January - Natural Great Peace
January - Natural Great Peace
In January, we explore inner space. The Deep, the Cave, the Womb. We sleep longer, dream deeply. It’s an interior time, a time for dreaming and deep inner work.
Here, in Soul Caller World, this month’s quality, is Santosha, a Sanskrit word that means 'contentment', the natural great peace of the winter landscape beneath a blanket of snow. This first week of January, we are contemplative, we are listening. We are opening one eye.
Remaining quiet, restful, we stir only to glimpse the morning light pouring into the room. To add a log to the fire. To draw the blankets around us as we pad into the kitchen for another cup of tea. To sit by a window and sense into the dream that’s quietly growing inside of us.
This month’s key words are: Contentment. Support. Listening. Holding. Nourishing.
This month’s Soul Call Card is (remarkably) CAVE.
I shuffled the deck and the CAVE card flipped out of my hands, landing on the table before me.
In the Soul Call Cards Guidebook, CAVE is the 11th card, defined as follows:
11. Cave
Hidden within a mountain or other earth space, a cave is like a womb, an enclosed safe hiding spot, a hermitage, secluded from the world. Cave carries themes of seclusion and withdrawal from the the day-to-day into the deep (and perhaps dark) inner cave of our own heart, to retreat, symbolically or literally, for a time. (Opposite: Exposed, no privacy.)In a reading: Cave + Create
A private space for creativity. A day or a weekend away from responsibility to crawl in and hibernate for a while. Is it time to create a place of seclusion for yourself? Do you need creative ‘cave time?’
This month’s Tarot Card: Empress
I shuffled and cut the deck. One card slid sideways, ‘asking’ to be chosen.
(This image is from the Rider-Waite deck, which my daughter lets me borrow.)
The Empress sits on a throne wearing a crown with twelve stars, holding a scepter in one hand. The scepter is representative of her power over life, her crown has twelve stars representing her dominance over the year, and her throne is in the midst of a field of grain, representative of her dominion over growing things. The Empress is representative of the productivity of the subconscious, seeded by ideas. She is meant to be the embodiment of the growth of the natural world, fertility, and what one knows or believes from the heart. (from Wikipedia)
The Empress represents fertile, imaginative womb space. She is the great mother of creation, holding all new things in her dream belly. The ‘heart’ that the above definition refers to seems to me to be the aspect of heart space that holds, nurtures, nourishes and dreams new babies, new projects, new ideas into being. She is the Grace Mother, holding us all even as we, men and women, all hold Her in our own bodies in the watery depths of Svadhisthana, the sacral chakra. (We will talk more about chakras in February. Here’s a link to read about Svadhisthana on your own. )
Here, CAVE and EMPRESS unite to invite us into the dream belly where all of our creations - babies, projects, artwork, books— are held as we dream them into being.
The dream belly is non-gendered - all people have this womb space, which rests just below the navel, the deep womb space of our own creativity where our dreams come to gestate in complete darkness and warmth before they are birthed into the visible. manifest world.
When a dream lands in the belly, we nourish it by acknowledging it as real, by envisioning what it might look like, feel like if it were to emerge. By feeding it with our attention and love. This is not about setting goals or timelines. Womb Space is hibernation space - silent and deep. So, the attention needed is the light touch of the dreamer.
Deep listening. Generous allowing. As the invisible emerges from the shadows. We sense it within us but we don’t rush or force it. We trust that it will emerge in its own time and manner.
Questions for your Journaling:
What is gestating inside of me? What secret dream am I nurturing deep inside the creative belly of my life? What light is growing inside of me?
How might I nourish this dream?
Rest in Natural Great Peace
A prayer by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara
Rest in natural great peace
I come to this recording when my mind is racing, when I need help settling restless thoughts.