The Soul's Communication

 

The Language of Longing

“The dream of your life has been dreamed from eternity. You belong within a great embrace that urges you to have the courage to honor the immensity that sleeps in your heart.”

John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes)

          John O’Donohue wrote in Eternal Echoes that we forget that our soul traveled a great distance to get here. It suggests that our origin is not earth, but the stars, and indeed, we know that we are composed of the same materials as the stars. We are cosmic creatures here by design, but the design of our lives is not necessarily our choice.

          I talked with a friend this week about relationships, even marriages, and how they sometimes have a beginning, a middle and an end. Like every good story the characters grow and change over time, and sometimes that growth leads to the break-up or end of their story together. Just as we often don’t know what initially attracts us to this person, rather than that person, we usually don’t know what causes the break-up. We come up with reasons—he changed, she was hateful, he lied, she cheated—but those are usually symptoms rather than causes. The truth is, we don’t know and not knowing is unacceptable to us. We entered that relationship, we lived with and through it, and we parted.

          Perhaps our personality, our ego-self, is not privy to our life-track. Perhaps we don’t actually plan and execute it. Maybe our destiny is within the purview of our soul. O’Donohue said, “Longing is the voice of your soul; it constantly calls to you to be fully present in your life, to live to the full the one life given to you.” When we embark on a journey, the scenery changes, the foods, and activities change. We experience ourselves in different cultures with different people. We expect that when we travel. Our life is a journey. Even if we live that one life in the same place, it changes over time.

          Permanence is not a part of nature’s plan. Nothing is permanent—even mountains erode over time, canyons are cut through stone by rivers, and oceans cover what once was dry land. There is an area just north of Birmingham, where yucca and spiny century plants grow out in the woods alongside pines and oaks. That area was once desert, and now is hardwood forest.

          Understand that our soul, though it resides within us, has a life of its own. It existed before our physical body and current life, and it will exist once this life is over. It calls us to different experiences to move us toward wholeness and depth. According to O’Donohue, “When you listen to and trust the wisdom of your soul’s longing, you will awaken to the invitation of graced belonging that inhabits the generous depths of your destiny.” The soul holds the map of your journey. Longing is its language. You can trust it to show you the way.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane