Finding Home & Belonging

When we listen to stories, we tap into the collective unconscious, a repository for archetypal stories that are like fertilizer for the personal unconscious, nourishing what’s underground, unseen, and unknown. Fertilizing seeds of longing that were planted long ago, and at some point, awakened by your desire. These stories are fodder for your nighttime dreams, which, like a kindly old aunt, are gently prodding you to awaken from the egoic slumber. “Awake my child, to who you really are, the love is inside you, and your light like a star.”

All of life conspires to guide you toward a life that feels like your life and away from the emptiness, the unfulfillment, and that endless longing for something we can’t name. And as such, we aren’t quite sure what to do about it. How to reach it.

How do we define that which we have never known or experienced? How do we articulate something missing for centuries, buried so deep in the unconscious that no one remembers when it lived and breathed and walked with us?

But every once in a while, we encounter that unnamable something, catch a glimpse of it in someone. Yes, there’s something about them… what is it? We can’t really describe, explain, or put our finger on it. What is it? We can’t say for sure but feel it falling as gently as a spring rain upon parched ground, and we know, we know deep inside, we feel it in our bones, “I want that.”

What are we searching for? What’s the longing? Why is the inner child crying endlessly and begging to go home?

For a long time, I was distracted by the outside world. I thought I needed to change my career, so I changed jobs and eventually got a PhD in an entirely new field, but that didn’t make it go away. Then I thought it’s a house, a place in the world, if I could just find it, then I could relax, and she would stop crying. But eventually, I gave that up search too.

It wasn’t until I went in, and went deep, that I discovered I was running from myself. And when I came home, the cacophony of the external world fell silent. I walked through a portal to being. And this stillness grew. The peace like a warm soft blanket around me. That something that felt as though it was missing, that which I longed for for so long, the unnamable, always at the edges, finally burst forth.

And I was home.

I wondered for a long time after meeting my twin flame, how do I get back to that stillness and silence that engulfed me when I was with him. His parting comment was encouragement to, “do my art.” I tried, picture after picture, painting after painting, poems, books, dreams, but that feeling was fleeting, only surfacing for a few moments at a time, then disappearing. It felt buried and I couldn’t figure out how to free it.

Then, I stumbled into it, quite by accident. It was an ordinary day. I almost quit in a moment of guilt for playing on a Monday, but didn’t. It came to me that it wasn’t about greater skill to execute paintings more perfectly, as I had thought it was. But it was about letting myself play, explore, experiment, and follow the whisper of little inklings that surfaced. Use this color, put this here, or there, and it stayed with me into the next day. Drink this, eat that, and I did.

It was like learning how to truly hear. Hear myself. Not just hear but hear and respond. Listen. And the peace wore on. Seeping into my cells. This sense of play, fun, permeating all of my work. I finally felt excited.

This, this, right here, this is where I belong. This is my life.

Pamela Alexander, PhD assists clients in the exploration and unearthing of their soul’s longings. They learn to cultivate the wisdom of their dreams, honor their hearts, find deeper meaning, increase stability, and discover purpose. Email psalexbus@gmail.com to see how you can utilize the power of dreams and soul work to live a the life you were meant to live.

Trees: Rooted in the Unseen

Trees live in a world of change, while remaining rooted in the deep darkness. They stand bare in the cold blustery winter storms. Their leaves and buds sprout with the onset of spring rains. The sun and heat of summer entices the flowers to bloom and the fruit to ripen.  As the days get cooler and the winds blow, the leaves and fruit drop from the branches and then winter returns. Once again, the tree stands bare and exposed to the elements.

The life of the tree is similar to ours.

We can go through the smaller cycles of the seasons and weather changes many times during one life. Then, in a larger sense, as one lifetime, the spring can be youth, summer is adulthood, fall represents midlife, and the winter as the elder years.

We have been conditioned to look at the seasons and weather we experience in life with judgment. Positive things happen during the sunny days, and rainy days are identified as when negative things happen. Strong winds that break off a limb might be perceived as tragic. The seasons, as related to the deterioration that is a part of the ageing process, is generally presented in our culture as the older one gets the worse it is.

Change is sometimes perceived as difficult. Letting go as a challenge. And life, it has been said, is for the young.

The part of the tree that remains unaffected by the weather and seasons is the part of the tree that is not visible. The roots are in the dark silent stillness, while above ground the trunk may sway in the wind, as the leaves are blown from the branches, and the tree is  pelted with rain.

When we root our awareness in the stillness and silence of ourselves, that which is unseen to the world, we remain undaunted. Seasons come and go. The weather changes. We age. Still we remain rooted in that which is changeless. If we base our sense of selves on that which is seen, that which is impermanent, we can be battered by the natural cyclical ebb and flow of life. When we stand in that which is permanent, we remain immune to what happens in the outer world. We are fully engaged as we witness life with our sense of self based in what is eternal. That is the ever-present Source, which is the deeper root of our being.