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Notes to Transformation

The Template-Makers of the Paris Basin

Creation of Gothic Architecture: Ark of God

Master Masons of Chartres

The Contractors of Chartres

Notes to Transformation - Chapter 1 - THE JOURNEY

 

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Through taking the journey I have been released from anxiety, guilt and loneliness and been gifted with a deep calmness and contentment I would not have thought possible. Life has become much simpler. The self-centred preoccupation of my ego has gradually been evaporating to be replaced with an uncomplicated desire to serve. I have experienced the reality of my soul and have come to understand that the soul has a journey of its own. In deciding to support my soul’s journey I have gained peace and intuition. The soul, in its turn, is gradually opening me to the spirit and that essential quality of completeness that Jung called the Self.

Gradually over the past fourteen years I have gone deeper and deeper along the path. Though I have been interested in spiritual issues for a quarter century and went into analysis for a time in the 70s, it was not until the shock of being separated from my wife, Hilary, and being forced to face the unpalatable truths about myself, that the journey began. After we parted, Hilary boldly attended encounter workshops in her own search for clarity, and was so strengthened by them I wanted the same. The changes which happened helped to bring us back together again on a totally new basis. It was certainly not easy to break the old roles, but our relationship has grown deeper and deeper as we have discovered how to love the independence in one another. We have always been drawn to different teachers and disciplines and we still follow our own direction and personal way of working.

I began with occasional rebirthing and attending various weekend courses. I read a lot, especially Carl Jung, and would meditate on Ram Dass’ Be Here Now. But even with Hilary’s urgent prompting, part of me remained reluctant and it was not until seven years ago that I threw caution to the wind and enrolled in a three-month full-time training in transpersonal psychology at the Living Water Centre. I was extremely fortunate that this wonderful place was just down the road in the Blue Mountains. The impact of weeks spent in process was so deep and true for me that I completed four of these trainings over the next three years. Ahrara Carisbrooke, who directed the Centre, has been my teacher ever since. She has led me along many difficult paths with the clarity and love I needed to get me through my childhood issues. I learned that my mind was not able to cope with some experiences and had to take second place to my feelings, though it remains a best friend, as you will see from this book. I have worked with many other teachers over the years, learnt Sandplay from Patrick Jensen, went to California to learn Voice Dialogue from Hal and Sidra Stone, and to Colorado for the Diamond Approach of the Ridhwan School with Jean Berwick and Deane Shank.

Although most of these courses were intended to train people to be therapists, I chose them for my own inner growth. As I worked through or into many of the stages discussed here, life became less difficult and even the many financial complexities and dramas I had already written into my days began to ease off so I now feel that for the first time I have a life of my own. With Ahrara’s guidance I have come to a serenity and easefulness I could never have imagined. It was at this point I felt ready to share with others and to support them on their journey. Hilary had already been practicing Voice Dialogue for some time and had built her own sandplay room in the attic when I joined her. Together, we turned our Federation house with its large old-fashioned garden into a home for inner work. This book has grown out of one of our ten-day training courses where we presented the bones of this material for the first time in 1993.

Though I have absorbed the teachings of innumerable people, I have kept these notes within the limits of my own experiences and those of my clients. It is only in describing the outer reaches of the journey that I have barely glimpsed that these notes stray beyond personal experience. Though biographical issues will form the major part of the book, only a small proportion of the journey itself is concerned with our parental and childhood issues. A larger proportion of the way is devoted to recovering all the material buried in the unconscious, no matter how frightening or unacceptable it may seem. Another very large part reconnects us with our soul and then supports the soul to unite with the Self. The final stage, so it is written, can transform the body, soul and Self into conscious yet mystic oneness with the All.

 

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