The Heart's Longing

"Within each individual there exists a well of wisdom and love."

Pathwork lecture # 107

As we grow older says the Jungian analyst James Hollis, "We learn that life is much riskier, more powerful, more mysterious than we had ever thought possible. While we are rendered more uncomfortable by this discovery, it is a humbling that deepens spiritual possibility. The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being able to tolerate when we were young." *

In the second half of life our mortality is transformed from a fleeting concept to a felt reality. Our bodies change and life reveals itself to be something quite different from the imaginings of youth. We experience the fact that sooner rather than later we will meet death. This is good news because it offers the opportunity for each of us to choose to navigate the waters of a life that is "wonderfully troubling" by following the call of the heart’s longing.

There are voices that beckon us in approaching our journey through the terrain of midlife and beyond. One voice is fear, a construct of the mind that says: "I must speed things up so I can get everything I’ve wanted in the time I have left. I will do this in a way that guarantees security, safety and freedom from pain." This attitude is reflected in a culture that moves ever faster and provides increasing information for the mind and very little sustenance for the soul.

Paradoxically this approach to life may hasten our collective demise by destroying the resources and relationships that sustain us. Fear wants to extract what it can from everything around it to have the perfect life it has designed. We are constantly frustrated in this approach because life on this planet is neither perfect nor predictable. Fear may promote alternate tactics like hiding out, a refusal to participate in life that also creates the illusion of security and safety.

Whatever tactic fear suggests it has at its root a complete denial of death and the experience of living a half-life of survival. There is no opportunity here to know who we really are.

Another voice that summons us at midlife is the call of the heart’s longing. The language of the heart tells us to slow down: "I must slow things down so that I can have a direct relationship with what is happening here and now. In that way I can notice what is needed and give fully." The heart wants to dissolve itself into life so that there is nothing left at death. It is like a stone that sits in the rushing waters of a stream. It gives itself over to be reduced to the fine particles of its mineral nature. These particles are moved by life and become part of the experience of the vast and infinite sea. It is this willingness to let go and be "dissolved" and moved by life that touches the heart and makes life rich and full. It is an invitation to tap "the well of wisdom and love" that exists within each of us. To live a life that is rich and full provides great benefit for everything we touch.

To know who we really are we have to become aware of aspects of ourselves that bar access to our individual essential nature. I find that the body is a reliable source to contact that which stands in the way of this treasure. It is very common during a Cranio-Sacral session for the body to "remember" physical and emotional pain and to bring to consciousness the defenses that block us from deep engagement with ourselves and all of life. "Within every muscle of tension, within every misaligned joint or bone or tendon," says Emmanuel, "there is indeed a forgotten dream, a silenced longing, a shattered hope." Because Cranio-Sacral therapy gains access to the core of the central nerve system there is a communication that allows the body to "speak" of these silenced longings and shattered hopes. The practitioner sets a process in motion and then provides support as Nature takes its course. The result is often a deep state of relaxation and vitality that gives way to the song of the heart’s longing. Sometimes this is expressed and sometimes the result is a twinkle in the eye and a spark in the step that is a pure and vital expression of the soul.

Each life is individual and unique. We each have a particular body, set of thoughts, feelings, attributes, defenses and trajectory of life. The opportunity in the second half of life is to grow and evolve to fully become ourselves, a process of facing reality we were not capable of enduring as children and young adults. There is a possibility of surrendering to the great mystery that is so much vaster than the worlds we have constructed in our minds. "The privilege of a lifetime," says Joseph Campbell, "is being who you are…a vital person vitalizes the world." We can settle for managing symptoms and trying to finally find the corner of life that will guarantee safety and security or we can risk an adventure that is "less knowable" to explore the mysterious terrain that brings us back to who we really are.

If the longing within your heart could speak, what would it say? For what reason have you come into this life? What particular essence do you carry that can be used to benefit the whole of life? There is an appointment with the soul that awaits us. It is up to each of us to decide whether to answer the call.

*James Hollis, PhD., Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, p. 85