How long 'til my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of Galileo king of night vision
King of insight
― Galileo, Indigo Girls
Songs hold stories. They capture universal experiences and are an eloquent doorway into our emotions and safely held secrets. On my journey to conscious embodiment, songs have and continue to offer clues into my own unconscious processes and serve as a guidepost for the larger universal experiences that I am constantly traversing.
We are vibrational creatures.
We are made of energy and expressed through matter. Each thought, emotion, and action we take is a unique representation of our vibrational expression. We express our vibration or tone all the time through our gestures, prosody, and tone of voice. In fact, our “vibe” or what neuroscientist Dan Siegel refers to as “somatic resonance”, impacts those around us whether we are conscious of it or not. We know this from the work of Dr. Stephen Porges who has taught us about the concept of neuroception- which is, the capacity to read or experience one another via our bodily cues andsignals coming from our nervous system.
The journey home involves shifting our vibration out of states of defense and disconnection into states of safety and connectivity.
We are rhythmic creatures.
We are inherently rhythmic in nature, made with a built-in system that is designed to move us in and out of states of expansion and contraction at multiple levels throughout the day. This is part of our built-in evolution that is cyclical in nature and demonstrated through the ebb and flow of the tides, the changing of the seasons, the inhale and the exhale of the breath, and the stages of our psychological growth and spiritual maturity that we traverse during a lifetime.
The journey home asks us to turn inwards to pay attention to our inner cycles and follow the signs and signals of change.
We are seasonal creatures.
We operate and shift according to the seasons. We winter inside of ourselves. We wait and we listen. We germinate new expressions of ourselves. We plant seeds. We expand and stretch ourselves as we Spring into new action and growth.
The journey home is a journey of the Core Self and we do it by following the seasons of the soul.
The Core Self is the essence of who you are. It is the expression of you or your soul as it was uniquely designed to be in this lifetime. In internal Family Systems, it is known as “Self” energy.
In the Jungian psychology the archetype of the Self is the last point on the route to self-realization and individuation.
“The Self embraces ego-consciousness, shadow, anima, and collective unconscious in
indeterminable extension- as a totality, the self is the total, timeless person...who stands for the mutual integration of conscious and unconscious.”
-Carl Jung
I heard a spiritual teacher describe the process this way. The seasons of the soul are much like the seasons of the natural world. We move through different cycles of deepening into the Core Self several times in our life. In this process, we are asked to dismantle or let go of who we “think” we are or who we have become by following our ego. We then allow and yield into the unknown as we feel the emotions and release all the defenses that are no longer serving us. We come into stillness. We Winter. As Spring approaches, we listen to the seeds that have been germinating. We plant. We expand into a new version of ourselves. In summer we celebrate the new birth of who we are in the world.
The seasons of the soul are cyclical. If you are a psycho-spiritual adventurer like myself, you may be aware of what season you are currently immersed in at this time.
I had a student last week use the term “adventurer” in my class as she described herself. I like that term rather than the term “seeker”, because to me, it has less “efforting” attached to it and allows me yield into the experience that I am having just a little more rather than bypassing it to get to the next phase.
As an adventurer, what season are you in right now?
Are you being asked to let go of aspects of who you are?
Are you wanting to shift or let go of certain roles that you play in your life?
Are you being asked to slow down and listen deeply?
Is this a time of stillness and centering?
Are you aware of a creative flow or a sense that something is wanting to be birthed?
Is this a time of movement outwards and self-expression?
Are you being called to bring yourself forward, to be more of your authentic self?
A Gentle Ritual To Support You
For the past 3 years I have reserved a space in my day for reflective writing. This can be called automatic writing, free flow writing, wild mind writing or journaling. It is a time in the day where I turn off the phone, quite the mind, and turn inwards. The pages are not planned. It is me and my soul talking. The prompts are simple and listed below.
What does my soul (heart, Self, inner child, spirit) want me to know today?
I wonder what ___________ is about?
What lesson am I learning from ____________?
What brings me joy?
What guidance am I ready to hear today?
A Daily Affirmation
This is a gift from a mentor of mine, acupuncturist, Jonathon Goldman.
“Whatever I need to hear. Whatever I need to know. Whatever I need to feel. Whatever I need to see. If it is in my highest good. I agree to it.”
