Cove Of The Spirit
Connect with one’s own Soul.
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Key Assertions: Attunement is a process of inner work that needs to be done day after day to release oneself from the limited perceptions of ordinary reality and to expand conscious awareness to include the experience of the spiritual realities of life. Portals to the Soul include attunement, spiritual development, getting rid of negativity, and active conscious breathing. The experience of going through any one of the Portals to the Soul is unmistakably a feeling of being permeated by love. The Soul is always positive; your negative thoughts come not from your Soul but from your own mind. Encountering the Soul is important to eartHearts because it is through the Soul that one is connected to the Absolute Spirit, connected to all living things, connected to the Earth, and enabled make the best positive choices.
The Heartwood Path leads through numerous portals to the Soul. These portals include attunement (described in the next waypoint), spiritual development, getting rid of negativity, and active conscious breathing (discussed later in this course). The experience of going through any one of these passageways is unmistakably a feeling of being permeated by love. Once one sets out to encounter one’s Soul, personal desires for pleasure become subordinate to a new purpose in life—that of establishing deep loving relationships with others to find the vitality and direction needed to do right actions persistently.
The Heartwood Path leads to some transitions in one’s thinking and values. These transitions are precursors to connecting with one’s Soul in profound ways. By undergoing these transitions, your thinking will become less dominated by over-rationality. Instead, it will become more intuitive. Your tendency to analyze will eventually give way to more synthesis; by which I mean that you will reduce your amount of “reductionist” thinking and begin to think holistically and ecologically. Nonlinear thinking (that is, thinking of diverse analogies) will begin to replace linear thinking (thinking along narrow but rational tracks). Concerning your feelings, be prepared to feel more prone to conservation rather than expansion, more prone to cooperation rather than competition, more prone to quality rather than quantity, and more prone to partnership rather than dominance.
The form of attention that hides your Soul most effectively is negative thought. Such thoughts will always come but they need not be nurtured. Dwelling on them makes you a victim. Be a victor instead by replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. The Soul is always positive; your negative thoughts come not from your Soul but from your own mind. Encountering your Soul is important to eartHearts because it is through the Soul that one is connected to all living things, to the Earth, and to the Absolute (God)––the spirit world’s Big Kahuna.
This oceanic feeling of connectedness feels very good, creates deep vitality, and provides a positive direction to one’s purpose in life. Like shooting a tube while surfing, passing through a portal to one’s Soul involves some skillful maneuvering. Yet, this doing is not a forceful striving on an angry sea. The voyage to oneness is more like surfing on a gentle wave that swells higher and higher, giving the wave rider a vantage point that expands her awareness.
Getting rid of negativity is the first step to reaching your Soul. Negativity often arises from the feelings of unworthiness, rejection, sadness, and depression (a kind of intensification of sadness, multiplied by self-preoccupation, losing yourself in your negative feelings, loneliness, and anger).
HumaNatureConnect Activity
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Reconciling Choices
For this activity, reconcile the following five choices for the future regarding the “quest for happiness with the preservation of the integrity of nature:
Choice # 1. The Choice Between The Promotion Of A Materialistic System Of Values And The Quest For A More Authentic And Sustainable Happiness.
“Either we fill our houses with objects and gadgets . . . (or) we adopt a less materialistic system of values, which not only makes us happier in the long term but also would have a smaller ecological imprint (Lambin, 2012, pp. 155-156).
Choice # 2. The Choice Between An Urban Culture Within Which Lifestyles Are Shaped By Artifacts and Built Environments That Are Substituted For Nature And Cultivating Our Biophilic Tendencies And Increasing Opportunities For Them To Be Expressed.
“Nature also offers enough possibilities so that everyone can find in it that which creates his or her own personal form of happiness” (Lambin, 2012, p. 156).
Choice # 3. The Choice Between Positive And Negative Interactions With Animals.
“ . . . we can see animals as living beings, certainly different from our species, but who deserve respect, who have rights, and with whom we can establish a mutually beneficial modus vivendi (a peaceful way of living) (Lambin, 2012, pp. 156).
Choice # 4. The Choice Between A System of Globalization That Benefits the Elite and A System of Globalization That Is Beneficial To Everyone.
“ . . . globalization can be a vector of economic and cultural poverty . . . or of human progress respectful of the diversity of cultures and ecosystems” (Lambin, 2012, pp. 156-157).
Choice # 5. The Choice Between An Egocentric Attitude And An Altruistic Attitude.
“Short-term egocentricism degrades nature and thus kills individual happiness . . . By contrast, developing a sense of the Other––poor populations, future generations, the animal world, and even nature, is a good investment in human happiness” (Lambin, 2012, pp. 156-157).
In your journal, write down your impressions of each of the five choices above.
Nocturnal Pilgrimage
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Do something to help you relax. Read. Take a hot shower. Or light incense. Going through a soothing end of day ritual will help you sleep. Dream lucidly. Write down your impressions of your dreams in your journal.
