Eternity and Open Doors

"‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”  Revelations 3:8

Recently I came across an academic paper on the internet titled "Psychosis or Spiritual Emergence."  This paper is based on a school of thought within psychology called Transpersonal Psychology.  Within that school, psychologists postulate that states of mind considered abnormal and pathological are actually normal and reflect spiritual states  within a field of consciousness that can be managed without medication.    

Dr. Nicki Crowley writes in 'Psychosis or Spiritual Emergence?,  "Medicine, psychiatry and traditional psychotherapies hold the assumption that consciousness is a by-product (or epiphenomenon) of the brain and cannot persist independently of it (the productive theory of consciousness).  The transmissive theory of consciousness holds that consciousness is inherent in the cosmos and is independent of our physical senses, although is mediated by them in everyday life. So the brain and the psyche can be thought of acting as a lens through which consciousness is experienced in the body."   This viewpoint in psychology supports my personal experience and  how quantum physics explains the nature of the universe.

My states of mind although varied, are often spiritual breakthroughs where I am deeply connected to a deeper order of truth and reality.  These breakthroughs have fundamentally changed my thought processes.  Because of these breakthroughs, I know that I am an eternal being that transcends my mortal human existence.  In kronos time (sequential time) what exists today is only what we are aware of looking through a window.  When we are connected within kairos time or eternity, we know that kronos time is the illusion, not the reality, and we experience endless views.   

Although our human physicality is a great gift where we see, feel, and hear a physical environment, it is not an end.  In kairos time I experience great joy because I am connected to God.  I realize I don't have to hurry, I can take my time and enjoy the fruits of my earthly existence because the good and true things in my life will always be with me.  This is the nature of eternity.

The Bible is full of quotes of a spiritual consciousness that reflects the true eternal nature of humanity, but it requires we read the Bible through a spiritual lens, not a literal lens.  In this quote above, I understand that although I by myself have little power, God or the consciousness that has no limits does.  The door to the eternal consciousness cannot be shut and God is always true and loving. 

  

City of Vision and Doors

“The only limits are, as always, those of vision.” James Broughton

In 2007 I lost my spiritual mother, Ethel to cancer.   Ethel had shown me unconditional love and support for my visions born of a spiritual awakening within me during the early 1990s.   Her death left me devastated and when an email advertising a Creativity Workshop in Florence Italy arrived in my inbox, I registered and booked a flight.   I was in a crisis of despair and I needed direction in my life.  I was just finishing my humanities degree at Saint Louis University and it was the perfect capstone course to my studies.

I was in Florence Italy for ten days in the middle of July.  It was hot and humid with temperatures in the 100s but I learned to navigate the streets walking by myself - drinking water, exploring the shops, museums, and restaurants.  I especially loved the gelato shops with their cold coffee gelato.  I purchased art supplies and a hand painted ceramic cat and water pitcher as my mementos and inspiration.    Unlike my business background, most of the participants in the workshop were teachers or artists.  Together we participated in creative exercises including drawing doors and windows we found in the city,  performing interactive communication, writing plays and poems,  drawing childhood memories and a legend of our hand.  During the workshop one participant remarked that I was pushing everyone to “go higher” in our thoughts.   One artist smiled at me at the end of the workshop.  She had been sitting silently beside me drawing stars.  She then told me I would be a great artist one day.   She pointed to her eye and said there are stars in our eyes and she then transformed the stars she had been drawing throughout the workshop into eyes.

When I returned from Florence, I immediately put together a memory album and titled it the City of Vision filling it with my art, writing, and photographs.   While most of the participants were renewed and energized from the workshop, I was exhausted from processing messages at higher levels (abstract and symbolic).  I didn't want to return to my job as Audit Director at Saint Louis University.   I visited the Career Counseling Center at the University to discuss my options.  The counselor, listening to my story asked if I had seen a door opening and I said no.  She smiled and said that maybe my job at Saint Louis University was not complete.  I stayed another seven years and I did grow and mature in my skills of auditing and communication including creating a vision board for the Jesuit’s titled Sharpened Sword.  I lost my job in February 2014 when the department was outsourced to save money and it was a welcome relief after fourteen and half years working as the Audit Director.   I have a natural organizational and process ability, but my real gifts and my love is in the humanities.

After my job was outsourced, my friend Lisa from my department suggested I go to a Catholic women's retreat to help provide direction.  I went, and at the end of the retreat, one of the participants told me I was a Christian voice for the 21st Century and that I needed to write.  So I went home and began this blog SacredSouls.  My blog was also inspired by a friend who asked me the year before to plan a garden.  My friend and I used to talk a lot about my ideas from my spiritual awakening in the early 2000s  and what we were going to do together, but I don't remember what I said to him. When I started SacredSouls I instinctively knew our garden was about God, higher consciousness, and communication.  I had dreams of communicating at higher levels based upon symbols and metaphors that offered deep thoughts that were more profound at an intuitive level, than those offered  in a verbal or written sentence.  In my City of Vision album I had written in the legend of my hand thoughts of God, love, family, metaphors, symbols, endless views and possibilities.  I also included the lyrics to "When You Wish Upon a Star" and had drawn the Star of Bethlehem.  This July, that song sung by Idina Menzel randomly came on my iPhone music library while I was driving. It played after I asked God for a vision during a metaphysical  battle I had been fighting.  My entire consciousness was filled with  the joy and knowing of Christmas expressed in the legend of my hand.

As in 2007,  I am now at another critical point in my life facing a closed door.  In my heart I wanted a partner who could see my City of Vision, garden, and celebrate love and family in a Christmas house, but that door has not opened.  I will be 59 in October and it has been six years since my friend asked me to plan a garden.  I am praying to God that a door will now open that gives me new purpose and direction.

Eyes See (My Creativity Workshop Poem)
An empty canvas
What would he see?
She approached him.
She sat.
What would he see?
He drew
Then pointed.
He said, eyes see.
I looked.
Eyes of blue
I see.
- E.A. Wakefield

Thoughts on Eternity

Everyone who should be here is here.
Every door opens another possibility.
All is as it should be.
Faith Hope and Love.  The greatest of these is love.

The Voyage of the New Dawn Treader

Definition of CS Lewis' Book title the Voyage of the New Dawn Treader

Voyage - a long journey involving travel by sea or in space often spiritual.
New - already existing, but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time

Dawn - the beginning or rise of anything advent. 

Treader - to trample or crush underfoot or to stay in place without forward movement in water or to place one foot in front of the other. 

The Grapes of Wrath

"Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The LORD shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread [the grapes], against all the inhabitants of the earth."  Jeremiah 25:30

"Mine eyes hath seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;   He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. (God's anger that destroys evil)."  The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe.

According to the mythology of many ancient cultures, the grape, and the grapevine is regarded as sacred. The symbolic meaning of grapes relates to abundance, transformation and fertility.  Wine from grapes symbolizes faith.  Jesus first miracle at the wedding where he transformed water into wine is the miracle of transformation of faith in God to our eternal life.  

The destruction of the vineyards due to Prohibition and the excesses of the roaring twenties is spiritually related to the dust bowl, Great Depression and the subsequent wars.   We want to separate nature and human activity from God but we cannot.  The title of John Steinbeck's book the Grapes of Wrath describes how the rejection of God and lack of love for one another destroyed the abundance of the Earth and the prosperity of our nation. .  

We are faced again with the consequences of our behavior. We have put greed and fear before our love of God and each other and it is destroying our Earth home.   We believe technology has the ability to save us when we cannot save ourselves without the love of God and each other.  I am praying that God loves us enough to save us from ourselves. 

  

The Secret Garden of Eden

"Secret - Not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others." (dictionary)

Gardening in the most powerful symbol in the Bible because we are a garden - diverse, thriving in different conditions and all beautiful in our own way with a unique purpose.   When we ate from the tree of knowledge, the Garden of Eden was cloaked.  We became blind to seeing each other as spirits.  Instead we saw our nakedness or humanity and became ashamed.   The Garden of Eden and our eternal nature was hidden from us.   Our Earth is in peril because the garden is not only physical, but a spiritual state of being that transforms our surroundings.    The Garden of Eden has always been our home and within us the power to see it.

We Must Love as Jesus Loves

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins."  1 Peter 4:8

Part of my thinking of spiritual warfare is to summarize it at a high level where there is a battle for our consciousness, one based on love and the other on fear.  I believe we need to acknowledge that this battle underlies our existence and that this battle has very real human consequences.   Our behaviors are influenced by the spiritual as well as our environment, biology and chemistry.   In my opinion, you can't heal a human being without acknowledging the spiritual warfare within and surrounding us.  In a society where we dismiss the old notions of a demonic influence or loving spirit guiding us, as well as the physiological impact of the energy surrounding us, we are reduced to our biology, chemicals, and environment.   We are relegated to nothing more than animals walking an earth in a universe with no meaning past our mortal existence.  

Psychiatrists place behaviors in a category within a psychological framework ignoring  the spiritual influences on our minds and our behaviors.   In a society which looks to judge and punish behavior, how do we come through it with spirits whole and loved and not utterly destroyed?  In this battle the enemy wants as many destroyed spirits as possible and we need to acknowledge this reality.  I've seen people serving God through love, destroyed by the enemy who preyed on their weaknesses and their sense of helplessness in the face of evil.  They don't feel deserving of the love of others and God and therefore cannot resist.   And when this happens, we need to acknowledge this underlying dynamic while treating their very human conditions.  We must love as Jesus loves.