Consciousness

May You Follow the Song of Your Soul

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The Soul reminds us she is not confined to a physical place as the heart or the brain is.
She is like the wind, ever more free than the gentle breeze and also more violent than
hurricane winds when she has been muffled by Ego's great illusion of fear.
She rattles the cage of your self confinement until you begin to reluctantly seep out through the
cracks of your secure life, becoming exposed to the terrifyingly sublime state of the unknown.
I feel her force move from her invisible world and into my body, and out through my body.
She pushes me to the edge of the known world, inviting me to jump into the embrace of mystery,
and yet all I can see is an empty abyss, because I am looking at her through the veil of fear.
The Soul works not only from within, for she now calls from without, from the furthest, somehow familiar, edges of the world.
I feel her call from beyond, below, above, within, from hidden voices dancing through the air.
She seduces the heart, and draws out the ancient knowing hidden deep within each of us.
And so we step into the mystery all of the fair fades away, to one day meet on the other side.

Finding the Timeless Center of Your Being

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“There is a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no created thing can touch.” - Meister Eckhart

The late John O’Donohue (Irish poet, theologian, philosopher and author) referenced the above quote during an interview with Krisa Tippett in 2008 for The On Being Project. The quote was by German philosopher and theologian Meister Eckhart back in the fourteenth century. Despite over the five centuries that have since passed, this quote remains just as relevant and soul stirring, as if serving as a linguistic remnant that proves the existence of that deep and timeless center that exists within each one of us, though often going unknown within the heart of the ordinary man.

O’Donohue expanded on Meister Eckhart’s timeless sentiment, giving the quote an enlightening atmosphere of simplicity that speaks as a soul-nourishing stream of peace:

“There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there is a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you, and I think the intention of prayer, spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner sanctuary.” - John O’Donohue

Through his words, O’Donohue gently calls us back home into that timeless center of our being that exists free from all of the pain, worries and fears that have slowly obscured the lens in which we see and understand not only ourselves but the world around us as well. There is no roadmap to find that center of our soul, but the intentions we set for ourselves will undoubtedly guide us towards the secret path of the heart.

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Listen to John O’Donohue’s entire interview with Krisa Tippett published in The On Being Project in 2008, titled “The Inner Landscape of Beauty” (https://onbeing.org/programs/john-odonohue-the-inner-landscape-of-beauty/)

Sometimes a Closed Door is Not a Closed Door

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Sometimes a closed door is not a closed door, but a request of patience. Is the dream you seek worth the wait? True, you cannot sit around expecting the dream to come to you. But oftentimes, attentive non-action proves more fruitful than action. And perhaps during the moments of patience life requests of you is when you truly begin to live, for the inner workings of ones emotions and the subtleties of deeper understandings reveal themselves only when the heart is quiet. The desire to tear the door down or pick the lock is of the ego and can only end in suffering, while the patience to wait for the door to open at the proper time is the way of the heart. So until then, you sit, watching the light dancing under the door, reminding you that the most divine revelations are worth lifetimes of patience.

 

From the series Traces of Being (Prints available for purchase here)

Inner Silence Amidst Outer Chaos

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~ THIS POST MARKS THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR BEGINNING THIS ONLINE JOURNAL ON JUNE 7, 2021 ~

Up until very recently, I have been accustomed to life in small towns: Nature greets you at your back door, silence is a reliable friend, and the only chaos to be found is the neighbor’s dog escaping their fence. Nature was always the main event, whether it was a hike through the woods, going out on the boat or hitting the beach. Mims is the small town of Florida I will always call home, and I love knowing that few people have ever even heard of it.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)

In a small town, it is second nature to discover inner stillness as there is not much to do on the external level. This lack of external stimuli inherent of rural environments holds a mystical capacity for unlocking the inner stillness within oneself. Having grown up with this kind of innate solitude as my baseline of being, it has naturally become a cornerstone to my sense of personal identity.

Now, having been in New York City for almost a year now, I have undergone innumerable internal crises related to my relationship with internal silence. I have lost and found that familiar inner stillness countless times in the city, however, when I have found it, those moments are far between and extremely brief. Where once the inner stillness was my center of gravity, it has now become a fleeting acquaintance. Living in the largest city in America has made me realize that I took the familiar ease of inner silence for granted. I assumed that my inner peace could pack up and travel with me anywhere I go. While this sentiment is in fact true, it holds a caveat: the louder the environment gets, the more conscious awareness I must give to the inner stillness in order for it to stay. If I want to keep inner peace as my baseline of being in this city, I will have to give more attention to it. Without attentive awareness, inner stillness becomes wilted like an unwatered plant.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)

My natural reaction has been to blame the city as the reason for my feeling more stressed, ungrounded and less centered. While the city environment has unquestionably played a vital role in this internal struggle, it is not the city at fault. Ultimately, it is my own actions and lack of conscious awareness that has brought me to where I am today. If anything, I must thank the city for exposing my faults and weaknesses. To get back to my center of internal peace, I must devote more effort and care to mindful engagement with the present moment. I will take the city as a test, a test to expand and deepen my mindfulness, because I know that if I can find my inner peace here, I will surely be able to nurture it anywhere.

From the series Transitional Chaos (2022)