Conversations with a Soul (9 page)

We’ve had a week of wild winter winds and the waves have come crashing over the rocks, sending spray in all directions. Even at low tide it has been impossible to walk on the beach, and much of the sand has been carried out to sea. Yet this morning the wind had receded and the waves were gentle. A huge flat rock stood high above the low tide, and six cormorants sat in a circle and seemed to be in deep discussion.

Pebble Beach is a wizard’s garden. Cypress trees, rare to begin with, grow here in wondrous concoctions and spin out enchanting scenes. The branches reach out into the fog for life. Streaming west, they weave mysteries into the atmosphere. Ichobod Crane would be quite at home. Ghost trees, bleached by ages of sea spray dance up to thickets of Bishop Pines in a strange and haunting mix with wild flora.
²⁵

Leap into the boundless and make it your home!
²⁶

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children’s

lives might be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the

great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

Who do not tax their lives with

Forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still

water.

And I feel above

me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.

For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am

free.
²⁷

Even the most taciturn amongst us, who give the impression that nothing short of torture could get them to venture an opinion, about anything, become almost garrulous when they engage in a secret conversation - with themselves!

It’s something we all do and we do it almost every day.

There’s a good chance you are doing it right now.

Prompted by the book you’ve just purchased, a part of you, somewhat skeptical and usually critical, wants to know, from some other less skeptical part;

What possessed you to buy the book? What do you know of the author? Beyond the fancy title, what makes you think the author can deliver? Is the book easy to read but still has some depth to it? Will you enjoy his style and why did he use ‘garrulous’ instead of ‘talkative’?

Such internalized discussions are commonplace.

I first engaged in them at an early age and all the way through childhood, they helped me cope with a changing and challenging world.

In spontaneous, inaudible conversations I rescued my dignity when confronted by the bullies that came my way and left me diminished in my own eyes. I, safely, railed against, what I perceived to be, my parent’s gross lack of a sense of fairness, and I privately expressed my outrage against a generalized feeling of injustice.

When I felt helpless, and trapped I resorted to secret confrontations and simply rewrote the script to my advantage!

As the years passed, I carried this exchange of soundless conversations all the way into adulthood, and I am reasonably certain you did too.

Now, as adults, you and I have become familiar with the rules that govern these secret conversations and equally familiar with many of the characters who habitually make their appearance and challenge us to a debate!

Sometimes the participants in this private dialogue become quite defensive, so much so that later you might tell someone that you
debated whether to buy the book or not.
Yet not a single audible word was traded for there was no other person physically present with whom to argue. At the same time, the engagement lost none of its heat simply because the protagonists were invisible.

So, a conversation started even before you commenced reading!

As you know, from personal experience, conversations with ourselves go way beyond questions of what we buy or wear or eat. They can be initiated by almost anything (or anyone) and, unfortunately, most of them have a bias towards characterizing us in a negative light.

Some conversations happen with parts of us that we’ve locked away in our personal and private dungeons.

Some conversations are initiated by the
judiciary
formed by a host of authority figures - fathers, and mothers, brothers and sisters, lovers, ministers, teachers, rivals and friends. Some of them, in the subtlest of ways, manage to let us know that we’ve never quite met their expectations, whereas others, who outrageously and boldly love us without qualification or reservation, leave us feeling emboldened and cherished.

Sometimes, when we’ve most wanted to be admired, we’ve had to fight off the voices that point out our ineptitude and undermine our confidence.

Even when praised, some part of us is summoned to whisper that the words weren’t really genuine but subtly constructed to disguise harsh criticism.

Each of these encounters, and a dozen others, demand an audience and sets the scene for a confrontation. Even when we shy away from meeting them head on, their power is undiminished and we are imprisoned in what William Blake called,
the mind-forged manacles.

It’s usually not very difficult to identify the primary characters who initiate these personal conversations. They may be invisible to everyone else, but they are all there, roaming around inside. Sometimes, alongside the recollection of a voice or a face, we can even assign a place and a date or a period of time to the particular circumstances that have come demanding a hearing; 'If I close my eyes I can still see him and hear his . . . .'

It is not uncommon for our secret conversations to include characters who engage us from beyond the grave. These secret conversations are particularly powerful, since it’s impossible to change anything. The fact of their death closes the door to any possible changes of heart. Sometimes, it is far more important to resolve our secret conversations with the dead than with the living, although the resolution of this kind of conversation is by no means easy.

Even the question of
why
you bought the book, goes way beyond an innocent inquiry, for it has the power to summon the presence of someone who frequently discounted your ability to make sound decisions! At such moments we revert to being a small child yearning for a word of affirmation, which never comes.

Not all questions seek answers; sometimes they harbor subtle yet cruel judgments.

Over time some of these seminal moments slowly fade away, others remain clear, while yet others become distorted and shadowy so that the conversation takes on a murky and exaggerated quality, easily leading to a paralysis of nerve.

Then, some conversations simply happen without prompting or preparation. Spontaneously, at a moment in time, initiated by any number of stimuli they challenge us and a silent engagement happens. Then they are gone, never to return.

Some of our secret conversations have the ability to undermine our confidence and others help us to journey towards new insights with a greater appreciation of our unique value.

The most influential of all our internal conversations, although not necessarily the most strident, is the one we have with our Souls, which, interestingly enough, always nudges us away from the negative and towards discovering a new respect and health for ourselves. Soul conversations typically open boundless possibilities and call us to live anew.

Have you noticed that some powerful words manage to sneak into our vocabulary and we use them without ever bothering to define them, or at least explore their potential? It doesn’t feel as if this is a serious omission and we all seem to get along quite well, even if listening to some conversations is somewhat akin to watching children throw stones at each other; a childish game played without rancor until someone scores as direct hit! Husbands and wives, when they are angry with each other, sometimes toss verbal hand grenades back and forth, and then express surprise when, in a terrible moment of insight, they see the damage they’ve caused.

Still, to a greater or lesser degree, this unconcerned, laidback attitude to the words we use is part and parcel of our everyday interaction with one other. Engaged in conversation we seldom weigh each word or carefully measure the appropriateness of a given phrase, which may be why we repeatedly say the same things over and over but in different ways.

However, all this changes when a word is abruptly plucked from merely being a part of the general landscape of life and comes under scrutiny. Such is the dilemma faced by a man or woman who has to find an answer to a marriage proposal!

All of a sudden we discover that some words have almost
boundless power
. Words we’ve used a dozen times in as many contexts come alive and engage us at a deep level. The word is seen to be less of a piece of written or spoken code, which can easily be replaced by any of a dozen synonyms, now it is unique in and of itself.

All my life I’ve signed cards and letters,
with love,
but now the words take on a completely different meaning. More than a mere social convention, they suddenly stand at the confluence of some potentially life changing decisions.

'
Do I really love so and so and how do I know if I love them sufficiently to commit myself for my entire life? To what extent can we be different, each our own person, and still love one another or do I have to surrender myself to your needs?'

Now the word,
love,
so often used in a casual manner, demands closer examination. Is it just a feeling that will eventually fade or are there other components to loving someone that will grow through time? Beyond the obvious physical attraction is there something deeper that could bind us together or will our love die once the novelty is over? What does it mean to love someone and what kinds of behavior are appropriate to love?

Now this word demands thought and reflection and has enormous consequences depending upon how I answer my own questions. Now the word has the power to change a life, for in many ways the word has a life of its own.

If there is anything our secret conversations have to teach us, it is that words are not merely sounds or hieroglyphics scrawled on a page, for words have access to the heart and they nudge us towards liberation or imprisonment.

Time past and time present and time yet to be are all present in the word.

Words are like tiny but immensely powerful
beings
. They are persons with a history rather than mere sounds. Words have a life of their own. The ancient Greeks thought of words as emissaries who set out to accomplish the will of the one who spoke them. The idea may be novel but most of us have had the experience of wishing we could take back a word, which in a careless moment we chose to send forth to assassinate, to hurt and destroy, and the word did our bidding! Conversely, we regret the passing of a moment when we could have spoken a word to heal and encourage but we stayed silent and now it’s too late.