Here we are at the start of something. The start of the Fall. The start of the descent. What a thing to begin. The downclimb. The submersion. The deep breath before the deep dive. Into our gifts.
We are embarking. We are leaving. We are journeying.
And we are not alone. Thankfully.
And we cannot walk anyone else’s walk.
It must be our own.
And we are not alone.
There is a bone-deep knowing that there is much inside of us longing to be expressed. Longing to be embodied. Longing to be realized.
Together, on this journey, we long. We long together. We long to know. We long to embody. We long to serve. We long to contribute. We long to live in our authentic, wild, genius.
We long.
And we are being longed.
We are not the only ones longing our gifts into manifestation and embodiment.
Our gifts have been busy hanging posters up all around the neighborhood. Light posts. Coffeeshops. Libraries. Even ads taken out in the local papers.
Our gifts are not passive. As we search. They enliven.
I am reminded of Kabir’s poem To Be A Slave of Intensity translated by Robert Bly. It goes like this:
To Be a Slave of Intensity
Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
We’ll long together.
We’ll search together.
But its your own Great Sound, as Kabir says, you’re listening for.
I am beyond humbled that I get to play this role in our journey. That I get to curate the experience to bring you into deeper and deeper proximity with your soul by way of your gifts.
Jeremy Brown asked me if Soul School had a teacher.
I told him, Yes. The greatest teacher. The teacher custom built for him!
His Soul.
My role here is to orient you to processes useful for your own connection to your soul.
And of the soul’s aspects, the Fall Cycle focuses on our gifts. On the capacities and energies that live in us that when we embody them, we and the world around us hums with delight.
Here’s to humming with delight!
And here’s to the one in me that signed me up!
And here’s to all the other ones in me who get to deal with all the things that that one signs up for!
So let’s be gracious and kind to them all.
With love and anticipation,
Peter McLean