Jean Shinoda Bolen: Soul Work

“You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output—how much you produce—not in terms of the quality of your life experiences. To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.” —Jean Shinoda Bolen.

We can learn so much about ourselves and our souls from Jean Shinoda Bolen. Her book, Goddesses in Everywoman, teaches us about the Artemis, the Athena, the Hestia, the Hera, the Demeter, the Persephone, and the Aphrodite in our own psyches, and how each relates to and cares for our soul both positively and negatively.

Bolen’s writings bring us so much wisdom for this journey. She empowers us during difficult situations to stay the heroine, knowing and believing that answers will come and that things will change. She warns against regressing into embodying the victim—a scenario in which all our energy is used defensively, because we view the situation as caused by others. When we identify ourself as the victim, our soul cannot breathe.

I love the story of Psyche’s journey to reunite with her husband, Eros, the masculine part of her personality. One of her difficult tasks is to sort a large number of different seeds. The sorting is done by an out-of-the-box, unusual group of insects or ants that appear to solve her dilemma. These ants may represent our intuitive function, something beyond cognitive ability that represents a potential inside of us. In confusing situations, this natural intuition will come to our aid if we can stay grounded as the heroine.

Other tasks that enable women to connect to their masculine side involve allowing the feminine to gain power but remain compassionate; learning to see the big picture; developing the ability to say no. These stories of difficult situations in which we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves are some of the many ways we can nurture our soul. We let it take deep breaths so that we can wake up from a deep sleep. This is soul work.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Contact: joannaseibert@me.com

Buechner: A Good Steward of Pain

“I am sure there are one hundred and six ways we have of coping with pain. Another way is to be a good steward of it.” —Frederick Buechner in A Crazy Holy Grace (Zondervan, 2017).

Two book clubs in which I am participating have read A Crazy Holy Grace, a new collection of some of Frederick Buechner’s essays about pain and memory. In one story that is also in a previous book, The Eyes of the Heart, Buechner writes about a special series of rooms in his home that constitute his sacred space. He describes his writing space, the library—the largest room, with ceiling-high shelves of books, including the Uncle Wiggly Series, his first editions, and sermons of John Donne. Also in the room are unique objects that are meaningful to him: framed autographs of heroes such as Queen Elizabeth I and inscribed portraits of heroes such as Mark Twain and Anthony Trollope.

In his imagination Buechner then invites people from his past into what he calls his Magic Kingdom. He carries on a loving and humorous conversation with his ninety-four-year-old grandmother Naya, whom he obviously dearly loves. As he tells it, she describes their relationship as “a marriage made in heaven. I loved to talk and you loved to listen.” Buechner asks her about death. Naya describes it as “stepping off of a streetcar before it has quite come to a stop.”

Buechner has written extensively about his mother, who deals with her pain by burying it or forgetting about it; and his father, who deadens his pain with alcohol, and finally a tragic suicide when Buechner is ten years old. Buechner seems to have worked through difficulties in those relationships by writing about them. However, he still cannot invite his parents into his sacred space because of their fears that they may be too much or too little.

Buechner models for us two ways to let God enable us to work through our pain from the past. First, we can return in our imagination to a sacred space to be with those with whom we feel safe, and let them guide us through our pain. Second, when we are not comfortable dialoguing directly with those with whom we had difficulty, we can dialogue with them on paper. He believes that God works to heal us through both methods.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Contact: joannaseibert@me.com

Centering Prayer Guidelines

“1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.

2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.

3. When engaged with your thoughts, feelings, images, and reflections, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

4. At the end of the prayer period (20 minutes), remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.”

—Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., contemplative outreach.org.

Reviewing and remembering the guidelines for Centering Prayer are worth repeating. This contemporary form of the ancient practice of contemplative or listening prayer has been written about by Catholic monks Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Basil Pennington, as well as Quaker Richard Foster. It is drawn from ancient prayer practices of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, The Cloud of the Unknowing, Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross.

At a recent retreat at our church, Steve Standiford, a friend from New York City who is associated with Contemplative Outreach and has practiced Centering Prayer for more than twenty years, reminded us of how to deepen our relationship with God. He uses this familiar illustration to help us to experience God’s presence and love in our lives through Centering Prayer: “A first-time tourist to New York City gets into the cab and asks the driver, ‘How do you get to Carnegie Hall?’ The driver responds, ‘Practice, practice, practice!’”

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18

All Money from sale of the books goes either to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast

Contact: joannaseibert@me.com