More Soundings

Life and time are crushed under ever-increasing piles of paper.

Slivers of reality get trapped in the vice-grip of words.

When you have sex with your body on Earth and your mind in Heaven, all your sins are forgiven.

The reward for an obligation fulfilled is simple relief.

Creativity is conceived from the violent coupling of desire and frustration.

The mystery is how to fit actions into that infinitesimal space between now and then.

Soul Sounding

Lying in bed, feeling spiritually "dry", I wondered how to keep that inner soul connection fresh each day. The title 'Soul Sounding" came to me. Sounding means: "the action of determining the depth of water" -- "resonant, sonorous, reverberant."  The image is of reaching down deep inside to find reverberation of the days experiences arising from the soul.

Here is a suggestion:

• Settle down and get very quiet inside just before you go to sleep. You need a pen and notebook. 
  
• From a place of inner quiet, allow your attention to wander gently over the main events, images and feelings of the day. This attention needs to come from an attitude of curiosity, detachment and no judgement. It simply allows whatever is insistent, vivid and important to rise to the surface.
  
• Holding each experience in mind, use the fewest words possible to express, sum up and describe the absolute essence of that experience. 
  
• Write down anything as it comes with no editing, and then return to the quiet to find what is still waiting. Later, edit the descriptions until they capture as fully as possible what your inner self is telling you and add a little note of the external event that seemed to give rise to the inner experience.
  

Here are some of my soundings. Many are responses to clients in therapy.

Lord help me be alive; let me feel life. (A prayer during spiritual dryness).

To write a memory is to crystallize forever the intangible flow of life.
A dream told is a story woven from billowing clouds. (After reading Annie Dillard's essay on memoirs).

Fear is the material world holding our hearts in a rock-like grip.
Freedom is the falcon's wing held up by emptiness. ( A response to J's dream of snakes and hawks).

Is Life really the soft soothings of a bubble bath? (Response to S's use of baths to avoid).
Behind the girlish smile is an tight fist clutching a screaming child. (Response to S's seductive smile)

Love is the antidote to a raging heart. (Response to A's anger).