They were driving to the Hopi reservation. She relaxed back in the comfortable front seat, gazing out the passenger window, enjoying the arid beauty of the New Mexico high country, and contemplating the unusual gathering of nations she had been called to attend. Thinking of the wisdom of the Elders she would meet and of their prophecies, she drifted mindlessly, listening to the soft voices of the other women in the car.
Suddenly the windshield in front of her shimmered, altered, and vanished, replaced by the inky expanse of deep space. Confused, she shifted about to get a bearing and discovered before her the breathtaking vista of planet earth. As she stared in wonder at the suspended green and blue jewel that was her home, a shadow began to move across the planet. It traveled across the face of the earth, obscuring the colors in darkness. She looked sharply to her right, wondering what had cast the shadow, and as she did so, a voice spoke: “It is the dream of the Great Spirit.”
Turning back, she saw an edge of light rim one side of the globe, advancing slowly. The light began to illuminate the darkness, and in the areas of shadow, she saw many people scrambling to get out of the light, looking for places to hide. They were placing secrets under rocks, finding bushes and caves to conceal projects and agendas in the shadows. The light, however, continued along its path, leaving less and less room for these clandestine activities. The movement in the shadow increased to a frantic pace. But the light moved on without ceasing. The voice spoke again: “What is hidden shall be revealed.”
She turned again to see the source of the light and was told, “It is all the dream of God.” The light drew her again, and she gazed at her planet as it began to effervesce, seeming to take on new life. Staring into the light, she discerned movements that seemed to draw the light forward. Peering closely, she saw thousands of people, then hundreds of thousands, then millions of people tending their light, joining until a great flash consumed the planet in a wondrous glow.
“It is humanity that moves the light forward in the dream of the Great Spirit. You are the light.” With these words the scene faded and she became aware of the jolt and drone of the vehicle as they turned onto a dirt road.
We have our life within that Supreme Life that is also dreaming: it dreams the dream of the Universe, of the Cosmos, of the transformation of consciousness into light of transformation. Within that life, we are the Soul dreaming its individual dream within the group dream. And within each of us is the light of transformation. It is expressed through the soul, and as we become familiar with our soul, as we bring stillness into our being, this light grows, and we emerge from the dim, penumbral world of form.
In one of Plato’s wonderful allegorical stories, he tells of a number of prisoners in a cave, the entrance of which is so brightly lit that the shadows of those that pass outside are cast on the inner wall. The prisoners can face only the inner wall to which they are chained. Having been there all their lives, they think that the shadows are what is real. There comes a time when they are led out of the cave into the light, and, at first blinded, gradually they come to disbelieve. The light seems so much less real to them than the shadows on their wall.
Our world is the world of shadow. It is a shadow world cast by the light of the soul within the dream of the Divine Source. We often move through this shadowy dreamworld relating to it as though it was not shadow, and so missing all that is real. But the real is all around us. And the real is within us.
Modern psychology has focused entirely on the personality and its mind and emotions, on understanding and healing the individual’s accumulated experiences. What of the psychology of the soul? The psychology of the Soul is the evolution or transformation of consciousness.
The ego is strongly identified with the physical world and body. Because of this, it experiences an exaggerated sense of vulnerability. The soul perceives the body as the form through which it expresses in the physical world. It loves and recognizes, enjoys and uses the physical, but knows it is not the physical form. It knows its existence is not dependent on the body; the soul is secure in its knowledge that it is everlasting. As humans, we live in the shadow reality of social consciousness. As souls, we know ourselves to be the source of the light. We are the shadows of our soul.
The physical self is motivated to become individualized; it is concerned with separation and self-definition. The intellect and ego prefer concrete information and carefully constructed, well-defined realities. They are strongly identified with the world of matter. They are driven by instinct and highly motivated toward self-preservation. The physical self is the shadow.
The mind is a receiver, an interpreter, and a transmitter of thought, but the soul is an originator, a source, of thought. The soul deals more in abstraction than in concrete information. The soul’s “mind” is far more conscious than what we call our conscious mind. The unknowable, the abstract, the intangible, the great mystery, the domain of all wisdom, all realities, all truth — these are the realms of the soul’s psychology.
The soul self moves always to integrate and unify; it is group oriented. It is both our expression of and our means to understand the intangible and abstract. Intuition is implicit in the soul self, and life purpose is expressed through it. The soul self is the individual expression of divine consciousness.
While the narcissistic ego self clamors to be seen, the conscious, centered soul self, peacefully and with certainty, knows that it does exist, eternally.
What do we know of our own soul? It is time we each became intimate with this self, allowing it to grow in prominence in our lives. How? By loving our soul, honoring it, seeking it out, listening, and following its guidance. Come to know your soul and it will reveal your light.
Within our being is a divine intelligence that cannot be denied, altered, or destroyed; it cannot be harmed or separated from itself, for it is permanently whole. And that self is always guiding us, always. It is our soul.
Our soul cannot be held captive; neither can it be abused or harvested for its emotions. Our soul is divinity incarnate, it is forever. Death means nothing to the soul, for it knows no death or pain. It only knows ongoing eternal life and growth. The body’s experience of pain or death is already understood by the soul; if necessary for growth, it embraces them, knowing they are only more of the ongoing flow of life.
It is the personality, the limited self, the ego self that loses touch with the soul’s knowledge and begins to value such things as greed, fear, and power in order to feed the desire to be safe. But the soul knows only love, creativity, sharing, nurturing, caring, generosity, heroism, and life — and the eternal abundance of the Source. These are the things that the soul values and builds upon.
Our highest purpose in life is expressed through the soul. Without understanding this, we are cut off from our soul’s higher purpose and left to the more limiting satisfaction of personality agendas. In coming to understand our purpose fully and profoundly, we may discover that we are not here for our careers; we are not here only for our family — our husband or wife or children. We may learn that we are not even here for service to the disadvantaged, our community, or the needs of our planet.
We may see, moving into deeper and deeper communion with our soul, that beyond the wondrous and right purpose we find in all of those goals, there is another purpose designed indelibly into our original blueprint. That purpose is to be an expression of the fullest potential of the Divine, to be compelled upstream like the salmon, ceaselessly climbing the waves of our soul’s curriculum to match and hold and express the essence of the Infinite frequency in our being. That is our most profoundly satisfying purpose. It is the journey we all are on, without exception. It is the source of our most meaningful commonality. The former lover we no longer speak to is on that journey. The leader or businessman that we fear is also on that journey. All are. There is nothing outside of the purview of the Divine Intelligence, for we have our existence in the infinite mind of God, and the mind of God is not stagnant. It is the animating principle of the world, continually expanding, as are we.
After three days of prayer and ceremony, she sat in the talking circle with the Hopi Elders and experienced the shared satisfaction of a group that had found unity where there had been none. As the talking stick moved from person to person, many dreams and prophecies were shared. Some were visions of hope, others were dire predictions and doomsday warnings holding little hope for the human race. As the feathered wand was handed to her, she paused at length to consider all that had been said.
Then she spoke: “We have heard many prophecies, and there are countless more from other cultures that have gone unspoken today. But who fulfills a prophecy? We are the fulfillers of prophecy. Therefore it would be wise for us to choose carefully those that we wish to fulfill. It is our choice. It is our dream. All that is our combined history we have dreamed. And the dream is the Creator dreaming us.” She shared the vision of the light moving inexorably to fill the earth — the dream of the Great Spirit — that came to her on her journey just three days before.
Following the closing ceremony, three of the Elders sought her out quietly. “We have had the same vision,” one said. “We understood the dream and the movement of the light as you did. The same voice of the dream spoke to us the same words you heard.”
They told her they shared silence together to understand how that vision would be fulfilled in humanity. “We learned,” said the oldest man, “that it will be through the light of the Soul of humanity that it will come to pass.”
The evolution, or more accurately, the transformation of humanity over eons of time has been the purposeful dream of the Source, each stage having apparent drawbacks but also vital gains. During the Age of Form, the physical body developed and we became increasingly focused on it and felt ourselves to be separate from our source. But we survived and thrived, and a wondrous housing for consciousness, for the soul, was refined. No matter how we prod and change our bodies, molding them this way and that, it is mere playful vanity. For the fact is, that stage is finished; the body is sufficiently refined to serve the purpose it was designed for. It is the magnificent housing for the flame of Divine Consciousness.
Then came the evolution of mind and emotion, the Age of Mind and Psyche. The ego, seizing these tools, galloped through time, wielding greed, fear, and power like a naughty child unaware of its strength. Nonetheless, the equipment was honed, the mind becoming capable of awareness, of pure reason, consciousness, and creativity; and the emotions capable of grand passion and glorification.
Now we come to the opening of the heart, the door to the soul, and the evolution of consciousness into light. This transformation will change the face of humanity, of the planet. It will occur as surely as did the development of the body, the mind, and the emotions. It will occur as we become familiar with our spirit, our soul’s nature, which is the breath of life that moves through each one of us in every moment.
This transformation is occurring within each individual and humanity as a whole. As the jellyfish in the story in the first chapter of this book, humanity is moving together toward a destination sensed by our souls. In that movement into the Age of the Souls, we are evolving — transforming, becoming conscious aspects of the mind and the dream of the One Life that informs us. This is our group destiny, and we are dreaming, dreaming the coming of that day.
I will give this breath to the rising sun
To the day that follows and the night to come.
May I work with Spirit, knowing all are one
And I will that Thy will be the will I’ve done.
May my pace be steady and my aim be true
Let right action guide me in the things I do.
May my mind be humble and my body strong
Fill my heart with loving, fill my lungs with song.
May I serve the people, dancing hand in hand
May I serve all creatures, may I serve the land.
To my ears come whispers on the winds of change
And the witness ripples ’cross the mountain range.
I am soil of mother, I am soul of fire
I am cell of ocean, I am breath of sky.
I will give this breath to the rising sun
To the day that follows and the night to come.
And I will that Thy will be the will I’ve done.
To receive a complimentary CD of Lenedra Carroll singing “Daybreak Song,” see page 337.