Exploring Spiritual Maturity
Oh, I am having so much fun.
Something inside of me is shifting and I am feeling more “settled” in a grounded sort of way. It feels like a natural unfolding of elder-hood within. My questions are changing and I’m honoring more of myself as Holy. I am reading several books on aging from the perspective of someone spiritual and I can’t quite put my finger on what’s happening as I am being guided into this unfoldment. It isn’t really spiritual maturation; which has been a very active practice between my personality and Spirit over the last thirty five plus years. This is a Soul-thing that is happening on its own and I am giving it the space to do its thing. In the meanwhile, I am revisiting the tenets of spiritual maturity and speaking to it for the next several Tuesdays on YouTube with the Talk and Practice as well as writing about it. I am hoping to complete my book within the next forty five days.
Tomorrow I will speak of the first four benchmarks of Spiritual Maturity that Toni Boehm speaks of in her book Spiritual and Emotional Maturity. It feels good to stop and take inventory, at times, like an annual check up, so here are the four I will bring into light tomorrow:
Ability to set and live out intentions,
Being able to enter into Witness Consciousness of other while observing self.
Letting yes be yes and no be no without storytelling or justification. Stepping into the Power of Decisions and words.
Tell the difference between thoughts, emotions, and feelings.
Speaking of my deep dive into “elder-hood” I am reading two men’s work who have written about it: Richard Rohr and Mark Nepo. It isn’t quite what I am looking for — and who knows?? It might be my work to unfold as a body of work — we’ll see. I am enjoying their work, regardless, and was really taken by Nepo suggesting we look at who are teachers have been through our lives; including Nature. I made a list of how Nature has been my teacher:
Lakes Have Taught Me About: being held, frolicking, sharing life with beings that don’t look or function like me.
Rivers Have Taught Me About: moving, running, wrapping around, allowing space for the slimy, to sing loudly.
The Puget Sound Water Taught me that witnessing is enough. Allow jellyfish and all that sting their own space. That shallow water can hold its own life depth (crabs). Cold is a form of life.
The salty waters off of the Hawaiian islands confirm that swimming with ancient turtles is a reminder of ancestral wisdom. The smell of plumeria mixed with sunrays and waves can evoke an ecstatic reaction. Ecstacy isn’t shame-filled.
Mother Earth Taught Me: the one who births a human may not be the one that sustains it. Life is fertile in some seasons and fallow in others. Power lies in knowing the difference. The cruelty of a fire, a volcanic eruption or a flood reminds me of the dangers of excess and that to personalize the impersonal is to cause myself harm.
You are invited to write about your teachers.
I send you oodles of Love,
