Mid-life Soul

...it is a time to incorporate the opposite polarity, whatever that might be. ~Carl Jung

The word 'crisis' is derived from the Greek word krino and means "to decide".

In Jungian terms, this urge to break from old routines is really an outward expression of the "separation from the youthful persona". This is the shift from a persona-orientation to a Self-orientation, and according to Stein, is "critical for the individuation process as a whole, because it is the change by which a person sheds layers of familial and cultural influence and attains to some degree of uniqueness in his [her] appropriation of internal and external facts and influences". This can only be done if one is prepared to let go of one's youthful identity.

Those are good chaos words... So I'm taking a walk today, and realize I've unleashed myself from everything except my children who I hold somewhat at bay so as not to taint their tender minds. I have left my marriage of 18 years, my faith of more thatn 20 years, and many good friends in this change. Having cast off all of those defining anchors I am left to drink, unceremoniously of course, and I walk in this avid loss. So I walk and decide to just listen to the sounds around me which are crickets and frogs and various other bugs which brings rest momentarily to my thought riddled mind. I wonder about how long this transitoriness will go on? But then I stop thinking and just breathe for a moment.

Grasshopper

I walked out to my car last week to go to lunch and noticed a very large grasshopper on the ground near my car tire. It's body was a soft greenish grey. It's legs were covered in moss green and grey stripes. A very worthy grasshopper. I tried to nudge it away from my tire so as not to squish it when leaving then I noticed a second grasshopper! Twice as lovely as the first and even larger. This one was soft grey with grey and dusty pink stripes on it's legs, something I had not seen before. So I stooped and looked at these two delicate creatures for a brief time and wondered at their visiting me.

Needing all the optomism I can get these days I looked up the symbolic meanings for grasshopper to enliven meaning this day. God Bless this meaning.

Among the Chinese, the grasshopper came to symbolize flourishing descendants and hence abundance as well.

In ancient Greece, the nobility wore golden grasshoppers in their hair, possibly because the grasshopper's fertility made it a symbol of abundance. The grasshopper's song during the day and its silence during the night made it an attribute of Apollo the sun god and the kind of friend or helper who makes a lot of noise but disappears when help is needed. In China, the grasshopper paired with a chrysanthemum indicated high office. For Christians, the locust became another symbol of Christ's resurrection or rebirth because it sheds its carapace. St. John the Baptist came eating locusts and wild honey as was permitted by Levitical law (Lev 11:22; Mt 3:4; Mk 1:6).

Joseph Campbell said, We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The Flaming Grasshopper, a blog for the Chelsea Green publishing company (specializing in sustainable living), describes the grasshopper as representing potent life energy contained in a small “insignificant” exoskeletal package, capable of covering great distances in a single leap. It is also an ancient symbol of good luck.

This website was the best part of my find.


Renee'

Belief

The soul of the tree appeared plainly.

It felt like I was looking through three dimensions: my own, through that of the nights and the physical manifestation of the tree in its divine force. I came upon it unexpectedly. I have never granted nature a "spirit" but rather a vigorous inanimate life force with instinctive rythms and cycles. The funny thing is I had the honest sense that the tree hadn't anticipated my seeing soul and was laughing and howling in the night wind before me. I saw it's face.

I sat in my car briefly upon shutting it off, wanting to listen a while longer to a song on the radio, when my eyes came to rest on this roaring movement. It might have been the wind, it might have been the light, it might have been what MY mind can see through my eyes, but, the moment I identified the fact I was looking at the soul of this tree it was as if it instantly retracted itself up from eyes and seeing heart, as if it felt the whisper of my words and reduced the appearance of it's energy back to that of only natural elements. I sat waiting quietly looking at the tree for some time, for the roaring laughter, but did not see again the display of life I had seen just minutes before. Last night the soul of a tree appeared plainly.

Father’s Day Poem
6/15/08

Father

Some of your teeth still scare me
like glass in sand
that cannot be seen until
piercing flesh and sole
in jagged line

The sand is extraordinary still
light and heat bubbling up
I extend my foot in stride
to push with heals exposed
my weight into the ground
and bear with prick of pain and blood
each step
with swollen sole and smile

With soft eyes and flowing mane
you conceal the teeth of old age
your opinions like stone
some large and some like pebbles
they drive scrape and heal
pit and tousle too

I love you like the summer
And seek you like the sun
Your words they sometimes scare me
Like running on the beach playing
finding glass in sand

"Breathe Some More"

Last night I saw a man. Someone I knew and didn't know all together. There was this psychic awareness throughout the encounter unlike I've ever known prior to or engaged in so cognitively. I was having this heightened awareness and was wondering if it was occurring within him simultaneously. My soul was fully surfaced in full dialogue. There was no fear or aversion or expectation, only contact, only presence. I observed, I listened and challenged his thought and spoke my truth too. There was this amazing dynamic and crystal clear perception of every moment, like having an existential experience while in meditation but in a bar in the city at 1:00 a.m. I felt like I was inside of his person. I could understand his expression as he spoke like it was coming from me and I was able equally to divide the truth. As I sat there saturated in the awareness of him I experienced for the first time as a grown woman my psychic ability. I realized that this was a rare glimpse into my gift, one I had known as a child. For that short time I was psychically connected, in perfect perception and fully open. Tonight I am in bed writing this experience down for you.

Renee'

Dividing the Truth

Descent...

Wild honey...

Drought is a time when old tensions surface and chronic afflictions feel worse. It is a time to redress the balance between the people and their place in the world through communion with the unseen beings of the Otherworld, -"Maya Cosmos"

Paradox
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin paradoxum, from Greek paradoxon, from neuter of paradoxos contrary to expectation, from para- + dokein to think, seem — more at decent
Date: 1540

I Breathe

I saw a shaman on television this morning. I have been drawn to these people with awe and suspicion for many years being raised within a fundamental western faith. This morning was much like luck, being prepared when the opportunity presents itself and all of my thoughts came into alignment. My faith, the things I have come to believe as real, my sense of understanding of the world and the evidence of my higher awareness seeking what I need were all activated at once as I stood in my underwear sipping coffee. I watched as a small native man used his voice as medicine and creating energy vibrations. He used words to affect varying levels of consciousness He moved his hands over the afflicted woman's body in order to adjust her energy and he collected and disposed of that unwanted matter which he had used the palm of his hands to draw out. There is no doubt belief in the existence of a higher power being exercised within indigenous tribes, which for me is the existence of God, in which he exercised faith. I saw the shaman combining many applications of energy healing I have come to be aware of. What I saw him do I realized is keenly ours. Our innate ability to heal and therefore transform and exorcise what's ill, in mind, body and soul. I have been seeking this an answer for years about how to accept what is shamanic. These are acts of healing through faith. Manipulating energy, biorhythms, circulation, breath and thought. They do this "because" they believe even without all the scientific evidence we have at hand. Their mind and spirit knows.

How then, therefore, can we judge what course of treatment is more highly esteemed when seeking to be healed? The exercise of consciousness and a non-judgemental approach is needed. Is it not the quest for life that drives all down paths of healing?