Читать книгу Close to the Bone - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 15

For soul to be heard, the mind must be still. Then thoughts and feelings can arise as if from a deep well within us. Often these thoughts and feelings are not shared. When they are, the soul looks outward for a moment, and we hope that we can truly share the depth into which illness is taking us. We wonder if we should die, will our lives have been worthwhile? What do we regret doing or not having done? What do we still want time for? Do we matter? Do the people in our lives really matter to us? Is there a God? An afterlife? What unfinished business gnaws at us? What long-buried thoughts and memories are coming back to us now? What are our dreams saying?

When we voice concerns and content such as these, we are baring our soul. At such moments, we are as if naked, and all too often when we speak of such matters, the impulse of others is to hurriedly cover up our words with a thin layer of reassurance—to which we respond by withdrawing. Revealing matters of the soul makes those who dwell in shallower waters uncomfortable. Soul-searching questions are those that people who are addicted to work or to alcohol or to superficial activities are warding off by their addictions. They do not want to be exposed to their own deep questions, as voiced by us.

Sometimes, we are caught looking inward, feeling something move in our own depths—a thought, a memory, emotion, an intuition, wisdom—and someone says, “A penny for your thoughts?” And we retreat self-consciously. Or this time we speak our concerns aloud, and there is joy at finding a soul friend. A soul-level friend is a sanctuary, a person to whom we can tell the truth of what we feel or know or perceive. When something is expressed at a soul level, it is not something for the other to fix or minimize or deny or take personally; what is said and felt needs to be received, heard, accepted, held—as in a womb space, where the insights into ourselves and what matters to us can incubate, grow, and develop fully into consciousness.

Those moments of stillness when the eyes seem to turn inward are pregnant silences, times when we are communing with our deeper thoughts or perceptions or holding a feeling or an image that can be all too fleeting; the mood shifts and what for a moment we had a grasp on can be gone like a dream fragment.

The premise of this book is that illness can be soul evoking and that the soul realm is one akin to dream or reverie, a source of personal meaning and wisdom that can transform life and heal us. This is not to say that illness is ever welcomed. It can only be retrospectively appreciated by those for whom it was a soul experience, but having a perspective such as this makes the potential of it being so more likely.

Recovery of soul and recovery of the health of the body may occur together or not; healing may occur, and the body may not survive. Life is a terminal condition, after all. It is a matter of when and how we die, not whether we will. Illness takes us out of our ordinary lives and concerns and confronts us with big questions and the opportunity of tapping into soul knowledge that can transform us and the situation. Prayers that are said and rituals that are done help by focusing us and by tapping into spiritual energies.

At a soul level, we can see clearly what matters and recognize the truth of our personal situation. We know that we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings who may be on a spiritual path. At the soul level we recognize what is sacred and eternal. At the soul level, an illness, even a terminal one, is a potential beginning, a liminal time when we are between the ordinary world and the invisible one.