Oneness and multiplicity

While it is valid to speak about our oneness with all of life, we are also separate, each with our own sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and ways of approaching the mystery. True connectedness is not synonymous with fusion and unity is not more sacred than multiplicity; each are equal manifestations of love as it emerges here. To dissolve the differences into some homogenized spiritual middle does not honor the sacredness of form or the wildness of an individuated human heart.

While those of us drawn to the spiritual may naturally have a bias for union over separation, the beloved does not seem to share this preference and is ready at all times to arrange either archetypal emanation in our lives in order to reveal her (his) nature within the world of time and space and to reveal the next invitation.

If we do not consciously attend to the reality of our separateness, it will inevitably express itself in less than conscious ways as we unleash unmetabolized shadow into the relational field. If we lose contact with this in relationship with our friends and lovers, we will locate this loss and its attendant longing and dissociated feeling outside us, placing a heavy burden on our dear fellow travelers which they are unable to carry for us.

May we be kind to our partners and friends as we navigate this territory together, honoring the vehicle of relationship as one of the most transformative, sacred, and challenging that we have in our modern world. To play, dream, grieve, and explore together in that unfused middle, where we are utterly connected and simultaneously separate, where we can dance alone and together in the unfolding unknown with curiosity, compassion, and grace.

Photo by Peggy Choucair

My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

The next event is The Healing Shame Retreat: Spiritual Awakening and Transforming the Core Wound of Unworthiness, April 24-29, 2019 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with co-facilitator Jeff Foster

Already held

In those moments when we are held, our nervous systems down-regulate, our minds soften, our hearts open, and we come into an ancient sort of rest. That rest that we've been longing for in a lifetime that always seemed just out of reach. The rest from becoming.

While our true nature as open, luminous awareness is the ultimate holding environment, as tender human beings we are wired to rest within a relational matrix. To enter into this field with another – weaved of the alchemical substances of presence and of space – is one of the great mysteries of the embodied world.

Held by another, held within by our own hearts, or held by a star - despite the pain and confusion and hopelessness and doubt - somehow we are already held. It's not something we must earn or deserve or frantically search for.

Held by the morning light as it comes into a room, by the song of the birds, by the imaginal world. Somehow. Already held.

Photo by RitaE/ Deutschland via Pixabay

My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

The next event is The Healing Shame Retreat: Spiritual Awakening and Transforming the Core Wound of Unworthiness, April 24-29, 2019 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with co-facilitator Jeff Foster

An unfolding partner

In my experience, grief is not something we “get over” by following pre-prescribed stages, but something we may be asked to tend to throughout our lives. It is very individual and takes a unique expression for each person.

The timeline for this voyage is not given by the psychiatric community, nor by insurance panels or teachers of spirituality, but written in the stars. To pathologize the experience of grief is a work against nature.

The grieving process may not have an endpoint, a goal line, or state of completion in which we come to some final resolution, where we “finish” and land in some untouchable place, free from falling apart and breaking into pieces yet again.

While some forms of spirituality and healing have this fantasied end state as a targeted objective, the heart is endless and grief may be a companion for the duration of a life.

For me it is not so much a process as a non-linear, unfolding partner. It moves not by way of straight line, but by that of circle and spiral.

Art by Hans Braxmeier

My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 

The next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come

The next event is The Healing Shame Retreat: Spiritual Awakening and Transforming the Core Wound of Unworthiness, April 24-29, 2019 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado, with co-facilitator Jeff Foster