With the embrace of our soul’s mission at the demise of our ego’s clinging, we have shifts into higher level of source or God awareness. It’s as though we suddenly see life through the lens of our soul, rather than through our patriarchal culturally wired brain pattern of survivor mode ego persona. Once we make a marked shift into our soul mission, whether it is spurred from a deep mediation practice, deep grief that we embrace, inner child healing, soul retrieval work, or in any other way, we must go through a period of ebb and flow that can be both blissful and daunting. How can we run away from our soul mission? When to embrace our soul mission is to embrace the blissful deep, childlike love and creative genius of our timeless, unique, sometimes quirky, sometimes gentle, seemingly irrational at times, yet always our teacher, soul.

Of all the teachers I have studied, Carl Jung, Thomas Moore, Marianne Williamson, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, John Welwood, Jean Houston, Tom Cowan, Francis Weller, David Richo, Esther (Abraham) Hicks, Bill Plotkin, and Donna Eden have been the messengers whose teachings came to me in synchronicity and most resonated with me at a holistic level, with my unique soul, my unique human body, and my unique ego/personality/mind.

I have a Jungian/Earth based approach to awakening counseling, mostly because I have adopted an approach similar to Thomas Moore’s. Moore wrote Care of the Soul in 1994 and most recently A Religion of Ones Own. He spent 12 years as Catholic Monk in his youth, and then studied under Carl Jung. Moore says that each of us must craft our own unique spiritual practices from our favorite teachers, philosophers, and religions. Have a book where you have all of your practices and soul inspiration written down or tangible; your favorite songs, quotes, poems, pictures, deities, and animal totems. Create your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rituals. Get out of your head to get into our soul; dance your soul expression with abandon, listen to music that stirs your soul, play music and stop saying you aren’t good at it, sing your heart out, and stop saying you can’t sing. Stop worrying about what others think; that’s when you know you’re out of your souls guidance and listening to your fearful ego voice again. Moore will always emphasize how much our souls love and need nature. I agree with Moore, having studied this nature/core shamanic realm of soul work both in theory and self practice. I have found it to be by far, one of the most powerful and untapped resources for healing and awakening- and it is as simple as being open to the idea that our souls are connected to everything in nature.

When I walk alone in nature I am aware that I am connected to the soul of everything around me. It is my other village, (besides my human village); the sky, the wind, the sun, the moon, the ocean, the streams, every tree, animal, bird, stone, plant, lizard, and butterfly. When I walk alone in nature, attempting to be fully present, synchronicity and spiritual healing and cleansing occur automatically. This is because of my openness to the possibility and my awareness of it when it is happening.