Arousing Resonance

Here is a passage Aki shared from James Hollis, a Jungian depth psychologist. He has made some parenthetical additions.

"So as we sort through the rubble of historically charged images (of God, spirit, essence, love, the infinite...) by what standard do we gather them to our heart? It cannot be by their institutional authority alone. It cannot be because our family (or culture or church) or ethnic tradition embraced them. It can only be if they move us, that is set off a resonance within us. If such resonance occurs, the activation of like to like in some hidden harmony, then we know that that image has some meaning for us. No amount of will power or faith can, as such, arouse such resonance for us. When the spirit has departed, we cannot will it back. Though we may not understand why, when the spirit is present, we will be moved."

Reverence For Soul

Aki: I have been reflecting on reverence; of the dawning and nurturing of a reverent place within us. I would like to peer into that sacred space we collectively feel and intuit within; where we re-cognize our souls, where we honor and revere this space as sacred, express the intensity of our devotion to it, celebrate it as our door to the divine. We can touch this space, reflect it to one another, and bring our humility and awe to it. We need no longer project it onto anything or anyone, for nothing in form can carry this projection without breaking under its weight. I have tried, how I have tried. No, it has its own sacred space within each of us - the soul. This is where we can offer our reverence, our humility and respect. We have the moment-to-moment opportunity to live this precious life as an offering, an honoring of soul.

Bringing reverence to our inner soul is an accurate acknowledgement of that which represents our link with Being, our connection with the divine, that which infuses our daily living - from within - with sacredness. It represents that which gives us the enlargement, the expansive transformation we have sought lifelong in the external. It allows us to move beyond the personal, our limited ego-selves, while simultaneously granting us a full and rich engagement with and expression of our humanity. While heaven and earth come together within us, our awareness nonetheless allows us to differentiate between them, between the sacred and the personal, to revere each for their unique beauty and majesty. Our soul connects us with the infinite, and at the same time flows into our temporal human existence bringing recognition of deep relatedness, compassion and love.

I love my dear ones in a human and enduring way. I do not press upon them the sacred projections of my own soul. I do not freight love with demands and expectations to infuse my ego with the divine. I have learned in an experiential way how ego moves "insidiously" to co-opt divinity, wants to contain the sacred - something it simply cannot contain. Ego is insufficient to carry the infinite, sacred energy of Being. Soul is the proper vessel for the sacred, and soul resides, and is found first within. When soul is accurately honored within us, something blossoms in the outer world, and sacredness manifests in our simple and ordinary living. A divine light shines into and through our humanity, warming our lives in an ordinary and earthy, enduring and abiding way.

Meredith: I feel, perhaps I have always felt, there is a sacred space within me. When I listen to you, this place stirs within me.

Aki: Your response represents an accurate perception of the sacred. The recognition of its presence is stimulated by any number of things, people, and experiences in the outer world. But you do not make the innocent mistake of projecting it onto the personal and external, and then seek it in the external. All in the external world of form has the possibility of stimulating, reflecting and stirring the sacred within us. "When I listen to you, this place stirs within me." This is accurate seeing. This is wisdom. You have not projected your soul onto my words or onto me, a human man; you have not projected the sacred onto something external, not located it anywhere but in its rightful place within you. This is beauty. A deep peace reigns within when you see with this consciousness.

Beauty

What was in that candle's light

that opened and consumed me so quickly?



Come back, my friend. The form of our love

is not a created form.

Nothing can help me but that beauty.



There was a dawn I remember when my soul

heard something from your soul.



I drank water from your spring,

and felt the current take me.



---Rumi

Stewardship

On Sunday, our small Friends Meeting worship group discussed stewardship. In our book of Quaker Faith and Practice was this quote on the meaning of stewardship.

To turn all we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives. ~ John Woolman

I've been thinking a lot about stewardship since seeing Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth. This is a powerful film and a potent lesson in the necessity of stewardship. Before Meeting that day, I had watched the news reports of the North East's unseasonably warm January. There were video clips of people playing in Central Park wearing tank tops and shorts. One man, enjoying a game of golf in Chicago, was quoted, "If this is global warming, bring it on."

The same day, my cousin shared this article from the Sierra Club newsletter with me, My Low Carbon Diet. The site includes a Carbon Calculator, among other interesting tips for creating a low carbon life style. Check it out.

About global warming, let's not "bring it on." Instead, let's turn our lives into a channel for universal (and universe) love.

Afternoon Soulfulness

The winter sun is trying to come through ...beans on the stove ...cat asleep on the sofa ...this is the soft music of our lives.