Connection-Soul Catching in the Environment

 

Soul Catching is a way of life and therapy which I have developed over many years of studying with a

spiritual fellowship called The River. Soul catching was developed from observing and practising different spiritual traditions, and studying quantum physics and psychology and over forty years of front-line counselling. This philosophy forms the basis of both a life path and a counselling model. 

                This practice is based on the premise that we do not live inside ourselves. Our consciousness is not a little nut of awareness, hidden somewhere behind our eyes or in our hearts. Our souls, that part of us that is deepest and most essential, lives outside of our skins, in the world. So the world is not only a metaphor for our consciousness, but it is our consciousness- our soul.

                Soul lives outside of the self.

                When I first started to grasp the significance of this truth, I realised that I could use the world and environment as a kind of mirror in which I could glimpse the deepest thoughts of myself and my clients. I found that strange things started to happen when I proceeded to ask people what they noticed in the environment around my office. Animals turned up who had never turned up before. They cawed, sang and hummed around the windows and glass door. Sometimes they came in through the sliding glass doors if they were open, or asked to be admitted. Machines also turned up and roared up and down the street or in the air, unusual events transpired which I had no explanation for except-notice this!

                Over time, as I developed this awareness, I wondered how every time I asked questions into the world, my questions were answered in immediate and profound ways. A bird with an incomplete song turned up when I was working with a young woman with depression, a murder of ravens turned up and flew in big circles when I was working with a man who was deceiving himself and others sexually, planes suddenly started to roar overhead when I worked with a woman whose ambition was driving herself into chronic pain.

                Once I was working with a woman with anxiety. Carol (pseudonym) and I were working for about forty five minutes and I felt that we were at an impasse. We had explored aspects of herself and externalised them as hungry ghosts. That had led to some cathartic understandings about how her own unrealistic and cruel expectations were causing the panic. Then we sat in silence, I felt both completed with that line of therapy, and also expectant that there was more. How could we proceed? Usually before the environment is about to give me a clue as to where to go next, I feel a kind of emptiness and lightness come into the room. In other words, I feel that my ego, that little layer of neo-cortex which is the fixing monkey mind of my consciousness, becomes stilled and expectant. I sink into a deeper place.

                At that moment,  a humming bird came up to a rose bush outside my window and hummed very loudly into the silence of our thoughts. Carol noticed the hum of the bird and instantly knew that she must hum, chant and sing daily. Humming is therapeutic for trauma and anxiety, and used in somatic experiencing as a treatment for PTSD.

                For many years, I kept thinking that we, my clients and I, were using and interpreting the environment as a kind of ink blot, a way of gazing into a mirror, of opening the door to the unconsciousness.  I persisted with the notion that  it was all me, inside my little brain or heart, sitting in my chair and my client sitting in their chair, interpreting events which were unrelated to us but which we had decided to pull into meaning. Then one day as I walked by the river, I asked for further insight into how Soul Catching functioned.  Half way along the return trip, I saw a river otter down by the edge of the water. I walked over quietly because seeing an otter is unusual along this pathway. The otter was chomping on a little fish, and in a flash, I realised that it wasn’t just me interpreting the environment, it was also the environment interpreting me. I had called the world for an answer, and the river otter gave it to me. I wasn’t only eating the world, the world was also eating me.

                In a flash I understood the world in a completely different way, a more connected, gentle, loving and whole (holy ) way. My question had sent me an otter, eating a fish from the river, representing taking wisdom from the world. But the otter was also eating the significance of me, noticing her and perhaps in some way I altered her life also in that moment.              

                Here is the leap in understanding. The client interpreted the humming bird as a need to chant more. This part is easy, it fits with what we know about accessing the unconsciousness with techniques such as dream analyses, following random associations and using abstract images as a mirror. But the leap, the truly wonderful part of Soul Catching is that in that moment, the mirror is also active in the process. Not only is the mirror alive; has sentience and is imbedded in the significance of the moment, but that imbedded meaning changes, is flexible and somehow arises in a way that defies time. The humming bird in that moment was also called, for her purposes, to glimpse some part of her soul. Perhaps simply to find nourishment or for other more mysterious purposes which we can only guess at.

                 Soul was captured at that moment as a humming bird. Now, the mirror is also alive, so the hummingbird in that moment also was active in her exploration of her own being and wisdom. By invoking openness, to notice the environment as a living participant in All That Is-we were both sitting in the room in a kind of altered state, a state of consciousness that we can call the World. And then we can engage soul for answers. This works inwards and outwards because the reality of time is not linear, nor is space therefore as limiting as we imagine.

                I am not a physicist but I have read books about quantum physics and am constantly amazed how this new science sounds so much like ancient teachings. We are entering an age when this quantum physics will echo and confirm the wisdom of our ancestors. You don’t have to be a physicist to understand that all consciousness is inter-related. And therefore, if you are approaching life from a scientific perspective or a psychospiritual or intuitive perspective, you can understand that the world outside of ourselves arose and lives in much the same way that we do inside our bodies, day by day. Quantum physics explains that all events take place in a way that all possibilities are first explored and, in some way, tried out, before a ‘real’ or chosen path is taken. We are led to stop thinking of time as linear event, but rather spherical. Then the mysterious ways of how Soul Catching works, starts to make some sense. In the same way that photons are able to know ahead of time in the double slit experiments, if the slits that they are being forced to pass through will be open, single or double and will instantly explore all possibilities and choose the one that is most likely –so too, when we call on the sentience of all that surrounds  us to give us guidance, it All turns up with answers. We have only to notice and then to act.

                Not understanding our deep connection with the environment is the basis of the hunger that I see in some many of my clients. This emptiness is created by seeing ourselves as separate from the environment and drives people to seek fulfillment with substance abuse, unhealthy relationships, drivenness towards greater and greater production and acquisition - addictions of many kinds. From these addictions comes dis-ease. We are so disconnected with the part of ourselves which lives outside of our skins that we have lost our souls.

                We can now enter in the awareness which spiritual teachers have extoled from the beginning of our creation-all things are connected, sacred and inter-dependent. The world is our mirror and we are a mirror for the world.

Try this! Soul Catching in the natural world

·         Go outside to a favourite place in nature. You can also use a counselling room, but the outside environment, especially a natural place  has more interesting items to catch. Face a direction that appeals to you.

·         Stand for a moment with your eyes closed. Become aware of your body, how your feet rest on the earth, sounds, scents. Close your eyes and come fully into the moment. Release any thoughts, obsessions, or worries that you may have.

·         Now open your eyes.  Notice the world around you- as it is. What is the first thing you notice? Don’t edit your first choice no matter how incongruent or insignificant it seems. At these times, everything is significant and everything is meaningful.  You may notice, events, sounds or objects in the environment. Do not begin to go within seeking interpretations at this point. Just notice. Be as clearly observational as possible.

·         Go back inside and write out what you noticed with just a few words. E.g. east-a chickadee sang.

·         Now for the soul catching. The world turned up at that moment with a message for you-what is it? Ask yourself “Where in my life is this sign significant?” E.g., Where in my life is  there a singing bird? Or you may ask the opposite question such as “Where in my life is there not a singing bird?”

·         Follow back, follow back. Keep asking yourself why this sign has meaning for you.   E.g., The bird was expressing herself. Perhaps I need to be joyful in my communications?

·         You will know when you come to the soul message by a feeling of resolution, relief or joy. The Aha! Moment. E.g. That’s it! I’ve been really afraid of saying some things to some people that need to be said.

·         Write down the message and remember to create an action commitment for each insight E.g. In this next year(month, week day)  when I feel I need to, I will speak up and say my truth, even when I’m afraid. Just like a chickadee singing, without expectation, just as an expression of who I am.