What we pay attention to is what will grow and develop. When we place focused attention on our soul life we begin to notice and experience our soul life more fully. It’s as if the soul looks for an invitation to participate in the everyday. What daily practices nurture the sacred?
Sue Hardman-Conklin
I meditate, journal and engage in spiritual studies on my own as well as with groups. I try to take the teachings and embody them as best I can, so as to grow myself and be of service to others. I remind myself that this is spiritual “practice” – not “perfection.” It’s definitely a work in progress – and will always be. Occasionally I’ll go on a retreat to focus more extensively on my meditation and/or spiritual studies. These retreats have been wonderful learning experiences that have brought me insights and brought me closer to my better self – closer to my soul perhaps. Prior to walking the Camino I’d never been on retreat for longer than a week. Going on retreat for 5 weeks seems like a pretty big step – a huge commitment toward a spiritual practice. I’m curious to discover if this is worth it.
Julie and I agree that we will walk together in silence for large chunks of each day. This will allow each of us to be contemplative in our own way. For me it means silently repeating the Soul Mantra, the Great Invocation, and various chants, as well as practicing mindful walking meditation, and being present. One of my good friends, Deb, urges me to use this time to talk to Spirit, ask questions, start a dialogue, ask for guidance, etc. For some reason this makes me a little uncomfortable. So right away I have to ask myself why the discomfort? I’m ok with talking to Spirit, stating intentions, sending out healing and loving energy, saying prayers on behalf of others– but starting a dialogue and expecting to hear something back seems a bit unhinged. As I write this I have to laugh. It sounds like I’m ok with doing all the talking, but not so ok with the listening. That’s funny and a bit familiar. I decide to open my heart to dialoging with Spirit – to listening as best I can and see what happens. I remind myself that I actually have been listening all along –paying attention to the subtle signs of the soul urging me forward – like the signs that kept coming about walking the Camino.
In addition to these spiritual practices I also plan to spend time each day exploring who I am outside of my roles and ‘to-do’ list. I want to do a spring-cleaning of my mind – examining the beliefs and stories I hold in storage and seeing if those beliefs still serve me and help me walk toward becoming my highest self. I figure that an experience like this will take me outside of my comfort zone and bring inevitable challenges. There’s nothing like challenges to bring forward my demons – those dust bunnies that clutter my thinking and make me miserable. It’s a bit daunting to invite these challenges – and yet I know that freedom and growth come from facing these bad boys down. So this is what I am signing up for – and what I will keep coming back to each time I question why I am doing this. Freed from the responsibilities of normal day-to-day life, this will be a great experiment with living my spiritual practice more fully within each day.
Therese Antony
Taking care of the details of life requires constant energy and attention. We work, pay bills, manage finances, care for our bodies, and commit to the nurturing of the relationships that make life meaningful. The demands of life are a close, frequent, and unpredictable distraction and it makes being fully present spiritually a challenge for more than a few moments at a time.
This is a welcome dynamic for that higher energetic aspect that I call personality or ego. It gets the place at the head of the table. It’s in control, keeping itself on top, holding attention and being the authority. It gets the bills paid. It handles responsibilities. It addresses practical necessities. While this is effective in managing life, it is at the cost of a more authentic identity – the soul – that quietly waits to be invited to the table. When the soul is at the table, life is more delicious, more satisfying, and more sustaining. More often than not, though, the soul is forgotten, left out of the invitation.
I nurture intimacy with my deeper self, my soul self, through spiritual practices that include meditation, introspection, writing, and an occasional weekend retreat. These support the fabric of everyday life and are essential practices that make me a better person, but they alter only temporarily the overall domination of personality over soul.
Soul identity is non-ordinary. I think it requires something non-ordinary to unbalance the personality and shift the equilibrium of life to partnership with the soul. While this shift is often triggered by crisis, loss, or trauma, the Camino de Santiago can also create that shift. So, I’m hoping that walking the Camino will re-shuffle the seating plan so that my soul always has the honored place at my table and doesn’t need a special invitation.
I’m starting to sense pilgrimages come in all shapes and sizes. It seems that anything that wakes us up out of the ordinary ” trance” of daily life can be a pilgrimage. I have found that my daily walk in nature opens my habituated limited perspective and heart to a higher consciousness of connection and pure love. Nature supports quietude & stillness required for intuition and inspiration to be known.
Hi Deb! I loved that you mention nature as an access point for conscious connection and love. Nature experiences have provided me with some of my most valuable lessons. Fr. Richard Rohr (one of my favorite modern day mystics) said it really beautifully in a recent article – also published in the Huffington Post! Here is what he said.
For some reason, the whole created world, the animals and the seasons of nature allow us to surrender and trust much more than sermons, words or people do, where we seem to be much more defended, in our heads, and even afraid. Now we are learning that abused children can tell their story if they are touching their dog and those who are autistic and stutter do not hesitate or stutter when they are with their horses or cats. One starts to wonder who is taking care of whom? Who is the healer and who is the healed? Who has soul and who does not? It is not as neat and clear a distinction as humans once presumed.
The “first Bible” of nature is well written, filled with Mystery and invitation and has all that you need to know God, to know yourself, to know life and even to trust death. Reading reality from inside this circle of creation, and with the eyes of nature, you will inherently know you are already in sacred space, you will know that you belong and you will know that it is OK.
Creation is our first and final cathedral. Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing. The world is no “contest” any more, but as Mary Oliver says, “the doorway into thanks.”
Beautifully said!
I agree completely that “anything that wakes us up out of the ordinary ‘trance’ of daily life can be a pilgrimage.” The trick is discovering what it is that wakes us up. Thanks Deb for sharing what it is that wakes you up “to a higher consciousness of connection and pure love.” I’d love to know how others have experienced awakening out of the trance, or how others have experienced ‘pilgrimage.’
I recently read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It was a remarkable book about both inner AND OUTER transformation that occurred in a spontaneous (unlikely) and unexpected pilgrimage undertaken by the main character, Harold Fry, as he unconsciously worked to purge his demons. Sue, you talked about walking as a way to spring-clean your mind, and undertook it quite consciously. Harold Fry used walking as a way to purge his demons, but I sensed his original intent was quite unconscious. It seems to me that a walking pilgrimage can have an effect even if its intent is originally not in conscious sight. Your thoughts?
Very provocative, thoughtful essay and questions.
Great point, Jan. From what I experienced and observed on the Camino, doing a walking pilgrimage had all kinds of effects that were not part of the pilgrim’s intent or within their conscious sight initially. That’s the beauty and the mystery of the experience as it unfolds. There is a saying you hear over and over that “The Camino provides.” I found this to be true on many levels.