Soul Sanctuary.

.... One day when I don't live in this physical place anymore, I'll miss this spot in my living room the most. 

Because I have made this space sacred with my own intention, 
and then delighted myself by spending countless hours alone here. 

It's been right here that I've slowly learned how to listen to my whole Being most carefully. 

And from within that silent observation, I've discovered this new kind of intimacy:

Conversation with my own soul. 

Learning how to meet myself in this way feels like coming Home.

As if I could find a feeling of family reunion inside my own body.

Or rest inward towards my own exquisitely tender embrace.

I now wish everyone could find a way to get this close to themselves -- or hopefully, even closer.

Because I know there is even more than this too.

Namaste,
Whitney 

Love

"Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything, including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen; we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions, to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.  But it isn't like that with love - it arrives, moves in, and starts directing everything.  Only very strong souls allow themselves to be swept along."

-- Paulo Coelho

Creation According to Eve? (Humor me).

Somewhat paradoxically, my movement away an over-identification with church dogma began during a course on the Old Testament at a Baptist university in Texas. Like any good overview class should, we started with the creation narratives (there are two!) in the book for Genesis. To my utter amazement, the ordained Baptist minister that was teaching my class let us in on this little secret: one of the two creation stories suggests literarily (not literally, but literar(y)-ily) that Eve is the apex of creation! Essentially, the literary movement of the story tells us that God ordered "His" creations to be increasingly more complex throughout the course of those seven days; the cherry on top being woman (Eve).

That struck me as supremely confusing at the time, as I didn't know how to reconcile this with the rest of the things I'd been taught through my religious education so far. Consequently, it took years and years of letting that gem of knowledge marinate in my mind until it eventually collided with the teachings of other spiritual wisdom traditions for me to start making some new assumptions.

But, let's get back to the juicy tale here! If Eve is really the apex of creation, why then did God say all that nonsense about giving Adam a "helper" (insert mental image of woman in an apron without the right to vote) when he created her? Well, turns out: God called Eve a "helper" using the same language "He" also used to describe "Himself" in the role as "helper". The Hebrew phrase is "ezer kenegdo", and it is only used again throughout the rest of the whole Old Testament to describe the kind of help God offers to mankind.

Eve is starting to seem like less of a disappointment right now, huh? Well, it gets better. In light of this new information let's revisit that infamous "how Eve got tricked by the snake into ruining everything for the rest of us" Garden scene and examine a few of the other symbols we find there.  We can no longer necessarily assume that Eve is somehow dumber than Adam and consequently more likely to get "tricked" by such a wily snake like she's some sort of naive damsel in distress, right?

So, what's the deal with Eve and seemingly spineless exchange with the serpent then? Well, here's a fun fact: a serpent or snake in nearly every other ancient spiritual tradition is often considered a feminine symbol, as it (like a woman) has an intimate, embodied knowledge about the cycles of life, death, and re-birth through it's molting (skin-shedding) process. Menstruating women are also connected to this intimate knowledge of the cycles of life through the shedding of their uterine (endometrial) lining, which is how the two creatures got linked to one another. So curious!

Now if we decide to take a little risk and consider that neither the serpent nor Eve are all bad, what are we to make of this whole business of eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (despite being told not to quite emphatically!)? On a symbolic level, eating from that tree in particular sorta sounds to me like a kind of initiation into a new type of moral consciousness. The kind of consciousness that can separate or distinguish "good" from "bad". I imagine that developmental psychologists might suggest an interesting parallel between the timing of typical menstruation and the various stages of moral development.

But let's leave that aside for a moment, and notice that whatever exciting symbolism may be there, we still need to deal with this business of getting kicked out of the "Garden" after being initiated into "knowing what's up" re: good and evil. Is it just because they broke the rules? And what do we make of the snake's seductive little statement to Eve about how eating the fruit would make her "like God"?

First, let's maybe ask ourselves how it is that knowledge of "Good and Evil" makes a person like God? I have a friend that suggested to me that perhaps knowing about "Good and Evil" is the only way we can really examine our choices and know ourselves. Essentially, consciousness of ourselves is possible when we are able to understand the relationship between "Good and Evil", and then recognize our own power to make informed choices.

Second, let's reflect on why we understand this resulting banishment from the Garden as such a devastating fate for our spiritual ancestors. What is so compelling about the Garden that this makes us feel so convinced that this was an excruciating experience of loss? The symbol of the Garden itself suggests fertility, new life, the womb, the lap of the Mother, the place of fusion with Caregivers, and innocence about our own Responsibility in the world. I imagine that the last time we all felt that kind of unconscious union was probably right before we became conscious of our "separateness" from "mother".

Regardless of whether or not we are projecting our own sense of loss onto their exile, we seem to be able to deeply relate to this anguish and shame that Adam and Eve experience. We think we know that this is a very terrible moment when Adam and Eve begin to feel their "separateness" from God and each other, and try to hide themselves out of shame. They are able to recognize their nakedness (vulnerability) for the first time, seem to have a negative judgment about this, and are consequently alienated from the blissful privilege of unconsciousness that the Garden had allowed them to enjoy up until then.

Yet, this same story also says that God made man and woman in "His" own image, and that "He" saw that this was very good. If we're going to consider everything else literar-ily, we might start to wonder if this story is not just the perfect set up for the most epic Redemption tale of all time.  A real prelude of sorts for what was would happen next (i.e. Jesus Christ: the personification of this Life, Death, And Re-Birth phenomena that seems to make the world go round).

And why did we need Jesus to do this for us? Drumroll, please: I'm inclined to think that it was so that we could have the courage to Remember that the Garden is within us! Jesus' big message was all, "hey guys, you don't need religious folks in fancy robes to stand between you and the Divine in order to mediate that relationship anymore". Maybe some people took him seriously, but mostly, it seems to me that the religious culture in the West has literalized their way right back in the same legalistic "Oh no, we've been kicked out of the Garden and are so ashamed, so let's come up with a bunch of rules and rituals that will help alleviate our guilt and anxiety" system that Jesus made a point to criticize thousands of years ago. I don't like speaking for Jesus, and so I won't. But I personally like to assume that he would be pretty disappointed by the current state of things too.

Speaking of Jesus, rumor has it that he was trying to bring Good News to people! I believe - passionately - that his "Good News" was a message about we can know that place of union (Garden) with God inside of ourselves!  For real.

AND SO IN CONCLUSION(ish), and because I think it's worth considering, I'm boldly saying, "hey people, these stories might be telling us that the Gospel truth sounds like this: turns out, we can choose (in any moment) to leave or return or leave and return again to this place of union with the Divine". Connection, Separation, Re-connection. Life, Death, Re-birth. The trees do it. Our cells do it. Snakes do it. The seasons too. The human heart beat reminds us of this rhythm: contraction, expansion, contraction. Perhaps the sound of the Universe is echoing in our own chests for a reason.

And we get to be conscious of it! What a gift.

This gift of consciousness given from God to the snake, and then from the snake to Eve, and Eve to Adam - might be the kind of gift that empowers us with the exquisite creativity - and very real responsibility - that makes us "like God" in some important way. We too can choose how to use this gift of consciousness: creatively or destructively (for Good or for Evil, so to speak).

As a being that could offer Adam the kind of "help" that God offers to mankind, we might even want to conclude that Eve had good motives for sharing that fruit with him after she had tasted it herself. I think I love her for her conscious courage.

**And by the way, any good parent (Divine or otherwise) knows that if you want to be sure to get your kids to eat something strange and unfamiliar you should try telling them something like "eat anything you want.... except for this one special thing... that's only for grown-ups, which I've willingly placed here unlocked and unguarded".

Nice trick, God.
 
And thank you.... for trusting us enough to let us become conscious of the Mystery.

The initiation was brutal, but the reward is so sweet.

Timely wisdom.

"One of the core competencies of being human is that we are the only corner of creation that can refuse to be ourselves. The mountain is just the mountain, the cloud is just the cloud, and the tree is just the tree. That's why the natural world seems to be so nourishing to us - because we get an intonation of what it might be like just to be ourselves". 

-- David Whyte

All Relationships Are Sacred

"All relationships are sacred", I said to my friend the other day.  When he asked me what I meant by that, I was happy to A) realize that I did truly mean what I had said, and B) that I might actually be able to explain to him exactly why I felt this was true.

I imagine that most of us can accept this notion when our relationships feel inspiring, supportive, and loving.  We know that those types of relationships feel precious to us, and we are typically willing to work very hard to honor and protect them.  Yet, I was also acknowledging - at least in my own life - that even the encounters that have felt quite destructive may be equally valuable experiences, which deserve some strange kind of honoring too.  

Many of my own most destructive experiences in relationships appear  - often retrospectively - to have been calling me to do precisely that:  destroy something in myself that needed destroying.  (Perhaps something in the other needed to be destroyed too -- but I can't speak for them).

For me, however, it's sometimes been my naivete or idealism that needs destroying.  Sometimes it's my passivity.  Or my sense of powerlessness.  Or my arrogance.  Or bitterness.  Or dishonesty.  Or self-protective emotional numbing.  Sometimes I have needed to destroy unconscious patterns of relating to myself or others that I'd learned from equally unconscious role models (not blaming anyone in particular - just noticing that we all seem to sort of cross pollinate one another... for better or worse).  

And painful as it has been at times, I know that all of this has ultimately been for my absolute highest good.  In fact, it's this kind of 'clearing out' that has subsequently created an ever-deepening capacity to experience true satisfaction in my relationships with others too.  

So it seems to me that the opportunity in any relationship (beautiful or painful or both) is to discover whether we're capable of accepting the initiation it's offering us, and allow ourselves to be transformed by the mutual Mystery.

I suppose I would only only add this addendum to my original statement:  I believe that all relationships can be made sacred.   

Stories.

The sage and her student were standing by a pool discussing longing and ambition.

"What do you want more than anything else?" the sage asked.

"To perfect my ability to love all of creation the way I love myself," the young man replied.

At that moment, the sage tackled the student and shoved his head beneath the water. Accustomed to letting his teacher shape the unpredictable contours of his education, he did not resist.

One minute went by. Then another. The student began to struggle and kick. His teacher was strong.

Finally she released her grip and the student surfaced, fighting for breath.

"What did you want more than anything else during these last few minutes?" the sage inquired.

"Nothing else was in my mind except the desire for air," gasped the student.

"Excellent," beamed the sage. "As soon as you are equally single-minded in your desire to perfect your ability to love all of creation the way you love yourself, you will achieve your goal."

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

Pages 1-6 are missing.

     "… Will m[a]tter then be utterly [destr]oyed or not?"
     The Savior replied, "Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other. They will dissolve again into their own proper root. For the nature of matter is dissolved into what belongs to its nature. Anyone with two ears able to hear should listen!"
     Then Peter said to him, "You have been explaining every topic to us; tell us one other thing. What is the sin of the world?"
     The Savior replied, "There is no such thing as sin; rather you yourselves are what produces sin when you act in accordance with the nature of adultery, which is called 'sin.' For this reason, the Good came among you, pursuing (the good) which belongs to every nature. It will set it within its root."
     Then he continued. He said, "This is why you get si[c]k and die: because [you love] what de[c]ei[ve]s [you]. [Anyone who] thinks should consider (these matters)!
     "[Ma]tter gav[e bi]rth to a passion which has no Image because it derives from what is contrary to nature. A disturbing confusion then occurred in the whole body. That is why I told you, 'Become content at heart, while also remaining discontent and disobedient; indeed become contented and agreeable (only) in the presence of that other Image of nature.' Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen!"
     When the Blessed One had said these things, he greeted them all. "Peace be with you!" he said. "Acquire my peace within yourselves!
     "Be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying, 'Look over here!' or 'Look over there!' For the child of true Humanity exists within you. Follow it! Those who search for it will find it.
     "Go then, preac[h] the good news about the Realm. [Do] not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it."
After he had said these things, he departed from them.
     But they were distressed and wept greatly. "How are we going to go out to the rest of the world to announce the good news about the Realm of the child of true Humanity?" they said. "If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?"
     Then Mary stood up. She greeted them all, addressing her brothers and sisters, "Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and will shelter you. Rather we should praise his greatness, for he has prepared us and made us true Human beings."
      When Mary had said these things, she turned their heart [to]ward the Good, and they began to deba[t]e about the wor[d]s of [the Savior].
     Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don't because we haven't heard them."
     Mary responded, "I will teach you about what is hidden from you." And she began to speak these words to them.
     She said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.'
He answered me, 'How wonderful you are for not wavering at seeing me! For where the mind is, there is the treasure.'
     I said to him, 'So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it <with> the soul <or> with the spirit?'
     The Savior answered, 'A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. 'Rather the mind, which exists between these two, sees the vision an[d] that is w[hat … ]'

(Pages 11-14 are missing.)

     " '… it.'
     "And Desire said, 'I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?'
     "The soul answered, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You (mis)took the garment (I wore) for my (true) self. And you did not recognize me.'
     "After it had said these things, it left rejoicing greatly.
     "Again, it came to the third Power, which is called 'Ignorance.' [It] examined the soul closely, saying, 'Where are you going? You are bound by wickedness. Indeed you are bound! Do not judge!'
     "And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgement? I have been bound, but I have not bound (anything). They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.'
     "When the soul had brought the third Power to naught, it went upward and saw the fourth Power. It had seven forms. The first form is darkness; the second is desire; the third is ignorance; the fourth is zeal for death; the fifth is the realm of the flesh; the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the flesh; the seventh is the wisdom of the wrathful person. These are the seven Powers of Wrath.
     "They interrogated the soul, 'Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?'
     "The soul replied, saying, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died. In a [wor]ld, I was set loose from a world [an]d in a type, from a type which is above, and (from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on, for the time of the due season of the aeon, I will receive rest i[n] silence.' "
     After Mary had said these things, she was silent, since it was up to this point that the Savior had spoken to her.
     Andrew responded, addressing the brothers and sisters, "Say what you will about the things she has said, but I do not believe that the S[a]vior said these things, f[or] indeed these teachings are strange ideas."
     Peter responded, bringing up similar concerns. He questioned them about the Savior: "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
     Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
     "Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
     After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.

Lord's Prayer

O Cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration.
Soften the ground of our being and carve out
a space within us where your presence can abide.
Fill us with your creativity so that we may be
empowered to bear the fruit of (y)our mission.
Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with your desire.
Endow us with your wisdom to produce and
share what each being needs to grow and flourish.
Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us
as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.
Do not let us be seduced by that which would
divert us from our true purpose, but illuminate
the opportunities of the present moment.
For you are the ground and the fruitful vision,
the birth power and fulfillment,
As all is gathered and made whole again.
Amen.

-- Directly translated from the original Aramaic

Everything Is Beautiful

Once in awhile I realize that everything is truly This beautiful.
The pain, the pleasure, the mystery of what will happen next --

My breath catches between heart and throat,
And each moment that touches me leaves me

Changed.
Forever.

Welcome the difficulty when it Insists
On it's own teaching.

Remembering how

To wring out the heaviness
That holds down
The buoyancy of a Heart

Returning

Into Nothingness
Where everything Beautiful
Is True at once.

This is the Way-
In which all that's Becoming
Is allowed to happen

To us now

In order that it might begin
To happen through us too.

Nothing is easy about surrender,
But still --
I will give myself to it when I can.

The Mystery

Looking out, we find ourselves in everything; looking in, we find everything within ourselves.

Don't you think?

Listening.

Loss; whose other side is salvation....

Everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-- Mary Oliver

How To Get What You Want

A very wise woman once told me that you have to create specific receptivity for the things you want to experience in your life.  If you are afraid to tell you the Universe that you want something, it will not necessarily fall into your lap.  Instead, bravery, perseverance and honesty about our deepest longings are rewarded much more often than self-protective indifference.  To illustrate this truth, this same wise woman asked me to think of a moment in my lifetime that felt particularly joyful.  I thought about it and settled on a moment of spiritual significance I had once experienced on a trip to Mexico.

Her follow up questioning sounded something like this:  "Now tell me, did you make yourself available for that joy?  Did you ask for it?  Did you put yourself in its path, and bravely stand there with your naked longing?  Or did you pretend not to need what you received in that moment?"

I think we're often afraid to ask for what we want - let alone acknowledge it to ourselves - because some superstitious part of us believes that we might be setting ourselves up for unbearable disappointment.  Yet, my own short experience on earth tells me that the Universe is not easily moved to collaborate with us when we're defended against her in this sort of passive-aggressive way. Of course, figuring out how to open our hearts towards our own deepest longings takes courage precisely because it means we have to be willing to relate to the most vulnerable parts of ourselves first.

The habitually unexamined self might think we want a certain job, partner, vacation, car, prestige, or positive recognition when really we're after something much deeper like "love, belonging, meaning, safety, healing, significance, or transcendence".  While considering this, I was reminded of the Christian scripture that says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you".  Perhaps we have misunderstood this teaching so often because we've misunderstood ourselves more often.

Namaste, you guys.

"The hallmark of insanity is to know that you are God.  It is absolutely taboo, especially in the Christian religion.  Jesus got crucified for knowing it and the Christians said, "Okay, okay, Jesus was God, but let it stop right there.  Nobody else."  But the Gospel is a revelation to us all of something that the Hindus have known all along, tat tvam asi, you are it!  If Jesus had lived in India, they would have congratulated him for finding out rather than crucified him.  There have been many people in India who knew they were God in disguise.  Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana, Krishna, and the Buddha - they all discovered it, because it is not an exclusive claim that I alone am that, but that you all are, and as I look into your eyes I see the universe looking back at me".  -- Alan Watts

Healing the Ancestral Lines

Recently, I had a beautiful and strange experience called a Tarpana ceremony. Tarpana is an Ayurvedic ritual that combines physical massage with spiritual journeying (or "active imagination") into a timeless, spaceless place in which I was encouraged to have conversations with people (alive and dead) with whom I have established or inherited unhealthy relationship patterns.

The Tarpana ritual turned out to be much more powerful than I expected at first. Combining bodywork with spiritual and psychological sensitivity helped me feel into the places in my body where I was holding onto these attachments. From there, I could then work to release these holding patterns in the psyche and the body simultaneously. I have done many, many kinds of therapy and spiritual healing rituals in my life, but this one in particular brought something unexpected: a new sense of personal responsibility.

Let me explain.  

After the ceremony, I felt myself start to understand - both mentally and viscerally - that my attitudes towards the people in my life (past and present) manifest as inner attitudes towards myself. I could see how all the negative energy I’d been directing towards any of my relationships created the same experience of negativity in my own body! For example: if I was defending against empathy and understanding in a relationship with someone else, I was blocking off the flow of empathy and understanding within my own system. Alternatively, when I allowed empathy and understanding to arise towards this person, those same energies began to flow freely in my body again.

Many intuitive healers talk about the role of psychological or spiritual sickness in the manifestation of physical dis-ease. I saw this very clearly during my Tarpana ritual. It was as if the innate flow of healing energy was being released from behind a dam of my own creation. It became suddenly obvious to me that while the abundance I seek is within my own reach, it is also not freely available if I’m willfully defended against others - alive or dead; present or absent; known or unknown.

As Rumi says, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it".

May all beings Awaken. Namaste.

Creation Stories

"In the Beginning, Nothingness longed for Love.  And so it was made possible: this planet of contrast, where the play of opposites could Become the dance of Love that was longed for at the start".  -- mine

Human Consciousness

“Over three decades of systematic studies of the human consciousness have led me to conclusions that many traditional psychiatrists and psychologists might find implausible if not downright incredible.  I now firmly believe that consciousness is more than an accidental by-product of the neurophysiological and biochemical processes taking place in the human brain.  I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence.  We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.”

-- Stanislav Grof, MD, PhD