Sun and Clouds — New Years Eve Morning
Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do. John O’Donohue (Interview by Mary NurrieStearns on https://personaltransformation.com/)
Trusting my soul. Ahhh … that feels so very rich, right, nourishing. Aligned with my highest aim. Shooting for the stars, not as a goal to accomplish, but to remember that I came from stardust (as did we all) and my soul knows the wisdom of this cosmic connection. The connection that maps the geography of my destiny.
How do I know when I’m trusting my soul? I wonder, and …
Compassion. I’ve been sitting with you, contemplating your nature for a bit. Compassion – ‘with passion’. Passion from the soul which feels, perhaps fills, the heart of my being.
So, compassion, you are of the heart, and that heart must throw off the shackles of numbness that hold illusions of protection.
Protection. From what? From whom? Being numb is no protection at all! Indeed, in my numbness I cannot see the world, another, or even myself and behold the beauty that is Life. And I cannot see the suffering, the pain, the degradation … Wake up!
To feel compassion is to care. Self-compassion is self-care. Daring to dwell deep in the heart and care for the heart of the matter. The matter of Life. All Life. Sacred Life.
These words, these thoughts seem jumbled as if they are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box to guide me. What pieces are missing?
What, if any, action flows from compassion? What is mine to do, to act upon? The question burns. Our culture demands action, doing. Surely it is not enough to simply feel the pain of another’s suffering. Or of Mother Earth being trampled and abused as a resource until we use her up. Or of callous killing in the guise of being secure.
But how will my soul answer?
What IS mine to do in ending these cycles of violence? What needs to awaken in me?
I shudder a bit, and, with a gulp, ask Muse, “Is this jumble what is to be shared today?”
“Trust your soul,” comes the reply, likely with a wink and, perhaps, a nod.
Soul suggests there is a bit more. In opening to deeper compassion and honesty about the world, I must not let that world drag me into its morass. Mine is to discover the geography of my destiny and then to trust the map. My map, drawn in communion with the cosmos, and present in my soul. Mine is to know that my, indeed our, greatest task is to BE above the fray, even when events bring that fray to our doorstep.
Beyond the world’s chaos my soul envisions the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. My task, soul seems to say, is to hold that vision in the darkest of times, especially for those who are suffering or in survival mode and those whose misery leads them to foment discord and more. To lift them up in my heart and see them, indeed all of us, IN that more beautiful world. To behold love as the standard by which humanity will thrive and to hold myself to that standard. The puzzle pieces begin to fall into place …
A Colorado Blue Sky Day!