Spiritual Pilgrimages of Initiation

 
“In her extraordinary new book, Wheel of Initiation, Julie Tallard Johnson gives ancient wisdom a contemporary and relevant new voice. While so many of us today anguish over the need to “find ourselves,” Johnson adeptly points out that, “Everything in nature knows what to do with its life.” Therefore, she says, our true task is to become who we already are and fulfill that destiny. To that end, Wheel of Initiation is an essential guide that can lead us back into the magnificence of our own inner realm. No seeker should be without it."  Dara Marks, PhD.  Author of Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc

As a writer, I appreciate how the writer’s life and spiritual path are alike; central to both is the ability to use everything that comes up as part of the practice. Everything that comes up, good or bad is grist for the spiritual or daily journal mill. Someone insults me?,–I journal, then possibly write a scene, and finally, consider my spiritual prinicples in my response.  Therefore, nothing becomes a distraction from my writing or spiritual life – it all can be material to work with.

Nothing needs to take you away from your creative path either.

With the practices of spiritual journaling and personal initiation both your spiritual and creative path can evolve. I work with clients one to one, on-line and in my many classes and circles. Over my thirty years of writing, teaching and counseling I have found that everyone wants to be happy, everyone wants to experience personal fulfillment and to make meaning of their life.

The beauty is when we expand our practice to include how we influence other's well-being as we improve our own, our spiritual life only strengthens. As we make meaning of our own life, everything around us benefits.

"In Lakota framework everyone is a meaning-maker, everyone must make sense of his or her experience. Woableza has been translated as “realization.” It has always seemed to me that this word acknowledges that each person has a capacity to make meaning; that understanding is very personal, is timed by him or her, and is not predictable; and for woableza to exist, a change in the person should take place.” Gerald Mohatt

So often this ability to make meaning of spiritual or mystical experiences, difficulty or significant encounters is stolen from us. Academic institutions focus on teaching our children what to think rather than how to think. Medical systems discourage you from listening to your intuition. Religious institutions push doctrine and discourage followers from interpreting their own experiences. Many will use fear to control devotees. Those in the psychological fields will too often interpret and diagnosis according to their education and set view, thus obscuring their client’s ability to grasp truth for themselves.

 

 

By letting others dictate the meaning of our experiences we lose an opportunity to learn and integrate spiritual and psychological occurrences for ourselves. Then we may miss an opportunity to write a great poem or story, or create something new because we are not feeling the discomfort and vulnerability of being our own meaning maker.

Instead, we could stay in the center of our experience and live with the creative tension and questions that it can bring forth in us. We can then interpret the experience within the context of our inner and outer life. (Rather than from the framework of someone else’s mindset.) To answer the big questions we need to hold an open conversation with all of life.

We can trust ourselves.

To create the desired movement in our life we must find our own capacity to import meaning from our experiences. We then continue to step through the threshold of familiarity and take the next step on our quest into the Unknown. Not making our own meaning would be like finding a treasure map but not actually taking the adventure to discover the treasure. The treasure is right there, on the map, in your hands.