To the ego it sometimes feels crucial that we get the facts right, possess the “correct” interpretation — especially the religious one — and reject the “wrong” one. But to the soul, these details are beside the point. To your soul and mine, this story is a celebration of the sacred miracle of life, and all three interpretations are equally true.
Whether personal or collective, rituals help transform individual souls and bring them into proper relationship with One Soul. In Turner’s words, “…ritual space and activity are sacred in the sense of representing the possibility of self-transformation.
Here’s a spiritual truth I’ve learned through personal experience. Without self-knowledge, all the offerings of organized religion — group worship, teachings, scriptures, retreats, sacraments, guidance from helpful religious professionals — and all the correct beliefs, good intentions and divine interventions we can experience are not enough to transform us into spiritually mature beings. Why? Because there is no such thing as spiritual maturity without psychological awareness!
Have you ever felt like more than one person? I’m not talking about a psychotic split, but about how we can feel and behave differently
I don’t usually talk or write much about sex. Yet I feel compelled to share this disturbing dream.
Dream #4518: The Suspicious Little Girl: I’m staying at a house with other people. A noise wakes me up at night. Someone is opening the door. An eleven-year-old girl is sleeping beside me. Fearing a man is sneaking in to kidnap her, I wrap my arms protectively around her.
Earlier this month on March 10, my darling child, Matrignosis, turned four years old. As it has been with my human children, so it has been with Matrignosis in many ways: Pouring my passion into her and learning more about myself as she’s grown has been one of the greatest privileges and pleasures of my life. Indeed, the overwhelming maternal feelings I have for her and what she’s taught me are reflected in her name: matri (Lat. Mother), and gnosis (Gk. knowledge).
As Joseph Campbell says in Pathways to Bliss, the feminine is the source of the energy and the masculine is its specification in any particular direction. She is the sea of energy out of which creation arises, he is every visible manifestation of that energy. She is the whole; he is a part.
Yesterday I met with my writer’s group, The Purple Pros, at the Barnes and Noble Café. As is our custom in this group which has met for over twenty years, one of us brings a meditative reading; another brings a topic we write about for five minutes. Despite the fact that these activities are randomly chosen, their themes are almost always remarkably similar, if not identical.
With my 1989 discovery of Jungian psychology and the healing value of dreamwork, I started paying attention to images and symbols that felt important. Over the next five years of intense study I recorded and worked on hundreds of dreams and wrote two books. Both featured meaningful symbols that were helping me make sense of my life.
Here’s one of the most important things I’ve learned about relationships: If we do not understand our worth and respect our right to be different, our relationships will be seriously impaired because others will not understand our worth or respect us either. But if we accept the natural entitlement that belongs to every soul, and if we can learn to trust our soul’s processes enough to stand firm in the face of misunderstanding and opposition, we can more easily bridge the divide between ourselves and others.
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