by Joshua

Apprentice of life

Since I started listening to the teachings of my soul a few years ago, I have learned many thinks and probably unlearned even more. Isn’t life an eternal cycle of birth and death, being and non-being, construction and deconstruction? To live consciously in this cycle is to know that everything has its time.

Life reveals itself when I let myself breathe in its rhythm and have the necessary patience and maturity to give space to this breath of life. I have unlearned to meet life with resistance and that it is less about the non-being of wanting to achieve, but more about the being of becoming, which is inherent in the before, the now and the after. Like the earth, I constantly spin around myself and I have learned to be sheep and shepherd, guest and host, craftsman and architect, scientist and mystic at the same time. But just as the earth spins around the sun, so does my life spin around a centre outside me that shines its light into my life, illuminating it and making it appear as a work of art that I have not created myself.

I have learnt to sow seeds in fertile soil and let them grow with patience and love.

On my way, I got to know many tools of the soul, worked with them and experienced their meaning and use. As an apprentice, I learned to distinguish them according to purpose and quality until I was finally ready to look for my own tools, to recognise them and to value them appropriately. On the shamanic path, I found tools with natural signature that are highly precise to the subtle language of the soul. They serve healing and growth and they know about the sensitivity and vulnerability of life. They, like us, have a being of their own and want to be treated mindfully and with respect. Embraced and welcomed in their arms, I often listen to their stories, which blend harmoniously with the sounds of my soul. To know them by my side is a great gift of life that can only be appreciated with gratitude and love.

I have learned to breathe.

Equipped with appropriate tools, I learned that presence, awareness and letting be can open many spaces and that responsibility is an inevitable response to something that goes far beyond me. In many small steps I learned to really see myself, to accept and to lovingly embrace myself. I explore the vulnerability of my being through which I can tenderly recognise and understand myself as a human being. Patience, trust and devotion are always my faithful companions here. It is intimacy with myself, connection with myself and relationship with myself that enables me to live intimacy, love and relationship with others.

I have learned to listen into the silence.

I practise refining my senses to become more sensitive and alert, to be able to listen more deeply into life. The mysteries of the soul reveal themselves behind the curtains, just as the actual saying is hidden behind what is said. To listen into the silence is to detect the saying in the echo of what is said and to go into connection with the original. When I am truly in touch with my being, I experience an all-encompassing intimacy with life in which I am allowed to touch something deeply sacred. Often I then feel such a great joy that makes me weep happily in the arms of the divine Mother.

In all things I am Yours.

I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul.

Rumi

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

Albert Einstein