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Initiations by Earth: Relationship to Nature, Roots, Order and Chaos, Unmovable Forces
Initiations by Earth is the second of four classes in this Reflection series in which we examine the four elements of creation – Fire, Earth, Air and Water – as primal creative ingredients within our bodies, our minds and our souls. We are micro-Earths, made up of the same substance as our Mother Earth. We are beings of fire, earth, air and water. These are our elements and just as they shift and move our external world every second of every day, so also do these elements shift our internal world. Ideas travel in our fire. Emotions flow through our water streams. Inspiration filters into our air and oxygen and we connect to our own being through our earth senses. In our first class we explored the element of Fire and the many ways fire symbolically expresses itself in our life. This class is our journey into the Earth level in each of us.
Initiations are encounters with illusions that are detrimental to our life path, to our well-being and to our inner balance. From a mystical perspective, initiation experiences lead us step-by-step to break through barriers in the form of beliefs, attitudes, fears and emotional narratives that support the illusion that we exist in our own world, separate from the whole of humanity and fabric of life. That false belief that we live in our personal world allows us to believe that we are protected rather than connected to everything that happens “out there” when, in fact, we are a part of everything. For the Truth is: What happens to one happens to all. What is in one is in the whole.
Life is only a spiritual path. That realization often inspires the question, “What exactly is a spiritual path?”
There is only one spiritual goal on any spiritual path: Become one with Truth. Become able to see clearly. Then you will act from clarity and speak with integrity in your life. Changes in your life will no longer scare you. Change only scares you because you hide in the illusion that change should not happen or that something bad is hiding in the unknown. All thoughts like that are nothing but fearful illusions.
Initiations are opportunities to break down illusions little-by-little, as we are presented with situations that are created through fear or dark emotions. You know when you’ve succeeded. Every person knows the feeling of breaking free of the burden of a fear.
Earth initiations are connected to our personal and spiritual ecology in the broadest meaning of that phrase. This subtle energetic bond influences the health and balance of your individual ecological system, and that in turn contributes to the balance of the eco-health of the collective eco-system.
I hope you will join me for Initiations by Earth. Each of these four classes will be a wondrous exploration into the many paths of Spiritual Direction that we continue to share together.
Love,
Caroline
P.S. A special Facebook page (Spiritual Direction – Caroline Myss) has been created to help support this growing Reflections online community, and is available to all students taking these classes.
Lesson 1:
Initiation by Earth: Relationship to Nature
We are a microcosm of the Earth, made up of the same elements. We feel the flow of the tides within us and sense the coming of storms. We are governed by the Laws of Nature. When we separate ourselves from the rhythms or Laws of Nature, the eco-system within us automatically activates to re-align us. Topics we will cover in the first class:
- Examining your basic understanding of “human nature”
- The function of conscience
- Do you observe, visit, or sense Nature? How?
- Evaluating the size of your Earth
- Earth: A safe or dangerous residence for you
- Relationship and consciousness of all life/creatures to you
- Feeling “out of balance”
- Example of an initiation: Compromising your conscience for safety
Lesson 2:
Initiation by Earth: Roots in the Earth
We are trees. We have family trees. We speak of roots, ancestors and the spirits of our ancestors. Planting “roots” is an archetypal need – the need to belong somewhere on the Earth, to come to know a part of the Earth intimately, to call it “home”. The absence of roots often makes a person a wanderer, a nomad or sand-dweller. Roots cannot grow deep in sand and so the nomad travels; and yet a nomad is rooted in a tribe of fellow travelers and great traditions. Roots mark our beginning, our entry into life, our first imprint with physical form. Topics we will cover in the second class:
- The significance of your identity: How do you define your identity? With what do you identify?
- Earth treasures: items/belongings that hold power and authority for you
- The archetypal significance of being grounded
- Earth energies and the survival instinct
- The trauma of being uprooted
- Example of initiation: Losing identity/treasures/status
Lessons 3:
Initiation by Earth: Order versus Chaos
We each must maintain some measure of control and order in our lives or we would exist in an atmosphere of utter chaos. Yet, no matter how orderly or responsible we are, we cannot stop cycles of change from happening because, as Buddha taught thousands of years ago, Change is Constant. It is the Way. Becoming obsessively orderly and controlling as a way of challenging this cosmic law, of preventing it from disrupting the plans you have for your life or people in your life, will ultimately result in generating an explosion of chaos. For instead of going with the flow, even over rough rapids, you seek through control patterns to dam the flow of the river itself. Nature always wins. When the dam breaks – and it always does – it can only bring catastrophe and destruction. We must learn to go with the flow of all things and systems in our life and to recognize when these systems are speaking to us. Topics we will cover in the third class:
- Cycles of life/nature
- Examining control patterns: How you control others and how others control you
- Common fear narratives
- Ways we believe we can keep chaos away from us
- OCD: A response to Kairos time(lessness)
- Example of an initiation: A collapse of plans you’ve been working/counting on, forcing you to go on alone.
Lesson 4:
Initiation by Earth: Unmovable Forces
Nature never yields. The Laws of Nature are an expression of the nature of God: Consistent, universal, absolute. A cause generates an effect. No one is exempt from that law. It is also called Karma. Know the laws and you come to understand the nature of God. Impersonal and absolute. In that impersonal way, the Divine is consistent. Every death is guaranteed a rebirth by law. The darkest night will inevitably end, not because of all the candles you light or the tears you shed. It’s the law. Nature must ultimately bring the Light back to balance the dark. Trust the nature of God. Know the laws. Prayer makes this system of constancy intimate: A miracle is when the laws of nature are negotiated just for you. Something that cannot happen, should not happen, never happens – does happen. Intimate and impersonal – this is the true nature of this Divine universe. All of this is an essential prelude to this final session that emphasizes our relationship with the Divine. We have each experienced – and will continue to experience – situations that make us want to run away. We hit brick walls. We want out. We feel cornered. But we can’t get out for some reason. We are stuck. We cannot break free. We can only break through: The battle with the Divine, the Unmovable Force. Topics we will cover in the final class of this series:
- Your way or else. Or else what?
- Expectations and entitlements in the physical world: You are owed what in life?
- The coming of illness, death, accidents and disasters
- Earth health issues
- The power of your Sacred Contracts
- What is the meaning of “God’s will” versus “free will”?
- How much power is contained in one choice?
- Example of an initiation: You are positioned through circumstances to use/develop a talent you have ignored/denied/repressed.
About Caroline Myss
Caroline Myss is a five-time New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, health, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition. Caroline established her own educational institute in 2003, CMED (Caroline Myss Education), which offers a diverse array of programs devoted to personal development and draws students from all over the world. In addition to her written work, Caroline maintains a rigorous international workshop and lecture schedule and has produced more than eighty audio/visual products on subjects that include healing, spirituality, personal development, and the study of archetypes.
