Continuing this week’s theme of exploring mindful communication, and as an emerging life mapping tool, today I’d like to explore and invite a review of how mentors, Masters, family and friends have helped us learn important Life Lessons. I invite you to do this for your own life history. As we’ve also been a mentor, a teacher, family and friend in turn, we can also reflect some on lessons others may have gained from their conversations with us. Of course, it is always reciprocal.
I believe in synchronicity. Every relation opens a unique window on another’s world. Every Lesson is a stepping stone along our individual spiritual Quests. When I reflect about the gifts I have received from Mentors and Friends, I find their gifts of insight and understanding have often come through what I have been looking at this week as “alchemical conversation”. By this I mean a kind of conversation that may start as mundane or ordinary, but develops to a level of profound sharing. You walk into your mentor’s space with a question, or your friend asks how you are feeling that day. What follows in your conversation probes a topic deeply, wending like a spiral to deeper and deeper and then higher and higher levels of insight or empathetic understanding. Time seems to disappear. Space may seem to expand within the bubble that frames you and your mentor or friend. At some point you, together with your friend, achieve an epiphany, a realization of clarity that goes further than your original question. This is the Gold forged from the refined lead of shared experience.
I’ll share a brief summary from my own review:
Early Childhood (7-12): Karen/ Friend
Life Lessons: Sharing imaginary playworlds, creativity unfolds in tandem with unlimited potential. Be flexible, listen, share. Friendship is Golden.
Teen Years (13-18): Barbara, Friend
Art holds many answers and opens mysteries; it exposes elements of the Inner as well as the Outer. Adventure and Freedom require self-responsibility. Friendship is Golden.
High School: Mr. S/ English Teacher
Teaching requires humility; if a student 30 years later acts on something you helped him learn, without remembering who he learned it from, being a teacher matters and is worthwhile.
Late Teen Years, College and beyond: Diane/ Mentor and Friend
Everything is possible. Hone your talents to realize your potentials. Never lose the Innocence of being a Seeker of Truth. Friendship is eternally Golden.
Undergrad College years (Buffalo, NY, 18-22): Toni P./ Mentor
Be amazed by the depths of Life; “Bathe in the Ocean, daily.”
College Fencing Coach and teammate/Friend, Ro (19-22)
Teamwork and individual practice allow your abilities to shine. Reach for a Star! Explore life deeply.
Late college through Grad School years, and beyond
Zee (Master): Explore other dimensions, practice dreamwork and contemplation. Find your own answers inwardly; surrender Ego.
Betsy (Mentor): Write for others; aim to benefit as well as to learn.
Pattie (Friend): “Drop, Kick!”
Chela/ Ariel (Feline Friends): Unconditional Love remains in the Heart wherever you might travel.
Colorado (38-59)
Zee and Friends: In service is your Reward.
KC/ GM (Partner/ Friend): Love is forever; Release those whose lives call them elsewhere; Unconditional Love.
Luisa (Mentor): Excellence grows from within!
Denise (Friend): There is No Box!
What some others may have gained from associating with me: Acceptance, Trust, Exploration of Ideas, Freedom to be Open, to share and unfold new potentials.
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What really IS Alchemical Conversation? Socratic dialogue is a well-known variety. DIALECTICAL conversation would be another name used, because a dialectical conversation moves from one pole of contrasting principles to the other and achieves a Synthesis which is greater than either polarity. Archetypal dialogue, which I employ with the Life Maps Process, can also facilitate Better Endings. But now I like the idea of Alchemical Conversation, which has just come through for me via the blog posts and responses this week! What I am trying to refer you to are those sorts of connections which engage you so deeply that you reach beyond where you have been, reciprocally in conversation, or it could also result from reading, listening deeply to music, immersing in Art, playing with a pet, or “taking in” the beauty of a landscape! I would never be where I am now in life (and won’t otherwise get to where I’m yet aiming to arrive!) except for these sorts of engagement. I was fortunate from a young age to connect Soul-to-Soul with Friends who have opened Doors for me that have led to unlimited exploration! You, too? Let’s celebrate our Connections then!
I invite your Comments and Stories!
Also, I have added a new Link to “Panic Yesterday“, certainly a concept akin to Better Endings! IN fact, I invite you to check out all of the Blog and web sites I have linked this site to (right panel). We are all so very interconnected in the Dialectic of Living! 🙂
Better Endings 