One of the questions I ask in my book, Whole Mind-Whole World, is how do we maintain a state of inner wholeness while navigating the challenging domain of psycho-spiritual transition?
In transition, the journey and the goal are one. There is no final destination where we arrive and know we’ve made it. When I started on my spiritual path many of us talked about enlightenment as a goal. It seemed to be an exalted, almost unattainable destination reserved for those with a very serious spiritual disposition. Now, we talk more about awakening as an ongoing process available to everyone, which we come to understand as we live it. In the awakening process there are a series of oases and stepping stones which provide sustenance and stability for a time but no permanent resting place. A vital aspect of the soul journey is learning how to live in radical uncertainty without grasping for something outside ourselves to hold on to.
I’ve just returned from a 3 month visit to New Zealand where I have friends and community going back 25 years. Now I’m back in my cottage on the hill in Wales and, as I look out at the sweep of the Snowdonia mountains and Cardigan Bay it is as beautiful as ever. I can see now how these last three years have been a time of completion. S I grieved the loss of my soul friend, Woods, and my brother David, my last family member, I was sorting and sifting and integrating my inner world. I reached down deep into my soul to connect with my homeland and my ancestral roots to find the bedrock of the essential self, the only stability and launching pad into the next sphere of freedom.
My trip to New Zealand has been another stage of completion. One of my tasks there was to sort through a storage container full of books and papers and other personal stuff. The books were a journey through a lifetime, starting when I was 17 and the papers were a record of all the transformational work I’ve done over the last twenty years. Letting go of them stretched my non-attachment muscles. Sentimentality and fear competed with a desire to be rid of this heavy weight of physical reality. I felt I was clearing away the personal effects of a dead person – me. I chose to trust that I have integrated all the wisdom of my beloved books into my being and I don’t need to cart them across the world or keep them to grow dusty on shelves as mementoes of my identity.
Now, after the healing and the letting go and the long journey back across the world to this green and pleasant land, the currently fragmented Queendom of the once Great Britain, I feel daunted by the task ahead of me and hungry for connection and community. I know this hunger is my lifeline and, as I follow it and employ all my skills and devotion, it will take me where I need to be. After 12 years of focused preparation, it’s time to gather and weave my Tribe in Transition.
An image comes to me of strapping on my battle armour, mounting my black steed, surveying my domain and unfurling my flag of peace. Battle is not the metaphor I would have chosen but it holds the flavour of how I feel as I prepare to step out into this next stage of my journey. There’s a mixture of trepidation and courage as I accept my mission. I intend to travel as a peaceful warrior and practice walking the talk of Love-in-action. I am calling in all my power, aligning with soul and taking my next step.
I’m reminded of a tarot card from a pack I had once in which a peaceful warrior steals into the camp of the patriarchy to disarm their weapons. I’m reminded too of Joanna Macy’s work on the path of the Bodhisattva and how our essential “weapons” are insight and compassion.
Insight, compassion, courage, determination, skill, desire, imagination, the language of the soul. These are essential tools for the spiritual activist.
April 22nd 2019.
