Soulbyte for Friday April 22, 2016

Fears are there to be conquered. Let not the dangers of the world stop you, nor the fears that arise within, from pursuing your heart’s true desires. Your changing self fears not but pushes you always to evolve. And that’s what life is all about, a constant evolution, not just on the outside where you see it most but on the inside where it is only a feeling, but that is enough. Feel the change as you face your fears. Your heart will thank you for every shaky step of the journey. Keep going. One step at a time!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Thursday April 21, 2016

Get grounded today. Get out of your head and away from your thoughts. Put your feet on the ground and walk upon the earth. Connect with the Great Mother today, the nurturer of all living creatures. Assign yourself to her care and let her be your own mother and your own caregiver. She will embrace you as she does all who come to her, for she is the Great Mother. How could she do otherwise?

She will not turn you away, despise or hate you, or find you despicable. She judges not but finds all creatures lovely and lovable. Let yourself go to her as innocent as a child and enjoy her company and her embrace. Feel her energy and let it be yours. If only for a moment connect with the power of the Great Mother and know your own power within, part and parcel of all that is.

The Great mother awaits. Go to her with a light heart and let her ground you today. All you need to do is put your feet upon the ground and you will be there. It’s that easy!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Wednesday April 20, 2016

Your own stability and progress rest in your own hands, your journey through life yours alone to take. No one else can take it for you, the lessons to be learned yours alone to learn. Yes, it’s all personal, but there is a lot to learn and a lot of learned people with insights to share, some worthy of your attention, others mere charlatans and misguided folk. Don’t be afraid to seek good help when needed, but in the end the decisions you personally choose to make, the path you decide to travel down, and how you make your way in the world are all up to you. Your life is your responsibility. May you choose a path of love for self and other, for it is, in the end, the only thing that matters.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: Spirit & Soul

Light and shadow, yet the same... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Light and shadow, yet the same…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Spirit and Soul are used interchangeably and though indeed they are of the same wholeness each reflects different properties. This same paradox confronts the physicist in the study of elemental particles. The question arises, is it a particle or a wave? The answer, it depends. Sometimes it presents as a particle, sometimes as a wave. The same wholeness is sometimes matter, sometimes energy.

Shamans and dreamers confront the same reality. The same human being in one form is solid matter, and yet in dreaming shifts into pure energy, instantly defying time and space, on sheer intent transversing the universe.

Spirit is associated with the bright sun of consciousness. Spirit is a mental state that brings light into darkness. Spirit thinks, studies, reflects, constructs, abstracts. Spirit is awareness. Spirit is not matter. Spirit discovers, manipulates and exploits matter. It was spirit that ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Spirit is psychically ego consciousness, that which consciously directs the course of our lives.

Soul is the moon, that which animates nature in all its varieties and changes. Soul is the deep instinctual knowledge that animates from the darkness, far from the blinding light of consciousness that chooses and directs. Soul is the knowledge of nature that directs the unfolding of pregnancy and birth, far from the clutches of spirit consciousness that thinks it needs to direct the show.

Spirit dominates the day. In the light, the deeper forces and powers of instinct disappear as the power of the light defines and makes everything seeable and doable. Yes, we can take charge of ourselves, define ourselves, and with orderliness submit to the routine we’ve created for our lives. But as we cross the boundary into dusk, into the growing darkness of night the energies of the soul, long forgotten in the day, animate the dreams and feelings of the night. And we wonder why we have trouble sleeping! We can see in our individual lives the imbalance of our world: spirit so dominates soul and soul strikes back with a vengeance.

Spirit is masculine consciousness. Soul is feminine wisdom. Together they are the Yang and Yin of wholeness, the masculine and the feminine sides of God. Though all human beings are both spirit and soul, women, so much closer to nature, have retained the dominant projection of soul, the irrational instinctive forces of nature. Men, less obviously governed by nature, have picked up the masculine spirit of rational consciousness. And it is this overarching rational spirit that holds the world in captivity right now.

The rational spirit presumes to assert its mastery over all the forces of nature. This rational bulwark worries not about climate change. The world is formatted into a global economy that the God of Reason will order and control. Reason advances more deeply into merging the human brain with the technical computer, the ultimate Frankenstinian creation of the God of Reason. All wars are technical affairs, to be expected and easily controlled, necessary byproducts of reorganization. This is spirit that has lost its way, so dissociated itself from its soul.

Spirit and Soul must merge once again... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Spirit and Soul must merge once again…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The energies of soul, as equally powerful as spirit, continue to mount their counteroffensive. The energies of soul are ruthless, indeed the rage of the Goddess Isis, mockingly exploding the hubris of spirit all around the globe. Just as we all must face the terror of the night, the human race, like the animals in the forest that sense the earthquake and the fire before they arrive, must contend with a subliminal anxiety, even at the height of the midday sun. The spirit in all of us feels the rumblings of the soul.

Spirit and soul are alienated from each other. Their bipolar battle is the backdrop of the times we live in. Like a married couple, spirit and soul presently find themselves in divorce court, though in truth they can never really be separated, for they are the two faces of God and they must find their way back to divine union. This is the positive aspect of our present chaos, for we are indeed finding our way back to balanced union.

It’s true that the world as we know it is undergoing major reformation, but spirit and soul will eventually reconcile and life will find itself in a new world order. It’s just how they work. But we must all take part in the transformation. It’s up to each one of us to face the imbalances of spirit and soul within ourselves and deliver to the present and future of our world a sustainable and more perfect union.

Little bit of soul,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Tuesday April 19, 2016

Habits are like entities—they inhabit. They move in and take over. Some habits are good, others bad, but their basic intent is the same, to gain control. And what happens then? They feel entitled. They want. Only conscious effort can overpower them, only the will to regain control of the self, body and soul.

Tackle bad habits as you would a disease, as if your life depended on it, because the truth is that it does. No entity is worth losing your life over. If you have been invaded it’s time to fight back. This goes for habits both seen and unseen, for some habits are mere ideas and thoughts, as tricky as can be.

Time to take back the self. Time to eradicate the enemy. The world needs you pure and untainted so that your heart may be used for good. And that can only really happen when it is free.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR