Remembering is a Necessary Function of Our Spiritual Growth

James Hillman’s “Acorn Theory,” that our destiny is written in our soul, not only takes us to the core of psychology (the study of the psyche, or soul), it is also at the heart of all the world’s religions. Making sense of our individualized soul-image has always been an essential element of myth, sacred stories, and our quest to know the mysteries of life. It is how we come to discover the meaning of life.

Carl Jung, the first psychologist to hint at the convergence of science and religion, said, “image is psyche.” We cannot think without using our imagination, without relying upon collected or inherited mental images. Jung is really pointing out that memory (memoria) is more than mere recall; it is actually a storage place that we have the ability to access and return from, bringing with us eternal images to the mind. Memory, therefore, is soul. Helping us remember who we really are, which requires imagination, is a function of the soul.

The entry to this storage place is often through the doors of life review, or by telling the story of our life. When we start down this path, we can also find there images that may be beyond our own capacity to imagine, but nevertheless come to us from some universal well-spring that enables us to feel more than we thought we were, and that make us more than we could have imagined.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – What destiny is written in your soul? How have you been able to glean images, or indications, of this? Have you ever gone to a place in your memory that gave you a spiritual wealth, or wisdom, you thought you could never have imagined? How did this connect you even more with your own soul, or maybe with the soul of others? What remembrances, what stories from your own life review, have taken you beyond your own imagination, beyond who you once thought you were? What have any of these experiences or memories given you that you value most? If you would like to share this part of your soul’s legacy with others, this is the place to do that.

What is Your Defining Image?

Every single person is born with a defining image, an innate uniqueness, which, according to James Hillman, is already present before we are born. This innate image is our essence, yet only with the unfolding of a lifetime does this inner quality, or character defining who we are, become evident. As the mighty oak’s destiny is written in the tiny acorn, so our calling, or destiny, can only be understood as we look backward, reflectively, over a life lived deliberately.

We are formed from archetypal images and grow gradually into our own image of the archetype, as we age and mature through life’s experiences. As many spiritual traditions put this, we are formed in the image of our Creator and we have the innate capacity to reflect that image in the life we live. As character and image are inseparable, both expressing the essence of who we are, we get to the essence of our life story by expressing how our life reflects the original image of all life as sacred, as having originated from divinity, and by telling the story of how love, order, beauty, and justice, or any of the other characteristics and principles of the holy, have been demonstrated in our own lives.

We are given, as a gift, a “soul-companion,” a daimon, which is with us each step of our journey, guiding us through the paradeigma, or pattern, of the life we live, toward our destiny. This acorn-like inborn essence of who we will become is given different names in different cultures and traditions, from soul to genius to calling to fate to character. Though none really tell us exactly what “it” is, each confirm that it is, that we all have a purpose to fulfill with the life we have to live.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – What is that part of you that was already present before you were born? How did you discover your innate capacity to reflect the sacred? What is your own story of divine love, order, beauty, or justice? Who is it that has been with you every step of your journey, guiding you through the pattern of your life? What name do you give to your “soul-companion”? How do you know for sure that it is even with you? Whatever your response to these questions, this is a perfect place to share this part of your soul’s legacy, if you would like to.

“From the Middle of the Middle of Me to the Middle of the Middle of You” – Remembering Brother Blue

It must have been in the early 80s when I was taking a couple of courses at Harvard that I first ran into the unforgettable storyteller Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, known widely and affectionately as Brother Blue. He would often stand forth at a corner of the Square and regale passers-by with uplifting stories from his own life or by adapting traditional folk tales. Telling stories that connected listeners was his sacred calling. His message of universal harmony came through every line of every story he ever told. He passed away earlier this month at age 88.

He often drew upon timeless themes to inspire others. “How many want to climb the mountain?” he would say to his audience. “Moses climbed the mountain. Jesus climbed the mount. The mountain is inside of you. Climb to that place where the higher self is. There is something else beyond names, beyond all words; words can’t grasp it. Climb this mountain of yourself…”

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – What is that story you hear when you climb the mountain of yourself to your higher self? What story is it that wants to be told from the middle of the middle of you to the middle of the middle of everyone? What is the one story that connects who you most deeply are with who we all most deeply are? Take as much time as you need to listen to this inner story of your higher self, and when it feels and sounds familiar enough to you, share it here for all of us to enjoy and connect with.

Do You Know Your “Oughtabiography”?

Since Arlo Guthrie is here in Portland today with his whole family, children and grandchildren, I thought it would be fun to reflect on something he wrote twenty years ago. He called it “My Oughtabiography,” and starts out with, “I was born with a guitar in one hand in Coney Island, which is the good part of Brooklyn, New York…” After bringing us up to date, he goes on to say, “My personal life is somewhat of a mystery, even to me. Although it’s fun to be mysterious at times, it isn’t always convenient. People always want to know what you are, as if it made some kind of difference. Lots of people want to have something special in common with folksingers. They’d like to share their views on religion, pollution, nuclear power, human rights, truth, justice, and the American way with someone who sees things the same way. I have come to the conclusion that we are all one person with a few billion faces so we can see things in lots of different ways. I guess there really isn’t any mystery to me at all, unless I think of myself as being all alone…”

Now you know what an “oughtabiography” is, right? Wait a minute, what is Arlo really saying, anyway? Have you ever felt like “we are all one person with a few billion faces”? What in the world does that feel like?

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy -  If we all are one person with a few billion faces, does that mean your soul’s “oughtabiography” would be the same as, but from a different perspective than, someone else’s? Arlo gives voice to his soul in his own natural style, by expressing himself, his own inner qualities, and his own personal experiences. What have you acquired along your journey that makes you who you are? What conclusion have you come to about what it all comes down to for you?  Take a stab at telling the kernel of your soul’s story, in a way that expresses most who you are, in one sentence. Let’s see how many one sentence soul “oughtabiographies” we can share here.

All We Are Is Story

Stories have long played a vital and active role in the everyday life of people in traditional communities. They contained the lessons that needed to be learned, and they were also used to bring about healing. Stories define a three-part spiritual journey in which we: a) are well, or settled in to something familiar and comfortable; b) experience an imbalance within, or get dislodged from, the familiar, which creates confusion and chaos; and, c) confronting the unknown, find something new that feels even more comfortable than what we had before, or we return to where we were but with a renewed sense of commitment to what now even more clearly matters most to us. This is the timeless pattern of transformation that we live out many times in our lifetimes. Bringing our stories into the open in order to understand the energies behind any of our discomforts can be critical to our healing, our growth, and to our transformation, so that we ultimately find solutions to the on-going muddles, or life crises, we find ourselves in.

Story is therefore crucial to the core task of identity formation. Throughout our lives we tell stories that describe who we are – and sometimes we retell, or recast, old stories that we may have inherited that are no longer serving to contribute to our growth. In many indigenous cultures, identity formation is the development of a coherent master story – the one in the many – that links together, or integrates, all the stories we tell of our lives as sacred beings into an inclusive, archetypal expression of our soul’s journey.

As it is said in Native American traditions, “All you are is story. When you pass over, the stories told by you and about you are all that remains… We are all the stories that have been or ever will be told about us.”

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – Take a few moments to see if you can identify your soul’s master story. Of all the stories you’ve told about yourself, or that others have told about you, which parts – the lasting motifs or timeless elements – really get at the heart of who you really are? What is this story that you want to remain about you? Which story do you want to be known by? If you would like to share a summary version of that story here, it will benefit us all.

Our Soul Creates Lasting Connections for Us

We can easily discover in the process of telling our life story that we are more sacred beings than we are human beings. Telling the story of what will endure about us long after we are gone is transformational. This is a gift we can give ourselves at any point in our lives. Telling our story while it is in process, wherever we are in our lives, will help us gain a sharper perspective on our past and our present. Telling the stories of our lives can give us a clearer sense of what we really hope for in the relations we have with each other.

There are unforgettable moments in the telling of our stories when we recognize a connection in our lives, a connection that links one moment of our lives with another moment, maybe years apart, or a moment that connects us in some deep way to our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors, and maybe even to all of humanity. These are moments when our whole perception of the world and ourselves can change in an instant – and we become totally transformed. They can occur often when we reflect on and share the stories of our life with others. In this moment, new insights take over, and all we want to do is savor them, and do whatever we can to not let anything else interrupt this new connection we have made to ourselves – to our own soul – or to others.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – When we compose the story of our life, we can tell this story in many different ways, with any number of variations or emphases. For now, think of your life, from as far back as you can remember to the present, as one on-going, connected series of events, experiences, and moments to gain lasting meaning from. Think also of all your relations and what they mean to you now and what you hope they will mean to you in the future. How would you describe these connections if you were telling their story? How has your soul created lasting connections for you? Does this story, like all other enduring stories, have a beginning, a muddle, and a resolution? Tell this story here in a short version that expresses how these meaningful moments in your life are the glue that holds everything together for you and establishes deep and lasting connections across time and space.

Telling Our Deep Stories is Doing Soul Work

A story told well carries a power that sneaks up on us and pulls a layer of blinders off our eyes. It can teach us something important about life that we had probably forgotten we knew. The act of imposing a narrative framework on the raw material of our lives brings new order and clarity to something somehow familiar to us. A good story allows us to wrestle with our demons, dance with our angels, make plans with our inner guide, and ultimately, connect with our soul. Telling ourselves, and others, these deep stories of our lives is doing soul work.

Telling our story is crucial to the core task of identity formation. In many indigenous cultures, identity formation is the development of a coherent master story that links together the many stories we tell of our lives as sacred beings. It is said in Native American traditions, “All you are is story. When you pass over, the stories told by you and about you are all that remains… We are all the stories that have been or ever will be told about us.”

Everyone’s life story is meaningful, full of sacred elements, valid, valuable, linked to all others, and entertaining. To want to tell our story is to want to be part of the human family. We tell our life stories because they are a part of us. Our stories identify the influences that made us who we are today, help us to see ourselves better, and, ultimately, to accept ourselves more.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – How deep does your story go? Have you ever remembered something that you forgot you knew? Has putting part of your life in narrative form ever brought new order and clarity to something familiar to you? What parts of your story are most crucial to who you are at your core? What is the heart of your master story, that kernel which links together the many stories of your life, and says to the world in a loud and clear voice “this is who I am and always will be!” In a page or two, see if you can give voice to this sacred story and then share it here for others to experience.

Our Story is Who We Are

Without a story, we are not truly known. Within our stories, the truths of the ages are embedded. Our story speaks an inner truth of the generations. Our stories contain our common spiritual heritage. They are also our legacy for future generations. All we are is the story we leave behind.

Story is central to Native American life and to the healing traditions of indigenous peoples around the world. In the Lakota worldview, all things in the created world are sacred, the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the winged creatures, the crawling ones, the finned ones, and the rooted ones. In fact, there is no clear division between the sacred and the secular. All life is sacred; human beings, and all other created things, are holy. In the Lakota language, the word for child – wakan yeja – translates into English as “sacred being.” As such, we are spirit and flesh, sacred and material, and it becomes our responsibility to honor and respect everything around us. When we put the sacred aspect of our being first, the way we see everything else changes dramatically.

A life story of a person who lives by this worldview is really the story of the soul of that person. The most powerful life story expresses the struggle of a soul living in, adapting to, and learning from the material world. The most important stories we tell about ourselves are the expressions of the timeless within us.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy -  James Hillman offers a perspective on  this that is worth pondering. He asks, “Could it be that the soul doesn’t want to leave this world innocent of the life it has been living for ninety-odd years, and wants memoria to turn those years into character values?” What does this imply about the story the soul would tell? Think of just one memory (memoria) in your life that illustrates how you were born with a particular character value, how this was a gift “from the guardians upon your birth” that was brought to life by and through your soul, and how this could be what you may someday be memorialized for, what may become a part of your legacy that you leave to the world. Share a short version of this story here for others to learn from.

What Does Remembering Who We Are Have to do With Climate Change?

On this Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change, I thought I’d offer a short answer to this complex and intriguing question. In a nutshell, remembering who we are is a spiritual practice (more about that next week), which contributes to our spiritual development, which expands our consciousness of the universe we are part of, which gives us a vision of the whole, which helps us understand that nature reflects the qualities and attributes of its Creator and should therefore be greatly respected and cherished, which confirms that all things are interconnected and depend upon and flourish according to the law of reciprocity, which confirms for us that the oneness of humanity is the fundamental spiritual and social truth shaping our time.

In remembering that we have been created from the same source as every other substance in creation, we recognize how important the protection of even the smallest element of the environment is, and further what an enormously complex challenge conserving the earth’s resources is. Biological and cultural diversity is the core of the rich natural and spiritual heritage we share as human beings. To show any less regard for any one element of this whole would be like showing less regard to any one of our own multiple identities or allegiances, or even to any one of the vastly diverse organs in our own body, because they each add their own richness, essentialness, and vitality in completing the whole.

Understanding nature as the embodiment of the Creator, and as the unfoldment of divine will, engenders deep respect for the entire whole. Every part of the universe is connected to every other part. This calls for action that sustains the inherent balance of the whole. When one thing in the environment, in the universe, is caused to change by any other thing, all things are changed. (For more detail on these thoughts, see the essay at this link: http://statements.bahai.org/95-0406.htm.)

What has happened so often in the last couple of centuries is that the actions of some have impacted others far beyond the bounds of their reach. Acts of carelessness, disregard, and even acts of legislation, have brought about changes on the land which have caused very slight changes in the temperature of oceans which have caused violent weather which has brought great hardship to people living far from those oceans. That’s because everything is tied together. If we remembered who we are, that at our essence we are linked to every other living thing on this earth, there might not be so many careless acts that make so many unanticipated changes to everything that surrounds us, including the climate.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – remembering that our soul comes from the same source as everything else in this creation, and that our soul connects us to all the diversity in the creation, what can we do, what have we already done, that acknowledges and maintains our oneness with the creation? This is your chance to think of a green story that illustrates in some way how or why we are all connected in one great big web of delicate life on this planet. It would be wonderful if you chose to share this story with others here on this special day.

Life Stories Can Change the World – Part 3

When Brother Blue, the African American storyteller, made the statement, “Enough stories can change the world,” he was most likely thinking of the traditional role of stories in community life. From the earliest times, stories have been central to life. Through stories, what is enduring is transmitted. Traditional peoples understood the importance of sharing not only their sacred stories, but also their own stories of life lived deeply. They knew that this supported the cycle of life. Stories became the food of the soul.

Today, this is as true as ever. Enough stories, truthful stories – told from heart, and of the soul – can stop hatred, prejudice, racism, and this can change the world. It is only through stories that we can come to understand something in a new, full, and intimate way that allows us to see that thing, that person, from the inside out. Thus a connection is established, and a relationship formed that precludes any kind of judgment. The shared story brings us together, and helps us to recognize our commonalities.

Life stories work the same way; enough life stories can change the world, too. When we share our own stories of the soul, when we put our life’s events and feelings into the form of a story, a spoken or written narrative, unity is maintained, and a greater respect for each other is found; we recognize deep within us the personal and collective truths we all share, as members of the human family.

Another way to leave your soul’s legacy – have you ever seen a story change the world? Have you ever experienced a story serving as food for the soul, yours or anyone else’s? Think of a truthful story, one that comes from the heart or soul, one that carries the power to heal, to stop hatred, or to change the listener in some way. Share just the essence of this story here. Maybe it will bring us closer together, or help us recognize our commonalities, as members of the human family.