A calm soul seeks arousal. It wants to be awakened and turned on to life, to nature, to divinity, to others and to self.
Most of us read the word, arousal, and think of sexual arousal. Yes, arousal calls out for intimacy, for deep knowing and deep connection. Arousal is a heightened desire for fulfilling engagement of any kind - sexual, spiritual, intellectual, artistic, practical, playful. Sustained arousal supports commitment, loyalty, sacrifice and authenticity.
Arousal is the potential for being love. Physically arousal increases the beating of the the heart. Blood flows with more energy. Spiritually, a feeling of destiny appears. We feel embraced by the gods.
Arousal can seduce us if our soul is not calm. A calm soul experiences arousal consciously and harmoniously. Arousal awakens and directs your calm thinking, calm feeling and calm willing into the future. If you have a calm soul, you will be able to ask yourself, "Is my soul both calm and aroused?" Sadly, arousal can take over our consciousness and all self-questioning and objectivity disappear. Without calmness in the soul, arousal can become prejudice, addiction or fantasy.
Arousal births devotion in a calm soul. Arousal gives the calm soul such a vibrant, joyful sense of self-fulness that deeds become free of self-seeking and self-serving agendas. We are able to ask ourselves if truth, beauty and goodness are the cause and the result of the arousal.
In nature, arousal sensitizes us to the seed about germinate, the rain about to fall, the rabbit about to jump out from the bush. In divinity, arousal lets us see imaginations, hear inspirations, and act on intuitions. In a social context, arousal awakens us to the the heart of strangers and keeps us discovering new meanings in long-term relationships. In our own lives, arousal lets us see the paths we want to walk and the goals we want to achieve.
If arousal appears in an agitated soul, the impulses become selfish, obsessive, dangerous, even destructive. Arousal in an agitated soul is like an itch that cannot be soothed, an inflammation that can not be cooled or a thirst that cannot be quenched. It cannot be satisfied and come to an end. Remember the sounding of the word, calm, with the beginning, the middle and the ending.
The Hans Christian Anderson story, The Red Shoes, tells of a young girl who is deeply aroused by a pair of red shoes. She must wear them and in her vain need for the shoes, she neglects everything around her. The shoes are enchanted and will not stop dancing once they are on the girl’s feet nor can she remove them. After much suffering, she has the shoes and her feet chopped off and seeks the calm inner life she lacks. After much struggle, peace comes to her soul.
In my work as a counselor, I have listened to the despair of those whose souls can not be aroused. They do not feel alive. Their deeds are dutiful, but unfulfilling. Here, too, there is a need to calm the soul, first. Then, with patience and perseverance, a wisp of growing arousal can be found and warmed.
Tonight, look back over the year, or over your life, for the presence of arousal in your soul. What turns you on in ways that give you a strengthened sense of self? What new ideas, new feelings, new activities have you engaged in with enthusiasm? Seek the truth beauty and goodness living in each experience of arousal.
If you have feelings of arousal that cause you to lose your sense of self and lack real truth, beauty and goodness, why is your soul agitated? How can you calm your soul? The Holy Nights are a powerful time of year to ask that question. Just listen to your inner voice - not the screaming voice, the quiet one.
If arousal rarely appears and does not last, who can you ask to help you calm your soul and warm your interest?
Our calm souls require arousal. But arousal requires self-insight. When we can calm our souls and stimulate arousal consciously, we find true joy in our humanity.
Showing posts with label Calm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Calm. Show all posts
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
December 29 - The Fifth Holy Night - The Need for Calming
The Holy Nights provide your soul with spiritual calm. They soothe and comfort your soul. You drink in spiritual nourishment. You bathe in spiritual light. You find spiritual blessing. For twelve nights your soul breathing is deep and regular. Center your awareness on this spiritual peace.
Tonight, the Fifth Holy Night, look at a calm soul life.
Certainly in our very agitated times, our souls need constant calming. It is obvious. There are whole industries around creating calm - spas, yoga studios, retreat centers, books, CD’s and DVD’s. I am fairly certain that if you are subscribed to Inner Christmas, you are well aware of the need for calming. To attend to calming during the Holy Nights is quite meaningful and quite different from the seeking of calming activities during the rest of the cycle of the year.
A calm soul is poised between spirit and matter, and between inner life and outer life. The calm of the Holy Nights keeps us poised between the past and the future, between the known and the unknown. A calm soul feels composed, elegant and ready for what comes toward it from the future.
Agitation is the opposite of calm. An agitated soul is chaotic, distracted, irritable, edgy. Poise, composure and elegance are absent in an agitated soul. Agitation drives a soul to the extremes of too much and not enough. We get caught in thinking too much and doing too little or we are crazy busy and don’t really think clearly. Feelings roam from fire to ice. Our consciousness is slippery, not steady.
In overcoming agitation and establishing an inner calm, we find self-mastery. Do not resent your areas of agitation. Resentment is an agitated response. Rather calmly accept the experience and patiently transmute your energy in simple ways.
In the mysterious mood of the Holy Nights imagine calming words and calming phrases for a few minutes.
What are words that describe calm in your soul? Stillness, openness, gentleness, serenity. Write them down. Say them silently in your mind. How do you feel as each word finds its meaning in your heart? Say these words in a soft voice. Sound them out slowly and notice the feeling of each sound.
In the last four nights we have worked with nature, divinity, others and self. Look to these four for calming images and phrases. Sky, pond, breeze, rose. Being brushed by an angels wing. The gaze of a Renaissance Madonna. The Buddha's smile. The touch of my grandmother's fingers. Reading Emily Dickenson by myself. Write them down. Speak the phrases in a soft voice. See the images with soft eyes. The calm soul is soft.
Keep a list of these words and phrases. Add to the list during the year. Share your list with a good friend. Let these words and phrases keep you soft and calm. You might take crayons or colored pencils and write out these words and phrases. Put them in places that you see in the ordinary course of your day: on the bathroom mirror, on the kitchen cabinet, even as the screen saver on your computer desktop. When you see them speak them in your soft voice. Let them instill calm in your soul.
As a spoken word “calm” is extraordinarily calming. The sound that forms the word “calm” begins in the back of your mouth with a closing between the back of your tongue and your palette. It then it opens up in a rounding way to end with the gentle closing of your lips. To me the forming of the word, calm, creates a protected space in my mouth.
When your soul needs to be calmed, perhaps just slowly sounding the word “calm” and feeling that protected space in your mouth can be calming. The sounding of the word reminds or restores to consciousness stillness, grace, openness, gentleness and serenity.
The Holy Nights are like the word calm beginning with Nativity, allowing this sacred space for the renewal and the repurposing of our lives and closing with Epiphany. It is a time of holy calm.
Do you notice that calming requires will. In our modern agitating times, we must engage our will, our intention, to provide our soul with calming. But we must also bring our attention to that activity for the calming to be restorative. Many of us have developed self-soothing behaviors that are automatic, even addictive. These activities of will without thought do not offer restorative or “holy” calm.
Conscious activities require a balance between activity and thought. In the sounding of the word, calm there is a conscious willed beginning, a rounding fullness of doing and then a soft completion. The “k” sound at the back of the mouth takes a real force to make. The “ah” rolling with the “l” flows to the closing “m” sound. Calming activities take a conscious force to begin. They roll forward with a purposeful goal. The goal is achieved and the activity comes to a close. Calm is an active experience, not a passive one. Calm intention, calm attention, calm engagement and calm completion is the evidence of a calm soul.
Calming activities seek to bring beauty and harmony into being and into consciousness.
What were the calming moments of last year? What were you doing that created the calm. How was your will engaged? What were your thoughts.
Think of the coming year. What imaginations fill your feeling life with holy calm? Do you have the calm will to take the needed actions? Do you have the calm thoughts to direct and sustain your attention?
Surrender your soul to the holy calm of the Holy Nights.
Please share you calming word, phrases and images by leaving a comment.
Tonight, the Fifth Holy Night, look at a calm soul life.
Certainly in our very agitated times, our souls need constant calming. It is obvious. There are whole industries around creating calm - spas, yoga studios, retreat centers, books, CD’s and DVD’s. I am fairly certain that if you are subscribed to Inner Christmas, you are well aware of the need for calming. To attend to calming during the Holy Nights is quite meaningful and quite different from the seeking of calming activities during the rest of the cycle of the year.
Calm Soul, Poised Soul
A calm soul is poised between spirit and matter, and between inner life and outer life. The calm of the Holy Nights keeps us poised between the past and the future, between the known and the unknown. A calm soul feels composed, elegant and ready for what comes toward it from the future.
Agitation is the opposite of calm. An agitated soul is chaotic, distracted, irritable, edgy. Poise, composure and elegance are absent in an agitated soul. Agitation drives a soul to the extremes of too much and not enough. We get caught in thinking too much and doing too little or we are crazy busy and don’t really think clearly. Feelings roam from fire to ice. Our consciousness is slippery, not steady.
In overcoming agitation and establishing an inner calm, we find self-mastery. Do not resent your areas of agitation. Resentment is an agitated response. Rather calmly accept the experience and patiently transmute your energy in simple ways.
Words and Phrases for Calming
In the mysterious mood of the Holy Nights imagine calming words and calming phrases for a few minutes.
What are words that describe calm in your soul? Stillness, openness, gentleness, serenity. Write them down. Say them silently in your mind. How do you feel as each word finds its meaning in your heart? Say these words in a soft voice. Sound them out slowly and notice the feeling of each sound.
In the last four nights we have worked with nature, divinity, others and self. Look to these four for calming images and phrases. Sky, pond, breeze, rose. Being brushed by an angels wing. The gaze of a Renaissance Madonna. The Buddha's smile. The touch of my grandmother's fingers. Reading Emily Dickenson by myself. Write them down. Speak the phrases in a soft voice. See the images with soft eyes. The calm soul is soft.
Keep a list of these words and phrases. Add to the list during the year. Share your list with a good friend. Let these words and phrases keep you soft and calm. You might take crayons or colored pencils and write out these words and phrases. Put them in places that you see in the ordinary course of your day: on the bathroom mirror, on the kitchen cabinet, even as the screen saver on your computer desktop. When you see them speak them in your soft voice. Let them instill calm in your soul.
Sounding Calm
As a spoken word “calm” is extraordinarily calming. The sound that forms the word “calm” begins in the back of your mouth with a closing between the back of your tongue and your palette. It then it opens up in a rounding way to end with the gentle closing of your lips. To me the forming of the word, calm, creates a protected space in my mouth.
When your soul needs to be calmed, perhaps just slowly sounding the word “calm” and feeling that protected space in your mouth can be calming. The sounding of the word reminds or restores to consciousness stillness, grace, openness, gentleness and serenity.
The Holy Nights are like the word calm beginning with Nativity, allowing this sacred space for the renewal and the repurposing of our lives and closing with Epiphany. It is a time of holy calm.
Do you notice that calming requires will. In our modern agitating times, we must engage our will, our intention, to provide our soul with calming. But we must also bring our attention to that activity for the calming to be restorative. Many of us have developed self-soothing behaviors that are automatic, even addictive. These activities of will without thought do not offer restorative or “holy” calm.
Conscious activities require a balance between activity and thought. In the sounding of the word, calm there is a conscious willed beginning, a rounding fullness of doing and then a soft completion. The “k” sound at the back of the mouth takes a real force to make. The “ah” rolling with the “l” flows to the closing “m” sound. Calming activities take a conscious force to begin. They roll forward with a purposeful goal. The goal is achieved and the activity comes to a close. Calm is an active experience, not a passive one. Calm intention, calm attention, calm engagement and calm completion is the evidence of a calm soul.
Calming activities seek to bring beauty and harmony into being and into consciousness.
Calm in the Past and in the Future
What were the calming moments of last year? What were you doing that created the calm. How was your will engaged? What were your thoughts.
Think of the coming year. What imaginations fill your feeling life with holy calm? Do you have the calm will to take the needed actions? Do you have the calm thoughts to direct and sustain your attention?
Surrender your soul to the holy calm of the Holy Nights.
Please share you calming word, phrases and images by leaving a comment.
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