Destiny is purpose seen from the other end of life.
A society that fails to water the life-seeds of its members may be capable of instructing its citizens, but will be incapable of truly educating its children or wholly embracing its youth.
A genuine education must somehow serve the wings of spirit and imagination that each child brings to life.
Education at a deep level means to ‘lead out’ what is trying to be born from within. The job of a true teacher is to help awaken the inner pupil that has its own way of being and unique way of perceiving the world.
The real education is when you awaken and nourish and guide the inner spirit, this inner genius. The community grows from the giving of the gifts of the people in it, which is really giving from the genius.
The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling but a fear of responding to the call.
The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about.
The thread that ties us to the center is the hidden cord of the heart, it is the thread of genius that can connect the mind with the heart, that allows the mind to feel and reveals the thought set within the heart.
There is a poem at the heart of things and a mythic story in the heart of each of us.
A true pilgrimage requires letting go of the very things most people try to hold onto. In seeking after what the soul desires, we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow.
Our answer, our opportunity, our chance to change the world has to come from the poetry that is already written on the walls of the soul.
Set within the seed of the soul is not jut a fleeting image or a vague pattern but a lifelong story enfolded within, waiting to be cracked open and lived all the way out.
Soul is found where life deepens us, where meaning calls to us, where trouble deters us, wherever and however we slow down in the midst of the rushing and racing at the surface level of life.
Each life involves an essential errand; not simply the task of survival, but a life-mission embedded in the soul from the beginning.
Liberation happens each time we become conscious of the contents of the soul.
Fate and destiny are close woven within us and near them can be found the true genius of our lives.
Myth and nature are the two great garments of the world, with nature being the living green garment that covers the planet and myth being the multidimensional, many-colored fabric that continually weaves human culture.
If we want the world to change, the healing of culture and greater balance in nature, it has to start inside the human soul.
There is a myth at the heart of things and some element of genius in the heart of each person.
Timing can be everything and wisdom requires the patience to wait as well as the courage to leap when the time becomes right.
Until a person has failed significantly or missed the boat, they will not know how to hold the tension until the right moment or how to test the waters before pushing on.
We are wrapped around a mystery to which we were drawn before we were born.
Whether we know it or not, our lives are acts of imagination and the world is continually re-imagined through us.
What good is a path that doesn’t carry us to the edge of our capacity and then beyond that place? A true calling involves a great exposure before it can become a genuine refuge.
When seen with imagination, all things shift toward meaning, releasing energies that are hidden within appearances, releasing the inner wings of spirit, opening wide the doors to healing and wholeness.
Some might ask whether the path is before us or within us. The answer is: Yes. We are both driven from within by our resident spirit and something outside calls forth the genius within us.
We may be closest to hearing the call when we feel most alone or in trouble, for genius hides behind the wound and one of the greatest wounds in life is to not know who we are intended to be or what we are supposed to serve in life.
What is most lacking in the modern world of duplications and facsimiles, of endless information and intentional misinformation, is the authenticity that makes life truly meaningful and spiritually rewarding.
In mythic terms, the earth is a place of mystery and wonder where life always hangs by a thread and all the events of history are loosely stitched upon the endless loom of eternity. Secretly, we are each tied to the divine.
Healing is a revolutionary act and we are here to awaken to the true nature of our own souls and the gifts we have to give to the world.
When we place our immediate conflicts in the territory of an archetypal story we can better see the nature of our problems and find solutions that bring creative imagination to bear in the realm of hard facts and hardening dilemmas.
A community best serves itself when it truly serves the awakening of the unique story trying to come to life through each person born.
Amidst the rush and confusion of modern life something old and wise is trying to catch up with us. Whereas simple knowledge tends to divide things, genuine wisdom tends to make meaningful unity possible.
To awaken to the living dream within one’s life and remain awake in a world trying to lull everyone to sleep involves repeated struggle, yet also presents something truly worth fighting for.
There is a greater will, a greater need and purpose hidden within each life, and there is an inner law that knows best how each must live and that is worth stealing for; it’s worth dying for, and worth living for as well.
When a person becomes aware of their genius and they live it and they give generously from it, they change the world, they affect the world. And when they depart everyone knows something is missing.
When a situation feels like a matter of life and death the deep self is close at hand and it already carries inner medicine and its own life remedy.
Myth offers a third place to stand or a third way to see when we find ourselves caught between opposing ideas and hardening ideologies.
A false sense of security is the only kind there is.