Recognition of a Soul
© Jay Harden
Soul recognition: that’s what my wife said it was called. Dumb, I thought - but I didn’t say anything right off. It’s an old story of mine: think twice before responding to a woman. A workshop in North Carolina, she said. Did I want to attend with her? Well, the concept was intriguing and got more so after some questioning. After all, how many guys sit around thinking about the soul, much less his own? It would be attended by mostly women, and run by women.
This seems to be the way the world is currently going, I reflected. Our technology of medicine is enthralled with treating symptoms and avoiding prevention like a disease, which is isolating you and me. More and more people are thoughtfully seeking out non-conventional answers, listening to their own internal wisdom instead of consulting experts. And I’ve noticed it’s the women who are leading.
For too long I had been a scientist living mostly in my left brain. A man of action, I focused on goals. I solved problems. I had worked in the Pentagon. I had been to war. I had dropped bombs and killed people. If anyone needed some soul restoration, I did. Only my history was in the way.
Now of course, I wanted to support my bride. She is one of those new age women that give hope to us anachronistic guys and, besides, I simply adore her. More than that, I trust her. The fact that she was inviting me seemed pretty brave on her part. Little did I realize how brave I would have to be. Anyway, the house was beginning to feel confining and I was ready to get out of Atlanta for a weekend. So I said sure, and before I could reconsider I had taken Delta’s un-refundable bargain airfare from the Internet.
I must have failed to pay attention as things escalated. The women were going to offer two courses in Atlanta before the one in North Carolina and seven of these goddesses were going to be staying with us. Seven in this three-bedroom house? Whoa! Yes, darling you agreed, remember? Uh, right. No problem, I said. (I lie, I thought). A prisoner in my own home? Seven more sets of fluffy stuff everywhere? I just planned to retreat into my computer and refused to think any more about it. I didn’t read the course material and asked no more questions. Ignorance is bliss they say.
When the strangers arrived, I was flawlessly gracious (I think). They were curiously relaxed and genuinely enjoyable, so I relaxed, too. I only saw them briefly twice a day. They always returned very late and tired yet full of a kind of energy I had never seen. So I didn’t get to know them, but did admire and respect them from a distance. The more I observed these beautiful self-assured women, the more I started to reason my way out of being closer to their power in North Carolina. However, something was going on that I could not make sense of, something telling my mind to just get out of the way. So, with more than a few misgivings, I boarded the plane.
I felt sandbagged because it turned out that I was the only man attending. Just seventeen women and me. These were not ordinary women, believe me. They were gorgeous graceful goddesses all and I was, to put it kindly, disoriented. I had never seen such a group. It was their eyes. All of them were clear and intelligent, sparkling and comfortable, deep and calm. And not a single lady had an agenda - to my refreshing, exhilarated relief.
Something else was up with these women that is very hard to describe. A clear feeling permeated the workshop space. I can only explain it as a palpable, creative energy that held all of us together gently, a kind of unifying field that my scientific mind and vocabulary could not fully encompass. These women were able to create such a connection at will that never wavered or departed. Inexorably I became a part of their energy. I do know that some of it, not all, was cultivated through deliberate intention and purposeful breathing.
It would be pointless to describe what happened to me during my particular soul recognition process because each is so individual. Just know that mine was a sacred denouement with myself. There were no words in it and no words I have to fairly convey my experience. It kept me out of my head (perhaps that is the secret) and led me, well, to see my soul. It was a purely spiritual time (and not at all a religious one) when I became consciously aware of me, a part of my personal journey where I had never been.
I came to some profound realizations. Too many men in this world have never been loved by any woman. Sadly, that is a great loss for our planet. Many men, I presume, have known a woman’s love. Far fewer men in this world have known the unconditional love of a woman. I was lucky enough to have been blessed with the latter experience and wise enough to marry. Twice. But what I had never known (and I don’t know any men who have) is the unconditional love of women. That is, until now.
To my eternal delight, that is what I experienced at the workshop. These women, all of them, willingly gave me their attention. They listened and heard me. They really saw me, they touched me, they laughed with me, and they honored me in my strengths and weaknesses. It was a beautiful, humbling, and sacred experience that inevitably opened a part of me long hidden from myself and the world. I saw my true nature, and so did they. I don’t know how, and I don’t care. It turns out I am an all right guy.
I have to say that I had issues with that tribe of the universe called female. I thought that feminists were misguided in trying to be like men. I thought we should celebrate our differences instead. Now I know there is another possibility – that men and women celebrate their similarities. We are all great souls and that fact links us all. Nothing else really matters.
These similarities I speak of are more important across this planet than the outer world of appearance, belief, and history. Our inner souls share a spiritual DNA and wait for recognition and awakening.
Does anyone out there want to find the cure for war? Consider this: Why would I fight my own DNA? I was not created to destroy myself. Why would I fight you who carry that same spiritual heritage? If we all come to understand this, then war is history. Call it what you will, the quantum energy of the soul is the one thing that connects us all. And it can save us all, too.
Marietta, Georgia
January 8, 2003