Life sure can spin us around, can't it? There's so much to do with such a profusion of influences, distractions and demands streaming our way that it's easy to become disoriented and lose sight of what truly matters. This is why it's beneficial to have ways to bring us back to center, methods that return us to ourselves.
Author and unabashed mystic Rebecca Campbell describes these as practices for "stitching the soul back into everyday life." Of course, the soul is already part of daily life. That essence, no matter the name we give it, is part of everything we do, and it comes with us wherever we go. But it's easy to forget it's even there as we're called hither, thither and yon by whatever wheel squeaks at us the loudest.
So I'd like to reverse the direction of Campbell's metaphor. It is not the soul that needs stitching back into everyday life, but everyday life that needs stitching back into soul. It is this ability we need to strengthen, so we can return our awareness to what is always and ever there.
The goal of a spiritually-informed life is to allow the sacred to occupy centerstage that we might follow its lead. And the soul is our direct link to the sacred, a homing pigeon ever ready to carry us home. Campbell offers a beautifully simple formula to encourage this process: connect to the soul, listen to what it says, and take an action, likely quite small, in response. As with many simple formulas, though, there is an art to the enactment of this one.
So let's begin with Campbell's first step. Connecting to the soul necessitates that we turn to face it. For most of us, this requires setting aside time within our days, time dedicated to nurturing a relationship with the soul as a doorway to the sacred. Yet how we do this must fit our unique disposition, the personal theology that calls to us, and the current details of our very particular lives. Spirituality can never be a once-size-fits-all kind of thing.
For some, this turning toward may mean engaging in periods of sitting meditation, prayer, study, or devotional service. Others may be called into nature or to singing, artwork, or slow or rapid movement that, through calming the mind, opens a passageway to so much more. The methods are as varied as we are, and discovering what works best for us is essential, recognizing that what may work in one situation or season of our lives, might be less fitting for another. These practices must also be sustainable over time, as the spiritual life needs ever to hold the long view.
Campbell's second step is listening to the messages the soul sends. Once we've connected, a conversation of sorts will ensue. However, this is where things get a bit tricky, as the soul's guidance is often offered obliquely, sometimes maddeningly so. While we may wish for a memo with specific instructions, including timelines and suggestions for how to pay the bills and who will watch the children while we're off following its urgings, the soul doesn't usually work this way.
So we show up as we are, offering all of ourselves to the conversation, including our struggles, questions, hopes and fears. And then we listen. The soul's response may come in the language of silence, or a felt sense, or recognitions that appear hours or days later. Listening for this inner voice, developing the ability to distinguish it from our own wishes and doubts, and interpreting its guidance lies at the heart of spiritual practice. It is the art of living as spiritual beings.
No one said it would be easy, dang it. And yet, as Jesus taught, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." We may not get the answer we hope for. It may not arrive with the clarity or speed we would like. But the soul knows what we do not, and it can be trusted.
Campbell's third step is to express in some way the guidance we've received, to find a simple action to follow the soul's lead. When things are going smoothly in our world, nothing new may be asked of us beyond simple acknowledgment. But in times of turmoil or when our soul sends whispers of a needed change, some action will often be asked of us. Such steps can be quite small: making a particular phone call, spending a few minutes online exploring a possible avenue, engaging in an act of kindness.
And yet the real magic comes when, after having learned the habit of Campbell's formula in our practice periods, the soul begins to speak to us spontaneously within our daily lives. Or perhaps it always has, and we merely grow better able to clearly perceive it. In a heated exchange, our soul is there to guide us. When we're uncertain, we hear its voice urging us forward. When frightened, we feel soothed. This is another important dimension of the spiritual life, how it shapes us and our behavior out in the world.
This human life is an amazing adventure, one we are on together. Each of us is part of a vast dance, singing the tune that is uniquely ours, while intermingling with the song-steps of others. It is truly a thing of beauty.
In a recent dream, I heard these words: "It is all My breath. It is all holy." As we dance and as we sing, may we know that it is good.
With a dancing and a singing love, on this Mother's Day I honor all you do to nurture, in whatever way it comes to you to do it. Blessings!
Leia
For more on Rebecca Campbell, click here.
