January 6 - Epiphany

An epiphany is a revelation. Something new and vital has come to consciousness.

In the Christian festivals, Epiphany celebrates the coming of the Three Kings or Magi. It falls on January 6th. The Epiphany that follows Inner Christmas and the Twelve Holy Nights lasts throughout the year.

Each of the Twelve Inner Christmas messages was written to initiate an epiphany in your consciousness. Each begins a process in your soul and as you let the process unfold some unexpected insight, release, healing, liberation, or transformation occurs. This unfolding may occur immediately or may take days, weeks or months to appear. Remember the Three Magi and their long and patient journey following the Star. You will find your way to the manger in your soul and the manifestation of wonder and wisdom.

Here are the twelve needs. I’ve put them in three categories for Three King’s Day.

The Four Mirrors
You need all four reflections to have a deep sense of who you are.

Nature
Divinity
Others
Self

The Four States
You need to maintain all four states to have a clear, creative and productive soul life.

Calm
Arousal
Grief
Beginnings

The Four Perspectives
Building imaginations from these perspectives brings
health and freedom into your soul.

Boxes
Balloons
Self-Parody
Tree Image

I must laugh at this list because it is so different from what I had written down as possible topics before Inner Christmas began. I was surprised by the messages as I wrote them. After doing this for five years, I truly trust this spiritually inspired process.

After the Holy Nights

What happens to our souls when the Holy Nights come to an end? Do the veils between human souls and the Spiritual World begin to thicken again?

Yes, the veils begin to slowly thicken as earthly light grows. It is not a curtain quickly closing, just a gentle fading into slightly blurry shadows. It is not that we are less spiritual, or less connected to the Spiritual World, rather it is the graceful and creative cycle of our soul's attention through the Inner Year. Our renewed and re-purposed souls begin to refocus on the sensory world and our journey as earthly beings.

But after the experience of the Twelve Holy Nights, we see ourselves more clearly. We feel our relationships more dearly. Our ability to engage with our inner lives and our outer lives is stronger. We have evolved, grown, developed.

Remember to revisit the twelve messages of Inner Christmas 2008 throughout the year. Read them with wonder and new wisdom will appear.

The Inner Year

Each year our souls’ earthly journey offers way stations for rest, contemplation and inspiration. These are the seasonal and spiritual (or religious) festivals throughout the year. They create the rhythms and gifts of our Inner Year.

In the First Holy Night we looked at the mirror of nature. We can think of the seasons of the soul reflecting the seasons of the year- Inner Winter, Inner Spring, Inner Summer, and Inner Autumn. Or imagine the cycle of an apple tree - in the deep dark and cold of Inner Winter, the activity in the roots of our soul trees is very intense. We are gather the spiritual warmth and astral forces to put forth our budding thoughts, feelings and deeds this Inner Spring.

In a few days, I will write again and share with you the ways I will support your journey through the Inner Year.

Meanwhile, thank you so much for celebrating Inner Christmas, for your thoughtful comments, and for your generous donations. I do believe the Spiritual World delights in our work together.

I wish you a rich and fulfilling Inner 2009, abundant with meaning, miracles and mysteries.

January 2 - The Ninth Holy Night - The Need for Boxes

Yes, boxes. Our souls need boxes.

Boxes bless our souls with boundaries and limitations. Boxes are containers for everything in our souls.

Boxes have six sides. Top, Bottom, North, South, East, West.

We can build our own boxes or we can let others build our boxes.

We can take everything out of a box or put everything into a box.

We can wonder what’s at the bottom of a box.

We can have a box of things to keep, a box of things to give away, a box of things to throw out.

We can have a Jack-in-the-Box that plays music and surprises us.

We can have music boxes, toy boxes, button boxes, tool boxes and treasure boxes.

We can have junk boxes.

We can have gift boxes.

We can have magical, mysterious, miraculous boxes.

Boxes organize our soul life and keep our souls from getting overwhelmed with clutter and chaos.

You can build a box big enough to live in, to be your hut, or your tabernacle.

On this ninth Holy Night, contemplate your soul’s need for boxes. Your soul does not come with limits, boundaries or containers. It is up to you to find or create the boxes your soul needs.

Remember, boxes surround volume, a space to fill. Do you build your soul boxes, large enough for all your soul needs to contain in them? Or small enough to keep the contents from rolling around dangerously?

How do you label your soul boxes?

Do you have a box labeled Questions, Thoughts that seem True, Feelings that seem Harmonious, Deeds that seem Good, Relationships that seem Karmic, My Regrets, My Prejudices, My Addictions, My Destiny and so on?

Tonight and through the year - build boxes, label boxes, open boxes, close boxes. Pay attention to your boxes.

December 30-The Sixth Holy Night - The Need for Arousal

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.

December 27 - The Third Holy Night - The Need for Others

THE SOUL'S THREE MIRRORS

Our souls are mirrored by nature, by divinity and by others. Each day of our lives, our souls must seek these mirrors and gaze into them.

Our souls mirror nature, divinity and others. We must keep this mirror polished.

FEELINGS OF THE SOCIAL SOUL

Tonight we contemplate our soul’s need for other human souls, the third mirror.

What are the three feelings we experience through others?
Sympathy, antipathy, and empathy.

Sym- means with. Anti- means against. Em- means in. We join with others, we push against others and we live in others and others live in us.

We need feelings of sympathy and antipathy to give us our sense of identity. We need empathy to give us a true sense of the other and to have those wonderful soul-enriching moments of forgetting ourselves, of pure unselfishness.

Just as the wheel of colors comes out of red, yellow and blue, all the colors of our social life come from the infinite mixtures of sympathy, antipathy and empathy.
Like colors, our social feelings of sympathy, antipathy and empathy have hues, values, and intensities. The hue of a social feeling reveals which of the three primary feelings is dominant when we experience the other. The value of a social feeling is the degree to which we are awake or sensitive to the mixture of feelings. The intensity of the social feeling is the degree to which this feeling saturates the experience of the other.

PAINTING PORTRAITS

Choose a family member, a friend, a colleague, a character in a book, TV show or movie, and a public personality. With each one paint a portrait from your feelings of sympathy, antipathy and empathy. What do you like about them? What do you dislike? And finally, what do you just “get” about them? Consider the hue, value and intensity of your feelings for each of them.

Probably you will choose the others for which you feel mostly sympathy. We are always more comfortable with those we like. Take the risk to paint the feeling portrait of those you dislike.

When you paint with sympathy and antipathy you are actually painting "self " portraits as sympathy and antipathy are about what you are “with” and “against.” These "self" portraits teach you so much about your own soul life.

When you paint with empathy, you are painting a true image of the other. You see them without the veils of your own likes and dislikes. The empathy portraits take you to feelings that are new and different. They enrich and expand you soul.

Who has painted portraits of you? What other souls see you with sympathy? With antipathy? With empathy?

Throughout the year, pay attention to the feelings of sympathy, antipathy and empathy. Make it a practice to study your social life. This will keep your soul socially bright and clear.

DISREGARD

There is one dreadful, painful social experience, but it is the proof of our need for others. There is nothing more painful or damaging, than disregard. When you are not reflected by another’s soul, when you find no mirror, you feel like you have fallen into the abyss of non-existence. It is like your soul cannot breathe.

In the coming year, do not let others fall into an abyss when they seek their reflection in your soul. See the other, no matter who they are, no matter what your social feelings. Keep your social mirror polished.

GAZING

At the beginning of this message, I used the word “gaze.” What is the difference between looking and gazing?

Gazing is full of grace, yet to gaze at another or to be the object of another’s gaze often fills us with a sense of awkwardness. This awkwardness is self-consciousness. Gazing is easy when we gaze at infants and toddlers because they are not yet self-conscious. With babies, we lose our self-consciousness. Gazing is a deed of a soul that is free of self-consciousness.

Each of us is born anew every moment. At this time when we celebrate nativity, gaze from the part of your being that is newborn into the souls of others and find what is newborn in them. (I feel this is such an ensouling experience, I do gazing exercises when ever I give a talk or lead a workshop.)

If you are sharing this message with your partner or a dear friend, try gazing at each other for one minute. Let the awkwardness be there. Let steady, even breathing keep you present. Keep your eyes soft and your heart open.

If you are alone, find a mirror and gaze at your reflection. Soft eyes, open heart.

During the Holy Nights feel the gaze of the Spiritual World. Gaze back with love and courage.

December 26 - The Second Holy Night - The Need for Divinity

Your soul needs to be certain of divinity.

Take a few still and soft moments to let the words “certain” and “divinity” bring their meaning to your consciousness. Don’t read any further until you have done this exercise.

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Let me share some of the random thoughts that appeared in my soul while I was still and soft...

I find I cannot rely on my intellect to define either meaning. Both “certain” and “divinity” evoke feelings, not words, in my soul.

My feeling of “certain” is what my body feels when I am standing on firm earth on a beautiful day. The earth meets my arched foot with strength, supports the balanced uprightness of my entire skeleton and keeps my head floating atop my spine reaching up to the sky. All is unquestionably the way it is designed to be. My soul is certain when all feels radiantly right.

My feeling of “divinity” is a feeling of total illumination, of dwelling in pure light, a light that hallows all it shines on.

My soul seeks the hallowed design present in the object of its attention. I may be paying attention to what I experience as myself or what is not me. I may be paying attention to something small and immediate or something incomprehensibly huge and distant. With the divinity in my soul, I am able to feel the divine presence in what I observe. The divinity in my soul is the source of my attention.

My soul needs divinity in order to seek and to see, to suffer and to surrender, to know and to love. My soul needs Divinity in order to heal, to be free, to evolve and to resist. divinity inspires and empowers my “yes!” and my “no!”

My soul needs divinity in order to forget myself and know you.

It is the presence of divinity in my soul that lets me compassionately illuminate my life, my life’s surroundings and circumstances, and my life’s deeds and intentions.

Without divinity, my life would be a morally gray wasteland. I would not be able to see any design and my life would feel aimless.

My soul needs the light of divinity, the way my eyes need light to see.
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On this second of the Twelve Holy Nights write down your feelings about certainty and divinity.

Try not to put a name on divinity. Stay with your feelings of and for divinity within your soul. Named divinities feel external to your soul.

If you find you must name divinity - Jesus Christ, Buddha, Allah, Yahweh, God, Brahma, or Gaia - here is a helpful exercise. Imagine the named divinity asking you what He or She feels like in your soul. What is your answer? Why does your soul need this divinity?

On the other hand, if you are someone who finds the naming of divinity too limiting, you might try this exercise. Right down all the names you know for divinity. There are many names. Now go through the list and describe what each name signifies, distinguishes and contains for you. I wrote down seven names in the previous paragraph. Each of the seven represents a different gesture of the divine to me.

If you have the time, do both exercises. You will find your soul’s light growing with this work. Even if you are very articulate about all matters divine, you’ve read all the sacred texts and all the works of great masters, these two exercises will take you in to your own soul and it’s own need for divinity. Do this with the innocence of Nativity. See what lives in your newborn heart.

Make a list of twelve aspects of divinity, such as love, truth, beauty, compassion, power, judgment, etc. For the coming year of twelve months, focus your inner work on one feeling each month.

Tonight open yourself up to the divinity in your soul.

December 25 - The First Holy Night - The Need for Nature

On Christmas Night begin your Holy Nights contemplations with thoughts on your soul’s need for Nature. Whether you are a city dweller or a farmer, tonight celebrate your relationship to the natural world.

What do you think of when you contemplate Nature? Sky, sea, flowers, trees, animals, minerals, mountains, sunsets, breezes, bird songs. What activities come to your imagination? Erupting volcanoes, falling snow, germinating seeds, blossoming roses, soaring birds, crashing waves, leaping deer, dawning sun?

Nature is profoundly complex and utterly mystifying - just like your soul.

Nature soothes and terrifies - just like your soul.

Nature is of the Earth and declares the presence of the Divine - just like your soul.

Nature and your soul mirror each other. If you want to know your soul, study Nature. If you want to know Nature, study your soul.

Without Nature your soul suffers. Your soul hardens, dries up, crumbles.

Nature was created for your soul. Nature is the first source of art, science and religion. Every great soul has found inspiration, comfort and wisdom in the forces, gifts and nuances of Nature.

Now Nature looks to your soul to think deeply about her, to feel deeply for her and to act in protection of her. Does your soul realize this?

How much time do you devote to Nature? Enough time to meet the needs of your soul and the needs of Nature? What would be enough time? How could you give more time to the relationship between your soul and Nature?

As you reflect on your soul’s relationship to Nature, what comes to mind? Write down three memories of Nature from this year. Are these recollections of the vast expanses of Nature, or the tiny, breathtaking beauties she offers?

Imagine how you would like to engage with Nature this coming year? What new perspective or experience do you desire? Do you need to spend more time attending to Nature. Do you need to make scientific observations, fill a sketch pad with drawings of flowers, or create a nature altar?

Tonight wake up to your soul’s need for Nature.