I like the word cultivation as to me it represents an ongoing process of bringing forth a quality that comes from somewhere deep within.
The word is usually saved for the processes involved in tending to agricultural land. How one cultivates the richness of the soil and the elements for the growth of crops and turns over sustainably for the following season and year. And so forth.
John O’Donohue the great poet and teacher of Celtic Spirituality describes in his wonderful of ways the contemplation of landscape being “the first born of creation. It was here for hundreds of millions of years before ever a plant or an animal or human face arrived here”.
The great ancientness of it all. It is felt to relate to the great courage that lays dormant below in the caverns of ones Being. The most primordial survival forces.
Nature shows us courage in all the infinite ways She takes refuge. Refuge in the movement inward during the dark season of Autumn and then into Winter. Taking refuge in the faraway regions from light. A great fear shared by all as one remembers our 6-year old self confronting the darkness at bedtime.
In Autumn, we see the tree willing to sacrifice her leaves and draw the energy down to her roots in the great preparation for rest. Similarly, the processes of childbirth. I remember it well witnessing my wife Julie as she entered the trance. “Am I going to lose her” I thought to myself at the time such was the immensity of the presence that moved through and all around her. An ultimate Yin energy experience it was explained to me afterwards.
Celebration of Michalemas
We have entered the season on Michaelmas. As in the celebration of Christ-mas, Michael-mas honours the qualities of our hero Archangel Michael.
The story of Archangel Michael follows the archetypal story of the hero’s journey. Through story we learn that in between the face of extreme adversity and on the edge of near death and eradication a primal force shines through and guides the individual to mobilise their inner gifts and bring forth extreme Courage to defeat the dark forces.
This such story is not limited to Archangel Michael, but the heros’ journey is a mythological blueprint found cross-culturally among almost all our planet’s traditions and cultures. Just like a mountain rises out of the land over aeons these stories surface from the land thousands of miles apart without contact.
Padraic Collum in his book “Kings of Ireland Son” is one such author that captures in a lively tale the hero’s journey. Here the protagonist, the son of the King of Ireland, like archangel Michael has been quested to travel to the underworld to face the dwarves, retrieve the sword of light and then move back to the world and carry on his test to find his fair maiden.
This idea of collective developmental patterns forms the basis of Carl Gustav Jung’s Collective Unconscious or concurrently forming Morphogenetic field theory. The innate blueprint of Courage is found deep within us thousands of miles apart.
As the energy of the season commences its journey inward, one is ushered the remembering of the great allies that can give us strength at this time.
So how do we access this Courage
Like a poultice, our turbulent times are drawing the essence of courage forth to be seen in many different forms. Recognisable forms like images of heroes in our healthcare sectors, schools, essential services say. Firefighters, protesters among many others.
However, as courage is an internal process the unrecognisable forms of courage must be deeply considered. Courage is not what you are doing it is who you are being.
“Courage is not what you are doing it is who you are being”.
Integral psychotherapist Dr. Keith Witt states you can go on a hero’s journey many times a day. What may be a seemingly mundane task for one person may be a great achievement for another. For some of us (including myself) getting out of bed in the morning can represent the Journey in itself.
In the age of information, social media, ecological devastation, threat of mass extinction overwhelm is a common experience shared. What precedes overwhelm is stress and the building blocks of stress are pressures that occur in your everyday life that you do not feel you have the resources to overcome.
The underworld that we see in all the stories represents what O’Donohue talked about the “inner landscape” in which gave forth the courage to bring life.
The teaching of the stories usher us to go back into the land and seek the courage we require to fulfil our journey.
Inner Landscape or Somatic Awareness
For the individual, the land or the earth represents the Feeling or Soma Body. Our experience of our bodily feelings and sensations.
In silence by going inward into our “land” our direct experience of feelings in the present moment we are unknowingly embarking on a hero’s journey in that moment.
This will indeed at times bring us face to face with discomfort but as O’Donohue teaches us in that space lays the great Mystery of Courage.
The most courageous thing one can do is to be honest and allow yourself to feel and accept things just as they are in this very moment.
"When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape."
-John O’Donohue, Anam Cara.
So what we recognise is that courage is the simple practice of coming back to oneself no matter what our inner landscape is revealing in that moment. Be it the comfortable experiences of joy or love to the not so comfortable feelings of fear, jealousy, anger or the infinite of experiences life can hurl at us in any moment. And what lies waiting in the between the stillness of the infinite is where poetry is born out of.
For more information on commencing your hero's journey through our Complementary 40-day Somatic Meditation course or learn about Individualised Holistic Functional Medicine you can book a free information call today.
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Beannachtai,
Daithi
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