Pinecone dripping …
In the journey to its flowering, human consciousness has a decisive pivot point when it is thrust inwards toward self-revelation. Once this occurs, an individual shifts away from a life direction dependent on external events and opens more and more to a conscious inner life guided by love and wisdom and the passionate quest to be an embodiment of abiding truth. We call this axis of transformation “soul awakening”. James O’Dea – Soul Awakening Practice: Prayer, Contemplation, and Action
In the wake of a week with challenges in how I relate with others and as I prepare to journey more deeply within in the coming weeks, I was drawn to the simple beauty of James O’Dea’s Soul Awakening Prayer.
Soul Awakening
Heart Opening
Light Shining
Love Flowing
Wounds Dissolving
Peace Radiating
Still feeling some hurt from having experienced dissonance and dissolution along with dissatisfaction (with both self and others), I wanted to skip right into wounds dissolving. Patch up my hurt and move on. But as I read the prayer aloud several times, I felt myself begin to soften into myself as I put my attention on Soul Awakening. From somewhere deep within I felt a longing rising from which my heart opens, my light shines, and love flows, dissolving wounds and opening the way to radiating peace with such brilliance that I hold no awareness of ‘other’ and the voice of my critical eye/I pivots from judgement to live in and speak from discernment and compassion. Sharp. Clear. Home.
Taking the prayer with a bundle of gratitude into an early morning walk, I recalled that in the early 1990s when I began my coaching career, or perhaps even before that, I had a sense of divine order in the Universe, that everything held a purpose in manifesting some divine plan.
Like the seeds of all plant life, seeds within the pinecone hold the code to their purpose. To the beauty within, gestating until their time. All Nature seems to operate in this knowing, synergistic way. Despite evidence to the contrary, I sensed that the same is true for each of us humans. ‘If only we could know and live our purpose, our world could experience peace,’ I recall thinking.
While my belief, indeed my dream, hasn’t changed, I’m growing in understanding that what most spiritual traditions call the ‘soul’ is where our true purpose, that seed given us by Source (Creator, the God of our individual understanding) lives. This isn’t a new idea. Throughout time spiritual traditions have guided, even implored, us to look within to where our true essence lives and to follow the unique guidance planted in each of us as our purpose, our role in a divine plan.
But alas, in separation we have turned away from this Truth of our being, resulting in making choices that have created the multiple crises of our time. We, along with our ancestors are each culpable, in the state of our world today.
But our journey, our pivot, is not about blame or guilt. Rather it is knowing that we each have a part in seizing the opportunities that these crises present. To be present with them as gifts, the presents that they are to nurture the evolution of our consciousness. And then to move with heart-felt light and love to dissolve all that which is not in service to Life. ALL Life!
There is no single path, no one formula, no ‘right’ solution. Rather it is our individual responsibility to seize the opportunities of this ‘decisive pivot point’, turning within to discover our own SOULution, trusting that we will harmonize with the music of the cosmos.
Imagine for a moment the beauty of the planetary eco-system THAT will create.
The Naga Shrine on Cottonwood Creek