BOOK LAUNCH! (My Vocation: Live Your Dream, Now!)

Just Released March 6 by Skyhorse Publishing:

Naturally I am thrilled and excited about the release of my book, Your Life Path: Life Mapping Tools to Help You Follow Your Heart and Live Your Dream, Now! It is available from Amazon (including hardback, Kindle and ebook), Barnes & Noble, and Indies; and I see there are now several other suppliers online as well (ISBN-10:1-63144-078-0). This book has been my life passion-in-process for the last 15 plus years, folks. It is the culmination of my entire career as a cognitive/ linguistic and cultural anthropologist yet it is a mainstream self-discovery, personal growth and development book that provides a comprehensive Life Path Mapping process and Toolkit.

I have developed and taught from the fun, creative techniques provided with the book with large scale classes, individual coaching programs, and workshops (which I will continue to offer).  This is a potentially life changing, “rites of process” approach that lets the reader/ life mapper review your Life Story to Now; reflect on where you are at currently in relation to your values, life interests and goals; and then (re)claim, envision, and plan a practical yet energizing pathway to set a course and go (Live Your Dream, Now!).

I really do highly recommend this approach to anyone facing any sort of life decision or transition or who simply wants to discover and reflect upon the amazing potentials of your own Life Story.  I have witnessed many individuals who have achieved transformational insights from life mapping. The very process of reviewing your Life Story AS A STORY to now, with meaningful Shaping Events, Life Themes, Life Chapters bounded by key Turning Points as chapter turners, and an awareness of the parallels of YOUR story with classic myths and popular epics brings the life mapper to an overview Joseph Campbell called being a Dweller at the Threshold, able to look back and also forward.  Then the Life Path Mapping Process guides you to effectively CROSS THE THRESHOLD to truly manifest the vitalizing yet flexible life of your dreams.

As well, with this book’s Tools you will be able to Meet & Greet (truly) your very own “ensemble cast of mythic/archetype characters.” Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you too have an inner unconscious cast of often submerged but always influential “inner” parts of Self that each needs your help to strengthen and to integrate/ come together with your greater Self to help you manifest your highest potentials for this lifetime.

Envisioning and realizing this book as a Personal Growth and Development book and life mapping handbook has been my VOCATION over the past fifteen years. I published a scholarly book (The Life Map as an Implicit Cognitive Structure Underlying Behavior, Mellen Press, 2010) with articles about my research studies that led to the development then of the self-discovery Tools presented for the first time to the general public with Your Life Path. So of course this is very exciting for me but more than that I really do recommend this book highly to any reader!

Your Life Path will be in indy consignment stores around the country and I will be doing signings in several local stores (yay) to try to get the word out. If you know of friends (and yourself of course) who might benefit from a fun and innovative approach to learning more about your Self and how to go forward to live your best life… please check this book out and share this post or the ISBN number with others in your blog or Facebook or email groups. I honestly don’t mean to sound boasting or overly “selling” of anything…that really is not who I am (an introvert in general, and not prone to self promotion). But I do want this book that I have nurtured and developed for so long find Its own deserving audience so others can benefit from the approach I myself have been blessed to pilot every step of the way. It is in fact my own Life Dream coming into full fruition, Now!

images are from pixabay.com

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve Life and thank YOU for reading!

Proclaim Your Inner Idealist !

 

What are your ideals? It’s “open mike” for your Idealist archetype Ally part-of-Self to proclaim your highest ideal values.

I invite you to write or speak a list of IDEALIST statements or affirmations you would love to share. As an example here are some affirmations from my own IDEALIST point of view:

“Never Give Up, yet always give UP (Surrender to Spirit and be willing to Accept ITS bounty)!”

“Aim for the Heavens in all you do; you do not have to “nearly die” to get Here!”

“Trust.”

“Honesty.”

“Faith.”

“Dream, and then ACT on your inner Dream Guidance.”

“Sit still and Do Something!”

“There are no strangers; all are cut from the same cloth.”

Now then, all you need to do is take some ‘time out’ and LISTEN! Allow your own highest Ideals to guide you on your journey, day to day and moment by moment. Your IDEALIST will support you always and will remind you of your own highest nature.

So ask yourself:

“What are My highest Ideals?

How can I allow these ideals to steer Me along a more positive life course?

How can my Ideals lead Me to define My Life Dream and to Live My Dream, Now! ?”

******   ******

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

 

 

 

Integrating the Lone Wolf

Have you had an animal image that recurs with similar themes in your nightly dreams? What might this archetypal animus/anima image say about you?

Recently I have had a wakeup call which has made me aware of such an Animus-Descender image in my nightly as well as waking dreams. The image is that of a Lone Wolf, and my wake-up call (literally after walking into a glass wall a couple weekends ago!) is showing me that I am ready to and need to make a change in my life in relation to my Lone Wolf nature.

The animus figure started appearing a couple of months ago. While waiting with a friend to walk an outdoor labyrinth in a remote, forested area, an unusual, large and scrawny but strong looking hybrid wolf-dog went slowly walking by, closely enough to catch my gaze and eye me as it passed through a clearing. It was similar in “image” to the Wolf in the recent INTO THE WOODS portrayal by Johnny Depp, though not at all threatening or lecherous, just very aware and very solitary. A few mornings ago I had another dream image of a Lone Wolf; this time it was a rather scruffy but healthy looking WHITE with orange blotches, hybrid Wolf-dog, just standing about the same distance from the one I saw in the forest, alone.  Then I realized I have an online banking icon gravatar of a lone German Shepherd…definitely something going on here!

So when I asked for inner guidance after walking into the wall (which impact spread through my forehead over nearly two weeks) about what sort of CHANGE I am being asked to implement, I immediately saw that Lone Wolf image and now I understand intuitively what it’s about.  For the past few years I have embodied a Lone Wolf in certain respects in my life. I have been less social than I used to be; though I am always somewhat an introspective, quiet sort, I used to be somewhat more socially active. This has felt right and necessary while I’ve been working hard on writing and editing a book manuscript. I have needed not to be so influenced by social opinion, so I have stayed more in the background in some circles.  But lately I notice things are changing. I have been receiving unusual invitations to step forward again, to make presentations and join with others in service.

The change, I realize, is that it is time to reintegrate my Lone Wolf nature back into my combined archetypal Ensemble Cast. I feel s/he is ready to return to this inner community of persona characters in a collaborative, unified sort of way. And with this understanding  has come a technique to help reintegrate such a Descender archetype energy–or, any.

Is there an aspect of your nature manifesting in some particular sort of attitude or traits that you have been expressing more than usual lately? What is its nature and how has it been helping–or possibly hindering– you with some dimension of your life? Describe its nature as an archetypal form, like my Lone Wolf image. My Wolf, e.g., is solitary but strong; it forges forward where others might not dare to tread, but it acts as if it needs no-one, especially no human, to accompany It.

Focussing next on the positive qualities of this archetypal persona or animus/anima image, what does it need from the REST of your nature that could help to reintegrate it back into the fold of your Total Self System? For me I see my Wolf can use some Nourishing care, so I have envisioned my NOURISHER archetype stepping forth inwardly to offer food, water and compassion to the Wolf, leading it back more closely to my central Self domain. I also imagine other aspects of my nature: Lover, Mystic and Communicator archetype Allies, welcoming the Lone Wolf back into our common, shared field.  Together we can accomplish more than any of us separated off or alone. I need this Wolf energy to step boldly forth for a next contemplated step toward fully realizing our Life Dream, but it will be better tempered in concert with the rest of this assembly.  Communicator can help express what it is the Wolf perceives; Lover and Mystic recognize the need for timing and service to proceed with the next step of our journey.

images from pixabay.com

I welcome YOUR comments and stories!

Do What You Love, Love What You Do

We are all inherently Lovers as we have the LOVER archetype as one of our universal unconscious potentials. Of course this takes different forms for different persons and changes over time.  Perhaps if we think of each of our primary archetypal energies as having their own life cycles within the overall life course of the Self or Psyche, we can observe how these energies shift form as we develop our personalities or identity over time. For me at 61, my LOVER energies are as strong as ever, but they are focused very differently than earlier in my  life.

Nowadays my LOVER is in love with Life in the largest sense, and with my pets, close family, friends, and more impersonally with colleagues and students, and it drives me forward with my writing toward fruition: publishing and sharing. It keeps me moving forward no matter how long it may take, because I love the process as well as the emerging product and I am grateful for the opportunities available along every step of the Way.

Do You Love What You Do? Is that the same for you as Doing What You Love, or, not? 

How can you transition from loving what you do to truly and completely DOING WHAT YOU LOVE? What would that look like for you? How might you enhance even what you presently love doing in order for your life to manifest core values and ideals that you associate with your LIFE DREAM, right NOW?

I encourage you to take some time out to consider this question. Daydream about DOING WHAT YOU LOVE. Journal about it; actively contemplate and envision your Dream Come True. You can ask your LOVER archetype in active imagination to help you visualize and imagine deeply DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, Full Throttle. Then consider, is there anything you can be doing Now to help you merge these two dimensions of loving what you do/ doing what you love, more fully?

I welcome your insights and stories!

Make One Change, with Love

Is your life absolutely perfect right now, or are there maybe one or more conditions in your life presently that you hope will be improved upon in your future?

Here’s a thought: Make One Change Now, with Love! This banks on the principle that “With love, all things are possible!”  Taken with a grain of salt, we could change that to, “All things can be improved upon through love.”  Not all things can be changed absolutely; some we must simply endure, but even these we can improve our relationship to, improving our growth factor, through a positive attitude and a loving heart.

So take some situation that is problematic for you at the current time. A simple creative visualization technique you can use is to bring a loving focus to that situation inwardly. Turn it over in your mind’s eye gently, exploring the situation from many angles. Focus on the situation with a loving perspective. What one or more aspects of this situation CAN you improve upon? Maybe it involves honest communication, with yourself or someone else. Maybe you can make an improvement by changing the manner in which you have typically approached it. Decide to make a positive change in this one aspect of the troubling situation, then do that!

If you are unsatisfied with any aspect of your life, you have the capacity to make changes—from small to large—that will improve that situation. With LOVE, all things are possible!

A few days ago a friend, Kery, posted the passage below from Corinthians 13 in a Facebook post that she titled: “Love is Indispensable”. I repeat it for you here below:
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but I do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
 
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in parts disappears.”

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as on a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

(Corinthians 13) 

(All pictures in this post are from Pixabay.com)

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

Happily Ever After

 

What do we so love about classic love stories? We call true love of a romantic sort ‘kismet’; two wandering souls find in each other a magical congruence or mysterium coniunctionum that lifts each of them to greater at-One-ment not only with one another but within their unified Selves or however the story defines the enhanced quality of these ‘charmed’ lovers being able to Live Their Dream, Now! (i.e. to “live happily, ever after”).

Mythology and literature, drama and film and poetry—all artistic forms of expression—are replete with the image of predestined lovers finding each other and in the process, finding or completing their Selves.

Many of the great love stories bring major change into the lovers’ lives. They thought they would “settle,” but no, the Universe has another plan for them. They stumble upon each other as a form of serendipity and as if it is unavoidable, they take notice and take the plunge! “Happily Ever After” awaits—so we are told anyway—just around the bend.

Let’s review some modern love stories from cinema:

Casablanca

Here Bogart as Rick Blain sacrifices his own feelings of devotion to Ilsa, an old love, for the better, higher interests of all concerned. His heart changes as a result; he drops remorse for his earlier loss and attains a higher perspective.

An Affair to Remember

Here Deborah Kerr (as Terry McKay) finds her one true if unlikely love while on an ocean cruise, just before each of them is scheduled to marry the fiancees awaiting their return. Both are willing to make sacrifices in order to ultimately be together. Cary Grant (as Nick Ferrante) renounces his inheritance to earn a living through his art—forging a more authentic Self in the process—while Terry almost sacrifices the love affair altogether after suffering an accident that paralyzes her. She wants to be whole and able to carry her own part if she is to deserve to marry Nick. But Kismet has its way, weaving a pathway by which these predestined lovers are able to unite in the End.

Sleepless in Seattle/ You’ve Got Mail

Nora Ephron produced a pair of similar contemporary tales of Kismet, even casting the same two lover-actors with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Sleepless in Seattle alludes back to An Affair to Remember, having the lovers eventually connect, as based on that film, at the top of the Empire State building, achieving an apex of higher connection. With You’ve Got Mail the star-crossed lovers meet online as well as outwardly, needing to each transcend their Pride (Joe Fox) and Prejudice (Kathleen Kelly)—yes, based on that Jane Austen allusion—before they can earn their own balanced love that will suit them from then forth, “happily ever after.”

In all three of these ‘classic’ films, Love does more than simply triumph by bringing appropriate partners together into longterm romantic relationships. It cancels the inappropriate, immature relations they had been settling for or holding onto in memory while preparing each lover to gain self-realization so that their ultimate, true marriage can ring true and benefit the Whole of their families and worlds.

Do you have a tale of kismet to share? I welcome your insights and stories!

Live Your Dream, Now!

“Live Your Dream, Now!” is the  credo for the personal development handbook Your Life Path, which I currently am waiting for my agent to begin circulating after she attends to a major “launch” and probably some other projects.  Your Life Path will provide a complete, three stage rites of passage process for which you will be able to use life mapping and other creative self-discovery tools to uncover patterns and archetypal influences in your own Life Story that have been helping or hindering you from actively claiming and fulfilling your Life Mission and, yes, Living Your Dream, Now.

Living your dream NOW means that after you claim or excavate your goals and can identify the Strengths you have developed through overcoming challenges and learning valuable Life Lessons, you can begin Here and Now to conduct your day to day life integrating the values you desire to be expressing with the realization of your highest sense of purpose and adventure.

This month we are exploring the principle Live Your Dream, Now as a positive affirmation and postulate.  Consider first, then, do you presently even ‘have’ a Dream; or, how do you currently conceive of and envision your Life Dream? What would your life look like if you were exactly where you would wish to be living, doing precisely what you would most love to be doing in your IDEAL future scenario?

Or are you already Living Your Dream? Even if the life you are living fulfills you, where is it leading for you? I believe human consciousness or perhaps even all sentient beings strive not just for survival on a daily basis but also for self-transcendence. We want our Tomorrows to be ever more spectacular, even if we are the best we have ever been right Now.

Here is a Future Life Mapping Tool: Create a Game of LIFE game board that includes the sorts of twists and turns you can anticipate passing through along the winding road of your own Life Journey from Now toward some Future life scenario in which you have fulfilled your life goals. You can do this with a friend or family member and talk about each other’s game boards.

I like the Wizard of OZ game of LIFE version because it reminds me very clearly of Life Mapping. Dorothy begins on her Aunt and Uncle’s farm in Kansas, of course, and she and the rest of her archetypal ensemble cast members weave and wend their way through ordeals and tests, making choices along the way and gaining salaries (rewards). Eventually they return HOME, of course, having gained much of value along the Way.

Joseph Campbell, the world famous comparative mythologist who gave us The Hero with 1000 Faces recognized that the Hero’s Adventure that we are naturally all set upon in the journey of a lifetime always leads HOME.

So let’s start there this month. Where truly is your Mythic HOME? Set that as your destination on your game board of LIFE!

I welcome your insights and please share with us your life mapping results!!!

Sing Hu, a Healing Song of Divine Love

This past two weeks I have been sharing well-known prayer poems as words from the HEALER archetype energy…whether you think of that as your own inner archetypal Healer part of Self, or Spirit Itself, or the centering Order of the Universe, or God as the Creator and Healer, or a spiritual Teacher or Master who brings Healing to your Heart.  Spirituality in any form brings healing energies and allows us also to be a Vehicle of divine or impersonal, detached love which can be a healing balm for others who are open to receive that love.

I will share two more prayer poems today and Sunday (or Tuesday) to wind up this month of alchemical pairings of the HEALER Archetype with the Life Metaphor Life Is (or, can be!)…Better Endings.

Eckankar Worship Service

Sunday, Jul 8, 2012, 11:00 AM

Marin Eckankar Center
840 B Street San Rafael, CA

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Join us for an ECK Worship Service to share your spiritual insights and experiences with others like you. Discover spiritual tools to meet life’s challenges. Awaken to the divine guidance always within you. Open your heart to give and receive more divine love. Experience how the Light and Sound of God can help you lead a happier life.  The theme fo…

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Sing Hu, an ancient, sacred Name for the Creator

For myself, I take quite seriously Ghandi’s words shared in Tuesday’s post about the value of ALL religions or spirituality and including secular philosophical systems of belief or faith that are each of unfathomable significance and truth to the practicing Believer. My own spiritual practice for over forty years (would you have asked) is that of Eckankar, a modern-day religion with ancient roots, sometimes known as the Religion of the Light and Sound of God.

In Eckankar, we recognize and sing religiously as a love song to God an age-old prayer poem; it is a mantra that we may practice daily, even 24/7 in the background of our thoughts or consciousness. This ancient Word, sung simply on the outgoing breath as the one syllable HU (or, Huuuuuuuuuuuu), is found in many faith traditions. It is found in Allah+HU+Jah(weh) (Allelujah!) in declaration of names of the Divine, and it meant God or the Breath of God in ancient Egypt. It is in the Hawaiian Kahuna (a healing energy or Healer persona), and Hututu is the leader of all of the pantheon of Hopi Spirit-bearing kachinas.

The most popular poet of our modern age is Jalal-ad-DIN-Rumi, whose spiritual Teacher/ Master was Shams, or Shamus-i-Tabriz. Rumi (1207-1273 AD) wrote his “ecstatic” (from Gk. ekstasis: ‘standing apart from the body’) poetry in the mid 13^th Century in a region of what is now northwestern Turkey. Below allow me to share some of Rumi’s poems that include reference to this love song to God or Name of God or the Breath of the Creator: HU.

The HU in Rumi’s Poetry

In sufi circles they say, “There’s prayer, and a step up from that is meditation, and a step up from that is sohbet, or conversation.”
Who is talking to HU! (The pronoun for divine presence.) Lover to beloved, teacher to disciple. The Friendship of Rumi and Shams
became a continuous conversation, in silence and words, presence talking to absence, existence to non-existence, periphery to center.
Rumi’s poetry may be heard as eavesdropping on that exchange.”

Coleman Barks, May 2, 1994
Say I am You – RUMI

Mathnawi, Book VI, 4038-4044http://www.sourcetext.com/hupage/Rumi/rumi0.html

 

[Open Secret – Versions of Rumi
by John Moyne and Coleman Barks]

This is what the Friend can do
when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names
often, but they don’t work for them.
The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,
Zuleika felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name HU, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion-smell of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
This is not the way of Friend and friend.

 

[One-Handed Basket Weaving – RUMI
by Coleman Barks]

Muhammed is said to have said,
“Whoever belongs to God, God belongs to.”

Our weak, uneven breathings,
these dissolving personalities,
were breathed out by the eternal
Huuuuuuuu, that never changes! 
A drop of water constantly fears
that it may evaporate into the air,
or be absorbed by the ground.

It doesn’t want to be used up
in those ways, but when it lets go
and falls into the ocean it came from,
it finds protection from the other deaths.

Its droplet form is gone,
but its watery essence has become
vast and inviolable.

Listen to me, friends, because you
are a drop, and you can honor yourselves
in this way. What could be luckier

than to have the ocean come
to court the drop?

For God’s sake, don’t postpone your yes!
Give up and become the giver.

******   ******

Anyone can sing HU, either aloud or silently. It does not belong to any one religion or spiritual Way. Simply open your heart to love and allow this ancient, creative and healing current, this primal Word, to flow gently through you. It can help to lift your consciousness to link with your highest nature or with the quiet voice of Life—or love—Itself!

Desiderata

I have contemplated an important truth this past week, for myself at least, about archetypal psychology—my own. The goal is always balance and integration, working collaboratively with pairings or with broader clusters or constellations (as I like to think of them) of persona archetype Allies. When I find myself out of balance, it may be that one of these personae is being too dominant, “sticking out like a sore thumb.” That is not who I am…For example, I am not “Elder Leader” or “Warrior” standing alone.  My Nourisher, Mystic, Idealist and even my Descender Ally facets can bring balance to my approach to an endeavor with which Elder Leader or Warrior might be tasked.

Whew!  I cannot be that which I am not; I am not within my holistic, integrated Self an overly rigid, “intransigent” person. Even in a situation that calls for me to exercise a disciplinary action I must find repose and come from a center of balance. Still, I must at the same time own and exercise authority in its rightful scope… :

 After writing all but the last sentence above, I dreamed a type of dream I thought I had transcended: a dream in which, once again, I run from a magnificently graceful, powerful Anima image: I run from owning my own Power and Grace. This time it is Mountain Lion. I am in a city scape with a same-aged, female friend. We approach and pass a female mountain lion, laying in repose along the sidewalk. I urge my friend to run once we pass Her, sensing she will pursue us, as that is Her nature.  Mountain Lioness leaps and knocks me to the pavement softly in one bound. I wait for further action but She hovers over me as if waiting for me to act. AWAKEN.

Two weeks ago while I was already laden with this ongoing test of consciousness, I took a walk with Sophia to a St. Francis retreat center, where in a Garden of Peace I walked right up to the poem-prayer Desiderata, which I recognized immediately was a Healing form of waking dream or golden-tongued wisdom for me at this trying time.

 

So, I/we all move on, always seeking Balance which must be won and re-won with every unfolding adventure. There is always another layer of life lessons to explore and integrate, as best we can in the Moment.

 

Better Endings to YOU!

I  welcome your insights and stories!

 

 

Heal Thy SELF

This month I am encouraging you to connect with and to explore your own HEALER Archetype Ally. You know you have one! It is a part of your Self that serves the Whole as a Healer will, watching over your health and prompting choices that result in wellness and growth rather than any self-destructive behaviors or attitudes.

Your HEALER is internal, not external.

Listen to your inner HEALER. He or she is your Ally who is whispering sweet somethings into your ear. What might some of these inner promptings be?

Take that vacation; you have well deserved it!

Let’s watch this program or read this book about brain health, heart health (etc.).

Act on what you are hearing about Co-Q10, magnesium, (etc.)

Here’s a personal example I can share. About a year ago I changed two behaviors relating to my health. I had recently turned 60. First, I woke one morning with just the words “9 years” planted in my awareness. I knew instinctively this meant I could potentially save nine years of my life if I would stop drinking soda. I stopped that day.

A few months later, after having heard several weeks  earlier that the second of two aunts on my mother’s side had been dealing with brain tumors, as I went to sleep I heard “brain tumor,” which was a bit of a shock. All night I seem to have been dreaming about that. Then as I awoke, again in that fertile awareness between sleeping and waking, I heard and saw printed in my ‘mind’s eye’: LYSINE – L. I had never even heard consciously about this amino acid before. I did some research to  find only that it is helpful as a supplement to help with collagen. I have taken it ever since. Most interesting is that this past summer while I was able to visit with my Aunt Karis, who had a tumor affecting her optical nerve successfully removed by surgery, she told me her and my other aunt’s tumors were not cancerous but benign.  Lysine then made sense more than before!

I am always grateful for the inner guidance I  receive, and I thank my inner Healer for helping me remain open and receptive to information from the Higher dimensions and unconscious domains that help me to accept higher wisdom.

Time Heals All Wounds

Is Time really a Healer? What wisdom does this age-old adage impart?  Time heals by allowing you to readjust or to establish a new set of conditions that have changed in some manner after an event that might have felt wounding: harmful or grievous or disastrous even, “back then” when the change first occurred.

Time brings us around some major bend in our Life Path that ultimately can result in “better endings.”

But, how? I am reminded of Garth Brooks’ song lyrics to “Unanswered Prayers” :
“Unanswered Prayers”

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/garthbrooks/

unansweredprayers.html

Just the other night at a hometown football game

My wife and I ran into my old high school flame

And as I introduced them the past came back to me

And I couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be

She was the one that I’d wanted for all times

And each night I’d spend prayin’ that God would make her mine

And if he’d only grant me this wish I wished back then

I’d never ask for anything again

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

She wasn’t quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams

And I could tell that time had changed me

In her eyes too it seemed

We tried to talk about the old days

There wasn’t much we could recall

I guess the Lord knows what he’s doin’ after all

And as she walked away and I looked at my wife

And then and there I thanked the good Lord

For the gifts in my life

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he may not answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered

Some of God’s greatest gifts are all too often unanswered…

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

So… thank heaven for some of our unanswered prayers, or for any condition in our life that changes unexpectedly, often undesirably.  Change can lead us down unanticipated pathways that can produce surprising benefits ‘down the road,’ and so often we cannot tell from here and now where that unexpected change could lead to!

For example, we might lose a job we have been feeling stuck in for some time but would not have sought to change but for being laid off or “moved along.” Yet this sudden change might prompt us to move to a new location where eventually we might meet the love of our life or develop talents we had been neglecting.

Spirit or the “universe” may ‘know’ better than we do with our minds what path is our true destination. So listen closely to your heart when change comes calling; perhaps it is calling you Home!

Take a Balloon Ride to a Higher Perspective

What is your next step forward that will move you in the direction of realizing your fullest potentials or a specific goal? Are you considering a significant decision yet remain unsure about which way you should go or whether to make a change at all? I offer you below a creative visualization/ active imagination technique that you can use to help you achieve a higher vantage point (cf. this month’s metaphor of life as “a mountain with vistas.”)

Creative Visualization technique:

Imagine you are in a round room with several doors and high, solid walls. Above the walls they are extended upwards by a clear plexiglass-like tube that forms into a dome at its apex. You know that you can open any door and step through that, but once you have chosen a door and step through it, you also know that you can never go back to this room for the door will automatically lock from the inside, behind you. You also have the awareness that each door is a portal to a specific direction that will realize one of your present options in relation to a goal or decision you are facing.

Imagine next that near the center of this large, circular room there is a small table and a chair. On the table is a sketch pad and a cup of pastel drawing sticks. Sit down and draw for yourself a colorful picture of a hot air balloon. Then move the table away from the center and place your picture there on the floor instead. Watch as this picture materializes into a real, full-sized hot air balloon, already inflated with its firebox glowing brightly.

Step into your balloon basket and you can remove sand bags from the basket so your balloon rises into the space above the solid walls of the room. Your balloon lifts slowly upwards toward the plexiglass dome, coming to a rest point to hover midway between the top of the walls and the dome.

As you look down from the balloon you can see the room you were in and you can also see 360 degrees all around that room on the outside. You can see where each of the doors of opportunity would lead you to, what sorts of pathways each represents for you as choices you could take toward achieving your goal or desire.

Stay as long as you wish in your balloon, considering all of your options freely.

When you have become aware of which of the doors below appears to open to the most desirable positive direction for you to take, you can lower the flame gradually in your firebox so your balloon settles gently back down into the room.

Now you are free to open and walk through the door that opens onto your greatest future potential!

I welcome your Comments or stories!

Just Ask! Meet Your Dreamtime Nourisher

How does your NOURISHER Archetype Ally show up in your life or Psyche? Often we are more nurturing of others than of ourselves, but your NOURISHER is there for you too!

One way to get in touch with or to explore your own Nourisher nature is by identifying when and how your NOURISHER appears in your dreams.

Can you think of a dream or perhaps a recurring series of dreams that have included some form of Nourisher character or theme? Cooking or feeding others in your dream, or being fed or served nutritious food by someone in your dream are sure signs of your unconscious NOURISHER persona. Or simply a dream theme involving any form of Giving and/or Receiving a gift could also reveal your NOURISHER nature.

If you don’t recall a specific instance of your NOURISHER appearing in your dreams, or to explore this vital archetype Ally further, Just ASK!

Before you go to sleep, invite your NOURISHER to appear in your dreams, to reveal himself or herself to you. During the day, think lightly about how you will invite your NOURISHER into your dreams that evening.

Remember to write down your dreams, all you can recall on waking. The form that your NOURISHER might take in your dreams could be a bit surprising or disguised, especially at first.

I recall a recurring dream theme from several years ago that involved my suddenly discovering a pet–usually a horse or an aquarium with fishes–that I had forgotten I had, so therefore I had neglected to FEED or to give water to them! I was able in these dreams to find food to feed them, but when I awoke I felt awful and would review what this dream might mean in my life at that time. Was I neglecting to communicate with a loved one? Was it my own Soul I was not nurturing regularly enough? I would take this dream as a sign that I needed to nurture and nourish in any way possible, and usually this led me to some form of giving and/or receiving that would help me feel I had addressed the ‘neglect’ revealed in the dream.

I would ACT on the dream message, and that is something I encourage you to do whenever your dream indicates a needed or a corrective course of action.

Nurture your NOURISHER, and it will serve you well in turn!

I welcome YOUR comments and stories.

 

To Nurture Your Dreams, Be a Nourisher

Sometimes we might not trust our inner vision to steer us in the right direction. We may feel afraid to Dream, wary of being disillusioned “yet again.” This cautious perspective might seem ‘practical,’ “realistic” or even wise.

But when we squelch our Visions, often another part of our Self grieves.

 

What happens to a Dream deferred? 

Does it dry up, like a raisin in the Sun?

Does it fester like a sore, and then run?

Perhaps it stinks, like rotten meat,

or crusts and sugars over, like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load… 

Or does it explode?

–Langston Hughes

 

Our archetypal Ally for this month is the NOURISHER. I invite you to get in touch with your own nurturing, nourishing part of Self. When do you feel most nourishing and with whom? When do you feel best nourished and how or by whom?

I experienced a lot of Nourishing–from both sides of giving and receiving–during my road trip and visit Home  from June through July. Being with family and with my dog Sophie (my travelling companion and BFF) is a great gift of love for I have lived thousands of miles from my parents and sisters and brother for over 30 years.  We came together—all of us plus several cousins and nephews/nieces—around my elderly mother, Elizabeth—over the 4^th of July holiday weekend. Mom was in the crux of a hospital emergency—not what we had hoped or planned for!—and we all came together to help her survive that visit and return to her familiar nursing home with its loving and competent, caring staff.

Mom is experiencing late stage Parkinson’s. At 88, for her this means she has very little independent mobility. She cannot walk on her own nor can she use her own hands to eat. She must consume pudding quality water and only pureed food which others must feed to her in such manner as not to cause her to aspirate or swallow food into her lungs.

While at the hospital, because staff there were inexperienced at preparing the pureed and pudding quality food and water and because most did not have experience (or time for the patience it takes) feeding in this way, it depended on us, her daughters mainly, to feed her morning, noon, and evening, as much and as best as we could.

And we did!  We bought Gerber’s pureed food to supplement or replace the hospital’s too thick or heavy portions. We developed a formula, with help from a speech therapist, to produce her pudding water, and we added fresh lemon juice and used ice cubes to give her more satisfaction.  She was depending on us for her very survival. Each of us stepped up as best we could. We shared our observations and listened to one anothers’ suggestions. We expressed our concerns with the nurses and aides until finally one doctor in particular became focal in helping Mom recover enough to be able to return to her nursing home.

I know my Mom would do the same for any of us and often she did, whenever we were sick or ailing.  While at first honestly I was afraid of feeding Mom, afraid I might cause her to aspirate, over time I did the best I could along with my other sisters. And she improved! I believe the nurturing care we all gave helped her more than any medications. The love we all shared was a healing force in itself.  It is a healing energy that will never diminish, no matter what the future may hold.

So, I learn from my Nourisher that LOVE is the heart of it all and all that really matters. To NOURISH is to give and to reciprocally receive divine, unconditional Love.

I invite you to journal and/or to talk with a loved one (or send your insights, comments and stories to us, here!) about one or more of your own Nourisher moments.

Remember to Daydream, Part 2 (The Lake Isle of Innisfree)

Here is an excellent demonstration of creative future casting by William Butler Yeats. Like my story of how daydreaming can relate to manifesting future realities (below), Yeats reminds us in his evocative poem to hold a vision in our minds of our desired state or condition; smell it, feel it, and it IS!

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wing.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

******   ******

Consider: the future consists of an unlimited number of possibilities only habitually constrained by conditions and circumstances of your past and present choices. If you can break the habit of perpetuating self-limiting thoughts, anything is possible. How can you do that?

The power of imagination is our greatest birthright for creating life conditions that realize our goals. Whether by contemplation, active imagination, meditation, yoga, positive affirmations, or prayer, we always do have the freedom to cast our dreams outward and forward into manifestation.

In Your Life Path I’ll provide Life Mapping personal development tools for “future casting.” Like casting a net widely into the realm of fertile future possibilities, you can cast a diverse spectrum of desirable future “lifescapes” to help you shake off feelings of inevitability regarding future  conditions or the sense  of futility regarding significant change.

Here’s an example: remember to Day Dream! When was the last time you indulged in a great day dream? Have you ever thought about the possible relationship between daydreams and your actual future conditions?

When I was in high school I remember that I did engage in active day dreaming, especially when in classes that bored me. I developed one particular daydream that I kept going back to, time and again. It became clearer and more real to me every time I went back to it.

I am on a rowboat, alone on a lake, with a great book I have brought.  I row out to near the middle of the lake, then I put the oars up to rest and I lay back between the two seats on a recliner mattress with a large outdoor pillow gently lifting my head; I open the book and read! I hear the water lapping up against the wooden sides of the boat. This is the most peaceful moment I can ever experience. Then WHOMP! My boat has hit a soft landing. I look up and see that I have drifted onto the banks of a small Island. I get out to explore.

So looking back at this daydream now, many decades later, I smile. First, I can still feel the vivid lucidity of this boat, the island, and the peace and freedom I experience from exploring this ‘alternate reality.’ More importantly, I realize with some surprise now that my ‘retirement’ Life Dream that I do expect to fully realize in three years actually does include a lake, a boat, and close focus on books (including my own!).

Today while working out at a YMCA, I sat in a rowing machine, always my favorite exercise vehicle. I closed my eyes and rowed. I was on that boat again, rowing peacefully along near the shores of Lake Chautauqua, which I expect to be free to explore in a few years.

By future casting, you can PULL your unfolding Present into harmony with your most deeply desired future. You are NOT bound irrevocably to repeat your present conditions; you can CHOOSE your own course. All it takes is that you exercise your freedom to IMAGINE; that is your Divine Gift!

I welcome YOUR Comments and Stories!

 

Interlude: Why Archetypes for Your Better Endings?

Socrates had a wonderful admonition for us all: “Know Thyself.” He buttressed this with a fuller statement: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” While not everyone might equally agree with the second of these postulates, most would agree that there is much value in a life well lived and that we learn more about ourselves as we experience life’s treasures, including hard times as well as easier, happier times.

Carl Jung is largely credited for his recognition that getting to know our Selves involves much more than simply looking into a mirror.  We are each of us inherently multiple in the sense that we develop different sub-selves as we gradually take on roles and responsibilities in the process of forming a sense of our IDENTITY, both consciously as public personas and privately and unconsciously as well.

 

Becoming a social self in a community of others entails adopting ‘typical’ role identities, and as an anthropologist I would say that Jungian (and other) ARCHETYPES relate to these role personas both consciously and unconsciously. So as we become an individual we develop certain facets of our identity corresponding to specific sorts of situations. We draw upon universal or collective “archetype” images as we develop these outer and subjective personas. A parent may take on ELDER LEADER and/or NOURISHER points of views and attitudes, for instance, a spouse expresses LOVER traits, a soldier enacts a WARRIOR role, a doctor the HEALER, etcetera. All human societies include a stock in trade of several primary role modalities which are psychologically available for identity construction and expression. These also may become aberrated or may take on “Shadow” traits in our unconscious psychological makeup.

What Jung prescribed for all of us is to seek to better INTEGRATE our archetypal persona influences in the process of becoming fully mature, self-actuating, INDIVIDUATED persons. As Jung himself pioneered for us as a role model (see his RED BOOK and articles about active imagination), he has encouraged us to get to know our archetypal animating energies as vital aspects of our greater Self or Soul. I call this your Ensemble Cast of Mythic Archetypal Characters”. In my forthcoming book (hopefully 2016) YOUR LIFE PATH, I focus part of a self-discovery toolkit around understanding 12 Universal Archetypes that were used by the late Dr. Charles Bebeau and his wife Nin at the Avalon Archetype Institute, based on Sumerian mythology and Jungian principles.

With this blog this year I am presenting one archetype per month and aligning that with a “Life Metaphor” that connects with that archetypal energy. Getting to Know YOURSELF as an integrated Whole comprised of various persona dimensions in key situations in your life can definitely help you to achieve your own BETTER ENDINGS.

You can aim to fulfill all aspects of your Self, not just one or two at the expense of others (thereby leading to internal conflicts or frustrated “parts of Self”).  What Life Dream would help you to do that? This will be our topic for August as we celebrate and explore the NOURISHER Archetype and the Life Metaphor Life is a Mountain with Vistas.

I invite you to stay tuned and join the Adventure. 

I always welcome your Comments and Stories.

 

 

Enjoy the Fruit from Your Labors of Love

Life is a Bowl of Cherries means you get to enjoy the fruits of all the work you have done and the love you have given and shared as you bring about and experience the “manifesting” stages of your life. My 88 year old mother, for example, though suffering from late stage Parkinsons, has her family’s love and support for all she has given us. She has more visitors than many at her nursing home, and this is one of the fruits of her many sacrifices and gifts of being a terrific mother through the years.

How can you manifest a future wherein you will benefit from the fruits of your own labor and dedication? How will you construct this future as one filled with abundance and vital purpose? As I anticipate retirement in just a few years, I see this not as any form of slowing down or resting but as a graduation from my primary career work into a continuing adventure of service, creative productivity, and giving back to life for all I have received and learned through life experiences.

A Contemplation and Journaling Seed:

What are to be the fruits of your life’s labor of love? Some you are already enjoying Now; what are these? Others you can yet choose to manifest; what are those? How will you help these fruits to mature?

It always helps to visualize and contemplate your future of abundant growth while appreciating the bounty of the present moment as well.

An Attitude of Gratitude

This month’s Life Metaphor postulate is “Life is a Bowl of Cherries!” and we are approaching this postulate from the perspective of the GOLDEN CHILD persona archetype—one of your own Archetype Allies. I find that many people in expressing their Golden Child aspect of Self in a positive way express an attitude of gratitude for all of the bounty in their ives, and they tend to see this bounty everywhere.

Life is “a bowl of cherries” no matter what your circumstances are, when you choose to pay attention to and be thankful for that which is positive, even in the most dire conditions.  When you are thankful  every day for the abundant blessings in the smallest details of your life and world, then the GOOD we aim to manifest in our lives is already present, Here and Now!

I invite you this week to make a list every day of what you are thankful for Now/ Today/ this Moment!

I’ll start with an immediate list for myself right now:

I am grateful for having the freedom and ability to travel and visit my family and friends.

I am grateful for my dear dog companion, Sophie, and for my cats Loki and Emily who are home with my family friends in Colorado, Gm and A.

I am grateful for my family.

I am grateful to my mother for how she raised her family for each of us to stay connected yet to follow our own dreams.

I am grateful to my sister C., who has been an angel to my mother in her later years and who has established an anchor point for our family as a whole.

I am grateful for my spiritual freedom to explore and experience Reality at a deep level.

I am grateful for the Beauty in the world.

I am grateful for the VARIETY of people, beings, and environments.

I am grateful for my friends.

I am grateful for writing and for this blog vehicle and its readers.

So look around yourself and within your Self. What are YOU grateful for NOW?

How can your attitude of gratitude bring about even further abundance?

I welcome your Comments and Stories!

 

 

Listen to Your Golden Child

This week we have been exploring together (thanks for all of your insightful comments!) qualities associated with the GOLDEN CHILD Archetype, both as an inner Archetype Ally within your personal unconscious cast of characters and as manifesting in some of your loved ones or others in your life.

Let’s take some time to ask ourselves, “What is my GOLDEN CHILD asking of me Now?”

Some of us are reticent to fully express our Golden Child archetypal potentials most of the time; our sense of “humility” might hold us back from possibly seeming brash or extraverted as much as a fully expressing Golden Child aspect could be.  But listen closely: If you could give full voice to YOUR Golden Child nature, what would it like to say or ask of you, Now?

Let me try briefly as a model (only); I invite you to do this yourself, either in an active imagination/ contemplation mode or through direct Archetype Dialogue journaling.

LW: Okay, GC, I am wanting to check in with you to see if you have anything you have been wanting to share with me/Us directly. Is there anything you want me to be saying or doing at this time that I am not expressing as well or as fully as you would like? You are my Ally and I trust you to speak forth as you desire!

GC:  Well then, that’s a welcome invitation. Are you telling me I could have full rein to speak my heart?

LW: Yes, absolutely.

GC: Hand me that mike, then! Ok…hmmm…ahem (clearing the throat, pausing to consider deeply)… First, about the book….Don’t hold back! It is ready to be launched; the new titles I’ve been helping you with yesterday and today are better, stronger, more clear. “Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” remember? And “Behold the turtle; s/he makes progress only when s/he sticks her neck out!”

LW: I hear you; these are two platitudes you have reminded me of since childhood! What else?

[Incubation throughout the day; including active contemplation before the rest…]

GC: As for the other issue we are being confronted with today…

LW: Work related?

GC: Yep. Don’t let this person take further advantage of your “good nature.” Don’t be milquetoast, got it? He will eat you up!

LW: I do know I must refuse to be codependent with an addictive personality.

GC: Then act, strongly.

LW: What would you say?

GC: {I choose not to publish this section; GC provided strong advice on how to confront a pressing personnel issue; advice I intend to follow through with.}

…  

LW: Wow…well, Okay then. Thanks!

GW: Any time. Remember to ACT!

******   ******

So then, I invite you to check in with your own GOLDEN CHILD, either as an unconscious archetypal outlook or converse with someone in your life who is not shy about expressing their helpful viewpoints!

I invite and always welcome YOUR Comments and Stories.

 

FOR A LIFE OF ABUNDANCE: Follow Your Heart

Envision a future of life fulfillment and abundance that you are already “living INTO,” Now! PLease go ahead, I invite you and I entreat you to take some time out from whatever busi-ness you are about right now; to close your eyes and dreamily, freely:

I M A G I N E 

So just think of it: Life IS a Bowl of Cherries. Okay then, what does YOUR “bowl of cherries” contain in your imagined dream of life fulfillment? What relationships or conditions, behaviors, activities, locations, etecetera comprise  the cherries filling your bowl of abundance in the parallel reality of your future dream come true?

I encourage you to contemplate, journal, walk and muse, paint or write a haiku or poem about your life of abundance.

And as always, I welcome your response in any form of sharing.

Now then also, would you need to make any specific sorts of changes or tweaks to your current life course in order to bring this abundance about? Consider how you might make such adjustments as simply and effectively as possible from your present vantage point.

My dear sister whom I am visiting has a refrigerator magnet that reads: THERE IS NO PLAN: FOLLOW YOUR HEART! Yet what if, after all, following your heart truly will fulfill your “plan”, even if you didn’t know you have one? The question remains the same by either viewpoint: How to ‘truly’ follow your Heart?

Some speak of nudges, others pay attention to their dreams and “intuitions;” still others stay centered on their current course, neither expecting nor desiring change. And you know, it’s all good: Life is Good, no matter what.

Myself, though, I enjoy creating or composing my life actively as I go along. I love adventure and creating some measure of change and flexibility to bring about variety as that “spice of life.” I enjoy the Present Moment of Nowness, yet I also enjoy musing inwardly and reflecting lightly on the Past, and I enjoy looking forward to creating a future of my own choice and design. All of that involves listening to the Heart and ALLOWING the Moment to unfold yet being an active, mindful participant.

The Here and Now is multidimensional, resplendent, full of potentials and possibilities! So take a peek into the byways of your Heart’s own rhythm and pulse, and… Follow!