Before reading this, I want you to pause and take a quick reprieve from the daily stress. For just a moment, step away from the frenetic chaos that runs rampant through all of our minds. Sit down, close your eyes, and breath 7 breaths as deeply and slowly as you possibly can. Fill your lungs with that Universal essence of air, that which is spirit in form, and release it all back out into the world, until nothing but complete emptiness remains. Though I’m curious how many people will actually take the time to do that, all I urge is you to channel just a smidge of stillness and presence while reading this.
So, now that you’ve taken the time to grant yourself that space and inner buoyancy, I pose you one simple question: What is it that you truly desire in life? At this pivotal NOW moment which you find yourself in, what is it that calls to your soul? What beckons you forward to follow that tempestuously darkening path down into the unknown depths? What is it that you yearn to experience, to behold with your bodily senses, to write in the storybook of your life? Please, I know I’m asking a lot from you, and I understand how you may think I am presumptuously righteous in making these demands… BUT, I beg you to think deeply on those questions. Allow them to germinate in your mind and heart, until a definitive concept fleshes out in some form or another. You owe it to yourself — to your deepest and truest aspect of your nature — to at least perceive what it is that is being communicated to you from within.
We all have things in life that we desire; some entirely conceivable, and others unfathomably beyond our imaginative horizon. Whatever they may be, I’m here to tell you that those feelings — the ones resonantly true to your soul — are the most trusted guides to our own divinity. Now, I’m not here to tell you that it needs to be something grand or revolutionary, but only that it should ring true. It might even fill you with a childish giddiness, the likes of which you haven’t felt since looking out upon a snow swept horizons in your youth.
These desires are innumerable in form: maybe its a school of thought you’ve been called to pursue or explore more deeply; a skill that you’ve been interested in endeavoring to learn; or even a place that has captured your wonder for years. With all of my being, I believe our desire to be the most intimate connection we have to our own divinity. That single, faintly perceptible whisper is what carries us forward towards a greater relationship with our own being. It’s what leads us to where we must go, and is the swallow’s song helping us through the pathless woods of daily life.
Ariadne’s Thread Through our Personal Labyrinth
Our desire is akin to a thread, woven of a golden fabric that was mined from the celestial realms. Like Theseus in the Labyrinth, lost and seemingly beyond the reach of any means of ordinary aid, most of us go through life without direction or conviction. We pander while facing decisions, and often allow ourselves to be victimized by the external circumstances of our life. However, despite how far removed Theseus may have been from society’s assistance, the hero in tales is never disconnected from the backing of supernatural benefactors. In order to manuever his way through the impossible and ever-changing landscape of the Labyrinth, Theseus was gifted a thread that would lead him back to sanity. Our desire is this thread, woven of a golden fabric that was mined from the celestial realms.
We are all stuck in our own labyrinths and lost in the miasma of the Unconscious. While the task of the mythological hero is to get out of the maze, our task is to shed the light of our conscious awareness upon all the shadowy and unknown reaches of our own psyche. What that means and how to sincerely go about that process, I have no definitive answers. All I know, is that we weren’t thrusted into this maze of suffering and confusion without divine intervention. We have our desire; it is the brilliantly beaming beacon hailing us from across the tempestuous seas. There is some part of us that is deeper than the shallow tepid waters of our conscious awareness. It is rooted and founded in the very fabric of the Universe, and it is precisely from that interconnected fabric where we receive this guidance. It’s pointing towards itself, and leading us onwards so that we may experience it and ourselves encompassed within in… got all that? All it asks is to step outside of the prison of our self-concieved limitations, and to trust in the direction where it’s sending us.
The Multitudinous Layers of a Star
A star: the source of light, energy, and even love. They are composed of different layers, each presenting a different view of stellar reality. The core is where energy is created and nuclear fusion takes place, and is the most foundational essence of a star’s nature. As you expand outwards, you get further from that creative dynamism and are more susceptible to the countless factors of external circumstance; stellar winds, cosmic instability, and various other factors make for supreme chaos.
Like stars, we are multitudinous in our layers; as we breach through the outermost layers, we surely progress deeper into our truer being. How do we do this inner excavation you ask? Through the heeding and actualization of our desires. In my life, I’ve found my desires to take me all over, often not understanding why or where I was being led. However, I always knew what my next step was. I didn’t know where the next signpost was, or where the nearest town would be along the trail, but I knew where along that path my foot would fall next. And so, following the thread of my single desire, I’ve observed it evolve and radically change over the years. It’s taken me across the world and has awakened me to the deeper purpose of what I think I want to pursue in life. Through heeding the call and seeing through whatever was the one thing I yearned to experience, I was invariably granted access to the next layer within. With each step taken and each desire given space to come into blossom, I was always gifted the vision of that single next step, and with it was accompanied a greater sense of stability and trust in the overall plan.
Reclaiming your Inner Throne
I like to envision my inner psychic realm as a kingdom, one right out of Chrétien de Troyes‘ poetic masterpieces that depict Arthurian lore. For a kingdom to thrive and be in harmony, a virtuous and valiant king must reign true. The inner whisper we hear, cloaked in the voice of desire, is a dictum by our regal King. It is a mandate for the kingdom, aligned with love that is in service to all. Our conscious awareness is merely the conglomeration of the townspeople.
Going along with this metaphor, what would happen if the king’s mandate was blatantly ignored? The King holds the best interest of his people as his ideal, and foresees cataclysm down the road if extreme change is not made. Regardless, to the dismay of the King, the status quo is ignorantly maintained, despite the inevitable failure if the societal trajectory is held to course. The King would lose respect, authority, and self-worth, and the Kingdom would be cripplingly weakened as a result.
Thus, in our own lives, when we ignore that ephemerally delicate, yet lustrously enticing voice that urges us to new horizons, our own inner stability breaks down. We choose to ignore the authority of our own sovereignty, and through our actions brazenly proclaim distrust in that whisper; instead of doing what we know we have to do, we go about our days doing things we know our heart isn’t behind. It’s only natural to scoff at the concept of destiny if you ignore the path you’ve been directed to go down.
Once one follows this whisper though, their life is immediately placed in the care of forces beyond their control. When you choose to believe in something beyond your current conception of yourself, you become the hero of your own story. Once this path is voluntarily undertaken with faith and zeal, the Universe unwaveringly strives to meet you halfway in your quest. It doesn’t matter that you have no idea where it is you’re being led to. All that is important is to set out in the first place, and not allow the darkness that looms before us to debilitate our courage. If we know that one single desire, then we know where to start; it is the starting point of our path through which we first descend into the enchanted forest of the unknown world beyond.
Despite actively following my heart’s evanescent tune for 4 years now, there are times where I still feel just as lost as I once was. However, wnow I have faith in my path, and everyday take time to shine some gratitude on everywhere it’s taken me.
The Model in Action
So, only for the purpose of bringing this model down from the stars and to a more practical level, I’ll give a brief outline of my own story, and how my own thread saved me from my own maze.
In the Winter of 2020-2021, you can say I was floating through life. After years of psychedelic-assisted inner exploration, I became in a sense disassociated. I was ungrounded and living in the ephemeral, despite walking the streets of North Philadelphia as as a college student. However, desinty smiled upon me and I began researching study abroad programs. This was my first experience in life where I could listen to that inner whisper, and give it space to help me decide where to go. And so, in the summer of 2021, I went to Italy for study abroad.
Upon returning home, the dawn of my journaling practice was born. This cultivated an altar for my desire to live and breath, a pulpit from which it could sing. I guess without this initial period of writing and connecting to my inner voice through oen and paper, I never would’ve been able to hear my soul’s whisper. (IDK HOW TO WRITE THIS MODEL…)