The Silence

Life is born of silence.
Without silence we would not
hear the song.
Silence is the life-giving womb.
Silence is the beat of the heart.
Wear her like a crown.
Wear her like a cape.
Wear silence in the midst of laughter,
sorrow, joy and pain.
Enter her womb,
there sound is born.

"I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself..."

When I was a little girl, I loved this rhyme that my mother taught us. There were more words, but these are the ones that have remained with me all my life. I loved the idea of hiding myself inside myself. I remember giggling and giggling as the giddy ballerina in me turned round and round in circles singing this to myself...

Lately, the rhyme has been coming back to me with an understanding that became quite visceral the other day. I was walking my dog on a beautiful trail and paused on a bridge overlooking the reservoir. The sky was a brilliant blue. The branches of the bare trees held the stark beauty of winter; it seemed to me that the branches were reaching skyward in prayer. As I gazed out over the immense horizon of blue sky, glistening water and the sepia trees, I became aware that something had changed. Everything was clearer, more brilliant, more defined and the three dimensionality of the view seemed like a digital picture. An unexpected giddiness filled me and I called to Phoebe, "Let's go, girl!" We started to run and it was as though all of nature ran with me. I whizzed by trees as they whizzed by my. The sky was in front of me and the air beneath.

This is me, I thought, not knowing what I meant. I was flowering from within. Finding myself suddenly breathless, I was forced to slow and feared the moment had passed. But as I began to walk, the colors, the sense of depth and beauty within and without remained. Again I thought, This is me...I knew this feeling. I've had it before, but usually for just a few moments and then I am myself again. Gloriously, the timelessness and joy stayed with me for the entire walk and with it a deepening sense of having found myself — the me I had lost so long ago — and my childhood rhyme came back.

I hide myself inside myself and then I try to find myself.

Have I found me? I wondered, feeling the giddiness of my six year old ballerina self twirling inside me. I was the six year old and I was the grown up me, both of us laughing at the trees and feeling as if we could merge with the sky. I love you, me. Stay with me always. Where have you been, you wondrous creature? Oh, thank you, thank you, glorious me, for returning!

The walk ended and I returned to me who goes about life with all her hopes, plans, worries, problems, etc. But the awareness I had that day has remained and changed me in a most profound way. The awareness of freedom, love and connection to joy is me, the deeper, truer me, and is not something that can be taken away. It can't be taken away because it was not given, not by me or anyone else. This awareness is my beingness, and the well of my creativity. It is ephemeral because I am living in a body and weighed down by both my physical and emotional bodies. But what a great challenge that is! To be me. To be alive. To be on this adventure called Life.

I Am Not I

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien to our ego that they cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of exploring these inner selves, whom some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever the name, these are parts of self that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgments on those parts of self that don't meet with acceptance; in so doing, we doom our self to live through a small part of the totality of self while casting other parts into the shadows, where we keep them hidden and silent.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am currently giving a TeleWorkshop called Tapping Into the Feminine, Connecting to Source: Wisdom as Nurturer and Warrior. The first session held last week was very powerful and we spontaneously came up with prompts to help us embrace the Divine Feminine. There were about five and the one I chose was:

Being open-hearted makes us vulnerable....

I am posting what I wrote.

Now as I am with that thought, Being open-hearted makes us
vulnerable....my first response is fear. Openheartedness seems utterly terrifying. Open heartedness to everyone? Is that what is demanded.

I think yes. That is what is being asked. And why is it so scary? I see, I think that I have work to do on my warrior. How right that feels. My warrior. It has taken on new meaning.The warrior who knows that my heart is good. The warrior who knows that I am safe. I am safe because there is a part of me that is embraced by the Divine Mother who, like water, can be gentle and kind as well as powerful with the fierceness of flow.

Like Kali, the Creator/Destroyer.

Like the cycles of life/death/ rebirth.

Always giving in... opening to the dying, the letting go.

It is fearelessness and an embracing of joy. The sheer joy of being. The child's laughter and lover of life. The vulnerable heart that holds the hand of the Divine Mother within.

A mother who protects.

A mother who is fierce in her love.

A mother who holds me without judgment of need.

The mother I year for is within me. She is my Warrior!

What does the above prompt open for you? Please post.
Also, if you would like to be on my mailing list to receive notice of future workshops, please email me.

I look forward to reading your thoughts..

namaste

Emily

From Meenu Mehrotra

Hi Emily,

Your thoughts never fail to inspire me and make me feel very proud of being a writer.

Here's something I wrote for your Creative Soul Works blog and mirrors what this journey that I started 4 years back.

I am being born out

of myself

shedding my bark

revealing the new

fresh, the untainted

part of me

soft murmur of the wind

faint chirpings of the birds

gentle crashing of the waves

the stillness of the round moon

the shrieking darkness of the sea at night

the brilliance of the pale blue morning sky

the lingering presence of the mountains all around me

the blushing of the sky at sunrise...

I appreciate it more now

feel them with my soul

my inner self is blooming

unfolding

tossing & turning

to wake up

and

walk on a new journey...

--
warm regards
meenu

She Touched Me In Silence by Irene Kessler

From the August Retreat: Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul: Embracing the Gift of the Shadow

She touched me in silence in the early morning dew.
She touched me at midnight in the moonlight glow.
She reached down to my core and found what was needed to make me whole once more.
She took me down the labyrinth path and made me whole once more.

Labyrinth as a Metaphor for the Journey

In the ancient myth of Ariadne, her half brother, the Minotaur, half-man, half-beast, is imprisoned at the heart of the labyrinth and fed the brightest and most promising youth of Athens in sacrifice each year. It is Ariadne, muse and guide to truth, who gives Theseus the golden thread that leads into the labyrinth, where he slays the Minotaur and then follows the golden thread back into the light.

Each of us has a Minotaur caged inside us. We, too, feed this beast the best and brightest of our creativity. In the workshop, we will use writing and other creative methods as Ariadne's golden thread!

Using the image of the labyrinth is a bridge into the deeper mystery of self is a powerful creative experience that shifts our relationship to self and allows us to hear our true voice.

"Back into the labyrinth, where we are found or lost forever."
W.B. Yeats

Writings from the Sunday Creativity Circle, March 10, 2008

Where I am now in my wet, moist and juicy world

by Louise Easton

I am floating down the river, its dark bottom laden with my years of thoughts, burdens and yearnings. I leave some of them as mulch to nurture those who follow this path, but I carry above with me the parts that have broken off, longing to bring their newness to the surface, to have them nourished by light and sun. Thus the wisdom that was the wisdom that will be merge in the wet, juicy and moist being that is the core of who I am.

When the Soul Speaks....

I had a fight with my husband last night. I slept in the guest room and come morning, I was still angry and hurt. So I decided to meditate on how to handle these feelings. This was the intention of the meditation, but soon I found myself considering the question of my truth. Not the truth in terms of my version of the fight. That I was right, of course, and he was wrong-- and would never admit it much less apologize. My meditation had taken me to my Truth with a capital T. I was aware, too, that the voice who was considering this Truth was not my own. That the thoughts in my head were not my own.

I wasn’t, however, taken aback by the fact there was this other voice talking to me. I often have conversations with my guides. Over the years, perhaps because I write fiction, perhaps because of my proclivity to imagine, or perhaps because my father, a great lover of Shakespeare, was fond of quoting Hamlet, saying: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophies” — perhaps because of these influences and predilections, I have become an ardent believer that imagination holds the deeper, truer reality.

So, hearing this other voice was comfortable. What she said, however, took me by surprise. Here I was, ruminating over this fight I had had with my husband and, suddenly, I am given the answer to questions I have been asking for a very long time:

What is the truth of my life?

Why am I here?

What is my path?

I had always thought that if and when I knew the answers to these questions, my work, the meaning of my life would become clear. So the answer I was given surprised me. I was told this: The truth of who you are is simply this: you are one with God. You are safe in the light. Nothing can harm you.

I have heard this before. In fact, I have sucked on such thoughts as a child sucks on a hard candy. Intently. In the end, however, such beliefs—although nice—seemed just too… I’m not sure… Perhaps they didn’t sufficiently meet my work ethic, my need to be busy and to have meaningful work. So believing that the truth of my life is that I am one with God, that I am safe in the light, that nothing can harm me… simply wasn’t sufficient. I needed something more proactive. Something that would really do IT for me.

This morning, to my surprise, the words did IT for me. They impacted me like the greatest ah-ha of my life. I felt them in a way that words cannot describe. The image of a rainbow comes to mind. One can talk about the beauty of a rainbow but talk is only talk until once the rainbow appears. Another image is the joy of making eye contact with a small child whose eyes do not wander off of mine, but draw me in with innocence and immediacy. I smile. The child smiles. It is a smile of sheer simplicity. It is a smile that feels like, well, the rainbow.

Ach, pedestrian! my mind thinks. Rainbows and baby’s smiles. Come on, Emily, you’re a writer. You can come up with something better than that. But I can’t. For in the end, even these images pale before the experience.

I hear the words: The truth of who you are is simply this: you are one with God. You are safe in the light. Nothing can harm you.

The voice goes on. It says, “This is what your soul wants you to know.”

I think, “My God, a moment of soul-speak!” My heart pounds in anticipation. This is a dream I tell myself. But I am awake.

The voice goes on. It says, quoting me, “ ‘Who am I?’ you ask. 'You are light."

I listen very carefully.

“ ‘Who am I?’ you ask. You are the flame of God and creation.

“‘Who am I?’ you ask. You are a being of light.

“There is nothing to fear.

“You say that you do not know who you are inside you own skin. (Indeed this is a feeling I have had a lot of late.) The voice continues, “This is because you are searching for me. I am always here. Waiting. Waiting. For you to see. I have no fear. Only a longing for you, in this incarnation, to return to me. It is I who lives inside your skin. It is I who breathes the light as you breath air. I am light only. I seek the light and union with you. I am only half.

“You long for a twin. I know this. You have longed for a twin since you were a child, for someone who knows you because she is you. For someone who loves you because you have been together since the beginning. Someone who will never stop loving you, no matter what. I tell you this, beloved, you feel this hunger because you have a twin, one you have forgotten. Me. Your Soul. I am incomplete without you. You are incomplete without me.

“You feel sadness in this life, great uncertainty, what you call depression. You feel anger, even rage. These are not outward things or imagined hurts. Walking the path of an incarnate being is difficult and often feels impossible. You lash out at others or yourself. Why? Because you, the incarnate being, forgets the twin who is the soul, forgets that you are never and could never be alone.

“To walk in partnership with me is to truly embrace the journey of life. For I am here to remind you with each and every breath that in our oneness you are a being of light. You are a child of God. You cannot die because I cannot die. We transform, shapeshift if you will. Birth itself is the great shapeshifter.

“Matter, this stuff of the flesh is heavy. We, you and I, we choose the journey of flesh in joy and expectation. Promising always that the body will not forget the soul. And yet, you do. To remember and reunite with me is the greatest dance of life. The never ending dance that takes you through the veils and allows you to journey back to your true birthright. Where there is no anger, no depression, fear or meanness. Where there is only light and God and being and acceptance.

“To remember me is a great task of this life for you. So this moment is one of celebration. Remember Dear One, no one can hurt you. No one can demean you. From this moment on, when you feel anger, rage, depression, emptiness, know that you walk hand in hand with the twin for whom your heart yearns.”

The moment passed, the joy did not sustain itself. Life got in the way. And I forgot. But not ever entirely again. I hold the feeling of this conversation in my heart, in my mind’s eye, in every core of my being. And should I forget for long, one part of me will remember and remind me. I have nothing to fear. I am one with God. I am safe in the light. I am not alone.

And, the fight with my husband...my need to prove I was right and he was wrong... simply didn't matter anymore. It was forgotten and we embraced.

The Inner Critic and the Creative Unconscious

The Inner Critic is terrified of the creative unconscious because it is the home of feelings, emotions, images and it is chaotic and unexpected. The Inner Critic likes order and loves the status quo, which is antithetical to the creative unconscious. That's why if you "fall down the rabbit hole" the Inner Critic won't follow you! Free of the Inner Critic, you have the possibility of experiencing real creative freedom and passionate stories awaits you. Only then can the true dance begin!