"This book is so amazing. It is clear and yet so deep and for me sings out in the language I want to hear. The introduction was so authentic it made me want to read more." - Helen Newton - Co-author of Soul Symbols
"The author takes you with her on an incredible path to enlightenment with her calm, yet powerful, step by step guide to finding your own connection with the Divine. In reading Helen's book, I experienced the strength of a new and profound writer and her wonderful debut work."
- Wendy Spenceley- Author of Tarradiddle
Nurturing the Soul
~ the inner journey to return home ~
Helen Brown
Published by Helen Brown at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Helen Brown
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Blog: nurturingsoul.wordpress.com
Cover Art: "Fill Presence Open" copyright Melanie Weidner - ListenForJoy.com.
Used with permission.
I wanted to have Melanie’s artwork on the cover, as for me, these three symbols encapsulate the inner journey to discover and nurture the soul within each of us.
The broken cup which is filled and encompassed by the loving compassion of the Divine symbolises self-awareness and humility that leads to being filled. The difficulties and challenges in life can bring this about and lead to an experience of the constant presence of the Divine with us in each moment. The moon symbolises this presence; a light that shines in the darkness.
This learning by experience leads to a flowering in our inner life which transforms our outer life. Then what is truly creative blossoms and flowers at all levels of our existence, as depicted in the third symbol of the opening flower. This cycle of growth continues throughout our life if we so choose.
Acknowledgments: The Snowflake photograph is the property of Bert Reimer
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Contents
Chapter Two: Holism; Soul, Mind and Body
Chapter Three: Energy ~ what makes the world go round?
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I didn’t initially set out to write a book but somehow it came about in its own way. In many ways it is the accumulation of all that has gone before in my life; all the life changing experiences both rewarding and challenging. What I didn’t realise at the time was that writing a book would come out of my inner searching and need to learn new things.
My spiritual search began from a foundation in the wisdom of the 18th century Swedish mystic and scientist called Emanuel Swedenborg. But for a long period I left that behind as I turned to Jungian psychology and therapy. This training also included the dimension of spiritual healing as an integral part of the whole course. Over the many years of psychotherapy and training I found that it often involved keeping a journal as part and parcel of increasing self-awareness. In looking back I realise that these three threads of psychology, spirituality and healing have been weaving the pattern of my life journey. Recently I have returned to healing again as a trainee Reiki healer, and finding this to be making a profound inner change in me. I wonder if it is only now that I can really engage with healing as a part of my life.
My path has brought me back, in some ways, to where I started, an interest in spirituality and the depths of wisdom to be found in Swedenborg. However there is a vast difference in this return as I have been changed by the journey. Now I understand so much more than before and appreciate how much more I need to understand.
My experiences have taught me that there are many gateways to find and experience spirituality. To be human is to have three aspects; mind, body, and spirit. These three (mind, body and spirit) mirror the three threads that have made up my tapestry of life; psychology, healing and spirituality. Each of these can be an opportunity to experience the Divine in our lives. In using my body to walk a labyrinth, I have experienced journeying towards the centre physically, yet also spiritually. In keeping a journal, I have faced up to the accumulated ‘rubbish’ that blocks my connection with the Divine and imprisons me in isolated ego. In meditation I have found at times, a peace that wells up from the centre of my being.
All these pathways will eventually, if we so chose, lead us to what is innermost, the soul, where we experience life at it’s fullest with joy and peace.
It is often inexpressible, but no less real because of that. Here beyond the limitation of words we discover a love that has no bounds or limits – it just IS.
My hope is that this book will encourage your own journey towards the soul; that it will inspire and support your spiritual quest. To aid this, at the end of each chapter there is a task you are invited to undertake. My hope is that this will open different avenues which you may have not explored before and which might be beneficial to you.
All of life is a journey of some kind; even the writing of this book has been part of my journey. Perhaps it would be more true to say it has opened up before me and all that has been required of me is to walk and allow it to evolve.
We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot
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That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out into the open,
or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for its entrance.
~ Rabindranath Tagore
I guess if you have ever considered the innermost part of you, your soul, you have wondered what it is like and where it is to be found. Even so, you may have dismissed it and got on with life. Life however often bites back, with situations that shake our comfortable existence. Perhaps at these times in our lives we question what life is about and search for a deeper meaning to our existence.
My first awareness of a deeper part of me began as a teenager. I remember the strange inner churning feeling when first thinking to myself what if I wasn’t me but someone else. It was a really mind boggling idea, and practically impossible to think about. I began to question. Who am I? And what is my life about?
But with the needs of career paths, relationships and a desire to travel and see the world, this soul searching got overlaid with other things. Occasionally some life crisis would bring uncertainty and would strip away my belief in what I had thought would be the solution to my knowing what my life was about. Often I felt a fraud, a paper cut-out of a person, all qualifications and nothing else. The old goals I had had became empty and lifeless; it wasn’t the solution. It wasn’t the answer.
Life with its difficulties began to teach me that it isn’t qualifications that really count, it is life experience and whether you allow it to deepen and mould who you are. Somehow all the courses and training that I had been on gave me something that I wasn’t expecting. Each time I thought this would be the END, the goal. I would have made it! Only to discover that it was leading me on to the next thing that appeared on the horizon. When I look back at all the various courses I’ve been on (and yes I am a professional student) they have all been about a spiritual quest. Each turn of this path has, unknown to me, given further depth and breadth to my life experience. It has moulded and stretched me, taking me to places and experiences I would never have conceived of as a young person. It has involved both pain and joy.
The spiritual quest
In short, the soul-journey resembles very much the sort of adventure one encounters in folklore and myth. According to the archaic view, all men apparently have the chance to become a sort of Odysseus, whether they like it or not.
~ Paul Zweig
Life is a journey, a spiritual quest, to find and search in one’s inner depths for meaning and happiness. I write the word ‘happiness’ with some hesitation, because it is so loaded with expectations. If I believe that my partner can make me happy this is a recipe for disaster. No other person can be the solution in the pursuit of happiness. Nor can material wealth, status, achievement satisfy this longing to be happy. Happiness and peace of mind is often sought in what is superficial and external – things that the outside world values. Like the hero’s quest for the treasure, it starts with a journey that takes one away from home to seek in many places, the tasks or challenges on the way are the learning experiences that are necessary to mould each of us. The idealism of spiritual infancy is transformed into the wisdom of experience as we face the various crises of life. We start out relying on our own resources, thinking we have to do it all ourselves, the ‘treasure’ is the learning that all we depended on is flawed. The loneliness and failure are rooted in our belief that we have to take on this search only by our own efforts. This experience is priceless and teaches us inner awareness and opens up a relationship with the Inner Wise One that dwells in our soul.
Many cultures have folktales and myths concerning the hero’s journey or quest, perhaps one of the most well known is the Greek hero, Odysseus. Odysseus’s journey involved adventures and encounters with such as the Lotus Eaters and the goddess Circe. In both cases the men were bewitched. Circe for example, held Odysseus and his fellow travellers in thrall, until in time they came to their senses again and enlightened were able to escape her clutches. I wonder if likewise we need to be enlightened concerning the illusions that hold us imprisoned and spiritually paralysed. Otherwise we are unable to move on in our spiritual quest.
To awaken from slumber
Our outer level of consciousness is focussed on a horizontal reality; the everyday routines and activities that fill our lives. Often it is all consuming and we get caught up and totally engaged on this level. But there is so much more to us than just this outer layer. There are hidden depths to be discovered.
People down the ages have always searched for meaning in their lives and tried to make sense of the events that happen in the world around them. Some become seekers; seekers after truth, or a force beyond themselves. For some there is a sense that there must be something deeper or more than just the superficial routines of life. Some seek deep within for that elusive, mysterious entity, the soul.
More than ever, there is a deep need in our Western materialistic culture for something of substance. And by substance I do not mean physical substance but rather a spiritual depth that brings in its wake a rootedness and purpose to life. We need to awaken.
Most of the time we spend our life asleep, spiritually unconscious, just going through the motions of living in a very superficial way.
Occasionally we may experience uncomfortable inner stirrings that hint at the prospect of a deeper existence than the one we are presently engaged with. These are little nudges towards a spiritual quest, the awakening and nurturing of our soul.
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Most of the time we spend our life asleep, spiritually unconscious, just going through the motions of living in a very superficial way.
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What is the soul?
The following is how a dictionary defines the word soul:
Soul;
~The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
~The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
~The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
From this we gain a concept of the soul of being the vital essence of a human being that exists beyond death and is not a physical entity but rather one of spirit. Definitions can be limiting at times, particularly with this subject; a definition is like looking at it from the outside.
Soul.
…Sometimes I'd pictured it like a pilot light burning inside a person--a drop of fire from the invisible inferno people called God.
Or a squashy substance, like a piece of clay or dental mould, which collected the sum of a person's experiences--a million indentations of happiness, desperation, fear,
all the small piercings of beauty we've ever known.
~ Sue Monk Kidd
Many artists and writers have endeavoured to express what the soul is for them; you will find quotes in this book from a variety of people from many different eras, cultures and beliefs. If you look on the internet for soul images; once again you will discover a great variety of artist’s expression of what soul is. Some of these may resonant with you and quantify what soul is for you at this present time.
Various sacred texts mention a divine being breathing into the created. The Bible talks of God forming mankind from dust and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. This highlights the concept of each of us being a receiver of life. Perhaps one way of looking at the soul could be as a container into which the Divine is constantly flowing with Love and Wisdom, which we receive uniquely. Mostly, however, we are unconscious of its presence and effects upon us.
Although definitions, literary quotes and artistic impressions of soul is a good place to start, I think that the reality of what the soul is can only come from looking at different individual’s experiences of encountering the soul. For this I turn to the mystics, who down the ages have plumbed the depths of their being and touched what is waiting there to be discovered.
The Mystical Experience
A mystical experience can happen to anyone, whatever culture, belief structure or walk of life. The one essential is an openness to search deep within and in so doing allowing oneself to be changed. It is a direct experience of the spiritual and brings profound insights into what life is really about. If you compare this experience with our usual level of consciousness, which is limited to a horizontal level, it transcends and goes beyond conscious boundaries. Our normal experience of life is like living in a box, limited, but familiar and therefore comfortable. What is mystical is like soaring like a bird, free and connected with all that is living. It is the experience of the boundless love which powers the universe.
There are numerous mystics I could mention, from all sorts of backgrounds. However I will touch on just a few. I hope it will give you a sense of the variety of individuals and how they span the centuries of human endeavour.
One of my favourites is Julian of Norwich. Julian was not an educated woman. In 1373 she suffered a severe illness during which she received a series of deep spiritual insights. She became an anchoress, a woman dedicated to religion, living alone in a cell attached to St Julian’s Church in Norwich. She wrote down her visions as The Revelations of Divine Love. It was the first book known to have been written by a woman in English. Her wonder in the created world is evident, as she delights in the smallest of things – a hazel nut, through which she connects with Love. She experiences this Love as welcoming, inclusive yet expansive and cosmic. For her we are all being enclosed in Love that heals and makes us whole.
He also showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. It was as round as a ball, as it seemed to me. I looked at it with the eyes of my understanding and thought, "What can this be?" My question was answered in general terms in this fashion: "It is everything that is made." …..
"It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it.”
~ Julian of Norwich
The second mystic is from a very different background. Emmanuel Swedenborg was an 18th century scientist, a man of stature and intellect, who travelled across Europe. Being a scientist he studied anatomy and physiology, writing on the brain and other scientific subjects. This led him to want to find out where the soul was to be found within the physical body. But he began to have dreams and visions which he recorded in a dream journal, reflecting on their inner meaning. This was a journey of transformation, as he changed from an intellectual to the depth and warmth of a spiritual visionary. For the next 27 years he experienced the spiritual dimension. He describes the joy and delight of opening to spirit. Here he found the oneness of the mystical union with the Divine, a union which is achieved through love alone. His main writing focuses on the hidden or esoteric meaning within the Bible.
This oneness (with the Divine) is that mystical union ….
a union which is achieved through love alone.
~ Emanuel Swedenborg
The third mystic is from the present day. Caroline Myss, writer and spiritual lecturer, when researching the subject of people’s generosity and service to others had a mystical experience. Her research changed into a spiritual retreat and she invited God directly into her life. This brought an experience of absorption into the connection between God and love. She had discovered her soul. She subsequently has written a book on this experience based on the imagery of another medieval mystic Teresa of Avila.
In fact, it felt as if a shaft of light were burning within my soul,
illuminating it, calling me inward.
~ Caroline Myss
These three individuals are very different and yet there is a common thread to their experiences of soul. Soul is transcendent, transforming and exists in Love.
The Beauty within the Ordinary
My own spiritual quest has been about catching glimpses of the extra-ordinary within the everyday moments of life. For it is always present waiting to be discovered and realised in our living. Often it is the smallest of moments that normally I would just rush by without seeing. But when I see with my inner eyes, then I glimpse the eternal and what is the whole of existence. The entire universe is present in that moment. What do I mean by that?
It is the beauty of the sunrise or the tenderness between child and grandmother captured in the photo – it shines forth from within. This beauty of soul is there to be recognised; in these moments we see a reflection as if in a mirror of the Source of all life, the Love that knows no end.
These soul moments enable us to realise that there is much more to life than what our usual consciousness tells us. The values and delights of our limited consciousness are no longer as desirable as they were. There is something deeper, more substantial and satisfying that calls us to awaken on a spiritual level.
It reminds me of the well known fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. The wicked stepmother looks in her mirror asking ‘who is the most beautiful in the world?’ and always the answer was returned ‘you are Beauteous Queen’. But when Sleeping Beauty grows into maturity the answer changed to ‘Sleeping Beauty is the most beautiful in the world’. If Sleeping Beauty and the wicked stepmother are both parts of our psyche, then maybe Sleeping Beauty is symbolic of our soul-self maturing and bringing self awareness. The mirror always tells the truth of the matter and so with self awareness we see that what had been desirable beforehand is empty of real beauty and value. The soul reflects an inner beauty that goes beyond the external desirable appearance of normal consciousness. But remember the actions of the wicked stepmother to destroy Sleeping Beauty – this is symbolic of our ego-self that fears it will be overtaken by the soul-self and so will endeavour to undermine the emerging soul. This theme will emerge again in later chapters.
For most of us this ecstatic experience described by mystics is not a part of our experience, but that does not preclude us from seeking the soul and nurturing its influence in our daily lives. Perhaps this is the meaning of our earthly existence—a spiritual journey in search of our soul.
This search involves looking within oneself, recognising the underlying influences that play out in our inner world. To help this self-reflection it can be useful to keep a journal which is why the task for this chapter is journaling.
Task for Chapter One: Journaling
A journal could also be seen as a container.
A journal is not to be confused with a diary, which is a record of daily events. A journal may include daily details, but focuses on those things that impinge on our consciousness. A journal allows space to develop an objective, observing viewpoint on situations and relationships. It encourages self-reflection, spiritual and psychological honesty. It helps to identify the ‘rubbish’ that we give house room to.
Use the journal to reflect on experiences, including your reactions and feelings. It could include dreams, fantasies, creative ideas and terrible thoughts and feelings that horrify you.
A journal needs to be kept private, as you need freedom to be able to write down anything you wish. So find a notebook and begin.
How to go about journaling
If you are sitting there with your journal in front of you and perhaps don’t know where to begin, here are some suggestions:
You could begin with any thoughts or feelings that have come up in reading this first chapter. A meditation may help; if you want to access my ‘awakening’ meditation then access my blog: nurturingsoul.wordpress.com.
Another starting point is the every day stuff that is going on; an example of this is found in the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, where she suggests the use of what she calls ‘morning pages’ - to do this you just write down what comes into your mind, it could be the most mundane stuff! For example “the neighbours next door left all their rubbish behind: I got another double glazing salesperson on the phone …… It doesn’t matter what it is or whether it makes sense. This sort of writing is what I call ‘housekeeping’ - getting rid of the rubbish that clogs up our minds - to clear a space. Sometimes your journal will be about this sort of thing, but if you keep going gems of insight will present themselves.
The style of your journal is up to you, some people like to include drawings or doodles, pictures cut out of magazines. Others focus on dreams, or poetry. Often my journal has been a creative space which has fueled my work as well as my soul awakening.
Enjoy it.
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Say not, “I have found the path of the soul,”
Say rather, “I have met the soul walking on my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
~ Kahlil Gibran
I am left with two concepts of soul. The first is a deep mystical experience. The second is something beautiful and transcendent that I rarely catch glimpses of. These soul moments seem divorced from my everyday existence, the thoughts in my mind and the routine tasks that form the daily grind. Soul in everyday life does not figure largely in my world, it is forgotten and remains undiscovered.
But I am attracted to the concept of wholeness or holism; there seems to be something unifying, a gathering together of all into one. Holistic seems to be the in-word, perhaps expressing humanity’s need for an alternative to a life that appears to be about a separation or isolation in one’s own personal world. Holism is defined as the bringing together of all parts into a whole. Can there be a way of fitting soul, mind and body into one unit?
Paradox as a spiritual entity
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
~ Mother Teresa
From my interest in Jungian psychology I learnt the value of mentally holding together two seemingly opposed concepts – the paradox. The easy way is to want one concept to be the ‘right’ answer; it’s a whole lot simper that way. I guess this is how we begin teaching our children with concrete ideas of what is right and wrong. But it so easily leads to separation; attitudes of ‘I have the answer’ and ‘I’m right and you are wrong’. I discovered that to hold two opposing concepts allowing them both to be true, enriches, deepens and informs my inner perception of life and relationships. An example of this came up for me recently when I was worrying about facilitating a small group and I became aware that ‘my little worries’ are just a little speck of dust in the great scheme of things. And yet equally so, the act of service or kindness to another person can have far reaching effects, like dropping a pebble in water the ripples go out and effect much more than we realise. Which is true, the smallness of my efforts or the power of an act of kindness? These two are opposed and yet both have validity and knowing that can widen my mental horizons and soften the need to be ‘right’ that surfaces in my mind every so often. This then is paradox and I find it often figures on an inner spiritual level.
How does paradox relate to the concept of soul? Perhaps my soul can be both a container and at the same time pervade all of my being.
A few years ago I trained as an autogenic therapist that involved teaching a self-help course to relieve stress and re-balance the person, increasing their wellbeing. In doing this I took part in a group training session. One of the participants had had serious heart problems and major medical interventions. Autogenic Therapy uses simple phrases that focus your attention on different parts of the body. So when this woman began focusing on the heart, initially the memory of the trauma of the events surfaced. This was an eye opener to me; it was as if the body itself had a memory of past events, imprinted at a cellular level. It taught me the importance of the interface between body, our history of events and our mind. For the first time I took seriously the idea of body, mind and soul being connected in some way.
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
~Irene Claremont de Castillejo
Maybe soul is what is truly alive within me, flowing into all the different parts of me even down to the cellular level. If so then soul is not distant or detached as it reaches down and touches all areas of my existence.
Yet there is a dilemma, as body, mind and soul are very different entities and have different functions. No way can I equate them or believe that they are comprised of the same substance or are part of a continuum, soul melding into the mind ….. No, there are 3 levels of my existence, body, mind and soul.
Body, mind and soul
My body enables me to be active in this world, for instance my fingers are at this precise moment typing in the words on my computer. Without this physical enabling, the words would remain locked inside me. The body receives messages from my brain (don’t ask me how) and then coordinates the body, nerves, muscles etc to do what the brain tells it to. Just scratching my nose involves the coordination of myriads of sensations, nerves, and muscles. The brain organises these actions yet it is not my mind. My mind is something quite other, it thinks, reflects, makes decisions, and daydreams. In my mind I can imagine my childhood in New Zealand, relive the first day at school in a strange country where I knew nobody. I can plan what I want to write, but if I get writer’s block then the flow of ideas and words dry up and I’m left staring at a blank screen.
How do I get over the hump of sitting looking at the screen? Where do I find the motivation?
Well I can get up and go for a walk. This gets me out into the world of nature and allows my conscious mind to be engaged with the physicality of walking and sometimes this frees up a space for new inspiration, thoughts start flowing in. I’m aware this hasn’t come from me thinking things through. No, this I believe has come from the inmost part of me, the soul.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters
compared to what lies within us.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
When this creative realisation happens then all the disparate parts of me are acting as a whole, a unit. This is a holistic experience in my world. The real motivation or energy comes from deep within me, from my soul. If this is not expressed then it just remains a ‘castle in the air’ and so has no reality or life in the physical world. When all three aspects of what is ‘me’ work together in that moment I feel truly at peace with myself.
For a moment let’s consider how important each part of the whole person is. By the way, notice that the number three has surfaced again. In the introduction, I mentioned the three parts of my life experience, spirituality, psychology and healing and now we are focusing on the three aspects of what comprises a human being.
The wisdom of the three
I wonder if each aspect of us has its own ‘wisdom’ and can open up opportunities for us to learn, grow and emerge from being spiritually asleep. This wisdom often highlights the times when our lifestyle is detrimental on some level.
For example my body can stop me in my tracks when my life gets out of balance; when stressed and exhausted I’m much more likely to catch any infection that’s going the rounds. Being ill gives me an opportunity to get off the roundabout of work-home-family routines and allows some TLC for myself.