Take good care of yourself. Make decisions that promote health and wellbeing so that your spirit may find you of good habitation and companionship, and so that it does not have to wait around for too long to enjoy your company and your life. You are never alone, for your spirit is always with you, your biggest cheerleader, your most admiring friend, your most knowledgeable advisor. Turn inward rather than outward in order to find yourself, for that is where your wholeness resides. You are on a spiritual journey and all that you seek lies within.
Calcinatio in the retort of the body… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
My Spirit sees everything from an evolutionary perspective. Thus, even the sobering truth of Maureen Dowd’s editorial, Apocalypse Right Now, is not a dealbreaker for my optimism.
All are encouraged to examine the truth, to the extent that that is possible, but then to exercise Carlos Castaneda’s number one dictum, Suspend Judgment, in order to reach the deeper truth of the soul’s fantastic voyage.
Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos sought to actualize achieving such a high level perspective in their respective launches into space these past couple of weeks. I see their journeys as transcendent attempts to free their spirits from the gravity of the mess on the ground of planet Earth.
Indeed, the thrust of the Spirit now is for the human race to up its Olympian game. This does not require that all go in search of transcendent out-of-body experiences. In fact, though I am impressed with the recent space adventures, they appear a bit compensatory to the truth on the ground. Good to be reminded of the potential of the human ego spirit to rise above the mess, but can it apply itself to the needed changes below?
We are all in this world on missions of growth. Most are born with a blank slate to protect those intended missions from confusion and interference from their Spirit’s prior journeys in infinity. Though the soul brings with it the fruits of its prior adventures in the form of its innate intelligence, it temporarily releases the memory of those experiences to be fully available to the life at hand.
Thus, the purity of Spirit’s intent imbues one’s life with purpose yet becomes clouded over by one’s material DNA and physical life circumstance. Nonetheless, one’s physical life remains the playing field for the Spirit’s intended growth.
We could say that the purity of Spirit becomes muddied and weighed down by the imperfections of material physical life. The journey then, in this earthly life, is one of working through the impurities of our physical trials to further add to our Spirit’s clarity, knowledge, and growth.
Carl Jung spent much of his adult life unearthing and studying ancient alchemical texts. Most modern psychological researchers question his sanity for having wasted so much time on such obscure nonsensical pre-chemistry texts. Jung, however, discovered that the alchemists were deeply engaged in a series of operations seeking to release the Spirit from its material impurities.
Psychotherapy, for Jung, was the application of a series of alchemical operations upon the psyche, seeking to free one’s Spirit from the bindings of illusion that overshadow one’s life and block fulfillment—the refinement of one’s Spirit.
The alchemists began their operations by choosing a substance to work on. In psychotherapy, one chooses a core stumbling block in one’s life to work on.
Alchemists used a retort, a vessel that the substance was placed in and then sealed, while they performed their operations upon it. In psychotherapy, the retort becomes the introspective ego that is asked to stay in body and be with the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, memories, sensations and dreams that arise as one works with an issue.
In psychotherapy, the sealed retort is equivalent to the body and psyche containing the intense energies of a conflict that has arisen, which is so tempting to release through blame, rationalization, a new illusion, or an emotional catharsis. Like the pot of water that never boils if we keep lifting the lid, we will never achieve the desired transformation if our retort is prematurely opened.
Planet Earth is clearly in the midst of its own alchemical processes of solutio, via flooding, and calcinatio, with fire. The retort of Earth is performing the necessary operations to reshape itself, and the lives of its inhabitants, and to cleanse itself of the illusions that have encumbered its Spirit.
Humans are simultaneously being asked to stay grounded and face the truths of their own lives, without opening the retort to the inflation of Icarus or the deflation of morbid depression. Containment of volatile emotion is a necessary precursor to transformative change. Acquiescence to necessary behaviors that reflect the truth is the ego’s greatest challenge.
These are the earthbound tasks for all humans now, as we individually and collectively seal the retort and are driven, by the thrust of the Spirit, to advance deeper into truth, survival, and evolution.
Beware of the tendency to forget that you are half spirit, that your spirit self is just as important as your body self and that it needs equal time for rest and work, play and entertainment. Keep your spirit self in good attunement. Pay attention to it, feeding it and nurturing it, exercising it and keeping it in good shape, just as you do with your body self, for both are equally important on your journey through life. And there is only one that you will take with you when you leave, so get to know it now, your eternal self that desires to live and learn, to grow and evolve in all the good ways that you dream of for your physical self. Equal time, equal attention will create the balance your body and spirit so desire as they seek to live in harmony.
A path of heart is one in which the heart leads and spirit shows the way, where ego learns its place and is but a stabling entity rather than an overpowering force. When spirit speaks through the heart, ego steps aside to listen and consider that there may be another and better way. This is ego in alignment with spirit. Turn in the direction of spirit more often and let it guide you to what is right. In this manner no part of you will suffer but all will travel through life knowing they gave it their all on your path of heart.
No worries. The worst thing you can do to yourself and your lovely spirit is to worry. Worry gets you nowhere. You just sit still spinning your wheels. Far better to use your energy in hooking into your spirit, asking it to guide you and show you what to do with your mind, that which wants to attach to something, anything, just to keep busy. Let your spirit calm your mind and empty it, and then be okay with an empty mind. For if your mind is empty your heart is full, and that’s the best way to be, full of love!
