At critical junctures, outer trouble and the inner need to grow conspire to set each of us on a path of awakening and initiation.
If we meet a myth with our lives and deepest concerns, the mythic oracles speak directly to us. Myths are oracular in the sense that each person can receive a message or an insight that relates to their life circumstances. The point has never been to “believe” in myths or to simply accept what others have said they mean. The key issue with mythic images is to let them speak to us, wherever and whenever we find ourselves seeking guidance, permission, or understanding.
Fear is an old word that derives from the same roots that give us “fare,” as in “thoroughfare.” Although it often causes people to run away from troubling situations, at a deeper level, fear means “to go through it.” The hidden purpose of fear involves bringing us closer to natural instincts for survival, but also for awakening inner resources and sharpening our intelligence when faced with true danger and the basic need to change.
If we want the world to change, it has to start inside the human soul.
A genuine education must somehow serve the wings of spirit and imagination that each child brings to life.
The purpose of conflict is to create.
The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling; but a fear of responding to the call.
Healing is a revolutionary act and we are here to awaken to the true nature of our own souls and the gifts we have to give to the world.
Every mistake is a new style.
Some might ask whether the path is before us or within us. The answer is: Yes. We are both driven from within by our resident spirit and something outside calls forth the genius within us.
In the end, as at the beginning, the divine turns out to be most interested in the unique life of the individual soul. That’s what was meant by the old idea that “inside people is where god learns.” This is not a religious notion, but more of a spiritual insight. For this conversation god is simply the shortest way to refer to the divine. When a unique life becomes fully livedeveryone involved learns something and it becomes clear that god was involved all along.
We are wrapped around a mystery to which we were drawn before we were born.
Something watches over us and we know it when we follow the little voice inside or heed the warning or inspiration that arrives as if on wings. We need the intermediaries that keep us close to the spirit of life, to the wonders of nature and to the subtleties of our own inner nature.
There is a poem at the heart of things and a mythic story in the heart of each of us.
A community best serves itself when it truly serves the awakening of the unique story trying to come to life through each person born.
In seeking after what the soul desires we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow.
Soul is found where life deepens us, where meaning calls to us, where trouble deters us, wherever and however we slow down in the midst of the rushing and racing at the surface level of life.
Our answer, our opportunity, our chance to change the world has to come from the poetry that is already written on the walls of the soul.
If a man does not know the wounds of his own soul, he can deny not just his own pain, but also be unmoved by the suffering of other people. More than that, he will tend to put his wound onto others. He may only be able to see the wound that secretly troubles him when he forcefully projects it into someone else, in forms of abuse or violence.
Where reason fails and logic stumbles, myth waits to open paths of imagination and understanding.
When it comes to the human soul, the real battle is the struggle to truly become oneself. Not the self that others might want us to be, not even the self that we might wish to be; but the deep self and inner soul trying to awaken at critical crossroads in each life.