space. And yet, it somehow seemed to merge them into one space. Subjective. Objective. Real. Symbolic. It was all of these and more. He realized he had been speeding through a place where the starry heavens of both outer and inner space converge. . . .
Stephen recalled Rod Serling introducing the 1960s TV show, The Twilight Zone:
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."
He then reviewed what happened after passing through the portal of the dark doorway hanging in space, and he realized that he and I had entered his mother’s womb and seemed to separate. He went inside the tiny fetal body while I remained connected to him as I hovered alongside. Like a suit of clothes hanging in the closet waiting to be worn, the little body was waiting there in the womb all ready for him to begin wearing.
Clearly, the liquid he felt his little body floating in, his tiny hands groping for something to stabilize him, was the amniotic fluid of his mother’s womb. That he was greeted by hunger seemed to be a fitting introduction to life in the body. Stephen thought that perhaps his mother had not eaten recently so that no nourishment was coming to the tiny body. He was transitioning from the formless freedom of the spiritual realm to being in the world of form. What a contrast he was experiencing between total spiritual freedom and total physical dependency.
To Stephen, this hunger was a mirror of the dependency of the body on matter in the form of food. Stephen thought of the Latin word mater, and concluded that human beings first depend on matter in the form of mater (mother). It is in her womb and, after birth, in her arms, that embodied souls experience the beginning of the all-too-human love affair with matter, the material world. These mysterious moments in the womb marked his most intensely dramatic encounter with me. He came to realize I afforded him a higher and wider view of his life. To deepen his understanding of the nature of our relationship, I often utilize people and circumstances to illustrate what I want to convey.
For example, this very morning, after he wrote the above, I seeded the idea of taking a break and going to the local coffee shop. Once there, I nudged him to notice a mother and child. A small brown-haired boy in the toddler phase was in his mother’s arms. Suddenly, he saw a cookie. He squirmed in her arms and, with a sense of urgency, began pointing to the object of his desire. Insistent on grabbing and consuming the cookie, he struggled in her containing embrace. Remaining relaxed, his mother calmly rocked him a bit and quietly coaxed him with no trace of irritation, saying, “Relax.”
When Stephen felt fear in those first moments in that tiny fetal body, I held him in the arms of my awareness as a mother holds and comforts her distressed baby. This comforting larger consciousness of the sidereal self is available to all embodied souls; they just have to take steps to stop and still their body and mind.
• Today, when stress arises, relax into the arms of the higher, wider, and deeper awareness ofof your sidereal self, your spirit. Begin by taking some slow, deep breathing. Remind yourself that the peace of your spirit is just a breath away. I will be blog absent until the beginning of August. Stay cool!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The Spirit Speaks of the Soul
june 1995
It was as if he were seeing the starry heavens as a shooting star would if a star had eyes. At first, Stephen sped through space at such a rapid speed that the stars were a blur of streak lines. He suddenly slowed down to a near standstill, and he began moving in slow motion. He was floating in space as noiselessly and effortlessly as a helium-filled balloon being carried aloft by a gentle summer breeze. A framed doorway appeared. An earth-mother stood within it. She was a Native American wearing a beaded deer-skin vest and skirt. Her long ebony-colored hair glistened. Her face was welcoming and happy.
Another framed doorway appeared as he continued his journey through space. In this portal there stood a beautiful young woman with long chestnut-brown hair. She wore a full-length black skirt, high-buttoned black shoes, and a cream-colored high-collared blouse with long sleeves. Her arms were raised above her head while she attempted to pin up her long locks into an ample bun. Her hair style and apparel appeared to be Victorian. There was a slight resemblance to old sepia-colored photographs of Stephen’s maternal grandmother.
Suddenly, he felt himself speed up. He was hurtling through space toward a distant doorway. It was empty and dark as though it was only a door frame suspended in the star-speckled darkness of space. No mother-figure was present in this one. He sped through it and came to an abrupt halt. At first, he felt encased in a small body. His tiny arms and hands were grasping for something to hold on to in order to feel some stability. He felt as if the tiny body was floating in a warm liquid. Without warning, he was overcome with fear. Every cell of this little body he was inhabiting was ablaze with fear of the burning, inescapable sensations of gnawing hunger.
A fear of starving to death threatened the existence of every cell as a brush fire gone out of control threatens all in its path. Every cell in this little flesh form was on fire with fear and the searing sensations of hunger. Somehow he sensed this fear dated back to the dawn of human history. Ancient. Primitive. Unrelenting. No relief was forthcoming. Finally, he stopped struggling and faced the fact that there was nowhere to go and nothing to do to escape.
At that very moment of surrender and acceptance, he felt a larger consciousness hovering above and to the right of this little body. As soon as he, as the consciousness encased in the little body, merged with the larger awareness, he felt relief. He felt free of the fear and hunger as he began to observe the overwhelming fear of the pain of starving to death. He was no longer threatened. His perspective shifted from being in the fire of fear and hunger to simply being still and watching the fear and hunger from above. He felt peaceful and calm once he, experiencing himself as the consciousness stuffed into the little form of flesh, merged with the spacious awareness of this transcendent consciousness.
The spaciousness of this awareness was both within and beyond the boundaries of the little body. He stopped identifying with the little body feeling fear and hunger. Minutes passed. Eventually, the gnawing pain of hunger abated, as if absorbed by this larger and calmer consciousness.
* * *
Who are these two seemingly separate sets of consciousness who first appeared as one like a shooting star? The smaller one is the soul (mind, will, and emotions) who arrived in a body at 10:12 p.m. on September 3, 1947 and was named Stephen Royal Jackson shortly after emerging from his mother’s womb. I, the narrator of this book, am the more expansive consciousness who is not limited to the confines of his body. i am Stephen’s spirit—the transcendent portion of his soul. I have always been there by his side like a guardian angel watching over him, the embodied soul.
Only after donning the soul suit or corporeal costume of the body does the soul stop being an androgynous “it” (a balanced unity of male and female) and experience itself as a separate consciousness embodied as a him or her. Soul begins to identify with the body and forgets about its connection to spirit.
One day, Stephen came across the word sidereal (pronounced sigh-dear-real). Sidereal is defined as “of or pertaining to the stars.” After that, he has referred to me, his spirit, as the radiant star of his divine sidereal self. He considers me his spiritual compass, his personal Polaris (North Star) guiding him through the dark nights of the soul caused by the inner and outer storms of life.
At the same time that I hover by his body to guide him, i am also deeply within his body as his innermost heart. To the embodied soul it is a great mystery and paradox how my awareness exists both inside and outside the body. I hear his thoughts and feel what he feels in his body: emotions, desires, sensations, etcetera. My essence is that of a caring, compassionate, and comforting consciousness. I cushion the blows delivered by life. His experience in the womb helped him see that he had a choice in times of stress: be still and identify with me, his spirit, or remain stressed and frantic by identifying with his body.
• Today, take some slow, deep breaths and see if you can get in touch with the calm, larger consciousness that is the transcendent portion of your soul. [The above is taken from The Space Between Stars www.drsrj.com]
It was as if he were seeing the starry heavens as a shooting star would if a star had eyes. At first, Stephen sped through space at such a rapid speed that the stars were a blur of streak lines. He suddenly slowed down to a near standstill, and he began moving in slow motion. He was floating in space as noiselessly and effortlessly as a helium-filled balloon being carried aloft by a gentle summer breeze. A framed doorway appeared. An earth-mother stood within it. She was a Native American wearing a beaded deer-skin vest and skirt. Her long ebony-colored hair glistened. Her face was welcoming and happy.
Another framed doorway appeared as he continued his journey through space. In this portal there stood a beautiful young woman with long chestnut-brown hair. She wore a full-length black skirt, high-buttoned black shoes, and a cream-colored high-collared blouse with long sleeves. Her arms were raised above her head while she attempted to pin up her long locks into an ample bun. Her hair style and apparel appeared to be Victorian. There was a slight resemblance to old sepia-colored photographs of Stephen’s maternal grandmother.
Suddenly, he felt himself speed up. He was hurtling through space toward a distant doorway. It was empty and dark as though it was only a door frame suspended in the star-speckled darkness of space. No mother-figure was present in this one. He sped through it and came to an abrupt halt. At first, he felt encased in a small body. His tiny arms and hands were grasping for something to hold on to in order to feel some stability. He felt as if the tiny body was floating in a warm liquid. Without warning, he was overcome with fear. Every cell of this little body he was inhabiting was ablaze with fear of the burning, inescapable sensations of gnawing hunger.
A fear of starving to death threatened the existence of every cell as a brush fire gone out of control threatens all in its path. Every cell in this little flesh form was on fire with fear and the searing sensations of hunger. Somehow he sensed this fear dated back to the dawn of human history. Ancient. Primitive. Unrelenting. No relief was forthcoming. Finally, he stopped struggling and faced the fact that there was nowhere to go and nothing to do to escape.
At that very moment of surrender and acceptance, he felt a larger consciousness hovering above and to the right of this little body. As soon as he, as the consciousness encased in the little body, merged with the larger awareness, he felt relief. He felt free of the fear and hunger as he began to observe the overwhelming fear of the pain of starving to death. He was no longer threatened. His perspective shifted from being in the fire of fear and hunger to simply being still and watching the fear and hunger from above. He felt peaceful and calm once he, experiencing himself as the consciousness stuffed into the little form of flesh, merged with the spacious awareness of this transcendent consciousness.
The spaciousness of this awareness was both within and beyond the boundaries of the little body. He stopped identifying with the little body feeling fear and hunger. Minutes passed. Eventually, the gnawing pain of hunger abated, as if absorbed by this larger and calmer consciousness.
* * *
Who are these two seemingly separate sets of consciousness who first appeared as one like a shooting star? The smaller one is the soul (mind, will, and emotions) who arrived in a body at 10:12 p.m. on September 3, 1947 and was named Stephen Royal Jackson shortly after emerging from his mother’s womb. I, the narrator of this book, am the more expansive consciousness who is not limited to the confines of his body. i am Stephen’s spirit—the transcendent portion of his soul. I have always been there by his side like a guardian angel watching over him, the embodied soul.
Only after donning the soul suit or corporeal costume of the body does the soul stop being an androgynous “it” (a balanced unity of male and female) and experience itself as a separate consciousness embodied as a him or her. Soul begins to identify with the body and forgets about its connection to spirit.
One day, Stephen came across the word sidereal (pronounced sigh-dear-real). Sidereal is defined as “of or pertaining to the stars.” After that, he has referred to me, his spirit, as the radiant star of his divine sidereal self. He considers me his spiritual compass, his personal Polaris (North Star) guiding him through the dark nights of the soul caused by the inner and outer storms of life.
At the same time that I hover by his body to guide him, i am also deeply within his body as his innermost heart. To the embodied soul it is a great mystery and paradox how my awareness exists both inside and outside the body. I hear his thoughts and feel what he feels in his body: emotions, desires, sensations, etcetera. My essence is that of a caring, compassionate, and comforting consciousness. I cushion the blows delivered by life. His experience in the womb helped him see that he had a choice in times of stress: be still and identify with me, his spirit, or remain stressed and frantic by identifying with his body.
• Today, take some slow, deep breaths and see if you can get in touch with the calm, larger consciousness that is the transcendent portion of your soul. [The above is taken from The Space Between Stars www.drsrj.com]
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Baby Boomer Reflections on the Power of Words
I suppose I am succumbing to the siren’s call of linear logic lulling me to begin at the beginning. I want to share with you the origin of my first thoughts of how words do indeed become flesh.
I feel compelled to take you back to a much earlier time: a time before most of us were born. It is in reflecting back on this time that we can begin to understand the power and influence that words wield in our lives.
The year is 1945. World War II is finally over. It is a tumultuous time . . . the world is emerging from the fog of war. . . . Words of dictators have become the flesh of death and devastation.
With parched lips longing for water to quench his thirst, Coleridge’s ancient mariner cried out: “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!” Like the suffering seafarer, David Hart, the man who would become my mentor and analyst, and other American soldiers serving in WWII, experienced an unquenchable longing. From 1941-1945, words delivered by dictators echoed everywhere in the din of war, but, until September 1945, there were no words of peace to soothe David Hart’s thirst for home. Nor were there any words to help him and others make sense of the senseless slaughter of so many. Words of war had become flesh.
By 1945 the youthful flesh of so many soldiers and civilians from different lands was now strewn like crushed violets over the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific. My grandmother used to say, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet gives off to the heel that crushes it.” It would be a long time, if ever, that anyone would forgive those who had brought this war upon our world.
Among those returning home were my father, my Uncle Vinnie, and my Uncle Hank. My father was left with a permanent back injury when his plane was shot down and crashed in the Coral Sea. My Uncle Vinnie marched to Berlin for Hitler’s final stand. My Uncle Hank survived the sinking of the aircraft carrier he was on by a German submarine near the Canary Islands.
Benjamin Disraeli once said, “With words we rule men.” Adolph Hitler’s war-waging words had whipped the German people into a frenzy. A whole generation of Germans had harbored in their hearts the highly-charged words of revenge. They were angry at the humiliating treaty following the First World War. The German people had had their noses rubbed in the dirt by the punitive terms set forth in the treaty.
As I was to discover in my training as a psychologist, Hitler appealed to the repressed narcissistic rage of his generation of Germans. Angry and humiliated parents had reared a whole generation of angry and humiliated children who were now adults devouring Adolph’s words.
I would later learn how Hitler had played out the buried rage of his childhood on the world stage. In reading the various works of Alice Miller, I learned that Hitler was brutally beaten, tormented, and humiliated every day of his early life by his half-Jewish father.
However, as any abused child, Hitler was forced to deny his suffering at the hands of his father. Instead of being able to acknowledge his justified anger at his abusive, dictatorial father, Hitler identified with his father and grew up to be just like him.
Eventually, Hitler’s repressed rage at his half-Jewish father was directed at all Jewish people. His words became the flesh of brutality inflicted on innocent victims. Victimized Adolph became victimizing Adolph. His words awaken the anger of a whole generation of other adults who were themselves beaten as part of their upbringing. But Hitler was not the only dictator driven by words of rage and revenge hidden in his heart.
Strutting like a peacock but with the body of a gorilla, Benito Mussolini jutted out his jaw and pounded his bare chest. Then he’d stand on stage with his arms folded. Mussolini’s inflammatory words of war attempted to spur the Italians into action. Like Hitler, Mussolini had a troubled childhood. Biographers describe him as a rebel and a bully when he was a child: he was expelled from school for stabbing another student and throwing an ink pot at a teacher.
After the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, F.D.R. galvanized us into rallying ‘round the flag with his words of patriotism. Churchill’s words saved Britain’s spirit. Words broadcast by the seductive and sultry voice of Tokyo Rose tried to demoralize American soldiers serving in the Pacific.
Then, on the second day of September 1945, words of relief were broadcast over radios all over the world. “The war is over in the Pacific!” World War II had ended. The war in Europe had ended four months earlier on the eighth day of May. Triumph and tragedy. The war was over but so many had died or were left disabled.
• Today, just consider the power of your words. Words of kindness or anger leave their mark.
I feel compelled to take you back to a much earlier time: a time before most of us were born. It is in reflecting back on this time that we can begin to understand the power and influence that words wield in our lives.
The year is 1945. World War II is finally over. It is a tumultuous time . . . the world is emerging from the fog of war. . . . Words of dictators have become the flesh of death and devastation.
With parched lips longing for water to quench his thirst, Coleridge’s ancient mariner cried out: “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!” Like the suffering seafarer, David Hart, the man who would become my mentor and analyst, and other American soldiers serving in WWII, experienced an unquenchable longing. From 1941-1945, words delivered by dictators echoed everywhere in the din of war, but, until September 1945, there were no words of peace to soothe David Hart’s thirst for home. Nor were there any words to help him and others make sense of the senseless slaughter of so many. Words of war had become flesh.
By 1945 the youthful flesh of so many soldiers and civilians from different lands was now strewn like crushed violets over the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific. My grandmother used to say, “Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet gives off to the heel that crushes it.” It would be a long time, if ever, that anyone would forgive those who had brought this war upon our world.
Among those returning home were my father, my Uncle Vinnie, and my Uncle Hank. My father was left with a permanent back injury when his plane was shot down and crashed in the Coral Sea. My Uncle Vinnie marched to Berlin for Hitler’s final stand. My Uncle Hank survived the sinking of the aircraft carrier he was on by a German submarine near the Canary Islands.
Benjamin Disraeli once said, “With words we rule men.” Adolph Hitler’s war-waging words had whipped the German people into a frenzy. A whole generation of Germans had harbored in their hearts the highly-charged words of revenge. They were angry at the humiliating treaty following the First World War. The German people had had their noses rubbed in the dirt by the punitive terms set forth in the treaty.
As I was to discover in my training as a psychologist, Hitler appealed to the repressed narcissistic rage of his generation of Germans. Angry and humiliated parents had reared a whole generation of angry and humiliated children who were now adults devouring Adolph’s words.
I would later learn how Hitler had played out the buried rage of his childhood on the world stage. In reading the various works of Alice Miller, I learned that Hitler was brutally beaten, tormented, and humiliated every day of his early life by his half-Jewish father.
However, as any abused child, Hitler was forced to deny his suffering at the hands of his father. Instead of being able to acknowledge his justified anger at his abusive, dictatorial father, Hitler identified with his father and grew up to be just like him.
Eventually, Hitler’s repressed rage at his half-Jewish father was directed at all Jewish people. His words became the flesh of brutality inflicted on innocent victims. Victimized Adolph became victimizing Adolph. His words awaken the anger of a whole generation of other adults who were themselves beaten as part of their upbringing. But Hitler was not the only dictator driven by words of rage and revenge hidden in his heart.
Strutting like a peacock but with the body of a gorilla, Benito Mussolini jutted out his jaw and pounded his bare chest. Then he’d stand on stage with his arms folded. Mussolini’s inflammatory words of war attempted to spur the Italians into action. Like Hitler, Mussolini had a troubled childhood. Biographers describe him as a rebel and a bully when he was a child: he was expelled from school for stabbing another student and throwing an ink pot at a teacher.
After the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, F.D.R. galvanized us into rallying ‘round the flag with his words of patriotism. Churchill’s words saved Britain’s spirit. Words broadcast by the seductive and sultry voice of Tokyo Rose tried to demoralize American soldiers serving in the Pacific.
Then, on the second day of September 1945, words of relief were broadcast over radios all over the world. “The war is over in the Pacific!” World War II had ended. The war in Europe had ended four months earlier on the eighth day of May. Triumph and tragedy. The war was over but so many had died or were left disabled.
• Today, just consider the power of your words. Words of kindness or anger leave their mark.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Light of the Seasons
Something about the pale winter sun has always stirred within me a strange, sweet melancholy. But why? Perhaps it’s because the winter sun shining in the late-afternoon sky reminds me of the wan, round and paper-thin communion wafer with its bittersweet associations with Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. The snow had stopped and my reflections returned to a quaint little art gallery in Woodstock, Vermont. Four particular paintings fascinated me with their subtle contrast of the way the light of the sun changes with each season.\
Each painting was of the same scene. A cluster of evergreens. The only difference distinguishing the paintings from one another was the quality of the light. Each painting depicted the light of a particular season. This fact was reflected in their titles: Winter Light, Spring Light, Summer Light, and Autumn Light.
I recalled standing there stunned at the subtle differences in each painting. The varying angles and intensities of the seasonal shifts in the sun’s light seasoned each scene of the ever-constant evergreens, so that each one had a distinctive flavor. Spicy spring broth. Savory summer gazpacho. Aromatic autumn bisque. Warm winter stew. Still, why did these paintings, especially Winter Light, move me?
Then it hit me: the light of the inner sun of our soul mirrors the ever-changing sunlight of each passing season. As we journey through the seasons of our soul, the light of our soul changes. The soft light of spring, ever growing in its intensity, comes first. Then comes the harsh blinding light of summer. The harsh light of summer is followed by the softer waning light of autumn. Finally, comes the softest light of all, the pale light of the wan winter wafer.
Just what does this mean for our inner life and the growth of our soul? To me, it means that the young soul begins with a soft gaze toward others. A child can be so innocent and purely loving and accepting and so can the young soul. In summer, our capacity to love is tested. As we are hurt and betrayed, we may become cynical. Our gaze may take on the relentless harshness of the summer sun. We look at things straight on with a clarity that seeks out the flaws of others. We can either burn them with our gaze. Or, in seeing things clearly, can we find it in our heart to be forgiving and accepting? If so, we can move on to develop the more accepting gaze of autumn.
The autumn sun shines equally on all the various colors of the changing leaves. Summer’s green gradually gives way to reds, oranges, yellows, golds, and browns. Likewise, in autumn, our soul can gaze upon all the colors of humanity with an appreciative eye.
Finally, if we are able to move into winter, we can be as accepting as the pale winter sun; it softly shines on the all-embracing snow. Under the glistening white blanket, the seemly and the unseemly—dead leaves and grass, barren branches, the junk in people’s backyards—are equally embraced. No harsh judgment.
The spiritual masters taught me that a soul may not move through all the seasons in one lifetime. That is to say, the level of maturity may not change in one lifetime. It may take the experience of many lifetimes to progress through the four seasons.
A soul may come to earth and remain in the spring. Another soul may remain stuck in the harshness of summer. Still, another may stay stuck on the differences among people and not be able to move on to winter’s realization of the oneness of all life.
My impression is that the goal is to progress through all four seasons in one lifetime. And we keep coming back until we finally go through all four seasons. This time, with the masters’ help, I feel blessed. For without their patience with my stumbling and bumbling efforts to learn how to love, I wouldn’t be taking my first steps on the snow-covered paths of the winter of my soul.
• Today, remember, as stress strikes, we may shift from the light of one season to another. However, which light describes the predominant gaze you direct towerd yourself and others. I will be blog-absent until July 16th. Happy Fourth of July!
Each painting was of the same scene. A cluster of evergreens. The only difference distinguishing the paintings from one another was the quality of the light. Each painting depicted the light of a particular season. This fact was reflected in their titles: Winter Light, Spring Light, Summer Light, and Autumn Light.
I recalled standing there stunned at the subtle differences in each painting. The varying angles and intensities of the seasonal shifts in the sun’s light seasoned each scene of the ever-constant evergreens, so that each one had a distinctive flavor. Spicy spring broth. Savory summer gazpacho. Aromatic autumn bisque. Warm winter stew. Still, why did these paintings, especially Winter Light, move me?
Then it hit me: the light of the inner sun of our soul mirrors the ever-changing sunlight of each passing season. As we journey through the seasons of our soul, the light of our soul changes. The soft light of spring, ever growing in its intensity, comes first. Then comes the harsh blinding light of summer. The harsh light of summer is followed by the softer waning light of autumn. Finally, comes the softest light of all, the pale light of the wan winter wafer.
Just what does this mean for our inner life and the growth of our soul? To me, it means that the young soul begins with a soft gaze toward others. A child can be so innocent and purely loving and accepting and so can the young soul. In summer, our capacity to love is tested. As we are hurt and betrayed, we may become cynical. Our gaze may take on the relentless harshness of the summer sun. We look at things straight on with a clarity that seeks out the flaws of others. We can either burn them with our gaze. Or, in seeing things clearly, can we find it in our heart to be forgiving and accepting? If so, we can move on to develop the more accepting gaze of autumn.
The autumn sun shines equally on all the various colors of the changing leaves. Summer’s green gradually gives way to reds, oranges, yellows, golds, and browns. Likewise, in autumn, our soul can gaze upon all the colors of humanity with an appreciative eye.
Finally, if we are able to move into winter, we can be as accepting as the pale winter sun; it softly shines on the all-embracing snow. Under the glistening white blanket, the seemly and the unseemly—dead leaves and grass, barren branches, the junk in people’s backyards—are equally embraced. No harsh judgment.
The spiritual masters taught me that a soul may not move through all the seasons in one lifetime. That is to say, the level of maturity may not change in one lifetime. It may take the experience of many lifetimes to progress through the four seasons.
A soul may come to earth and remain in the spring. Another soul may remain stuck in the harshness of summer. Still, another may stay stuck on the differences among people and not be able to move on to winter’s realization of the oneness of all life.
My impression is that the goal is to progress through all four seasons in one lifetime. And we keep coming back until we finally go through all four seasons. This time, with the masters’ help, I feel blessed. For without their patience with my stumbling and bumbling efforts to learn how to love, I wouldn’t be taking my first steps on the snow-covered paths of the winter of my soul.
• Today, remember, as stress strikes, we may shift from the light of one season to another. However, which light describes the predominant gaze you direct towerd yourself and others. I will be blog-absent until July 16th. Happy Fourth of July!
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