return of the elders
“…spirit being that force aligned with air and fire that rises,
and soul being the force connected to water and earth that descends. As human beings, we are really stretched between those two things.”
“What they used to say is that spirit eternalizes, or the energy of ascending eternalizes. And soul personalizes. The energy of descent brings us more fully into our lives, both our own life, and the life of the world. And thats necessary, thats the descent of soul. But if we don’t get the touch of spirit once in a while, we can get stuck in the mud so to speak.”
“In ancient Alchemy this movement of spirit upwards and soul downwards was called circulatio. That is to say, to become a full human being, to become fully oneself, a person had to ascend with spirit and descend into soul repeatedly. And that repetition of this movement up and down was called circulatio. The movement through the ambient of the entire psyche of the person until they became more and more whole.”
“The notion is that with the world being more and more chaotic, we need the touch of spirit…but we also need the grounding intricacy of soul which connects us to each other and to the world.”
-Michael Meade
This outline is one of the most simple, yet profound teachings that I have ever come across for living a life of balance and fulfillment. It expresses the necessity of the alchemical sine wave: the need for human beings to both expand, as well as to deepen. In this way, it secretly points us to the middle path. The path that unites heaven and earth through the core of our being.
The upward moving energy of spirit (air and fire) is what most people are engaging with when they meditate, pray, or commune with the Divine. This is the energy that many of our well known spiritual practices lead us to connect with; such as breath-work, fasting, chanting, and the like. When someone points to the sky and speaks of the Creator, they are often acknowledging the spiritual direction. As we close our eyes and think of heaven, it is likely that we will smile and journey into the Upper World. Even the simplicity of staring up into a clear blue sky, and letting our minds and hearts release into that space can be a spiritual act. In this time upon this planet, we need as much of the mind-illuminating energy of spirit as we can get.
However, our spiritual growth is nothing without a deepening in the direction of soul (earth and water). Spirit without much soul is like a tall tree with shallow roots, vulnerable to being toppled over by the first strong winds of Winter. We can see the characteristics of this imbalance most readily in people who use the spiritual direction as a bypass to escape from the more difficult aspects of life. When used as a chronic mode of action, such people come across as being severely ungrounded, spacey, and almost insubstantial. They may shine with a certain beauty or light, but they ultimately feel unreliable, or untrustworthy. Their words may try to uplift you, or inspire you, but they do not hold the strength to comfort and console you through trying times.
With this understanding, we are are encouraged to welcome and embrace the experiences that build our character and root our being into this earthly realm. We are encouraged to meet life fully, feeling our way, with total presence. We are encouraged to face and move through whatever awaits us upon our path: rising up through the depths of our being, again and again, so that we may stand as strong as towering oak trees amidst the ever-churning pressures of this wild world.
Of course, human life is full of soul-building opportunities. We enter into the depth of our selves by showing up for such things as the raising of children, the loss of loved ones, running a farm, healing through illness, building a business, achieving great physical feats, and just about anything else that requires our blood, sweat and tears. So long as we are able to survive and integrate our lessons, challenges and trials, one day we will be able to turn around and give sincere thanks for anything and everything that ultimately helped to bring forth the love, wisdom and power that lays hidden within the core of our being.
Upon the journey to grow and evolve our soul, it is vital to seek the “touch of spirit,” just as the spiritual person needs to root into the soil of the soul. This so that we do not wallow or become stumped in life’s muddy depths. Depression and anxiety are two clear signs of such a need. We find our mastery by circulating between spirit and soul, merging the truth of each within ourselves. This gives us the ability to engage life virtuously, from our wholeness, allowing the spiritual energies that we have been cultivating to flow into the human world through our incarnated presence.
In this way, we become like acupuncture needles: conduits for the divine that moves and shines in all things to fill and infuse this web of life through our humble walk. As we heal, harmonize and align in this self-realizing way, we become lightning-rods for the healing of all that we are connected to: the earth and all of life becomes entrained with our radiant, manifested presence.