The Essence of Soulful Living
25th Anniversary Issue Twenty-five years ago, Valerie launched Soulful Living. I’ve had the deep privilege of writing the Being Present column for much of that time. It was the first place my voice was given a home. That I’m still here says something about the wealth of what she has built—a place for those in need of giving as well as receiving. In that span, I completed my Ph.D., moved towns, changed my name, buried people I loved. And along the way, I also lost pieces of myself emotionally and at times, pieces of my life entirely. Like me, I’m sure you have your own list of change, gain and loss. Many of those losses have nothing to do with a failing on our part. Some things in life are simply taken away, and we have to find our way back to ourselves again. A quarter century is long enough to get knocked down and get back up several times over. There are so many places to lose ourselves. The first time I was aware that I had lost myself to another person, I was 23 years old. I noticed I’d been obsessing over a guy I was dating—when and whether he was going to call me. Calculating his work schedule so I’d be by the phone. Deciding when he should be calling based on what I deemed to be his availability. Upset when he didn’t call within those hours. I was aghast at myself! Who was this person?! I remember the voice in my head asking the question, “What is happening to me?” That’s when the download...
The Mouse in the Church
Picture a large open field—acres of soft, rolling green hills with wildflowers densely in bloom. Ahead, a small wooden church awaits. Just a box of a building. As we near the church, organ music bellows somberly. Inside, a wedding takes place. The pews on both sides of the aisle are filled with old, craggy people—dusty suits and tattered, tired dresses. A reluctant bride moves down the aisle, laden in tulle, dress and veil. Layers and layers of it. It all looks musty. Her head is ensconced by the heavy veil—so heavy she can barely see through it. What she does see through her veil, everywhere she looks, are the stares of the onlookers. Each pair of eyes commanding the procession, expecting and determining her fate. The bride’s arm is held tight by the one who “gives her away” as he pulls her along. Everyone has the same conviction: they all need her to get down the aisle and marry in spite of the fact that her inner voice is crying, “How do I get out of here?!” The overbearing organ music, the intensity of the onlooker’s stares, the tight grip on our bride’s arm, all speak to a momentum, one that is overpowering the call within her to break free and find her true desires, whatever they may be. She is losing her agency and she knows it. Not getting what she needs from her environment, she finally succumbs to the weight of it all and drops her head in surrender. All she can see now is her feet walking along the well beaten wooden floor—something she can gaze...
The Start of Something New
20th Anniversary Issue Happy 2oth Anniversary, Soulful Living community! What an honor it is to be back online and writing for you. In the years of my absence from writing for this website, my life and learning have continued to grow and expand. I completed my Ph.D. in Depth Psychology, moved to a new town, and returned to screenwriting—a longtime passion of mine and earlier pursuit of my youth. I even changed my professional name (Karen Deborah) to the name I use in my private life (KD). Plus, I dedicated a lot more time to reading, deepening my awareness of the mind-body connection, and putting into practice this integrative understanding with positive results. Of course, there have also been hard times filled with losses, death, and destruction. And like a true mystic, out of the ashes of those losses has birthed a new awareness in me, giving life to new and vast possibilities of thinking, being, and moving in this world. As has always been my way, I’ve continued to move through life heuristically; I have continued to take into myself what is around me, to digest it and make meaning of it, and to then put it back out into the world to observe, and understand…. There has also been hermeneutic learning; the study of what others have written about the same subjects and processes as I am heuristically exploring. These times we live in are filled with much cutting-edge information. It is an age where the hard sciences are meeting and merging with esoteric philosophies. The understanding we inner travelers have often intuited about processes of...Our Sponsor
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