A Poem and Song for Midlife Transition into the Second Half of Life
Midlife transition into the second half of life is a challenge for most people. They are often left in the dark without any sense of having a song in their heart or a vision for the future. In order to facilitate this midlife transition I wish to share a song and a poem that invites you into a deeper awareness of the opportunity available within this period of transition. This poem will also share with you the consequences of being unwilling to follow the call into midlife transition and beyond. This experience called the midlife crisis is what this writer and storyteller calls the crisis to meaning. It is the invitation and opportunity to find a call to find meaning and purpose in the second half of life. Here is a poem that I would like to offer to those who are experiencing what is called the midlife crisis.
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him
as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out
into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
by Rainier Maria Rilke (translation by Robert Bly,)
The search to find meaning and purpose in life can happen at anytime beginning with adulthood. However, life appears to create a hightened tension during midlife. Dr. Steven Farmer writing in Men, Spirituality and Power Animals tells of his experience with men.
Over the many years of working with men, I’ve found that this awakening can sometimes come as a result of the “two by four” approach. This happens when a man is going along, thinking everything’s okay with his work and his relationship, (even though there’s this nagging voice inside saying otherwise,) and God hits him with a metaphorical two by four. His wife divorces him, he gets laid off from his job or his addictions catch up to him– some momentous disruption of his life takes place. He can ignore this or take it as a signal to change, but by the time he’s in his late 30’s or 40’s, it becomes more difficult to deny it.
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Personal Development through Mystical Poetry
One of the unique aspects of this blog and its related website is its focus on personal development and beyond through the use of poetry. This is the use of mystical poetry to invite the experience of living the “wild and precious life.” It is the invitation to meet again the one who has loved you all your life and the one who knows you by heart. The one who invites you to feast on your life.
Ben Okri, Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Land writes in A Way of Being Free,
The inklings of poets are the forgotten adventures of God.
It is the intention of this writer and Irish storyteller through this blog and related website that such inklings are not simply forgotten. It is my intention that this invitation from mystical poetry be a way of remembrance of the grace and beauty that is your essence. The intention is to provide a way to overcome the primary cause of suffering in this world of form. This primary cause stems from the individual and collective idea of separateness. This is the idea that we are human beings living lives separately from the Creation that is the movement of One Being.
Creation speaks to poets and artists. This makes them different but this is not to be confused with making them better than you. Their words are invitations to personal development and beyond. They invite you to the adventure of living as the divine paradox they know you to be. This is especially true of mystical poets who have at some stage been graced a glimpse of what is beyond this limitation of living in time and space. It is a glorious limitation for all that.
The language of poetry is the language of the heart. In this blog you are not asked to consider the structure of poetry. You are invited to learn how poetry can instruct you in being courageous enough, focused enough and committed enough to become the one who takes the journey of the Hero and lives from the power and grace of their one precious life for the highest good of all. Living the Hero’s Journey means being willing to live the revelation you are here to be and to surrender your will to Love’s purpose as it is intended to manifest through you.
Let me illustrate how poetry can invite a life life of purpose and spiritual direction. Here is an extract from a poem I recently discovered in poetry anthology entitled The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvellous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart
and the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
from Last Night by Antonio Machado
translated by Robert Bly
The metaphor of Last Night is about our old life, which is a life of dreams and especially the nightmare that causes suffering. This is the suffering of the separate sense of self. This sense of the separate self in a very real sense is a marvellous error. It is the process in this dimension of time and space that awakens us to the sacred unity that is Love.
In this poem the poet is sleeping and dreaming. This is the sleep of the ego self dreaming of its separate existence from the one Self. Yet it is never truly sleeping. The heart is always awake to some degree. If this were not so then the body could not live. No matter how distant one feels from the All One, the All One is never distant from its creation and is forever creating for the joy of creating. This is the activity of making sweet honey from what is the experience of opposites. This is the work of aligning and healing the 2nd and 3rd chakras. It is the process of unifying what we identify as our old failures.
The beehive in the heart is the place of the 4th chakra, the heart chakra. This is where one begins to transcend, but not feel apart from the personality. It is where one begins to feel integral and the energy of the personality and the energy of the divine begin to make sweet honey. This is then made available to feed the parched mouths of those who are living in this world as busy bees but who are unable to taste the sweetness of their lives.
The work of the Way of the Chakras is the work of making sweet honey out of our old failures. At higher levels of consciousness we alchemise those old leaden failures, those old judgements, those old conflicting opposites within us, into a form of gold called honey. Writers, and others who work in the sphere of personal development, very often invite such alchemy. However, for this writer and storyteller, it is the mystical poets who occupy a very special place in his heart. These are the real honey makers of the world. These are the mystical poets who can invite you to live with life purpose and passion within the space of five short lines. They take me, and I invite them to take you, into the magic of what the poet Rumi calls The Heart House.
Take some lines from a poem and learn them by heart. This doesn’t simply mean learn them by rote. Rote learning was the way that I was taught poetry as a young man and the way in which I was turned off poetry until much later. This is the way that poetry is still being taught in local schools here in Ireland. Poetry is the language of the heart. It is the invitation to align the lower chakras with the higher chakras. It particularly aligns the 4th chakra – the heart chakra – with the 5th chakra – the throat chakra. This then gives you the ability to speak your joy and your truth. You are then able to articulate into form your hearts vision.
Intend that you become a golden bee. Not simply a worker bee who is always busy. The symbol of gold in storytelling is always an invitation to the golden child within you which is the revelation of your sacred unity with the divine. It is the realisation beyond the marvellous error of separateness. This sacred unity begins in earnest when you begin to realise that you have a beehive in your heart. You begin to feel that you are living in a promised land flowing with milk and honey. This is a land that exists, not in the outer world but within. The paradox is that this honey is made from the processing of all your old failures.
Personal development is not just about you. it is more about your inviting the unity of the personal and the impersonal. When this begins within you then you become the golden bee you are here to be. If you are looking for a sense of spiritual direction then you can feel a sense of safety by inviting those golden bees called mystic poets to come and pour honey into your dry mouth. This is the mouth that is dry because it lives in the desert of the separate sense of self and rarely, if ever, gets to drink from the living waters of true well being. These mystical poets come from all traditions and none. Let me conclude this blog post with a reading from one of my dearest soul friends who is constantly feeding me golden honey from the great Heart House.
Mystical poetry invites you to awaken at dawn for another day of loving and living the “wild and precious life.” Let it be so.
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The Practice of Revelation – Awakening the True Self
Knowing that it takes only
that one, terrible
word to make the circle complete,
revelation must be terrible
knowing you can
never hide your voice again.
– David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth
©1992 Many Rivers Press
I am practicing knowing that I can never hide my voice again and it is pretty terrible. I am becoming a revelation and an awakening to the true Self. This is not some ego mania but the allowing of that still small voice within to be revealed through a body and mind that is willing to be so allowing. This is not so much an idea about becoming someone who might be considered perfect nor is it becoming someone engaged in making themselves a self improvement project.
What would you be like if you where to become the revelation of the true Self within? What if, in the lines from the song by Joan Osborne called One of Us you where to ask,
If God had a face what would it look like and would you want to see?
(Great song that asks great questions) - Ignore the bit at the beginning which I find confusing rather than revealing.
In essence the face of God looks like you. I don’t mean that God looks like the face you see when you look in the mirror. I mean that you would be living the energetic of the Source as it is reflected through the movement of Love in action, the movement of Love in form. This is the movement of Love that informs you and that you essentially are. Mary Oliver invites this revelation in her poem Wild Geese when she says
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
from Dream Work (1986). © Mary Oliver.
For this writer and storyteller the symbolic representation of a revealed life is that of a star. This allows you to shine the light that Created you and to light up your personal life from the experience of the transpersonal. This is not the light of the separate sense of self called the ego but the light of Love. This revelation that is the awakening of the true Self is so terrible because it is the process of surrender of the ego and not the annihilation of the ego that some spiritual traditions teach. It is the practice of a willingness to follow this inner star wherever it might take you beyond the safety of the known.
There is a modern day focus on becoming a star through appearances on mainstream television. For the most part this is a highly competitive and manipulative process and for most of those who appear on such programs this is driven from the sense of ego. It is a drive for recognition. It is not so much of the revelation that you are, but the image of who you wish to project into the world. For most the process is very short lived. For those who are considered successful the same process often burns them up physically, mentally and emotionally. There tends to be no revelation of the light from the real star that is burning within because that is not the focus of the intention.
The process of becoming the revelation you are here to be is not an overnight wonder. It is a steady day to day discipline. This is a spiritual (meaning inspired discipline) practice that prepares the ground for the flowering of who you are here to become in all your revealed glory. I find it fun to imagine what this revealed delight (of the light) will be and will, not so much look like, but feel like and how it will express in my day to day life. It helps tremendously if you have had an experience of revelation of the true Self. It helps to read about others who have experienced such a revelation.
Below is an expression of what living from a revealed sense of the true Self is like. These experiences tend to be fleeting moments. Yet that fleeting moment can and does perfume your life for the rest of your life if you are willing to pay fidelity to this revelation. This opening from the transcendent world beyond time and space can and does happen at any moment. If you are not engaged in a spiritual practice, or are unaware of the possibility of such a revelation, then revelation can seem terrible. This revelation has happened in my own life and it is what perfumes the writing that I express through this blog. Here is what one person writes about the experience in the book by John Randolph Price entitled The Jesus Code.
I can’t believe how lost in the dark I was. Instead of a broken-down, hateful, and lonely world, now I see a perfect, lovely, and beautiful world. I can’t explain the joy I’ve experienced now that I know who I really am, and the purpose behind all suffering. Now my life has meaning, and instead of wandering aimlessly, there’s a narrow path lighted up for me.”
Notice in this recollection of the experience of the true inner self the use of the metaphor of light. Notice also that the person experiences joy, not because they have won the lottery, but because they have had revealed to them the knowing of who they really are. This is the revelation of your true Self as a being of the eternal Light that manifests all things from no thing. To know who you are may not be an experience of full enlightenment but it is certainly a glimpse of the experience. This glimpse is given through grace but that grace can be facilitated by intention and attention. The great Irish poet W. B Yeats had a revelation of his true self when he writes in his poem Vacillation
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.
The revelation of who you are as the true Self is here to bless the world with the gifts that you have been given. You did not come into this world ungifted. You did not come into this world not knowing how to dance given that you are a creation, and the forever creation that is the Lord of the Dance. This idea of becoming a revelation of the true Self I discovered as a practice suggested by the poet David Whyte on the Sounds True recording entitled “What to Remember when Waking – the disciplines of an Everyday Life.” This idea of one’s self as a revelation, a forever becoming of the flow of creation, is also invited by Rick Jarrow in the Sounds True recording The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide – The Inner Path to Finding Your Work in the World.”
This practice is really a practice of allowing and trusting in your creative imagination as a process of revealing Creation through you. It is a deeply feminine process. It is not something that you plan but more the plan of Creation (which is not a plan in any linear sense) in flow. David Whyte says in another of his poems that anything that you can plan is too small for you. This is an antidote to all the self development programs that invite you to become a kind of professional goal setter. These are programs that invite you to mark of your achieved goals each night before you go to sleep and begin your day by carrying a list of what is to be attained during that day. In this way you might indeed become highly productive but that does not mean that you are living a purpose filled, passionate and presence filled life.
Your creative imagination is like a muscle. If you do not exercise it then it tends to go flabby. Neither, in the beginning should you over do it. This over doing tends to mean you are putting your creative imagination to use in the service of ego desires and not your true desire – the desire of the true self which is the light from the inner star. As an exercise in creative imagination each day spend time with the revelation that you are here to be. Don’t be surprised if nothing happens. This is a journey that is unique to yourself. I can’t tell you what you will find but I can begin to invite you to discover and trust in the revelation that you are the star off.
How long should you spend each day with this practice and process? David Whyte suggests that you spend one hour each day inviting and imagining your revealed self. I think that to begin with you should spend whatever time you can until that point in time during the practice that you meet resistance. Once you meet resistance then spend a little more time until you move through the resistance. Here are some ideas to guide you in the process.
- The revealed Self feels inspirational.
- The revealed Self is alive and full of natural energy.
- The revealed Self expresses as joy.
- The revealed Self is fearless.
- The revealed Self is Creative.
You can write down your own list but then the discipline is to pay attention and then to commit to following the clues that are revealed to you through this process. Make this a game. Make it fun. Become a metaphor hunter. Revelation, as David Whyte says may be terrible but only to the sense of the separate self and not to the true inner self. Be kind and gentle with the process. Do not dismiss what might be considered co-incidences. Watch out for the inner critic who loves to abort any sense of the revelatory within you. Look out for metaphors and pay attention to your dreams. Make this process a kind of going to University. This is the University of real knowing. It is not a learning of more information but the revelation of who you are. You reveal who you are and why you are as a Universal expression of Love in form.
This revelation will then allow you to feel blessed and out of this experience of the blessing you are will flow the blessing that Love the motivating force of the true Self wishes to share through you. Most of all I invite you to have fun. Let me finish with a video that includes the reading of the David Whyte poem Revelation must be Terrible. This video is preceded by lines from a Rumi poem and this is why it is titled “An Excerpt from Rumi’s Caravan.”
May you be the revelation of the blessing that you are here to be and to bless the world.
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Poetry Therapy – Finding Inner Peace
And I shall have some peace there
for peace comes droppings slow
From The Lake Isle of Innisfree
W. B Yeats
The above are some of the beautiful lines from the poem by W. B. Yeats – The Lake Isle of Innisfree. This is the invitation to the Isle of Freedom beyond opposites – the heart isle – the Deep Hearts Core island. I use poetry as a form of therapy. It is a practice of heart awareness where through this practice I build on my imagined island of freedom my heart house. This is an inner island. It is a sanctuary where I go and take solitude and solace from the pain and suffering of the world.
Therapy derives from the root of a Greek word meaning “healing,” which in turn is allied to the experience of wholeness. This is a wider idea than psycho analysis which is a form of therapy with its intention of healing. However, many therapies are a form of adjustment to what can be considered the collective norm of feeling separate within the world of time and space and form. Finding inner peace is the peace that comes dropping slow. It is a journey into the sanctuary of the Still Point Centre. It isn’t something that you acquire but it is more that you allow it to arise through the exercise of trust. The greatest practice of the peace that come dropping slow is any form of meditation. This is a daily practice of focusing the mind so that beyond the riotous thoughts that fill the average mind one finds beyond that real peace of mind.
Peace of mind can be had in an instant if you understand fully your relationship too the peace that passeth understanding and time. For most of us, including myself, this peace comes more slowly. It drops from the higher chakras into the heart centre and radiates through the chakras of the personality. The experience of peace of mind begins as all forms of spiritual practice begin or any other form of learning begins. If you went to learn a foreign language from someone who could not speak such language then your degree of faith in the teacher would be nil. You have to begin with trusting in the possibility that peace of mind is a living and lovely experience that you are able to reveal to yourself.
Peace of mind begins with small steps and it begins in the mind and is connected to the breath. The fineness of your breathing dictates how fine you will feel. At times, with practice, your breath will feel so fine that you enter the Still Point Centre within and you feel expanded beyond the normal limitation of your time space form. Meditation techniques teach you a paradoxical no thing. Whatever practice you engage with you are going to meet with the content of your mind. Most people will find this almost impossible. They are asked to focus within the meditation technique on some chosen object and within a minute or less their mind is simply distracted by distraction.
What then happens is that many people make the judgement that they are not good at the practice and give up. Finding that you are not good at the practice of focusing your mind is the point. The practice isn’t about achievement. It is simply about observation. In meditation terms this is called mindfulness. You are practicing the art of being present to what is and what is happens to be the detraction of you mind. Rather than control this distraction you simply observe it and in observing it the mind quietens.
There are scientifically proved benefits to meditation that cover the whole spectrum of improved physical, mental and emotional health. The important thing is not the results but the practice itself (although the results are not to be dismissed as unimportant). The practice, whichever practice you engage with, will unfold in its own way. The benefits might not come immediately. You will learn to simply not get overly attached to trying to determine how this practice of mediation unfolds.
Peace of mind comes dropping slow because we are so used to having the opposite. When you begin to practice any form of mediation the first thing you observe is how non-peaceful your mind actually is. You think you are in control of your thought processes. If you think this then simply sit still for ten minutes breathing in and out while observing the breath and without changing the way it moves. This will show you how much control of your thoughts you really have. This will begin to show you what peace of mind is not.
The idea is not one of control but one of attention. You don’t try and stop your thinking, which would be a kind of subtle violence. You simply notice. This is a feminine energetic. You are not trying to get somewhere or achieve anything. You are not even trying to achieve peace of mind because the peace of mind that comes dropping slow is negated by the one who thinks they are separate from this peace – namely you. The technique of mediation goes against much of what you have been taught will bring you success and prosperity in life. Meditation is an antidote to the stress of modern living and can, if your are committed enough, reveal to your the purpose, the passion and the true prosperity of your unique connection with this body living in the time and space dimension.
Meditation asks you to trust the process of allowing yourself to be guided from within. This is contrary to the modern focus where everyone tends to be some kind of expert and they know more than you know. This is a fact in many cases but it is only a fact in relation to what can be called cerebral knowledge. It is not factual within the context of what this writer and storyteller calls knowing. Another word for knowing is insight. You get to know from the insider. You don’t acquire this knowing through cerebral learning. You don’t acquire this knowing by steps. It is a revelation of the wisdom mind within you. This is the wisdom mind that you are always a part off but never apart from.
It is a personal experience of this writer that this knowing that you are a part of the Universal mind but never apart from that Universal mind that brings you true peace of mind. This knowing is not the wisdom of another. It is the still small vice within you that speaks to you in unique ways and that you choose to commit to knowing by paying attention. Peace of mind as a journey is called The Hero’s Journey. When you undertake this journey you benefit, not only yourself, but the collective called humanity. When you are so committed the Universe begins to become a more friendly place. The peace of your mind begins to be reflected back to you from the outer world. It is both and inner and outer journey but the primary work is on the alignment with the inner.
Peace of mind is a real boon. It is a true wish fulfilment. It gives life a firm centre. This is the real place of sanctuary where you can retreat too and drink from the well of being. You are truly free to live the unique life of meaning you are here to share with the world. Life isn’t just a period of existence between a timeline called life and death. It becomes the knowing of your birthless/deathless Self. This knowing of your eternal dimension is really the peace that passeth understanding. It gives you what the outer world can never give you because everything in this world of form is impermanent. It comes and it goes. Peace of mind is the knowing of that which is beyond form and which you are a part off but never ever apart from.
Peace of mind is not attained through having the big house, the expensive car or the perfect relationship. Ultimately it is the living and knowing the question “Who am I?” or “What am I here for and what does it all mean?” When you follow the Deep Hearts Core to the island of freedom to express the unique creative aspect of yourself in service to Love’s purpose you have the potential for true peace of mind. This isn’t something you get by wishing it would be so. That is simply a flight of fantasy. You have to do the work. This is the work of making yourself available to the process and trusting that you will be guided to that island, that place of sanctuary where peace comes dropping slow.
You have to make a focused daily commitment to healing. This doesn’t mean you are sick. The primary haling that is required is the healing of the idea that you are simply a body in form living in a dimension called time and space. Of course you are that but that is not the whole of who you are. Living a life between a start time called birth and an end time called death is what most people believe and live from. They might hope for something beyond but that doesn’t mean that they know. This idea of the limited self is the primary cause of suffering in this wold and will not bring you true peace of mind that lasts.
Finding peace of mind takes time, commitment, discipline and practice. It is not a short quick fix solution to the existential question of living life as a separate individual. Finding peace of mind does not end. It just expands. It expands until it envelopes all dimensions within time and beyond time and then begins the game all over again in the endless becoming of Love.
This endless becoming of Love is the great contribution that you can make to the world. You can follow the invitation from St. Francis of Assisi and learn to become an instrument of peace. Why not become one who goes to the inner place of sanctuary where peace comes dropping slow but where slow also means sure. This commitment begins with taking a step into trusting that you have this potential within you and that you, with willingness and with deep intention become a servant to the purpose of Love for the peace of all.
The other asp
ect of real peace of mind is that your begin to radiate it out into the world. Are you Ready to Radiate? You begin to create conditions for the experience of Heaven on Earth which is the intention of the birthing of Creation in each and every moment. This brings you in line with life’s purpose and this purpose gives you peace because it heals the idea of you as being apart from the whole and that which is holy.
I invite you to take up a regular meditation or mindfulness practice. Make this practice, not only one you commit to as a process for finding peace of mind for yourself, but for inviting the peace beyond opposites to become a living experience for all sentient being on this planet and beyond. If you doubt this is possible then simply witness the doubt. In this way you do not give the doubt energy. In simply witnessing it it fades and the peace that comes dropping slow begins to be a peace that becomes, not so much a state of mind, but a station of being.
So begin a new therapy. Poetry therapy. Follow the invitation from W. B. Yeats. Arise and go now. Arise with the willing intention of going forward in life and creating an inner sanctuary of peace for yourself. Out of this peace you will come to find your Deep Hearts Core desire and from this your mind will be at peace, your body will blaze and you will be blessed and feel that you can bless. This will be enough.
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Song of the Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
- Because a fire was in my head,
- And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
- And hooked a berry to a thread;
- And when white moths were on the wing,
- And moth-like stars were flickering out,
- I dropped the berry in a stream
- And caught a little silver trout.
- When I had laid it on the floor
- I went to blow the fire a-flame,
- But something rustled on the floor,
- And some one called me by my name:
- It had become a glimmering girl
- With apple blossom in her hair
- Who called me by my name and ran
- And faded through the brightening air.
- Though I am old with wandering
- Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
- I will find out where she has gone,
- And kiss her lips and take her hands;
- And walk among long dappled grass,
- And pluck till time and times are done
- The silver apples of the moon,
- The golden apples of the sun.
‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ is reprinted from An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London: Methuen & Co., 1921.
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Chakra Balancing, Poetry and the Power of Storytelling
When your energy is in free flow you feel fine. This is the movement of refined energy with the body. The energy is moving through the centres of the body called the chakras without these centres being blocked. You feel balanced, you feel creative, you feel the movement of the wild and precious life within. In my workshop entitled “Living the Wild and Precious Life” I use a combination of storytelling, poetry, song and spiritual practices to the bring energy of the individuals and the group into alignment. It is an invitation to the opening of the creative imagination and is intended to allow you to experience the feeling of expansion that comes from the awareness of the creative Self that flows from the practice of chakra balancing.
There are many folk tales and fairy tales that invite the technique of chakra balancing and for healing and making whole that which you feel is desperate within you (2nd chakra experience). I invite you to have fun with finding a story,or a poem, or a song that has meaning for you and start a practice whereby you begin a dialogue with this story, poem, song or other invitation that arises. Begin to make this a spiritual practice. In some traditions it is similar to the spiritual practice called Lecto Divinia. This is usually practiced with scripture. This is the beginning of the real Law of Attraction within you because, if you are being drawn to such lines without your having to force the matter, then there is already an alignment within your energy field..
This invitation is not a cerebral invitation meaning that it is not simply coming from your head. You are not being asked to become a poet, a storyteller, a singer songwriter or any form of artist. You are being invited into what you used to know and live from. This is your childlike imagination. I use the Way of the Chakra’s as a framework. I do this because this framework excites my imagination. It isn’t simply an Eastern framework but a human framework. It is a pathway, a map to the full realisation of your potential.
The starting pint for this path of individualisation is the root chakra. The root chakra is a symbol for your everyday living in this dimension of time and space and form. It is a given. If you are living in a body on this planet then you are living from the root chakra experience. In the process of individualisation I will be referring to what each chakra symbolises within the process of human development and beyond. This is a process that is in alignment with your development. The chakra framework does not only apply to the individual. It can and does apply to nations and even to historical times. Everyone in their personal development and beyond begins with the root chakra. It is your conscious day to day living and all that is unconscious in you is asleep. All the potential you are here to live has yet to be awakened within you.
To become individual, to live the uniqueness that you are, means leaving the security of the family, the connection to limited ideas of separateness evidenced by the nation state and culture. None of these are to be considered bad in a moral sense. They are simply too limited an experience for the longing of your soul. You can love your family, your nation and your culture but to move beyond the root chakra your experience of yourself has to expand beyond this limited time, space and form identity. You have to move from what is simply conscious within you to alignment with the unconscious within you. This is the first step in chakra balancing.
What usually happens in most peoples lives is that they stay asleep. It has happened in my own life as you will see later. They stay locked in the tower of cerebral thought (meaning that most of life is lived in the head) and the beauty that is within them sleeps for much, if not all, of their lives. This is the story of the Sleeping Beauty. This is living in the root chakra and is a kind of banal place. It is the place of work, work, work and the place of paying the bills and doing lots of things as a means to an end. It is a place of suffering and injustice. It is characterised in moves such as the Wizard of Oz as being a flatland where everything is grey. In the story of Cinderella and the story of Mother Holle it is the place where you do ashes work.
In poetry it is the place you refuse to leave and you then leave a legacy for the future generation who then have to do the work of individualisation that you refused to do. You refuse to live the one wild and precious life you are here to live and the one wild and precious life that you are here to give. You refuse to follow the promptings of the heart and you do what you often think you are duty bound to do. This is because in the root chakra you tend to be loyal to family and to ideas such as the nation state and the cultural ideas that are surrounded by cultural taboos. Thus as in my own case my heart wanted me to be a teacher of Yoga and I opted to become an accountant instead. This is because the role of the accountant is safer and one that is more readily acceptable. Becoming an accountant didn’t go against the cultural norm of the time, when I lived in Northern Ireland, and where I was assured by those who taught me Christian values that Yoga was the work of the devil.
What happens if you refuse to follow the movement of the energy that begins to awaken in the root chakra and that begins to align with the energy of polarity in the 2nd chakra. Metaphorically speaking you die among the dishes and the glasses, meaning that psychologically and spiritually speaking your life force stagnates amidst all the things you acquire in order to try to give meaning to a life without Love (4th chakra experience).
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly
Here is a great poem about someone who refused to move beyond the 1st chakra. Notice that the movement from the root chakra to the 2nd chakra can happen at any time. In the above poem it happens during supper. This I think is also a reference to the Last Supper. The movement in this poem is about the movement away from the ties of family and culture into the place that is unknown. It is somewhere in the East. It is the arising of the energy of the 3rd chakra – the Sun centre. The church referred to is the church made without hands. It does not refer to some building allied to some hierarchical religious organisation.
It is the place of sanctuary – the heart chakra. It is the place of sanctuary that you are able to enter when you balance the energy of the chakra’s. It is what the poet Rumi calls the heart house and it is the cabin that W. B. Yeats builds on his Lake Isle of Innisfree and where he feels the peace of the heart come dropping slow. What happens if you refuse to stand up and find the church in the East. Then the energy of creative potential gets stuck. It not only gets stuck in you but it also gets stuck in the family energetic and then those who are born into the family have to go and find a way of crating a heart house, a way of finding the church in the East that gives their life meaning, gives their life purpose, passion and prosperity.
The language of poetry is not just more information. The language of storytelling is not just entertainment. It’s primary purpose is the invitation to take the journey to the full realisation of what it is to be human. This begins with where you are now. This journey is the journey without end because it expands into infinity which has no beginning or end. Have a listen to some of the deep hearts core podcasts that I have recorded here. These, I hope, will show you the potential within the power of storytelling and poetry to inspire you to balance the chakra’s so that the personality can become available to the higher centres. To use a Christian description of this process
Thy will be done on Earth (1st chakra) as it is in Heaven (7th chakra).
I invite you to have fun exploring the lines of songs, images from movies, the poems, the stories that have given you times of joy and even sorrow. These are filled with images that attract you in some meaningful way. They are filled with symbols which are deep signs along the path to living your wild and precious life. Invest in a Journal
I recommend writing to begin with. It can become a deep connection between hand and heart. It unites the two hemispheres of the brain. Most of all have fun and don’t force. To come into alignment and to balance the chakra’s means learning to be comfortable with not knowing and learning to trust the unknown. This is the movement from the 1st to the 2nd chakra. Enjoy the adventure and feel free to contact me to share your experience. Maybe one day you can share how you got up at supper and left to find the healing heart house within and how you found the experience of chakra balancing within you.
OTHER GREAT CONTENT
Here is some other material that will further your personal and spiritual development and your understanding of the various stages of spiritual development.
chakra healing
KARMA TUBE is a collection of inspiring videos. This website brings inspirational stories to light, using the power of video and the internet to multiply acts of kindness, beauty and compassion
CHAKRA HEALING – Articles on Chakra Healing by Energy Master Carol Tuttle
SOUL PROGRESS – Wonderful articles on spiritual life and spiritual living including the most sought after goals for individuals walking the spiritual path