We fear we are alone and in that aloneness we fear for our safety. Fearing the loneliness, the emptiness, we are afraid we will sail right off the edge of it should we venture forth into the yawning maw. It is an emptiness we seem compelled to fill, willing to pay any price for a fleeting glimpse of security along our barren shorelines. The fear expresses as a longing, a yearning to be full. And this, if we could be assured, is purposeful and good. We should let it be, to irritate and discomfit. If we do not hurry to fill it with a lover, an addiction, an entertainment, or project; if we pause before launching into movement or word or definition, the fear will lead us. If we acknowledge or share our fear with the goal of knowing ourselves and becoming free, it will lead us here and there, in and out, above and below. Left unattended, denied, the fears can become neuroses, but by being conscious of them and using them, they can be important markers for us to follow. Riding our rudderless fears and insecurities, our pitching and tossing compulsions; letting them chart our way we follow them, follow them, to a new land, a promised land. Only there, to our absolute surprise and delight, do we find we are truly safe at last. There is the rest and health and love that we so longed for; there is the blessed safety and the peace we despaired to find. There, we discover, is the source of all knowledge that we sensed but no longer hoped we could claim.
I open my eyes with a sense of dread that I have to get through another day of grief. Tears from my slumber have soaked my pillow and continue to flow down my face. Jewel is gone; she was killed by a fan at one of her shows two weeks ago. The feeling of the grief and loss makes my bones ache, my cells scream. I lie in a hot trough of pain for fully half an hour before I realize it is a dream. My shoulders heave with relief, my throat aches with joy and gratitude. It isn’t true! It was only a horribly graphic dream!
I pull myself from bed and move quickly to the little altar in the corner. I light a candle and, from the place of gratitude, I move deep into the center of myself, the core of all that is. In that place I connect to the peace that is in every situation. I affirm our covenant in life and ask that the dream — a powerful portent not uncommon in my dreams — show itself to be dealt with.
Later that morning I contact members of our team, asking them to be alert to any potential security situation. Within two weeks a team member forwards information to me that matches the details of my dream. The feel I get of the man is the same as the one I had awareness of in both the dream and in my silence and prayer following it.
In the investigation that follows, I learn that this troubled man is determined to get to Jewel at a show that summer and propose marriage. If she refuses, he threatens to take the two of them, violently, into the beyond. The details of the situation match my dream precisely. We begin a coordinated effort involving our team and authorities in each town Jewel visits on tour and eventually the man is confronted, the situation resolved, and the danger averted.
This is the first time Jewel and I fully experience the feeling of threat that can attend celebrity. I am certainly grateful that I received such a powerful warning in the dream, but I am not fully comforted by it. This is one of the areas where it is not easy to be an artist’s manager and mother simultaneously. I feel a grave responsibility to be constantly aware; to always be able to sense what is going on. What if I miss a beat, am out of “tune,” don’t get the warning? How, I wonder, can we be safe in this strange new world of celebrity?
I feel frightened. The world wavers uncertainly before me. One afternoon I walk in my garden, pondering the question of safety. The melodious water and bird songs, the radiance of the flowers, the gentleness of the breeze are in sharp contrast to my febrile thoughts.
“Where is the peace in this? How are we safe?” I wonder. “How can I always know what needs to be known?”
Gradually, as always happens, the nature surrounding me begins to lull me into the stillness where all is known. My breath pulls deeply and evenly in and out of me. The questions lose the agitation and float abstractly, quietly, a little distance from me. I walk for a time in this inner silence.
Suddenly, as though at a command, I stop short and look up. Three feet away, illuminated by a wide shaft of afternoon sun, is a very large spider in the center of an enormous web. My approach causes a barely perceivable tremor along the threads. Instantly the spider leaves the center and, waiting at the edge, is poised to flee into the leaves and grasses beyond.
“How does it know? How is it that sensitive to everything that happens around it?” I wonder.
Then comes the reply. The web is that sensitive. Not the spider. The spider needs only to be aware of the web. The web of life reveals all motion.
Another question comes to my mind, “If the spider leaves the center, leaves the web, then how does it know? How do I always stay in that center of knowing?”
Again comes an answer. You cannot move out of your center. It is not possible — it moves with you. You only lose awareness of it. The task is to bring your awareness back to it. You are always in the center of your Being.
There is so much to access beyond our individual minds, a vast universe of wisdom that is our birthright. It only requires silence, commitment, and practice. It allows the development of an ability to intuit a more universal wisdom that helps us be more secure in our humanity. This intuition is a connection to that which is far more vast, even divine, within us. Developing a higher intuition involves accessing the wisdom of the Soul — becoming responsive to our souls. When one accesses the soul, what comes forth is pure knowingness.
Forging this connection is a simple matter, really. Begin to identify with your soul. Realize you have one, you are one. You are a soul expressing through a physical form. You are not the physical form; it is merely your tool for expression. Honor your soul. Know it is eternal: you existed as a soul before you took physical form; you will do so after you lay your body down for the last time. Feel gratitude and love for its presence, its constant guidance in your life.
Know that your soul is connected to the Source of all that is. It is directly connected. Take moments to quiet yourself, ask for your soul’s voice to speak to you, learn to hear it, practice translating its wisdom in your life; you will always know your soul’s voice by its quality of peace. Doing this, you will inevitably strengthen your connection with your soul and the Source. You only need to ask, simply ask, no specific rules, no “right” method, prayer, or ritual is necessary. It is a simple matter of consistent application. Forget about the outcome; forget about how long it will take or whether you will be good enough to do it; forget about whether you are doing it right. These are all issues of the personality, the ego; they have no bearing on the soul. With persistence over time the result is assured. You will become familiar with the realm of Being.
There is an ocean of Being. We are bathed in it. There is nothing that is not in it. It is all things and connects us to all things. It is the pure source of all that is. It is that in which we move and breathe and have our Being. It is the essence of our Being. We can touch, intuit, express, and come to know this seemingly intangible world. In nature it shows itself to us. In the silence it speaks to us. In our life it is made visible.
We live in the world of action that exists within this vast ocean of Being, that envelops all things, permeates all things. This beingness creates and quickens all things. To know its depths is to know our source, the God of all things. It is a limitless ocean, at the depth of which is a still, silent, and unchanging place. Above is the active, ever-changing surface-world of action.
We wonder where the peace is but we are immersed in it. We are like fish swimming in water but thirsting to drink! We long for peace, harmony, rest, abundance; but the distance between us and what we long for is so short that there isn’t even room for a path! We feel separate from our Being but we are not. We cannot be, it is not possible. Separateness is in our perception only. As we correct our perceptions and as we journey in silence to visit the depths of Being, we come to know the core of our soul. From this place we can have revealed, in our hearts, the purpose and the destiny of our humanity. In the stillness we come to know that we are each capable of being the love, being the abundance. We can be the peace that we long for.