Because Your Life is a Journey
Fresh monthly servings to keep your inner life nourished.
In Service and Support of Meaningful, Vital Living.
In Service and Support of Meaningful, Vital Living.
Each month we craft for you a fresh set of resources and put them at your fingertips. This month, we have chosen the theme “RE-OPENING”, as March turns towards April, and the arrival of spring.
We’ve put together a full page of materials that our team put together to keep you engaged, animated, and on track with your current Journey.
Your support of our subscription offering is helping us to make it through to the summer, when we can hopefully provide in-person programs once again.
Thank you for being such an essential part of our Hero’s Journey community of travelers. Enjoy this month’s offering!!
March, 2021
‘Re-Opening’
Many of the poets speak of March as the month of daring – a time for us to turn our attention outward toward the world once more, and in a new way, unlike any other spring, what Andrew Harvey speaks of as ‘the springtime of eternity’.
Here are some offerings in support of coming out of the cave, out of retreat mode, and into the promise of being uplifted, and of perennial renewal…
LISTEN TO A POEM
A STORY
A poem by Czeslaw Milosz, about a bear, entitled ‘A Story’. It protrays the fierceness of nature, and of unseen forces. (5 minutes)
INTRODUCTION
Our ability to ‘be here now’, by staying present and paying attention to what is unfolding, and to do this well enough in order to live through the disruption of such a chaotic and disturbing time in our world. This is one way to ‘be an essential worker’.
By cultivating day-by-day your ability to be present, you can better withstand the depths of a prolonged and unsettling uncertainty as we continue to endure a massive, global health threat, and a highly polarized, tense, and ever-escalating socio-political climate.
As we navigate this unknown territory, and find our way to our most authentic response that we can contribute to life, we establish ‘islands of sanity’. We become more capable of equanimity towards others who live so different from ourselves.
This is how we can contribute to the restoration of the world around us, as greater complexity inevitably emerges at some point from chaos and uncertainty. It is up to us – to bear a dynamic tension in the days ahead, sustaining ourselves as we prepare to ‘re-open’, to make our way outward towards hope, and towards the brightness of the lengthening days.
Together, let’s look toward the promise of spring that awaits us, and to the adventures that are born from the ordeals we must yet live through.
REFLECT – 15 minutes
Embracing the Blustery Forces of the March Winds
Set aside 15 minutes to sit with the following questions. Let them bring forth from you fresh awareness of the elemental presence of the approaching spring.
- What did you have to face this winter that you’ve never had to face before? What came out of these confrontations with the more threatening aspects of facing the unknowns of the past season? Are you still in retreat mode? Are you reluctant to re-open yourself to the coming of spring?
- What needs to be left behind to the winter’s darkness? What lossed remain with you, that still need time, attention, and honoring? – what awareness or energy lingers for you from the letting go you have done?
- What is vital to keep in mind? What needs to be swept away by the winds of this coming season? And perhaps most importantly – What lives on?
- As you reflect, if you’d like – Listen to the sound of Strong Wind Blowing Through Trees.
PRACTICE EMBODIED PRESENCE
A Guided Meditation
On Allowing Yourself To Be Undone
A 20 minute meditation for softening and opening yourself once again, in preparation for stepping out into the possibility of a welcoming world that awaits us. Practicing our ability to deepen, and honoring our vulnerability and strength in being a part of something larger than ourselves. An opening presence for the Journey ahead today.
If a person has lost touch
With the part of them that wants to quiver and laugh aloud
At the thought of life spewing forth
And of the soil rich, crawling with worms
And juicy with the fluids of spring…
If those words don’t make you squirm a little with delight,
Then I’d say you’ve lost half your religion…
At least half!
READ – Perspectives and Practices Rooted In Soul
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE ORDINARY: Essays In A Time Of Uncertainty
Greeting a friend on the street; a shared meal at a favorite restaurant; a quiet walk on the beach; going to a movie or the post office. Nothing special. Simply the ordinary rounds of coming and going, connection and engagement. We depend upon these gestures to sustain the currency of belonging.
And now, suddenly, the fabric of continuity and participation has been radically altered. There is nothing ordinary about these days of viruses and deaths, masks and social distancing. Our language has adapted to the pandemic.
Many of the great myths begin in a time such as this. It is in these conditions, that a ripeness arises for radical change. It is a call to courage and humility. Every one of us will be affected by the changes wrought by this difficult visitation. It is time to become immense.
– Francis Weller, from the Prologue
LISTEN
A Relevant Podcast for Staying the Course: ‘Facing Our Feelings’
A one hour deep dive into the issue of ‘avoidance vs. encounter’, with the analysts from This Jungian Life. Listen to how this threshold point reflects and represents for us the challenge of Facing Our Feelings, something which is essential for facing the necessity of our current ordeals.
Jung famously said, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”. It is the avoidance of facing our ordeals that creates the psychological disturbance in our minds, which ends up embedded in the psyche. We have to face our feelings.
Jung also said, “Our emotions happen to us; affect occurs at the point at which our adaptation is weakest and at the same time exposes the reason for its weakness.” So what is calling for encounter instead of avoidance, displacement or somatization?
Have a listen.
A Feel Good Story
LISTEN – A Podcast From The NY Times
A Nursing Home’s First Day Out Of Lockdown
by Sarah Mervosh
The Good Shepherd Nursing Home in West Virginia lifted its coronavirus lockdown in February.
For months, residents had been confined to their rooms, unable to mix. But with everybody now vaccinated, it was time to see one another again, albeit with rules on social distancing and mask wearing still in place.
nceThere was Mass in the chapel, lunch in the dining room (decked out in Valentine’s Day decorations) and a favorite activity: the penny auction. Top prize? A tub of cheese puffs.
Listen as New York Times journalist Sarah Mervosh shares some of the relief and joy about the resident’s ‘tiptoe back to normalcy’ and hear from staff members and residents about the travails of the past year.
More from Sarah: A Year Of Trauma & Resilience
LISTEN – 5 minutes
David Arkenstone
‘The Heart of Spring’
From The Album: The Celtic Book of Days
EXPLORATIONS ON THE NATURE OF SOUL
SOUL – A Pixar Movie
Everyone has a soul. Joe Gardner is about to find his.
A delightful and creative romp through the afterlife and The Great Before, “Soul” is the kind of movie that has you wanting to cherish the life you have, and it makes you want to live it more fully, every single day, ideally with lots of laughs along the way.
Take a break from the weariness of the pandemic and winter weather to enjoy a creative and touching story.
On The Making of Soul
The Oscar-nominated animated film ‘Soul’ imagines a place where souls are matched with unique passions.
Read & Reflect
Now Give Me Your Hand: Reflections on the Nature & Origins of Soul
– An Essay by Michael Mervosh-
This essay is anchored by a poem by the Austrian poet from the early 20th century, Rainer Maria Rilke. His writing style widens our eyes to soul; with each verse he deepens our understanding of what it means to awaken. Reading this poem sends a shudder of recognition through us – we hear soul speak.
The notion of soul speaking intimately to us points us towards the ineffable. How does the ‘I’ that I am come to be? From where comes the precise nature of my being? Where are its origins?
Destined for mystery, we will never know for sure where we have come from, or where we are going from here, for that matter. Yet the notion of soul expands the lens through which we can look at the long view of life, and gives us a fresh orientation.
How can this prayer of a poem help reshape the narrative that we live by?
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In Service and Support of Meaningful, Vital Living.