Healing the Soul of Humankind

Healing the Soul of Humankind
By Bill Ryan

Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic and anchorite contemplative spent the latter part of her life in her hermitage devoting herself to the healing of the soul. She said that human souls suffer because " we seek rest where there is no rest." The healing of the human soul begins with "oneing" of our own soul and heart or true spirit. But this is only the beginning. To be truly "oned" or in communion with the true Heart or Center within is to be "oned" with the Heart of the universe and in all beings. Hence mystic communion is not something we do alone but it is something that connects us to the All in all.

Humans suffer and inflict suffering on one another and the ecosystems that support planetary life because we believe ourselves separate from one another and from the beings who share the planet with us. This is the core wound of the human soul. The human family is faced with the devastating consequences of our lack of soul healing. Our economic and technological impact on the plant is destroying whole species and ecosystems, even threatening to destroy our own capacity to live and be supported by the planetary ecosystem. We are at war among ourselves with the most fearsome and destructive weapons imaginable. And we might ask, where are the religions of humanity? Are they doing anything to bring peace and healing to our world?

Communion Life not Mythical Division
We live in a time of global crisis when the ancient Wisdom streams of the great spiritual traditions of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and of the indigenous peoples of the world are coming alive again to offer healing to the world. The Wisdom streams of the great spiritual traditions offer the hope of healing the soul wound of humankind. The answer is mystic awakening rather than retreating behind the hardened mythic dogmas, stories, and tribal consciousness of historic religious teachings. Only a breakthrough to the awareness of the Essential Unity of all Life, and our belonging and interconnection in the One Life that sustains and upholds us will heal the soul of humankind. Only a unitive awakening of the human soul will heal us, individually and communally, of the wounds of violence, hatred, and division between ourselves and the other beings who inhabit this beautiful planet we have been given.

Awakening to the Stream of Mercy
Mystic awakening means we join with the Stream of Mercy that flows through the created Universe, and all things, arising from and returning to the Source. It matters not which wisdom tradition we may personally find most helpful. What matters is that each of us take responsibility for the soul healing we must do both in our inner work, and in the life choices we make. We are here to bring forth that same Stream of Mercy in our own life, to make it present in the circumstances before us. Not everyone can, nor should be a Gandhi, or a Martin Luther King, or a Bishop Tutu. Each of us is called to nurture Unitive Life in ourselves, in the families and communities in which we find ourselves. And the inward turning towards healing in the soul of each of us, the cultivation of contemplative disciplines of awakening, the choice to extend our compassionate willingness towards the sister and brother beings who share life with us in each moment of life, matters always.

The "Little Way" of Mercy
The "Little Way" is what each of us can do. We are instructed and encouraged by the "Little Way" of the peace warriors of the indigenous peoples, the "Little Way" of mindfulness of our Buddhist sisters and brothers, the "Little Way" of reconciliation and justice of the activists of our communities, the "Little Way" of the gardener who creates space for growing things and the creatures of this world, the "Little Way" of the path of love and service of the saints and mystics among us. All of these beings of Mercy point us in the direction that our own "Little Way" can move us, and join us with the eternal Stream of Mercy that extends itself through the universe and in the neighborhoods and homes where we live. Being awake, and being given to the compassionate life are the "Little Way" and we can all do it.

Human Soul Development
What is it that brings such lethal and cruel divisions between peoples? The student of human spiritual consciousness, Ken Wilbur, has identified directions that human consciousness or soul is growing. We arise first from the instinctual roots of the reptilian brain of pure survival, we grow beyond the mammalian brain of emotion and attachment, we are then challenged to grow beyond the tribalism of herd consciousness that places our identity in mutually exclusive and mutually threatening groups and is at much the cause of today's ethnic and religious hatred and wars. We experience a longing to grow beyond the rational and individualist consciousness that initially gave us freedom from tribalism but later dooms us to the alienation of egoic isolation. We may then begin to taste the exaltation of the poet and artist that the freedom and hope of the path of intuition offers us. But most of all we are short of completion and are dissatisfied until we transcend our own lonely existence of separateness and find our true identity in the All, in the mystic communion within and not apart from the Greater Life that lives in and through each of us. We have come home when we join ourselves utterly with that One Life and therein find our true home and singular refuge. Then and only then will the fullness of that universal Stream of Mercy flow freely in us.

The Dream of the Universe
In human beings lies the potential of the Universe becoming fully conscious of Itself. As we grow and mature in the spiritual journey we come to realize that there is no separateness. Our healing is the healing of the universe. In each of us the soul of humankind, the soul of the Universe, has the potential to realize itself, uniquely in our history and circumstances. In each of us Love can live and express Itself. In each of us Love can be blocked or allowed. We must know that we have the freedom to be the guardians at the door and we open to the depths of this Stream of Life Itself, if we are willing. And the day may come when we realize that our true life is That True Life, Love Itself. There is nothing more to know, nothing to accomplish, nothing to be worthy of, just to be and live what we already are. In this way we live the Dream of the Universe.

I experienced this dream in a personal dream of striking imagery in 1986: I found myself on a great flat plain that was a barren landscape, gray and colorless in its appearance. I was running with a group of persons single file. At the head of this line we were running on something that looked like a tarmac or runway. I found myself encouraging the people to keep going. "It's not far now." Not far ahead opened up in front of us, an immense abyss, a chasm of unknowable depth and width. And we were running straight for it. A shudder went through the group of runners. I spoke out and said, "Don't worry, it will be all right, just concentrate and you will see!" At the critical moment to my relief at the edge of this abyss each of us began to lift off the ground. We began to circle rising upward above the huge blackness of depths. We seemed to be like a flock of birds gliding and spiraling ever upward into an endless sky. As I looked around me, the blackness began to turn a deep blue and radiated a warmth that extended toward us. At a certain moment I was overwhelmed with the understanding that this space I had thought was limitless blackness was in truth a universal Womb, and that we were all being birthed into a new Life. I awoke at that moment from my dream, with great amazement. Since then I have come to understand that this is the calling of human beings, to live this great birthing consciously, and to give ourselves, our lives to it, in entirety. A new soul is being born in human beings.

"Yeshua said, 'If your spiritual leaders say to you, 'Look, the divine Realm is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will get there ahead of you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. No, the divine Reality is within you and it is all around you.

Only when you have come to know your True Self, then you will be known, realizing at last that you are a child of the Living One.' " (Logon 3- Gospel of Thomas)

Sacred Rituals

Sacred Rituals- Rites of Forgiveness, Rites of Blessing, Rites of Communion
- by Bill Ryan

Sacred Ritual- Human beings throughout time and across the planet have held sacred rituals. Sacred rituals are distinct from other rituals in that they are not magic, nor motivated by the desire for power or manipulation, but to integrate meaning and purpose and to open our soul to conscious connection with the Ultimate, the essential Unity that holds the universe into being. Sacred rituals give expression to this inner consciousness of the soul, and in community celebrate and encourage even greater opening. Sacred rituals are usually done at the following times or occasions: of important passages, of great human need or crisis, during the rhythms of the year, to celebrate blessing and thanksgiving, to seek healing of soul and body, and to give witness to important commitments of and between persons.

Sacred ritual in the post-modern era sadly has largely been lost as an essential human practice. The extreme individualism and narcissism of our time and our culture inclines persons to see little use or validity in sacred rituals. This is so primarily because we lack faith in conscious connection with the Divine in daily life and are inclined to see ritual as the dead and cold property of religious institutions. Sacred rituals also are ways we re-state or re-enact our commitment to accountability to the Reality that is at the Center of life, as our culture seems to avoid commitment to that central relationship or any other that flows from it.

Whether we realize it or not, our lives are held together by rituals, patterns of behavior that are largely unconscious. They are the warp and weft of the weave of our lives. In them, knowingly or not, we state the purposes of our lives and the values that are the foundation of our activity and relationships. The spiritual journey is a path of healing the wound of separateness, the wound of our lack of conscious connection to the Ultimate and all the alienation and suffering that flows from it. For those who wish to undertake the spiritual journey, a careful examination of the patterns and rituals of our living then must take place. And we must in our creative intuitive response to bring new life-giving sacred rituals to express and empower this soul healing.

Essential Elements of Sacred Rituals- Some of us have had experience with sacred rituals and the liturgies within them through our involvement with one or more of the spiritual traditions of the world. To the extent that the symbols, words, and forms may have had meaning for us they can be integrated into our own lives. Common elements of sacred rituals involve some but are not limited to the following:
- An altar or center of a circle is usually the focus of attention for participants. The center may have a sacred fire or candle. The center or altar is the symbolic meeting point between human and Divine, between material and spiritual order of reality.
-Present on the altar or at the center, are placed appropriate symbols of the Divine and human presence in the ritual as well as symbols of healing, purification, commitment, and blessing, depending on the ritual's purpose.
-Participants place themselves facing the center or altar in reverential posture, often bowing or making other reverential gestures as they enter the space.
-Rites of purification entering the ritual space are frequently begun with the intent to leave behind "ordinary" consciousness and enter a deeper level of focus of awareness.
-The participant detaches from superficial concerns that circulate in the mind, to bring consciousness from an identification with the mind content and into the awareness of true being or true spirit, present in the Heart.
-Chanting is often then intoned by the ritual leader with a bell, or gong or other sound instrument, to further facilitate that shift in consciousness.
-What follows then is the liturgical content of the ritual, which can be brief, lasting minutes, or lengthy, lasting days or weeks, depending on the nature of the ritual.
-At the conclusion of the liturgical order, there is then a transition towards a conclusion of the ritual during which the purposes of the ritual are summarized and the commitments of the participants reinforced and validated. A concluding chant, song, spoken voice, or movements then bring the ritual to conclusion.
-Participants then leave in a specified way, individually or as a group, making those reverential gestures of bowing or holding of hands or other body expression that are determined appropriate.

Liturgical Content of Sacred Rituals- From its Greek origin, liturgy, means "the work of the people." The expressions of the sacred then are not imposed from without but arise creatively from within us, even if we may use expressions that arise from diverse spiritual traditions. The process of creating these expressions of the sacred tasks in our lives -healing, commitment, forgiveness, encountering important passages, meeting risk and danger, uniting our lives with others, saying goodbye to others, and giving thanksgiving and blessing and others- is one that involves profound depth and attunement to the deep spirit within ourselves. It also calls forth artistic skill and freedom to give the full richness of expression. This creative process is most satisfying and fulfilling. The process itself is a deep meditation on the important moments of our lives. If the rituals are daily ones that are repeated daily, they can call forth refinement as we attune ourselves ever more to the Divine's movement in us.

Home Altars are common in other cultures and geographic regions. Altars are the symbolic meeting place or integration of the mundane or "ordinary" into the sacred. It is appropriate that altars have a space of their own, whether a room, or a part of a room, or corner. Placement of sacred objects and symbols on the altar helps us to refer our consciousness to the sacred within the Heart, or spiritual center of the human person. Pictures, icons, statues, of spiritual personages or loved ones, may best fulfill this purpose. With the rotation of seasons, aspects of the natural world, and its changing face, may also grace our altar, sticks, stones, feathers, shells, and other gifts of creatures, and animate or inanimate nature. Their importance is their ritual meaning to us. We discern that ritual meaning from within, in an intuitive mode. Altars should be well kept and revered as the center of sacred ritual in daily life.

Daily liturgies have the purpose of re-shaping our consciousness, by bringing us home to the central purposes and central commitments in our lives. Persons of present American culture seem afraid of repetition, afraid their minds will become bored or not entertained in repetition. In fact throughout time spiritual traditions have used repetition to engage or occupy the mind so that soul awareness can sink more deeply than the habitual identification with the mind traffic and into the spaciousness of the Heart. Hence poetic scriptures, chants, readings, offerings, and gestures, as an adjunct to silent meditation are the liturgical content of daily practice of sacred ritual. Brief sacred rituals around meals remind us of the life of plants and possibly animals that have been given so we can live, and to cherish with thanksgiving the life we have been given. Sacred rituals before bedtime allow us to sink into our interior refuge of spirit in the Divine so that we may experience interior safety and security before letting go into sleep. Altars and symbols of the Divine at locations around our home can remind us of the central Relationship in our lives, and keeping reverent space in a separate room or corner of a room for our meditation space facilitates and nurtures the consciousness of sacred space.

Liturgies of Healing usually involve a coming together of friends, family, and community to focus healing love energy on the person or situation in need of healing. An example of this might be the Navajo "Chants" which often go for days. The person in need of healing is placed in the center of the healing circle. Whether in silence, or in singing or chanting, or dancing, or sacred art, an offering of healing energy, love, and intentionality is made. (the Navajo's in a manner similar to the Tibetan Buddhists offer a sand painting, a healing mandala for the ill person and those present to assist in an integration of the higher spiritual energies for the purpose of healing. Shamanic practitioners go through extensive training in guiding persons and groups through liturgies of healing. The liturgy itself has the goal of opening the illness to the invocation of spiritual energies from the Divine to assist the person in fulfilling their higher purpose of completing their spiritual journey on this plane of existence.

Liturgies of Commitment are vital in human life. They tie our commitments to the eternal and to the larger communities of humans and other beings. For that reason having them witnessed by the universe around us, and by our human communities in life, as we pronounce our vows, our promises, our desire to give of ourselves to higher purposes in life in a way that transcends time and space, is also vital. Commitments can be to relationships, such as friendship, espousal, teacher-student, to deepened spiritual practice, or other. Such commitments are sacred and call for accountability and support for those in our lives.

Liturgies of Forgiveness are a way we honor the freedom to release from past hurts and injuries and enter the freedom to full life in the present. They are a gift to ourselves to release from all need to try to deny or reverse what has happened, or to exact any form of retribution. We free ourselves from the cycles of injury and revenge, they are ways that victims are empowered from remaining victims, and to learn and grow stronger in life. The ritual "leaving behind" of the residue of past tramua, injury, or injustice can be quite liberating of our higher energies in this life.

Liturgies of Passage or Goodbye help us to bow to the impermanence in life. We thereby honor every experience, every stage of life, every relationship and attachment that has come and gone, and every phase of growth. We can give thanks for the gift received, to release from the residue of attachment whether it be of desire or aversion, and to move into the freedom of the present moment.

The Earth Witness Mudra is the posture of the Buddha touching the earth with one hand and reaching upward to the sky with the palm extended. This is an iconic spiritual expression of Incarnate Expression of the Transcendent Ultimate here in the realm of human daily life. Sacred Rituals are one important way of bringing to conscious expression what is, in truth the fundamental spiritual task of the human journey, to individuate and express the Divine within the human and the "ordinary." To awaken and live this truth is the spiritual journey. Sacred ritual is a vital and creative artistic expression of the spiritual journey. The Buddha/Christ within each of us with one hand touches the earth and receives the gift each moment of incarnate life. With the other hand, palm extended and open, we make an offering of our unique melding and mixing, the temporal human earth and the transcendent Ultimate life-breath extending upwards, releasing and offering all into the All, the Essential Unity from which all things arise and all things return.

Listening to Our Secret Place

Listening to Our Secret Place

By Bill Ryan

When I was 21 in a moment of crisis, when I called for help, the help came in the form of a memory. I remembered my life as a young boy of three and four years old. I remember that I found a way to experience peace and healing, in a sometimes troubled childhood. In one vivid memory I am in one of my hiding places, in the tall grass behind my grandmother's chicken house. And I am sitting so no one can see me, with my eyes closed and there deep within there is a spacious silence where I am surrounded by a peaceful and wonderful Presence.

In this re-membering was the beginning of my spiritual journey as an adult. Later on when my own daughter was a small child she would join my wife and me in a short meditation before we went to bed. She would ring the gong and sit on her cushion, and follow the simple guidance we gave to "be very quiet and listen to her secret place."

This secret place is in all of us; it is the locus of our communion with the Divine Beloved. The foundation of the Celtic Christian tradition is based on this simple wisdom, listening to our secret place, the Center of our being, where God lives. The Celtic Christians, with their culture of nature mysticism, understood that it was the beloved disciple, John, who experienced the deep communion with Jesus, when as scripture says, he lay his cheek on the breast of Christ and listened to the beat of his heart. And for them this was the source of all spiritual life, healing, and peace. By listening to the Heartbeat of God we attune our own soul to the Divine. We can all do this. This deep listening and attunement to the Heartbeat of God in our own heart center is the central interior movement towards the condition of Shalom, the biblical word for inner peace and harmony in Creation. Shalom means the state of well being that comes from being in harmony with God's Spirit within us.

The Center
One of my teachers along the way, the Benedictine monk, John Main, spoke of this secret place inside, "Returning to the Center within us, is the gateway to the Center of All."

The mystic spiral is the universal symbol of the Center. The great Wisdom traditions of the world have different names for this Center. In Buddhism it is called Buddha nature, in Hinduism, Atman. In Christianity the traditional biblical name is the Image of God within us. In the Desert tradition of Christianity it is called "the spiritual Heart" not to be confused with our emotional or anatomical heart.

So this inner peace is a state, it is a state of communion with our Divine Beloved, an original state, a state of being Home, in the locus of our belonging. This is the state that Jesus invites us to, the peace that worldly human culture cannot give us. In our deep listening to our secret place we become the beloved disciple, as a small child, we enter the Kingdom and the Kingdom, the Realm of Communion enters us. In the Silence we listen and encounter "Jesus Christ, the Word which came out of Silence." ( St. Ignatius of Antioch) In the Middle Eastern Abrahamic Faiths this practice of going to the secret Center is called the Remembrance of God. It is an un-Forgetting, an uncovering and abiding in what is Real and Ultimate. The meaning of the word- "Re-membering," is making One, making whole, unifying. Just as I experienced at age 3 and age 21, and we can all experience today. We re-member who we are, and who God is at the Center, in the depths of us, by listening deeply to our secret place, and there we find true peace and wholeness that the world cannot give.

In the year 2000 while on retreat at a monastery in the mountains of Colorado I met a monk, named Theophane. He has since died. But he wrote a wonderful book called Tales of a Magic Monastery. He has said the stories are all true, not literally but metaphorically. The story is called "The Original Sound." It goes like this:

I asked an old monk, "How long have you been here?"
"Forever," he answered. " I smiled.
"Fifty years, Father?"
"Forever."
Did you know St. Benedict?"
"We are novices together."
"Did you know Jesus?"
"He and I converse every day."
I threw away my silly smile, fell to my knees, and clutched his hand.
"Father, " I whispered, "Did you hear the original sound?"
" I am listening to the original sound."

The original sound is the heartbeat of God. And we can listen to it there at the Center, in our secret place.

Healing Relationships in the Communion Paradigm

Healing Relationships in the Communion Paradigm

by Bill Ryan

Deep Listening-the Path of Awakening, the Path of Relational Healing
To be on the path of awakening, to be on the path of spirit, is to listen deeply. We listen deeply, not superficially, as we learn to turn our attention from the voices of the culture and the voices of the ego-mind that have penetrated and too often polluted our consciousness. And we listen to the heartbeat of the Universe in our own heart. This deep listening happens as we cultivate an interior silence in our formal meditation practice. We lay our cheek on the breast of the Divine Beloved and there we find our home. There we hear the heartbeat of the One Life in our own life. This is the Higher Power that we can trust beyond any human power. This is home.

Listening to the Song of Our Companions
The deep listening doesn't stop there. It extends into the every moment. We turn our deep listening to Higher Power, to the Divine Beloved in our human beloveds, listening for that same heartbeat in them, in the every-moment of every day. The daily practice of interior quiet and deep listening we have cultivated now is brought into the relational life and interaction with our love companions, our families, our children, our friends, our community and our world. And even more so, the challenge of deep listening is to listen in the interior silence and spaciousness of the Heart, beneath the busy and reactive mind, beneath the wounded psyche and emotional residue that circulates in our consciousness. A Deeper Voice calls to us, saying, "Be still, my love, and listen to the song I sing to you, in your lover, in your children, in your friend. For I am the Life that lives in all, and in Me you can rest your soul."

The Inner Quiet Communion of Listening
To listen this deeply means from the time of early morning when we sit in quiet, we bring our attention and our will, our presence and our offering of self, home to the Heart, the inner sanctuary of the Beloved. We return again and again, anchoring in our breathing, in our meditation word to the interior quiet of the Heart, like a homing pigeon. This becomes our singular orientation in the every moment, the every day. This is the medicine of healing for the soul that has been too much with the toxins of the world, this is how we move from living in the Domination Paradigm to living in the Communion Paradigm. In the Communion Paradigm our connection to our deepest Self, our connection to each other, to our human and non-human beloveds is the singular reality. We can live this reality.

How do we do this? We do it, as Julian says, by seeking rest where there is rest. We will find no rest in our ego-mind. We will find only the division, within and without that comes from seeking refuge and rest in our ideas and ideals, in our agenda for the others in our life, and for the world. That is the world of the Domination Paradigm, the world of competition and conflict. We spend so much time and energy seeking control where there is none, rather than seeking Home where we are truly home, where we can rest our soul.

The Communion Encounter
In the every-moment life happens. We encounter each other. We often encounter each other in the reactive ego-mind and its wounds from the past, and its agenda for the future. And the repetition of the past, the conflict of competing agendas, the wounding of misunderstanding and conflict happens. Or we can encounter each other in the present, resting where there is rest, on the breast of the Beloved, sinking into our inner being as listen, attend, and commune with the heart to the deeper presence of our human beloved. Sometimes harsh words, insistent agendas, the surfacing of unconscious fears and desires will pull us off. When the disturbance arises, recognize it. Bow deeply again in recognition of who you truly are, who the person in front of you is, and make an offering of your deepest Self. Return to the inner quiet and spaciousness of just being there, just being present, listening deeply, and dropping the agenda, the insistence, the emotional reactivity of the ego-mind. It may be that giving yourself a pause to breathe deeply, to anchor in your meditation word and breath, will help you return to deep listening, rest where there is Rest. We can ask for that permission and return when we are ready to listen deeply and abide in the Heart when we encounter our beloved.

Ceaseless Bowing and Ceaseless Offering
This interior movement may be summed up in two simple sacred gestures, bowing with the namaste gesture of hands folded, and offering with the hands open and extended. We bow in the recognition of coming home to deep listening to the Beloved before us in our human beloved, in pure presence. In our open hands extended, we offer the best of ourselves to the one we encounter. We release from our identification as "me" in the thoughts, emotions, and agendas for control that are coursing through our consciousness, and in our open hands we receive the self-offering of the one before us. In this way relational life is simple, not easy, but simple. It is deep listening; it is deep reverence; it is deep love and communion. And our soul finds its rest and healing.

The Divine Anam Cara

The Divine Anam Cara
by William Ryan

The Personal Faces of the Divine
The essence of spirituality is connection, the life of communion with all life, all beings. Hence we are never alone in our life's journey. A vital aspect of this is the trust that the Heart of the Universe is both intimately personal and oceanic in our experience of It. In its personal face we can be in a conscious and intentional relationship of friendship with the personal face of the Divine. The ultimate spiritual teacher is within us and always accessible for our grounding and guidance. Mystics from all traditions throughout time have found ways to name and personify the Divine, often using human relationships as metaphor.

The Sufi mystic, Rumi, simply called the Divine, "Friend." Indigenous peoples frequently address the Ultimate as "Grandfather" or "Grandmother" In the patriarchal system of Judeo-Christianity, it was natural for Jesus to address the Divine Source as "Abba" or "Papa" suggesting both a fatherhood and an intimacy that was shocking to the people of his time, who had hitherto addressed the Divine as "Adonai" or "Lord." In the same way matriarchal traditions have called upon the Divine as "Mother."

Other traditions, such as Hinduism, have used mythic deities, and avatars(human incarnations of the Divine) to personify the Ultimate. In Buddhism, the cosmic Buddha, Vairocana, is a personfication of the oceanic Dharmakaya, or universal Essence or ocean of being from which all things arise. However, personifications that are accessible to the human devotee are frequently used, such as Kuan Yin in Chinsese Buddhism, or Tara, in Tibetan Buddhism, both feminine aspects of the compassionate Divine. The word "buddha" in Buddhism is used to address both the historical person who manifested the heart of Vairocana, and Vairocana Buddha Itself. So the Buddhist addresses "Buddha" in interior prayer and conversation as the personal Divine. For most Christians the mystical Yeshua, is the personification of the Divine and faithful life companion on the Way.

The Divine Anam Cara Relationship
One way of framing this relationship of interior support and spiritual guidance is through the ancient Celtic understanding of Anam Cara. The word, "Anam Cara" is frequently translated as "soul friend." Brigid of Kildare, the druid priestess and later Christian mystic of 7th century Ireland asserted that the most vital element on the spiritual journey is one's "Anam Cara." Anam Cara actually translates as "dear soul." It means a relationship of intimacy and trust, of spiritual communion that is profound and life-sustaining. For the human being on the journey some of us may be fortunate to find for a time a human "anam cara" who companions us for a time on the Way, whose love, support, and total regard for our well-being is without measure. Whether we do find a human anam cara or not, we always have a Divine Anam Cara, who is always accessible to us. Any human teacher or guide we might find in life, is only a finger pointing to the Divine Anam Cara who is our true companion, friend, and Heart's desire.

For many this relationship is experienced with such intensity and longing that it can only be summed up as a Divine Lover, who is our heart's desire and life's fulfillment. The Divine Anam Cara therefore is often called "Beloved" by practitioners of diverse traditions.In the transient life's journey where our human beloveds are only temporary companions with the usual limited capacity for love, kindness, and acceptance, the assurance and ongoing presence of the Divine Beloved is a great comfort and solace. Whatever term we use in addressing our Divine Anam Cara, whatever human metaphor we use to define our relationship with the Divine, it must come from within us, in a way that represents and defines absolute safety and healing, a refuge that is beyond question for us, as we walk the difficult and stumbling path of life.

Our True Refuge in the Limitless
As human beings our incarnate life takes place in a world of limits, within limited and transient life circumstances. Our spiritual life takes place in a conscious and intentional way when we learn to reach for and root ourselves in the Limitless, the Ultimate within and without. For this reason the crisis point is when we become accessible, when we face our mortality and our transitory existence and open to what is both at the heart of our life and beyond our personal life. Frequently then our spiritual life begins with a cry of help, often literally. It is the most honest and direct prayer we can make. And the prayer arises out of the intuition there is a Life, a Presence, with a Personal face or aspect, that is intimately concerned with our life. This growing communication and trust heals our wound of separateness over time, and we come to trust we are never completely alone. If we continue to open and grow this act of refuge becomes a singular act of will and attention in our life, an ongoing turning toward and within that becomes ceaseless. And just as in a human friendship, this Divine "dear soul" becomes the trusted friend and confidant of our life. When we seek for direction, when we seek for healing, when we seek for the love that never fails, our Dear Soul, the Friend, is there, by whatever name or metaphor we may choose.

We are One with Our Anam Cara.
The growth of the mystic path takes us inevitably to the insight that there is no distance between ourselves, and our Dear Soul who walks with us. They are the same footprints. Our Divine Anam Cara is living, moving, loving, healing fully present in us, both in our resistance and ignorance, and in our awakening to the life of unitive love and purpose. The true Seeker of the Heart and the One being Sought are the same. We come Home and find we have never truly left. All the while the Friend has traveled in us, living the totality of the human journey in us, whether we have known it or not. When we live our life with this awareness it is rich, and full, deep and joyful, and never easy or without challenge.

Hermitage Update

Dear Friends,

One year ago I shared with you my intention to begin a year long hermitage retreat following my retirement from active service in the community mental health counseling field. At the time I did not realize that we would be selling our home and moving. That involved, needless to say, a disruption in the cultivation of silence and solitude. Nevertheless for most of the year I have been able to enter into a most satisfying depth of silence and devotion to interior practice in the path I have chosen. During this time I have also had the space to discern where grace is moving in my life, and what gifts, if any, I have to share with the larger world.

In part this stage of life one's life is increasingly shaped by the physiology of aging, as well as the developmental processes that accompany aging. There is a natural turning inward toward the being of life from the doing of life. (The yogic tradition calls this the movement from householder stage, to hermit, and finally to renunciate.) I have also had some medical challenges that shape my life. I believe that my life as an adult has been concerned with the healing of human suffering of soul, my own, and that of humankind. It began with my entry into the seminary at the young age of 15 and continued through my interest in international relations and world peace as a college student and in post-graduate studies. I left the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies at age 22 because I realized there would be no peace and no healing in the world until human beings began to experience the peace that comes from within, until human consciousness is transformed, until human souls are healed. And I began a conscious journey of training in meditation/contemplation and spiritual practice taking me from my apprenticing with teachers of Zen to Christian Contemplation and Spiritual Direction. My concern with the healing of soul took me into the field of mental health counseling where I obtained an M.A. in Counseling Psychology to encounter the consciousness of human beings, to learn from and to support my clients in finding healing. In this journey I have been graced with much healing myself and have much more to do. That is the true meaning of healing. It is, as Julian says, the "oneing" of our souls with the Beloved of our hearts.

Many years ago I saw an medieval image of an anchorite, a simple drawing. It imprinted strongly on my mind. It might have been a rendering of the life of Julian. The image showed the woman anchorite (anchoress?) being present at the window of her cottage/monk's cell listening to a person outside seeking spiritual consultation. I understand that this historically is a fair representation of the life of the anchorite. It is a life devoted to spiritual practice, of inner communion with God, in solitude and silence, yet a life that still has connection and service to the world. That is the life that I find myself turning to now. My window is the internet, and the spiritual direction room in my home, the occasional retreat that I lead. But mostly I am in solitude and quiet.

Now that the weather is good I sit outside in my back yard, and listen to the sound of the water flowing in the creek there, feel the breeze on my skin, and enjoy the inflow and outflow of my breath, as I breathe Yeshua, and bow to Yeshua, the Living One, in all creation around me. This inner communion with the Beloved of our hearts, is the source of our healing, and the healing of the soul of humankind. The invitation of Yeshua is always offered to us "Peace be with you, my peace I give you." This peace and healing is accessible to all of us, to all of humankind. The Beloved appears in many forms and under many names, and the heart of the Beloved is universal and encompassing of all beings. We begin and end with our own breath and our own givenness, the life of consecration, the life of inner communion with the Divine.

So I am deeply grateful to have this freedom and this spaciousness to remain in my hermitage with the support of my spouse, and to work in apprenticeship with those who wish to deepen in the Way. This year has been a gift to establish me in these new life-giving patterns and commitment to continued growth. I plan to continue to write and share reflections and insights with others, and to learn from others. I wish to broaden my approach to articulate the path for those who have been hurt by religion or are rightfully distrustful of it. This year has been a time to help me transition into this new life of consecration, of solitude and freedom to be given to my heart's desire. If there is any way to support you in your life of consecration, I am happy to do so. This is the purpose of this online community.

My prayer for this community is the prayer of all mystic teachers and students of the great Way: "Let there be peace, and let it begin with us."

In the Beloved's love and abiding peace,
Bill Ryan

Spiritual Practice vs. Religion

Friends,

More than ever humankind needs the life of the spirit. When we look at the role of religion in the world we see little of the life of the spirit and too much that brings injury to human beings. It is important to understand the distinction between religion and spirituality, the difference between religious denominations and institutions on one hand, and on the other, the disciplines, traditions, and communities of spiritual practice.

Religion is based on belief and established patterns of moral law, philosophy, and absolute doctrinal truth claims. Religion is a closed system that reinforces separateness from the other. Spirituality is based on praxis and disciplines of attention and will. Spirituality is a discovery, learning mode of reaching into the unknown. Spiritual praxis, whether as an individual or in community, opens to ever deeper conscious communion or connection with the Ultimate and therefore with unitive relational life -alone, in community, and in Creation. Spiritual practice is an open system that seeks connection in unitive life with the other.

What does humankind need now?

Blessings to all,
Bill Ryan